Chris Valley was born in Wales in 1954 and grew up in northern England. He received a BSc in Geology from the University of Sheffield and a PhD from the University of Wales. He taught at the American University of Beirut (AUB) from 1980-84, where he met his wife, with whom he raised two sons.
From 1984-94 he lived in Swansea, worked as a consultant in the oil industry. He conducted research in Africa and Asia, wrote many volumes on the geological features of different countries. In the second half of the 80s, he began to write in his spare time. He wrote two novels, Heart of Stone and Rock of Refuge, and published them under the pseudonym of John Haworth.
In 1994, he was asked to return to Lebanon and reorganize the Department of Geology at AUB, where he lived with his family until 1998. During this time he was engaged in teaching and research, and was also involved in a major environmental project in the Bekaa Valley with A Rocha Lebanon.
In 1998 he moved to the UK and began his career as a writer and editor, particularly for the Christian market. In 2004 he returned to teaching, writing in his spare time.
