Meet Melanie Hudson

My childhood was shaped by being raised in a large family in an area dominated by the South Yorkshire coal mining industry. My formative school years were spent living in the shadow of the pit closures and strikes of the 1980s and so there is no doubt that some of the quirky humour in my novels finds its roots in those dark and yet somehow joyful years. Later, I had a long career in the British Armed Forces, serving in combat operations in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq. There is no doubt that the emotional cadence of my war fiction has been shaped by my own experience of conflict, and it is possibly why I now live a quiet life in the Scottish Highlands, writing, walking my dog and playing percussion in a community orchestra (which is ironic as I am consistently reticent to  ‘bang my own drum’ and interact with readers ¬ something I aim to improve upon in the future).