Teresa Peck Author
My Novels and My Writing
I have completed four novels set in England, France and India. They are adult women's fiction, celebrating the joys and complexities of modern romantic relationships. I also explore the ways in which women find the resilience to recreate themselves after emotional loss, trauma and the erosion of trust in their world.
Teresa's Journey from Psychologist
to Novelist
Born in Scotland, I grew up in the beautiful county of Yorkshire, in the North of England. After many relocations I now live in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, surrounded by two mountain ranges and the Puget Sound, with my supportive husband of over forty years and our crazy Labradoodle, who thinks he is human.
Over the years I’ve had careers as a university professor and psychotherapist. My early academic work focused on women's internal world and their emotional relationships. I helped to create a Women's Studies Program, taught courses on female psychology, and created models of women's adult development. During my years in London, I worked as a psychotherapist. I developed a specialization in trauma and advised the Metropolitan Police on officer and family PTSD. After many years of teaching and clinical work, I decided to put all those experiences to good use by returning to my earliest passion -- literature.
Now, with four completed novels, and another half-finished, I’m stepping into uncharted waters and exploring the world of self-publishing. I hope you will accompany me!
Just Published: Kitty Donovan
Kitty Donovan is the first volume the Fire and Journey trilogy which traces the life of a young British woman growing up in England and India in the 1920's and 30's. Volume One is set in the gritty streets of early 20th-century Woolwich -- a town caught between military order and the untamed green spaces of the Common. We first meet Kitty, a strong-willed young woman, trying to find a path out of South London poverty. Her striking looks and a gift inherited from her Irish grandmother -- she is a "horse charmer" -- attract the romantic attention of two very different men. She must choose her own destiny, but what role will Fate play? For more details and a sample of the early chapter click here.
The print novel is now available through local bookstores, Amazon and other book sellers in the IngramSpark system. E-books can be purchased through Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Apple and Google.
My Literary Vision
Why I wrote the "Fire and Journey" series.
Until I was nine years old, I spent many months of each year living with my grandparents. My grandfather was an officer in the British Army, and they were stationed at various army camps around the country. Over time, I became familiar with army life.
After my grandparents' deaths, I was going through the things I had inherited, especially my grandfather's various medals and certificates of merit from forty years' service. As I read all that material, I began to wonder what my grandmother's life must have been like, as she adjusted to all the separations and relocations those forty years had required of her. She had no medals or awards to show for her service to the country. Slowly, the character of Kitty Donovan began to form in my mind. Kitty is based very loosely on my grandmother, in that her life follows the same trajectory and she shares some of the very few experiences my grandmother related to me. But she is first and foremost a product of my imagination. I like to think my grandmother might have enjoyed some of the adventures I have created for her literary self. And I know she would have been shocked by a few of them!