It's a real-life nightmare. Sarah and her family have to stay cooped up in the tightly-sealed kitchen for days on end, dreading the inevitable radioactive fall-out and the subsequent slow, torturous death, which seems almost preferable to surviving in a grey, dead world, choked by dust.
Louise Lawrence was born in Leatherhead, Surrey in 1943. When she left school she became an assistant librarian, 'from which came my love and respect for books, and my thirst for written knowledge'. Louise Lawrence married and had her first of three children in 1963. The experience turned her to writing: 'Deprived of book-filled surroundings I was bound to write my own.'Since 'O' levels she has not received a formal education, but has flourished as an auto-didact. Among her interests are Botany, Poetry, Religion, Yoga, Politics and the Occult. 'Attempting to understand people led me to study Psychology for many years - which led me to study Feminisim - which led to Sociology. The road is endless!'