Born and raised in British Columbia, Canada, Leslie came to love the people, the stunning landscape and the history of this unique part of the world, and she yearned to write about them. But recognizing that a career in writing would not pay the bills she chose finance instead. She earned a degree in Economics and Political Science from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario and enjoyed a successful seventeen-year career in investment and international wealth management with one of Canada’s leading financial institutions.

Later she became a consultant to the non-profit sector, advising charities on obtaining and managing large gifts. Here she was able to develop her latent passion for writing with many nonfiction articles published in newspapers, websites and trade journals. Mentored by her mother, the late novelist Blanche Howard, Leslie tried her hand at fiction.

The soon to be published (May 2020) by Simon and Schuster, Canada, The Brideship Wife is her debut novel.

Married with two grown children, Leslie divides her time between Vancouver, British Columbia and a small heirloom cider apple farm in the beautiful Naramata Bench area of the Okanagan Valley, a stone’s throw from where she and her husband grew up.