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Priscilla Masters

1952-

Profile

Priscilla Masters has written her biography especially for the website.

Priscilla Masters was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the third of seven multi-racial children adopted by an orthopaedic surgeon and his Classics graduate wife.

Brought up in Bridgend, South Wales, and educated at the Garw Grammar School (later the Ynysawdre Comprehensive) she moved to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in the late 60s to train as a nurse.

After a long spell living in the Staffordshire Moorlands she wrote a children's book, Mr Bateman's Garden, a fantasy adventure set in the gardens of Biddulph Grange. In 1991 she began working as a practice nurse in Leek which is where she's based her seven Detective Inspector Joanna Piercey novels, the first of which is Winding up the serpent, published by Macmillan in 1995. In 1998 she moved to Shropshire with her husband, a GP in the Potteries, and intermittent visits from her two sons and their girlfriends.

Priscilla Masters is also the author of three medical mysteries dealing with such diverse subjects as the blurred line between sanity and insanity, the arrogance of a surgeon and the vulnerability of a woman GP.

Inspired by Sherlock Holmes, who famously stayed in Ruyton-XI-Towns when he was a medical student, Agatha Chrisitie and Ruth Rendell she now works as a nurse in Shrewsbury, a town which inspires her every bit as much as Leek.

Text © Priscilla Masters, Nov. 2002.
Photograph © Andrea Dale.

Works

Selected books by the author

The following works marked with an asterisk (*) are available in the West Midlands Creative Literature Collection:-

Detective Joanna Piercy series

Winding up the servant* (1995)
Catch the fallen sparrow* (1996)
A wreath for my sister (1997)
And none shall sleep (1997)
Scaring crows (1999)
Embroidering shrouds* (2001)

Medical mysteries

Night visit (1998)
A fatal cut* (2000)
Disturbing ground* (2002)

For children

Mr Bateman's garden (1987)

Background

More information about Priscilla and her famous Detective Inspector is available online on a website, Joanna Piercy investigates, created by Jonathan R. Fowler.

Page created 5 November 2002 and last updated 5 November 2002
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