Claire Beesley has just published her debut novel entitled Waiting for the Winds to Change in which she discusses mental health and issues facing women.

Claire, from St Ives, wants to encourage women to understand how they can accept themselves by shedding constraints; embracing self-expression and facing their faults to enable growth.

She believes as women we all need to have more honest conversations that as a society we aren’t talking enough.

Claire says her book acts as a mirror to relationships that go wrong, raising children, stereotyping and gender roles, post-natal depression, and the impacts of undiagnosed mental health conditions that can ravage families and rip lives apart.

Claire admits she finds life hard. She was recently diagnosed as neurodivergent and has had to go back to basics to rebuild her relationships, career, how she parents, how she lives and her routines.

She wants to use her writing skills as an outlet for self-expression and a focus for for energy and ideas, but also to speak to women who may feel they are balancing many ‘roles’ and struggling with the lost of identity.