A Little About Annie Cook
Annie Cook was born in Lancashire, England, but moved to New Zealand with her parents when she was just a year
old. Growing up on the other side of the world, far from her grandparents and extended family, she often found life
isolating. Books became her escape—and, eventually, her place to belong.
Annie learned to read and write at an early age, even before starting school. She immersed herself in stories and
began writing some of her own, discovering the power of fiction to transport us, comfort us and help us make sense
of the world. Those early experiences quietly laid the foundations for her eventual life as a novelist.
Never entirely feeling that she fitted in at school, Annie left at seventeen and began working. In her twenties, she
returned to England, reconnecting with members of the extended family she had grown up so far away from.
Later in life, Annie went to university and eventually gained a Master of Science in Forensic Psychology from
Leicester University. Her work took her into the criminal justice system, alongside the police and into the NHS,
working primarily with young people and families facing some of life's most difficult challenges.
That work deepened her understanding of people: of the things that shape us, the experiences we carry, the secrets
we keep and the ways we try to survive and make meaning of our lives. All of these themes would eventually find their
way, in different forms, into her writing.
Annie has been married for thirty years to a New Zealand engineer, and the couple divide their time between the UK
and their home in Southern Italy.
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Annie's Books and Current Writing
The Teapot Cottage Series
The Teapot Cottage novels are stories of hope, healing and unexpected new beginnings, set around a small holiday cottage tucked away in a quiet corner of England's Lake District. People arrive at Teapot Cottage carrying very different burdens—grief, loss, trauma and life-changing experiences they are struggling to come to terms with.
The cottage, however, has a rather special energy of its own, and seems to have a habit of gently nudging its visitors towards the next chapter of their lives.
The stories are connected, with characters appearing across the series and the fictional town of Torley becoming a place where readers can return to familiar faces and friendships.
There is kindness in Torley. There is humour, too. And, occasionally, just a little bit of magic.
Annie says:
"The characters in these stories are tremendous fun to write! They have a habit of taking on lives of their own. More than once, I've found myself running after them saying, ‘Hold on a minute! This wasn't what I had planned for you!’ But if I let them find their own way, the story is nearly always better for it.”
Annie has also written novels that sit outside the main Teapot Cottage series while still expanding the world and characters readers have come to know.
A Moral Swerve, written in a darker genre, adds another layer to the story of one of the characters connected to the Teapot Cottage world.
Thicker Than Water explores the earlier life of Adie Bostock, a central and enduring character in the Teapot Cottage novels.
Annie recommends reading these novels in conjunction with the Teapot Cottage stories, in the order specified on the Books page.
Annie has also begun The Travelling Heart Series, a new collection of interconnected novels exploring lives, relationships, unexpected encounters and the places that change us. The first novel in the series, Crisis at Canalside Café, is now available.
I've always loved to read and write, and I've grown up with a big appetite for adventure and a sense of 'if you can imagine it, you can find a way to do it!' That probably stems from my early influences of going on adventures with Mary Tourtel's and Alfred Bestall's beloved Rupert Bear and Bill Badger, and then with Enid Blyton's Famous Five!
When I wasn't drifting over Nutwood in a hot air balloon with Rupert, or wandering through the ruins of Kirrin Castle with Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy, other characters were inspiring and captivating me with equally vivid escapades. I adored Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and the sheer brilliance of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I still can't look at a free-standing wardrobe without imagining what could lie behind it! I still have almost all of my favourite books from childhood, and I love to spend time in musty, dusty old second-hand book stores trying to find the ones I somehow lost along the way!
I've had a wonderfully varied working life, including time as a psychologist in the prison service, the private sector and the NHS. I've lived in New Zealand, Switzerland, Wales and England, and I now divide my time between the UK and Italy with my husband, who is also my partner in adventure.
For most of my life, I've been too busy to devote REAL time to writing, but I've always written stories. Eventually, though, the urge to create worlds and paint pictures with words became too strong to ignore. And now here I am, writing stories filled with people who sometimes refuse to do what I've told them!
Sometimes, my characters take on a life of their own, and set off at a gallop, and I end up feeling like I'm running along behind them, trying to catch them and regain control of where they're going! It can be a bit frustrating at times, when I feel a story going in a different direction than where I first intended, but mostly its exciting, because it usually means we all end up in an even more interesting place.
Few things are better than curling up with a good book and "running away from home" for a while. That's what I hope my books offer: a private portal—a temporary escape into a fascinating place filled with interesting people, unexpected situations and, occasionally, a little bit of magic.
So I hope that reading my stories will captivate you as much as writing them has captivated me.
Annie
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