Sarah Connell lives in a northern city, a fictional version of which is both the setting and the subject of her novels. She is interested in change, how it happens, how we experience it and the impact of one person’s change on another’s. During her career, firstly in social work and later in education, finishing as director of an educational charity for lifelong learning, she continued to write, fitting it in around her family and a busy life. She wrote a novel in two hour blocks on Sunday mornings when her senior job left her little creative thinking time. She had no confidence in what she was doing, but she never stopped writing. Retirement has given her the time and space to be mentored and to focus on her novels.