How long did it take to write Testament?
Therein lies a tale… I started working on the research for the book (which took about 18 months) when my younger son started school. Then it took about another year to 18 months after completing the bulk of the research to produce something I could show to agents and publishers. I was lucky enough to get an agent interested but we fell out (I can’t believe I was so stupid) over some cuts which she thought were essential. Well, actually the cuts were drastic, one was a whole major central character! Another agent took the book on but seemed to do very little with it so we parted company too. Meanwhile I was writing another book. Then came the breakdown of my marriage, a return to full time work and a hiatus of about two and a half years where I did no writing. When I was able to negotiate part-time work, I returned to writing and decided that Testament (then called Toby, for reasons which will be obvious to anyone who reads the book) deserved another look. I rewrote the contemporary str
