Donna Siggers extends a warm welcome to her site and hopes you find what you are looking for.
Welcome to the literary and speaking home of Donna Siggers!
"one of the creepiest stories about a serial killer I have ever read"
NEWS FLASH
SOUL SEARCHING is Donna's follow-on book to LOST SOUL and is almost at the completion stage of writing. It touches on her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder journey as well as on the traumatic experience of losing her memory at a much deeper level than expressed in her first book on recovery. Choosing to share these personal insights has been healing for Donna but, more importantly, she has found that in doing so many others have benefitted. Speaking out has become easy as a result and Donna hopes that this next installment of her recovery holds as many advantages for her readers as the first.
Donna continues to write plot twists within her AT RISK manuscript and in due course will return to this manuscript fully. For now, her writing priority has to be SOUL SEARCHING due to her wanting to share an in depth and emotional insight of what its like to live with PTSD while she is suffering from the complexities of living with the condition. The nightmares Donna is enduring are being used in AT RISK, although she does give herself the dignity of transforming them into a storyline very different to the original trauma that causes them. She is also turning to her detailed journal that dates back several years. Needless to say, the authenticity remains and you will feel, as you read Donna's new novel, and get to know her new characters (Sofia and the others) that you are thrown into a whirlwind with them. Donna will even forgive you if you forget her novel is a work of fiction, for then she would have conveyed her message perfectly.
AT RISK conveys a heart-wrenching story. It is a story based on truth woven into a story from Donna's imagination and it will haunt you. The book that follows will make you hold your breath and Donna already has the image she will use on its front cover, an image she took herself while walking with her partner Dave as they researched another project.
AT RISK conveys a heart-wrenching story. It is a story based on truth woven into a story from Donna's imagination and it will haunt you. The book that follows will make you hold your breath and Donna already has the image she will use on its front cover, an image she took herself while walking with her partner Dave as they researched another project.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND
Born in rural Essex, United Kingdom, Donna Siggers grew up surrounded by beautiful countryside and some very interesting characters. Add to that the stories she could share from her time around horses and stable yards she could seriously have chosen a completely different genre. Her life with horses gave Donna an advantage, as it taught her to fly and to fall, and that when the latter occurred there was no option other than to stand back up again. It was a good life lesson and one that she leans on regularly.
Having experienced a series of life events that exposed her to the harsh reality of survival, Donna set out to learn what it took to take back control of her life. Qualifying as a psychotherapist she gave up a successful photography career and was able to help many others do the same. By 2013 Donna was working within an environment that changed her life in a way that shocked her entire family to the core: an assault at work resulted in a serious head trauma, personality changes and complexities that are detailed on her mental health page. Not many people understand the notion that because she experienced such extreme head trauma, she has become the person she is today: that her ability changed from scientist to creative and that she is thankful for who she has become–an award winning crime thriller author and mental health advocate. To date she has published The Warwick Cooper Thrillers Trilogy, comprising of 'Broken', 'Betrayal' and 'Bound' and also her first autobiographical recovery story 'Lost Soul' that takes you through her journey of head trauma. Additional to these books, Donna has also published a self-help book 'Free Spirit' that gives a basic guide on mental health and how to overcome the hurdles that might be holding you back. Proud to be a mental health advocate, Donna gives 'Free Spirit' to all guests as part of any public speaking booking (paid events only).
More recently Donna has been sharing her love of history through the blog on this website with her partner Dave, who is from Kent.
‘…that until you’ve almost lost it all, you don’t truly appreciate what you have in life…’ are words Donna wrote early on in her survival from brain trauma and they still ring true to her to this day. Its not possible for her to speak openly about every aspect of her life, the sights she has witnessed or people that she has worked with-not only are some situations too harsh for most but there is also a confidentiality factor to take into consideration.
Many years after the assault, the only memories Donna had were from physical records she held. These records are all negative, which was quite the burden for her to recall. Therapy intervened, and with the help of time and hard work Donna has been able to reclaim much of her memory, thankfully. The year she set out to reclaim her life (2018) was the year Donna's writing life also lifted. It saw her arrival in the USA, and a sudden stage presence. At the start of the year Donna had struggled to make a short bus journey in her local town and by the end of it she'd flow four thousand air miles to speak to four hundred people on stage and to win an award for her debut novel. When you are determined, it truly is amazing what you can achieve!
Donna claims that in spite of her brain trauma she is now a better version of herself and that's because of the opportunities she's created through her writing and the new people in her life. She is under no illusion, however, of the journey its taken for her to get to where is and that acceptance has been the largest hurdle to overcome. All be it a double edge sword, Donna's head injury has been, in part, a blessing because of the people she now has surrounding her.
The photographs below are from Donna's younger years, when horses were her life.
