Nicholas Harvey
The Nomadic Novelist
A USA Today bestselling author, Nicholas Harvey’s life has been anything but ordinary. Race car driver, adventurer, divemaster, and since 2020, a full-time novelist. Nick was born in Barnet, a suburb of London, before his family moved when he was two-years-old to Middleton-On-Sea on the southern coast of West Sussex.
At age ten, they moved to the Midlands, and a tiny hamlet called Radclive, a few miles outside Buckingham (the town, not the palace!) He attended the Royal Latin School where he took his O-Levels before starting a career in motorsports which would span the next 37 years until he switched gears at age 54, and became a full-time novelist.
Nick and his amazing wife, Cheryl, after six years of nomadic living, now live in Grand Cayman.
Author
After dabbling with screenplays for many years, Nick finally achieved a bucket list goal of writing a full-length novel in 2017. Self-publishing Twelve Mile Bank with a cover he designed himself, Nick continued working in the demanding motorsports industry. Filled with the satisfaction of achieving a lifetime ambition and putting copies in the hands of friends and family, his novel was set aside for the following few years.
But in 2019, Nick and his wife Cheryl made the life altering decision to turn their lives upside down. Selling the home they'd designed and built in North Carolina along with most of their possessions, a 27' Winnebago was purchased, and they entered a new nomadic life. After travelling for six months, they settled in Key Largo, Florida, and Nick began his second career in earnest. Remaining an Indie author, he now publishes at least four books a year in multiple series, and has made the USA Today bestseller list and reached number one in multiple Amazon bestseller charts.
The evolution of covers. Twelve Mile Bank from the original stand-alone design through various iterations before reaching the professional cover you see today.
Motorsports
Motor racing dominates Nick's earliest memories.
With a father who raced, then went on to work for several teams in Formula One, Nick was born and raised with petrol in his veins and a steering wheel in his hand. Racing karts from age 11, he won at regional and national levels, and represented Great Britain at the Junior World Championships, before moving into cars at 17.
With limited funds in a ridiculously expensive sport, Nick worked for race teams while saving money to compete himself, accumulating an impressive list of wins and rookie of the year awards along the way.
Having moved to America at age 21 to continue chasing his dream, a lack of sponsorship forced him further into the engineering and management side of the sport. While instructing at the famous Skip Barber Racing School, Nick began private coaching drivers, and race engineering for teams. With a talent and growing reputation for winning races from the pitlane, Nick hung up his helmet in the late 90s, and moved full-time into team management and engineering the set-ups for the likes of Dan Wheldon, Paul Tracy, Markus Niemela, Andreas Wirth and John Edwards.
Earning 3 championships and 3 Engineer of the Year awards in US open-wheel racing, Nick began a new challenge in NASCAR. Working for Michael Waltrip Racing, Germain, then Chip Ganassi Racing, his roles grew from Test and Development Manager, to Competition Director, then overseeing the engineering group for Ganassi's Cup program. He worked with many drivers such as Ricky Craven, Bobby Labonte, Mark Martin, Martin Truex, JH Nemechek, Kyle Larson, Kurt Busch, and Ross Chastain.
Diving
Cheryl talked Nick into trying scuba diving while on a holiday in Grand Cayman. From that first moment, swimming 30 feet down with a hawksbill turtle across the colourful reef, Nick was hooked.
Closing in on 1,000 dives later, he is now a certified divemaster, tech diver, and he and Cheryl have dived all over the world, from the shark filled southern islands of Cuba to the freezing clear waters of Iceland's Silfra fissure.
Nick makes a point, whenever possible, of diving the locations used in his stories, including the engine room of the Spiegel Grove and the Gardens of the Queen.
Nick also uses and endorses Dive Rite equipment and Shearwater dive computers.
Nomads To New Home
For six years, Cheryl and Nick lived a nomadic life, based from wherever they parked their RV in the US, and travelling and working from overseas location for extended periods.
Cheryl nicknamed their 27' Winnebago Sunstar 27N, Baby Beluga, or BB for short. As far as RVs go, she wasn't the biggest by far, but she lived big enough with three slide-outs and was a much-loved home.
In late 2025, they finally achieved a long planned goal of moving to the Cayman Islands and now live in the gorgeous setting for Nick's AJ Bailey and Nora Sommer novels.
Adventure
If they're not diving, Nick and Cheryl feed their souls with other adventures whenever possible... and always together. From motorcycles to mountaineering to a Tanzanian safari, they've pushed themselves to experience the great outdoors in as many ways as possible.
Back surgeries and a busy writing schedule has slowed them down in recent years, but here are a few memories in images they felt were worth sharing.
