Sneak peek

Sneak peek 😀

There was a loud knock at the door, and Sadie, dozing by the radio, jumped. She stood to go and answer the door, but fell back onto the chair. She stood again, but fell back once more. Puzzled, she stood, more carefully this time, and turned, holding on to the back of the chair so that she could not fall again, then stepped to one side so that she could go and answer the door. The visitor knocked again, firmly, and Sadie reached for the door handle, but it had now disappeared, and there seemed to be no way of letting the visitor in. Sadie knew that house was up to mischief.
     “Sorry,” she shouted through the door, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
     “You need to let me open the door,” she scolded the house. “Stop playing games!”
     “SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS” a whisper resonated throughout the house, and Sadie scolded again.
     “Stop that!” she said.
     “Sorry, what?” came the voice from outside.
     “Not you,” Sadie said, then looking down at the door again realised that the door handle was back in place. She reached for it, and pulled at the door, which refused to open. She scolded the house again. She reached for the door handle once more, this time turning it quickly and forcefully and pulled open the door, startling her visitor in the process.
     “Hello?” she enquired, to a tall slim young lady with hair a similar colour to her own, dressed in a pale blue long coat and with gloves in her hand, and being, Sadie speculated, probably somewhere in her late twenties to early thirties.
     “Hello,” the visitor said, “I’m sorry to trouble you. I’m looking for Sadie. Sadie Pickersgill.”
  “Who are you?” Sadie asked her, rather curious about the woman asking after her.
     “I would rather speak to her personally if you don’t mind,” the stranger said.
  “You had better come in then,” Sadie invited. “I am Sadie.” The stranger looked at her.
     “I have been looking for you for quite a while” she said.
     “Do you mind telling me why? And who you are?” Sadie enquired. They went to sit in the kitchen, and Sadie busied herself making tea, whilst the stranger sat fidgeting with her gloves.
     “It’s a rather delicate situation” the lady responded. “I need to speak to you about a rather, shall we say, uncomfortable state of affairs.”
     “I don’t know what delicate or uncomfortable state of affairs could involve me?” Sadie told her, “I am actually not that interesting. I haven’t been anywhere, or done anything.” She faltered. Could this be something to do with Albie? Was this the woman Albie had been going to marry when he lived in the city? She became uncomfortable, and she instinctively knew that the woman did not have good news.
     “Perhaps we could sit in the….sitting room? Parlour?” she asked, “it’s imperative that I speak with you.”
     “I think I might prefer you to come back when my husband is here….” She began. The other woman stood her ground.
     “I really need to speak to you now. I have come a long way,” she added. Sadie led the ways to the sitting room and made the lady comfortable on the sofa, asking to take her coat and if she required sugar in her tea. She knew that she was delaying, but something told her that she did not want to hear what this lady had to say. Sitting comfortably in the front room of the little house, the woman began her story.
     Half an hour later, Sadie was frozen to the spot. The colour had drained out of her face and she felt that the life had left her body. How could her life change in the space of just a few minutes? And having seen all the evidence presented before her, she knew that the woman was telling the truth. It was beyond terrible. She could not speak, could not cry, and could not move.
     “I’m so sorry,” the stranger told her, “but I’m sure you understand why I had to come to see you.”
     “I……I…..of course,” Sadie faltered, but could not say any more. Her mind was racing, and she could not find words that would make sense.
     “I’m sure you will need to discuss this with your husband,” the lady continued. “I can come back another time if you have more questions. I will leave you my card.” She stood, clinging tightly, as if for comfort, to her gloves. “It’s taken me so long to find you,” she said, and Sadie looked up at her, still rooted to the spot. “I hope we can meet again soon. I know that you will have questions. I’m so sorry.” She stepped to one side, wondering if she had indeed done the right thing, and sensing that the younger woman was in shock. “I’ll see myself out, I….” but she had run out of things to say, and she left.

Sadie's House-The Secrets
Coming soon

Fame at last!

Some tasty snippets of advice

James's RR Martin's useful advice for writers.https://www.facebook.com/authorspublish/posts/526038454250609

I'm expecting!!! (Book Two is on its way.....!)

I have some happy news! So I finally sent my second manuscript to the publishers! And what agony it's been as I have edited, edited again, double checked, asked friends to proof read, ( and huge thanks to them for their kind assistance!) edited again and re read. I even took it with me on a romantic trip to Cyprus with the hubby, and continued editing by the pool! No rest for the wicked, they say! But I have to say, even though it's taken nearly six months (just to edit!) I am proud of the finished product and hoping that between us, we have nailed it.

If you remember, my first book was rather riddled with silly little mistakes which had been sadly overlooked due to my haste in publishing ( for personal reasons which I won't dwell on). So I have been all the more determined to polish this and not publish until I was satisfied.  But careful editing alone won't make a good book, of course. I have worked very hard on the story, and love the premise and my characters. So here's a quick synopsis.

