Readers tend to think that being an author is a glamorous occupation. Actually it’s a hard solitary job.

If you look up the noun ‘job’ in the Oxford Paperback Thesaurus, the first example of usage says: my job involves a lot of travelling. The second one warns: this job will take three months, and the third states: it’s your job to protect her.

Unless you’re a top-selling author like Stuart Woods who owns a plane and travels frequently, your job as a writer is more likely to involve a lot of time sitting at a desk. Some authors may be able to write anywhere on a laptop, iPad or in a notebook, but Marion Leigh isn’t one of these.

‘I need a quiet stable environment where I can work without interruption or distraction. Occasionally I’ll take a break to get a glass of water (or wine if it’s evening), rest my eyes and stretch my legs. I wish I could say, as Stuart does, “this job will take three months”. It took four years to produce the first Petra Minx novel, The Politician’s Daughter, and three to publish Dead Man’s Legacy. The best I can hope for is to bring Petra’s third adventure, Destination Wedding, to market in under two years.

Petra Minx is a Marine Unit Sergeant in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. She takes her job very seriously and responds at once whenever her eccentric boss A.K. calls. As soon as she hears the words ‘It’s your job to protect her’ or ‘It’s your job to find out what’s going on’, she knows she’ll be off on another special mission. So far, she has mingled with the rich and infamous on Spain’s Costa del Sol and delved into the dark secrets of a family whose fortunes were made in the Bahamas and Las Vegas. Now she’s in South Africa at the centre of another intrigue.

The act of writing may not be a glamorous job, but taking Petra into dangerous situations in exotic locations fires my imagination and keeps me sitting at my desk.’