Kanita’s Story author Steve Jones, in his Garden Shed

Steve Jones’s shed is more than just a tool shed to him; his retreat has been the perfect place to pen his first novel that is more about action and suspense than spades and plants. Jones, 59, works as a fire engineering estimator but has been writing his supernatural detective fiction novel for almost a decade after enrolling on a creative writing course at Birmingham University nine years ago. The book Kanita’s Story is loosely based on his own life as it is written in two parts, with the first being based on a character from Thailand who goes to study creative writing at Birmingham University. The main protagonist then goes on to write about a group of people who solve moral and ethical crimes.

The book has been an inspiration throughout his hardships in life as it provided a retreat from caring for his elderly mother and father, who the former is in the latter stages of Alzheimers. It just shows that a garden shed can be much more than a place to store the mower but also a place to unwind, relax and lose yourself in a good book.