Writing for readers
Cheryl Burman grew up as the child forever reading on her bed. But as this was Australia, she was also often tempted outside to the beach and the yabby creeks near her suburban home. When she moved to the Forest of Dean, UK, she followed the likes of Tolkien, Rowling and many others in being inspired to write.
The Forest is a place chock-a-block full of history, legend and myth, and there is much to draw on. Cheryl does so, as well as on her own childhood in Australia.
While she will switch focus from time to time, from children’s fantasy to women’s fiction, her books are grounded in place and history, even the fantasy ones. As a devout Narnia fan, she started with fantasy for the middle graders (books the mums, dads, grannies etc also enjoy), inspired by the real life people’s fight in 2010/11 to save England’s public forests from being sold off.
Later, she moved to historical fiction with her novel Keepers (2021) and its subsequent spinoffs (2023 and 2024), all set in her home country of Australia and loosely based on family lore. More recently, she has combined history and fantasy with River Witch (2022) and its sequels in The Wise Women series.
In 2024 she released The Herbalist’s Daughters, the dual timeline sequel to River Witch and Book Two in The Wise Women Series. The Herbalist’s Daughters was a Top New Release and a Bestseller in its category. And in May 2026 came The Gift of Belonging. Book Three in the series follows the story of Rose, one of the daughters in The Herbalist’s Daughters.
Cheryl also writes short fiction, and various of her stories have won awards or been long- and short-listed. Check those out here. Some have found their way into her two short story collections, and into various anthologies which you can find here.
Discover more about her books here. Available in paperback and Kindle, and in Kindle Unlimited. Also available locally in various outlets – see the books page for details.
The greatest pleasure she receives from her writing is when people tell her: ‘I loved your book.’ It gets even better if they leave a review saying so!
Take a look at this Coffee Pot Book Club post to find out how real life, current and historical, inspires Cheryl’s writing.
Stay in touch!
Follow Cheryl on FaceBook to stay in touch with news and views. And to hear about new book releases, follow her Amazon Author Page. More links below!
Looking for help with your own novel?
Check out how I can help here.
Cheryl is married with two grown children, and was, until May 2022, slave to a border collie who published his own book, Sammy’s Walks – highly rated by locals and visitors to the Forest alike, and their dogs. Sammy’s passing brought a flood of responses from his friends all over the world – he had a large number of them and he will be very much missed. As Cheryl Mayo, Cheryl re-published a fully revised Sammy’s Walks at the end of 2024.
To get the full story
If you’re interested in the longer version of how Cheryl came to write, go here to Elaine Carnegie’s blog post where she was kindly allowed to write about herself in some detail (what a temptation!). Or listen in to this podcast she did in May 2022 for Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast.
The rest of the writing life
Writing may be a lonely process, but writers need the support of other writers. Being a member of Dean Writers Circle has given Cheryl that support, and her writing has improved tremendously since sharing with and learning from the group. She has also found brilliant support and made wonderful friends via Twitter’s #writingcommunity.
Keen to ensure the next generation of Forest writers, she is a founder of Dean Scribblers, a small group of volunteers whose aim is to encourage the creative writing spark in young people in their community. Spending time with kids in classrooms is brilliant, and she has seen some imaginative and emotive work from 10 and 11 year olds and younger.
Cheryl is also on Goodreads, BookBub, AllAuthor and is a member of the Independent Authors Network (IAN)
Check out her Amazon author page – friend/follow her/leave a review!
Or contact her on cheryl@cherylburman.com