Barbara Claypole White grew up in the English village of Turvey with big dreams of becoming a novelist.

After a detour through women’s and medieval history at York University, she landed a job promoting London fashion. She was part of the first British Designer Show, measured celebrities in their underwear, and worked for the queen of the international rag trade, Dame Vivienne Westwood.

One day her boss sent her to New York, and she fell in love with an American professor who followed her around JFK Airport. Eighteen months later she was a faculty spouse, freelance writer, and marketing director in Champaign, Illinois, a small Midwest college town. She also started writing her first novel --- a love story set against the world of '80s fashion and AIDS.

Five years passed; then Barbara learned she was pregnant, and her husband was offered a distinguished professorship at UNC Chapel Hill. The family moved to the North Carolina forest, and Barbara became a stay-at-home mom and a woodland gardener --- factors that would shape her writing voice. She returned to her manuscript, took evening classes in writing at the local arts center, and slammed into another detour: her young son developed obsessive-compulsive disorder.

From that moment, fascination with mental illness framed her life. She ditched her first novel and began writing DOGWOOD DAYS, which turned into THE UNFINISHED GARDEN. She also joined a nonfiction project for parents of children with invisible disabilities and blogs through the highs and lows of OCD at www.easytolovebut.com. (Her son is now an award-winning poet and musician attending college in the Midwest.)

Barbara is consistently drawn to the theme that people who need each other find each other, and is hard at work on her next novel...when she’s not gardening.

Photo Credit: Krista Moll Murray

Books by Barbara Claypole White

The In-Between Hour

by Barbara Claypole White - Fiction, Romance

Bestselling author Will Shepard loses his young son in a car accident. But when his father's aging mind erases the memory, Will rewrites the truth. Holistic veterinarian Hannah Linden is a healer who can only watch as her grown son struggles with inner demons. When she rents her guest cottage to Will and his dad, she finds solace in trying to mend their broken world, even while her own shatters.

The Unfinished Garden

by Barbara Claypole White - Fiction, Romance

James Nealy is haunted by irrational fears and inescapable compulsions. James has decided to throw himself into a new goal --- to finally conquer the noise in his mind. He’ll confront his darkest fears and build something beautiful: a garden. When he meets Tilly Silverberg, he knows she holds the key… even if she doesn’t think so.