I became a writer, a teller of tales, because otherwise I would have died... or worse.

I think today will be the day. Today our luck will change,' I proclaimed on the wings of the first coffee of the day, pure optimism in a liquid state.

Where he had failed, I would triumph. Where he had lost his way, I would find the path out of the labyrinth.

My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.

It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.

I leafed through the pages, inhaling the enchanted scent of promise that comes with all new books, and stopped to read the start of a sentence that caught my eye.

We all give up great expectations along the way.