As a speaker, writer and acknowledged expert on old roses, Ann retains her passion for the most generous of plants. She overlooks the garden from her desk: her writing is often infiltrated by the joy of her roses.
Her first published book: Women in My Rose Garden followed by Missionaries, Wives and Roses and then Roses of Myths, Legends and Literature.
The first: A Kind of Catharsis, made the Ngaio Marsh Crime Award’s long list for best first novel in 2021.
A further crime book with the working title of The Prick will follow and draws on her experience of growing and selling roses at Trinity Farm in Ōtaki that she and her husband Lloyd, established 30 years ago.
Ann writes amidst her roses, in a small country town, in between writing for the Ōtaki Mail.