My Origin Story

From Tropical Shores to New York City to English Castles

When I was a child, I had an insatiable appetite for books. I devoured every novel on the creaking shelves of our school library, and tore through the stacks of books at home until their pages wore soft from overuse. I read and reread them all, living each story as if it were my own. Eventually, our school librarian, equal parts amused and exasperated, petitioned the PTA for extra funds just to keep me in books. I am forever grateful for Mrs. Sweeting, the librarian.

I grew up in the Bahamas, and childhood there had a sun-warmed charm. My elementary school stood just across the road from the beach, with a perfect view of the lighthouse on Paradise Island. Each morning, my commute wove along the shoreline, through the pastel-fronted streets of downtown Nassau. It was, in many ways, an idyllic beginning.

Afternoons and weekends were spent barefoot in the sand or bobbing over the sea in boats. Neighborhood kids and I would gorge on tropical fruit like genips, sea-grapes, mangoes, sugar apples, tamarinds; carefree and happy. But often, while others played, I could be found tucked away with a book.

I was obsessed, truly obsessed, with Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series. Her stories were everything my own life wasn’t: windswept cliffs, secret tunnels, crumbling castles, smugglers, mysteries, and freedom. George (never Georgina), her loyal dog Timmy, and her cousins Julian, Dick, and Anne were always off on holiday with no adults in sight, chasing adventure on their little island off the English coast which had its very own castle. They picnicked on sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and blackberry jam, and washed it all down with ice cold ginger beer.

It sounded infinitely more thrilling than my own tropical reality. I had no smugglers to outwit, no ancient ruins to explore. Just school, books, and roller skating on our street. I loved my life, of course, but the grass, as they say, always seems greener (or at least more mysterious and windswept) on the other side of the Atlantic.

Books became my portal. And what began as childhood passion became a lifelong career. By the mid-90s, I was working in publishing. There were no e-books, no social media, not even email. The internet was a whisper on the horizon. Everything moved more slowly then—manuscripts arrived by mail, thick with promise. My first job was as assistant to the publisher at a Simon & Schuster imprint. I would open the mail with reverence, logging each submission, organizing piles of queries, fulls, and partials. I was the first reader for most of the projects and it was thrilling. Powerful, even. Though in truth, assistants are rarely powerful but still, I let myself believe it.

From that first job to where I am now as a literary agent has been a long and winding road. Not always easy. Not always joyful. But never boring. I love discovering new writers, championing fresh voices, helping shape a book from seed to bloom. It’s the dream job I didn’t even know to dream for as a child.

Over a decade ago, my husband, a sports journalist, was offered a transfer to London. We couldn’t believe our luck. I had visited the city many times, but to live here? To make it our home? It felt like fiction. We packed up our lives, our two kids (one just 11 weeks old!) and moved across the ocean.

Now I read books for a living and spend weekends adventuring to castles. We eat scones with clotted cream and blackberry jam, and wash them down with ice-cold ginger beer. It’s the stuff of dreams.

Next week I’ll return to talking about publishing but this week, I wanted to share where it all began. Here are a few of the castles we’ve visited over the years:

Kenilworth Castle, England

Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness, Scotland

Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland

St. Michaels Mount, Cornwall, England