Tune in to North Manchester FM on Sunday at 7pm for a special edition of Hannah’s Bookshelf. We’ll be playing you an interview that was originally scheduled for Saturday 10th September.

This episode is a bit of an unusual show, as it’s an extended catch-up with someone who was on the show way back in 2015! I’m going to be welcoming back the awesome Heather Burnside. I did do a short catch-up with Heather last year, but it quickly became clear that so much has happened since 2015, we were going to need a bigger chat!

Heather writes gritty urban crime novels set in Manchester. She grew up in the inner-city suburbs and spent her teenage years on one of the toughest estates in the city. During the 1990s the estate became the headquarters for one of Manchester’s predominant gangs and regularly featured in the press due to gang crime, shootings, and drug-related problems. Heather draws heavily on this background as the setting for many of her novels.

After taking a career break to raise two children, Heather completed a creative writing course. During that time, she had many articles published in well-known magazines and went on to run a writing services business before focusing on her novels. To date she has published two trilogies, The Riverhill Trilogy and The Manchester Trilogy, as well as a five-book series called The Working Girls. The five titles in the series are The Mark, Ruby, Crystal Amber and Sapphire. Heather released her latest title Guilt on 4th August, which is a spin-off from The Working Girls series. Many of her books have become Amazon Kindle bestsellers. Heather now works full-time on her novels from her home in Manchester.

I’m going to be talking to Heather about her books, her publishing journey, and her successes. And we’re going to be revisiting her 2015 selections for Apocalypse Books to see if those are still the books she’d have in her apocalypse go-bag!

Catch the show on Sunday at 7pm (if you’re in the North Manchester area) or listen online (if you’re further afield).