Once upon a time, a little house was born. Built on a hill and surrounded by the rolling hills of the countryside, the little house was infused with the spirits of the land and the trees and the wind. And when a child was born within its walls, the little house awakened from its slumber and claimed her as its own. Born three generations before her namesake, Sadie inspired the love of two brothers. But the ill-fated secrets that consumed them all left one of them hanging between madness and despair. And all the time, the little house watched, waiting and yearning for its very own happy ever after.

The second in the Sadie’s House trilogy, The Secrets reveals the history of the house, and unleashes a twisted tale of treachery and deceit that spans almost a century. What were the secrets that the little house held? Who could maintain such deceptions? And what was to become of them all?

The book is written as the prequel to The Key, but would also stand on its own without reading the first. That was always the idea, as they are quite different books. But it's gone to the publisher now, and I look forward to sharing the happy news of its safe delivery. Sadie's House: The Key has a little brother on the way. The family grows. I hope you will join us on our journey.

A big success

Let me begin by explaining that I am not at this point, referring to my books (as much as I long for the day that this will, in fact, be the case.) As it is, at the moment I don't think that there is much danger of me knocking JK off her perch. No, the Big Success referred to in the title is in fact the charity evening that we organised in memory of Dad. As per usual for me, not a lot went according to plan. We had spent months planning and as the evening drew near, tensions were running high as my sisters and I could not agree on certain aspects of the evening. Should we wear tee shirts with the hospice logo? How should the raffle with nearly 60 prizes be organised? Should we have a seat plan as advertised? Should one of the acts be included? And on it went. One act I had been thrilled to book couldn't make it. I had given him the wrong date, deep sigh. (Thank goodness I checked!) A lovely young singer did not own her own equipment so we didn't know if she could perform. And we're we going to sell enough tickets after a slow start. Were we charging too much? Or enough? How much food should we order for the buffet? We couldn't find a dj for the disco....The stress of it all!

On the day we decorated the room and it looked amazing. Great start. Then people began to arrive and we had sold over 150 tickets. Most of our family and friends were there and we were thrilled and amazed at their support. I made a speech. We had music. A dance act cancelled as they were double booked. There was food, we had a raffle, but ran out of raffle tickets half way through and had to run around trying to get more from the venue. The singer was delayed, but set up later. My son was the amazing compère, there was a dressing up corner, we organised gift bags for the ladies and activity packs for the children. There was dancing. There was alcohol. And the room was filled with love and fun.

With the support of a national bank agreeing to add to the total, we raised over £6500.

And just for the record, I am STILL editing and STILL finding mistakes in Albie. I know this has to stop now so I  am on the final read through and then it's going for publication. I'm off to Cyprus next weekend so I have set myself the deadline of completing this by the end of my holiday then it's going straight off on my return. I've been at it for months and I need to let go. Fingers crossed. Procrastinate no more. I'll keep you posted
 Xx

Build an audience for your writing

There are some useful tips here that fellow writers and aspiring writers might find useful.
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A Comedy of Errors

My eldest son is currently working in the French Alps for a children's leisure company. We were lucky enough to go out at the weekend to visit him in the beautiful (high!) resort of Val D'Isere and set off on Saturday morning. Just how daft two mature adults can be in trying to reach their destination rather defies the imagination! We got to Geneva easily enough, despite a slightly delayed flight, but spent half an hour wandering about looking for our hire car. We got lost on the way to the mountains. We were late arriving spent an hour going backwards and forwards looking for the agency holding our apartment keys. When we found it there was a notice saying that they were closed but our keys were in the safe. The safe was outside and required a code which we didn't have. I phoned the emergency number to be told that we did have the code and on further investigation we did. There it was, printed on the email they had sent. We gathered the keys and paperwork and proceeded to the car park. They had no record of us, they said and the car park was full. Twenty minutes of arguing and they suggested that we might have a ticket with the keys. We looked. We did.

     With the car parked we proceeded to the apartment block but didn't know what room we were in. Another ten minutes going through the paperwork again before I realised that the details might actually be in with the keys. They were. And so it went on. Over the three days we spent ten minutes trying to push open a door that said pull (finally rescued by a chuckling local), spent an hour trying to return from a ten minute journey (wrong turn....easy mistake), allowed ourselves to be charged €30 for TWO drinks, fell asleep in deckchairs in the snow, tried to put money into a credit card slot at a toll on the road, drove down the mountain in the dark in a blizzard and got lost again when we tried to return to the airport. Luck, not judgement, got us back in the right place. Really, we shouldn't be allowed anywhere unsupervised and I pity our children for times to come as we get older and dottier!

We had an amazing time though, got to spend time with the eldest, who took his dad skiing whilst I took photos and drank  creamy hot chocolate. I had my IPad and took some great snaps of what I can only refer to as Christmastown, and one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. And not to leave the book out of things, although it is finished, I decided on one last read through and still found another half a dozen mistakes. Exhausting all round! 

So that was my Easter weekend! Feeling a bit stupid, all things considered but we got there and back in one piece and now have another lot of memories to share. 

But we will be going Package on our next trip. We can't be trusted otherwise!