Rural Somerset in the UK, which is where I live now. I went away for about twenty years and then came home. I feel that I wax on about the seasons and pastoral idylls given half a chance and that's probably because I've always had my feet in the soil.

The first piece I remember writing was in Primary School at about the age of seven. I got told off for repetition, which is something I still have to watch out for today!

My first book was published in 2017 by JMS. I didn't really have the confidence to submit before then and feel I was very lucky they thought me worth the risk.

The Flowers of Time is coming out in February. It's a story set in the 1780s, in the Himalayas. A non-binary explorer and a lady botanist travel through the mountains making various paranormal and romantic discoveries. It's based in my Lost in Time universe but a hundred and fifty years earlier than the previous two books. The non-binary character is very much an #OwnVoices character. And my mother is a lady botanist, who went to a ladies horticultural college in the 1950s. So I suppose both characters grew from my own experiences and conversations with my family.

My greatest joy is being able to disappear into a different universe. It's pure escapism and I am so pleased that other people find that too.

I love feeling that I bring other people pleasure. I try and take the view that once the book has gone to the publisher it's not mine any longer, it's out there and people can take what they will from it. If the work touches people personally, in whatever way, then that's wonderful.

I have a serial set in rural England in the 1920s in the Lost in Time universe to finish! It's called Inheritance of Shadows and it's free for my newsletter subscribers. It's the sequel to The Gate, a free 7,500 word story available from Smashwords.

Newsletter sign-up: https://www.subscribepage.com/allester

Dorothy Dunnett, Ursula Le Guin, Cat Sebastian, Alyssa Cole, Foz Meadows, KJ Charles, Ajax Bell, Cole McCade. And I keep a copy of Gilbert White's 'Natural History of Selbourne' by the bed and read it when I need soothing. Nature doesn't change that much and neither do naturalists.

Hunger, usually.

Reading, talking to the chickens. Parenting. I try and exercise a bit, largely unsuccessfully.

Twitter recommendations, usually. I love the variety.

I use Scrivener, which lets me basically throw scenes at a page and then move them in to order. Once I get to about thirty-thousand words it all seems to make sense and I have an actual linear narrative to follow.