I am an award-winning author and freelance journalist. I trained as a journalist at Harlow Technical College before working in local newspapers and then specialising in health issues. I have written for numerous national newspapers including the Guardian, Times, Sunday Telegraph and Express as well as for medical journals including the Lancet and BMJ. I currently write reviews for the TLS and Literary Review.

My first book, The Knife Man, won the UK Medical Journalists' Association Consumer Book Award and was short-listed for the Marsh Biography Award and the Saltire Award. My second book, Wedlock, was picked for Channel 4's TV Book Club and reached number 1 in the Sunday Times bestseller list.

As an author I have given talks at numerous festivals and other events as well as speaking to many book groups and other organisations. In the US I have lectured at the University of North Carolina, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons conference 2008, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, and the University of Toledo, Ohio. I have been interviewed on many occasions on radio and TV. I have a diploma in the History of Medicine from the Society of Apothecaries and won the Maccabean Prize for the best dissertation in 1999.

I am a member of the National Union of Journalists and a former fellow of the Royal Literary Fund.

My agent is Patrick Walsh at PEW Literary Agents, 48 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LP.