Hannah Pascoe, a household name in a television soap, is frustrated and bored with her life and opts out of the acting profession altogether. Her ambition is to write a book and she looks forward to freedom. But the freedom she longs for is disrupted almost at once by the abrupt re-appearance of figures from the past. In no time at all Hannah is involved in a maelstrom of emotions. With the law and politics, a failed marriage and a traumatised younger man all playing their part, Hannah very soon discovers that reality, like a tornado, is swift, powerful and totally unpredictable. Maria Jacob has lived for most of her adult life in the West Country, mainly in Bristol. She describes herself as "too much of an all-rounder to be really good at anything" but admits that literature has always been her real and best love. She has, in fact, already published three books under a different name. She is divorced with two adult sons.