Ashby

Meet Ashby, and a new series of stories

Until 1998, all my stories were written for Katie and Emily, my granddaughters in Dubai. As the girls grew up, the stories became longer and more complex. The last stories I have written for them have been novel length. I thought my days of writing stories for little children were long over.

And then, to everyone’s delight, along came Ashby Bland. Ashby is the daughter of our second son, Lachlan, and Roula. They live in Seattle, USA, where Lachlan works for Google and Roula is a full time Mum to Ashby. The distance and the Covid pandemic has meant that we don’t see much of the Seattle family but thanks to the wonders of technology, we actually see them almost every day on Skype.

The stories here are set in the USA and while the glamorous cousins have a role in some of the stories, Ashby is the star of this show. I particularly like the historical tales here, with Ashby solving the mystery of lost treasure in the Puget Sound and turning up to work in a frontier town in the Californian Gold Rush. The Christmas Story is also a favorite.

The settings and characters may vary but all the stories are written in the naïve style that is a feature of all the stories, no matter how long or complex they became. Yes, they’re a bit preachy: nice people win in the end and the villains are punished appropriately. I like to think that the stories have a strong spiritual dimension as well as being fun to read. I hope that you enjoy the new offering