"Hafan Deg -- Safe Harbour" is at the Printers!

 

After constantly referring to it over the years, I finally finished my fourth and most demanding novel and it's at the printers now. I don't recall feeling so emotionally drained by my three earlier books. Hafan Deg was both a joy-ride and a slightly obsessive journey. But it's done. If you write, you'll guess what I've just been through. 

Once I'd PDFd the manuscript to the printers, I swore I would get straight back into that London crime novel I was working on -- remember Winnowing? Thought it would take my mind off things, didn't I? It didn't, and I had to put it aside for now. Until I've (corrected?) approved that printer's proof copy of Hafan Deg,  I can't think about anything else.

I'll let you know when the new book is released -- figure early October, unless there are some serious issues. 

Here's the brief back cover blurb, for your interest. It could change, of course. Not much room to get too eloquent there. 

Karen Miles is a successful London book editor, a single mother in her late fifties. She seems to have it all, good income, beautiful West London apartment, regular travel, two adult children she is proud of, and the occasional man. She appears in control, confident, yet she is deeply unhappy, unresolved issues from the past re-emerging. As her days become more deadening, she acknowledges that this is not life; this is merely existence. A derelict house, 'Hafan Deg', in North Wales, where she and the children vacationed many years earlier, becomes the catalyst for her transformation. A touching and sometimes irreverent study of an older woman's struggle for  reconnection and validation.

Talk again soon. 

Confession: Those comments I never received? Kept nagging you about it? My comments folder was full. I had never deleted one in the fourteen years I've been here. Today I deleted over 500 and the comments box works again. My sincere apologies for being such a twit.

Feeling Sad. Last Novel is on Its Own. Like Your Kid Going Off to College.

 I knew I would feel sad. I've been through this before. We talk about our books as if they are our babies,  struggling for lives of their own. The process can be difficult,  frightening, although eventually rapturous. We persevered.  We nurtured them to completion, to a kind of maturity. And then we have to send them off to find their own way. Summer Must End has graduated. 

"Summer Must End" Available Here

There are three of them out there now. I must admit to constant checking-in on them. A bit obsessive, really, but after years of working on each of them, you need to know what they're up to, without being too obvious about it. At some point, I'll stop and just wait to hear back about Royalties.  I can always obsess again later if I don't hear back.

In the meantime, the novel-in-waiting, "Hafan Deg" is firmly on the backburner. I wanted to release it this year, but it just isn't doing it for me. It's not that it's a bad story, but I have changed. Just as we wrote angst-filled poems as teenagers (well,  I did), so a story about an aging woman's reinvention of herself only spoke to me when I was doing the re-inventing. I'm on a different path now. It can wait a little longer. My new book, "Winnowing" has been taking up a lot of my thinking time. 

Here's a tiny blurb, because we can't reveal too much at this stage.

    Megan is an editor for a tiny boutique publishing house in London. She is particularly jaded with the local dating scene, and has more or less decided to give the whole thing a miss for a while. Until she meets Alistair Clarke,  a young poet her boss has decided to publish. He is neither attractive nor fascinating, but she appreciates his talent and is intrigued by his shyness and reticence. She gradually learns more of his background, and is determined to promote him as fully as possible, falling in love with him in the process. Sinister people begin asking oddly personal questions about him, and she worries, pressuring him about it, dissatisfied with his response. 

When Alistair disappears, she becomes frantic. The only address she has for him is in Wood Green, London, but he hasn't been seen there for weeks. The police are ambivalent. 'Too early to formally report it', they tell her. But then, in his folder of work, left at the office, she discovers a council bill for a property near Shepton Mallet, in Somerset. She has come to love this small, strange man. It's up to her to find out what's going on, isn't it? No one else seems concerned.  Megan is driven; she has never been in love before. 

Talk to you soon. Perhaps you'll tell me what you think of this new novel. Comment below.

Summer Must End - eBook Available November 11, 2020

 This is a terrible thing to admit to. I don't care for eBooks. I like the feel of a good, old-fashioned book in my hands, the look of it, the crispness of new pages, especially the smell of it. But folks these days like the convenience of an eBook. So I've produced one, especially for them. And please don't think that the process is easy. The atmosphere around here was decidedly blue a lot of the time as I battled with it.

It's not available until November 11, around the same time as the print version, so it's your choice. 

Preorder eBook Summer Must End

I love this story. Of course, a writer would say that, but this has a timely significance to it. I lived in the area where this book is set, and it's a lovely place. I left there just over ten years ago, and I miss it still. With my family scattered globally, I move around a lot. Just trying to explain why I'm still not living in Canada. It's Australia's turn.

I'm a little lost now that both versions of this book have been finalized, so it's time to set up the print format of 'Hafan Deg' (not 'Place of Dreams' as one agent wanted it titled). Hafan Deg is Welsh for Safe Harbor, and is set in Anglesey. That's one of the most beautiful places in the world. Hope I do it justice.