Michael Heath
An Author's Story
An author’s story? Well, it all started with a reluctant reading of Animal Farm and being lucky enough to sit next to the smartest boy in my English class.
From this seemingly unimportant event, my compulsion to want to write began.
Behind the books
Having devoured the great Victorian novelists in my youth, I have always wanted to fashion a series of books with a strong sense of place and time. It was only when I moved to East Anglia that I found the geographical ‘voice’ that I was searching for and which is so apparent in the first of my ‘Winifred Smy Mysteries’, Killing Time in Kenton. The novella’s events all unfold against the backdrop of a small East Suffolk hamlet in the uncertain years that immediately precede the First World War.
With a keen sense of the need for historical accuracy gained through extensive research, I incorporate real locations and local stories; even the surnames in my fiction are those that have emerged from my scouring of local churchyards and parish records, usually in the company of my very badly-behaved Lhasa Apso dog, Coco.
What about outside of writing? Well, I am a keen pianist, guitarist and composer, regularly partnering with other musicians online under the band name of ‘The One Beneath’.
I also support Coventry City Football Club and am keen to point out in my defence that it was because I was born there. #PUSB
Murder Mystery Books
Contemporary Fiction Books
Business Books
More from the author
The 10 Best Bookshops in the UK
Whether it’s inspiration, mental refuge or just some good old-fashioned peace and quiet in a place that comforts you, a bookshop should have something for
How I came to love reading
It all started with Mr Culligan’s homework assignment for the summer. As we were to study Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ in the Autumn term, he asked that we should read it through before the class reassembled in early September.