When I was 4 years old my mother died and my grandmother was left to raise me.

After leaving school I had many lives. By seventeen I had saved enough money from babysitting jobs to buy an airline ticket to fly to London to train as a chef.

Five years later and yearning for change I became an international air hostess, which gave me a love of foreign places and peoples.

The birth of my first son Marco put an end to my flying career, so I began an English and Film & Media degree at university. A few years later I completed a diploma of teaching, during which time my second son Jack was born.

I began to teach at local primary schools until the death of my beloved grandmother, which plunged me into a pit of despair. Already struggling with raising my two sons as a single mother, I had reached breaking point. I knew things had to change.

So I sold my house, quit my job and took my two sons, aged 2 and 10, on an eight-month adventure around the world, travelling to Canada, England, France, Spain, Italy and Vietnam.

I returned 8 months later and began writing my first book, Full Tilt, an inspirational story about the search for happiness and not letting adversity stop you from living your dream.

I currently live in Devonport, Auckland, in a beautiful old villa, from where I write and run a small holiday house, Cheltenham Beach Cottage, metres from Cheltenham Beach.