The latter's The Sword in the Stone led her to a love of all things Camelot, a fascination with medieval times, and even choosing fencing as her sport.

[1] After high school, Symon headed south to study pharmacy at the University of Otago in Dunedin.

It introduces series heroine Sam Shephard, and centres on the looks-like suicide death of a young mother in a small rural town in New Zealand.

This was very part time fitting in snippets of writing around babies and the associated demands of feeding, play, dealing with messes of all origins, household running and eyeballs-falling-out-of-head tiredness.” [4] Symon followed with the publication of her second novel The Ringmaster in August 2008.

[7] She has had some international success, with the German translation of Overkill, Ein Harmloser Mord, being published by Blanvalet in October 2008.