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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I was born in Doncaster, UK and emigrated to Brisbane, Australia with my

family in 1972. These days, I live with my partner, Jon, in the small

coastal fishing town of Tin Can Bay, located near Fraser Island,

on Queensland's Cooloola Coast.

I have always had a love of the sea, and after learning to sail, I was

an active sailor until a boating accident during a delivery trip ended

that. While I recovered, I was the Race Officer at my local yacht club,

during which I was PRO (Principle Race Officer) for several state and

regional regattas. I also operated a yacht racing photography business

for ten years, photographing club, regional, state, national and

international regattas at clubs around southeast Queensland. These 

experiences provided plenty of ideas, knowledge and experience for

sailing stories.

 

During my sailing/boating "career", I was an active club racer crewing

on a selection of trailer-sailers and keelboats at my local yacht club. This

included winning a Club Championship in 2004, crewing on a Cole 28 keelboat.

 

In 2005, I crewed on Brindabella at Hamilton Island Race Week, finishing 17th overall in the Cruising Division (out of 280 boats!) Not a bad effort for an "old clunker" cruising boat doing double duty as a "race" boat! Mind you, among the crew of 8 were sailing master Anthony and a navigator Roger, who had 2 Melbourne-Osaka double-handed races and several Sydney to Hobarts under their belts!)

 

I've also competed in four Bay to Bay Yacht Races, including overall division and class wins in 2008. Other sailing activities include yacht deliveries and cruising along the Queensland coast, and five years as a volunteer rescue boat crew and radio operator with the local Coast Guard marine rescue unit. My sailing and boating adventures and ongoing interest in yacht racing provides the inspiration for the Aidan Grifford Sailing Adventure Series.



I have always been a "scribbler", but it is only thanks to the encouragement and support of my partner, Jon, that I finally followed the dream of becoming a published author. The availability of self-publishing opportunities with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) assisted with the fulfilment of this dream.  I have now written and published 18 novels, and have just started writing my 19th.



I originally published Without A Trace (August 2014) as a stand alone book, but from little things big things grow, and that book spawned the Aidan Grifford Sailing Adventure Series and became the first book in the series. I've now published 11 books in the Aidan Grifford Sailing Adventure Series. Without A Trace was followed by Maverick (May 2021), The Getaway (December 2014), Mistraal (July 2021), Zulu (June 2019), Black Diamond (June 2020), Raider (February 2021), Transpac (July 2022), Southern Cross (November 2022), Fastnet (July 2023)and Caribbean (March 2024).

I have also published (out of sequence) 3 books which make up the 3 Stories Series:  Cobham Road (July 2020), Cold Case (October 2020) and Storm Shot (August 2014). These books feature the same family of characters from the Aidan Grifford series, though the story in each book is told by a different character. They provide an interesting insight and backstory into Aidan's early life.


I have published 2 stand alone novels. The first, Wicked Games, was published in August 2014, and my second, Blackbird, was published in December 2020. I published my 15th book, Vanishing Act, in February 2023. This is the first book in the Meredith Loxton Detective Series. My 17th novel and the 2nd book in the series, Back From the Dead, was published in November 2023.

 

For more info about my current writing projects, click HERE.

 

​My eBooks and paperbacks are available through Amazon global marketplaces (the web links are on this website and my Facebook page) and are available to read through Kindle Unlimited (KU) and the Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL).

J. M. Hartwig
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