On its face, it’s about sexual harassment and rapidly changing gender roles in the workplace. It’s a familiar story that’s been told before, usually by women, but I wrote this book from a male perspective. A liberally minded academic discovers that a colleague who he thought he was in love with, has accused him of offering her a promotion in return for sex. The allegation is hard to refute and the dire impact on his career and family lead him to reevaluate aspects of his personality, reexamine his past, and make some transformative changes in his life. At its heart, I think,the book is about relationships and communication, the grievous misunderstandings that can ensue, and an exploration of everything that can go wrong.

Sexual encounters are always potentially precarious but particularly perilous in the workplace. Women now feel more empowered to speak out and heads have rightly rolled. Lawyers say that in the vast majority of harassment and rape cases, it’s not the facts that are disputed but the question of consent which is hotly contested. What interested me in writing the book were the divergent interpretations of uncontested facts that arise, how the meanings of words and actions come to be perceived so differently? Yet in the absence of collaborating evidence, when the consequences for both parties are potentially so severe, colleagues, families, friends, and even the law are quick to make conclusions about what transpired in private between two people.

I’ve always enjoyed and been inspired by literature and often wondered whether I had a novel in me. I started writing this book several years ago, but soon realised I wasn’t going to be able to finish it and at the same time pursue a full-time career. A couple of years later, after I’d put the book down, I felt compelled to go back and finish it, realising I really wanted to be a writer and publish my work.

I’ve never written a sex scene but if I tried, I think I would find it very difficult to do well. What’s more interesting to me is what happened that lead them to sleep together, and what happens afterwards, and all the frequently unanticipated consequences.

I wrote and rewrote the book several times with helpful feedback from friends and family. To help ensure it was as good as it could be I enlisted the help of an editor. With her advice and encouragement, I got the book ready for publication. It was Troubador who published her first book and she recommended using their excellent services.

It’s satisfying to create fictional characters who move me and lead me to places in the story where I never expected to go. I derive a lot of pleasure from words, piecing them together in different ways to create a particular feeling or an interesting image, using dialogue and punctuation to express nuance and finer shades of meaning.

Not having enough time and trying to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Writing has a tendency to become an obsession, one which I enjoy, but it can have an adverse impact on other aspects of my life if I allow it to take over.

My favourite book changes all the time and is often a book I recently finished. Demon Copperhead is high on my list, a fascinating story of a disadvantaged boy who rises above his circumstances in a severely deprived Appalachian Mountain community. My favourite classic title would be Tess of the d’Urbervilles, the tale of a poor peasant woman exploited by two men, a victim of the social and moral injustices of Victorian England, and when she fights back she pays the ultimate price.

Given how much I enjoyed Demon Copperhead, the book on which it’s based, David Copperfield, is perhaps the book I would have liked to have written.

Given the choice, I would always choose the feel and smell of the real thing. E-books are great for travelling but I find Kindles and other devices cold and soulless despite their helpful features and attributes. Audiobooks often fail to hold my attention.

Keep writing, don’t give up and read a lot. Everyone has a lifetime of unique experiences and has a story to tell, and if they’re determined enough, they can write a novel and eventually get it published.

In my office with a cup of coffee, preferably in the early hours of the morning before the world comes to life.

It’s difficult to step away after finishing a novel. The book stands or falls on its own merits and it’s up to readers to interpret the words and deeds of the principal characters in their own ways. My goal as a writer is to create characters and scenes that will either simply please the reader, or otherwise scatter a few crumbs for thought, stimulate ideas that may be new or refreshing which might cast familiar events in a faintly different light.