Barbara Claypole White grew up in the English village of Turvey with big dreams of becoming a novelist.
After a detour through womens 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.
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.)
After a detour through womens 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.
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.)
Genres: Literary Fiction
Novels
The Unfinished Garden (2012)
The In-Between Hour (2013)
The Perfect Son (2015)
The Echoes of Family (2016)
The Promise Between Us (2018)
The In-Between Hour (2013)
The Perfect Son (2015)
The Echoes of Family (2016)
The Promise Between Us (2018)
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"What a sweet, tender, thought-provoking story about the messy layers of love, friendship, and family that entwine when two childhood friends with unfinished business reconnect as young grandparents... a unique twist on the theme of second chances."
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