New book covers crime in the North East

Northumberland based Writing Magazine subscriber Lorna Windham’s first non-fiction book Crime in the North East is out now.

‘Once Summer Hill Books saw the photographs and read the stories they were extremely enthusiastic about the project,’ writes Lorna.

‘I’ve always been interested in history and my book, Crime in the North East, has given me the opportunity to share some amazing stories about the lives of villains and their victims, from reivers to the early twentieth century, with readers. Tracing criminals from their place of origin, to their court cases, accounts of their crimes and then across the world to penal colonies in the Americas and Australia, was particularly fascinating. Some convicts came home, but not always legally.’

Lorna’s previous sucesses have been with fiction. ‘I won the 2008 North Tyneside short story competition with Spirit of the Age; my children’s novel Toby’s Secret was longlisted in the 2008 Times/Chicken House competition; several of my poems have been published and a number of my short stories have been read on local and hospital radios as well as the Talking Newspaper for the Blind.

‘I am currently working on a romantic historical novel, Code of Honour, set during the Jacobite rebellion in 1745-46’.