Hello friends!

I hope you have had a good summer, and found some time to read a good book or two. (How quickly it sailed by!)

This Labor-Day weekend (well, here in the U.S, that is), as we prepare to launch ourselves back into the faster pace of autumn, there are a few things I wanted to share with you– before the leaves begin to fall.

If you have been wondering what happened to the third book in the Nell trilogy, The Taste of Mead and Ashes, I have to apologise. A number of home improvement/maintenance expenses commandeered the cash this summer. I got my office/studio painted for the first time in twenty years, so there’s that! It’s now a serene, creative space, so I now have no excuse for not writing. On top of that was the masonry work—which, in contrast, was an ordeal—and then there was divesting of the timeshare. Take my advice. Don’t ever buy a timeshare. Just—don’t.

I still hope to publish The Taste of Mead and Ashes soon, even if I have to do it myself.

In the midst of these publishing doldrums, I have continued to write. You can find my serial novel(la?), with the terrible name The Danger of Rabbits, on Substack, at https://substack.com/@nellnobody

It’s a fast-and-dirty, barely-proofread, silly story—you could call it a spoof—about a twenty-first century woman and an eighteenth-century naval captain, and what happens when you try to have a relationship with someone 250 years older than you are.

Please let me know if you enjoy the chapters I have already posted. Without any response beyond a few ‘likes’, I don’t know if I should keep working on it or move on to something more productive.

I’m also trying out a new genre. My newest project doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s a mash-up between a psychological thiller and a ghost story. Think along the lines of The Turn of the Screw, without Miss Jessup and Peter Quint–a contemporary novel which also explores the persistence of folklore.

Here’s a nibble.

Nora fell asleep wearing Batty’s dressing gown, burying her head beneath a pillow as she wept silently.

She woke sometime later, sensing the presence of a warm body nestled against her right side. She reached out for Sydney, but he wasn’t there.

’Syd…?’

The shutters were open, but there was no moon, and the room was in darkness. The scent of Batty’s aftershave on the collar of his dressing gown seemed stronger, and she wondered if the bottle in his nightstand had somehow fallen over and leaked.

‘Sydney? Where are you, boy?’

There was no sound of his nails clicking on the floor, no jingle of his collar tags. Nora decided she must have dreamt him.

Faint music drifted from somewhere in the house. What was Geoff doing up at this hour? Nora wasn’t sure what the hour was, because she’d left her phone in her purse, but the house was quiet and dark.

‘… and I say yes, you look wonderful tonight.’

It was the song she and Batty had danced to at their wedding reception, the song that Batty had played when he’d asked her to marry him. Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”.

Nora slipped out of bed. The music was coming from her bathroom.

‘…everyone turns to see this beautiful lady, walking around with me…’

Nora crept to the bathroom door and pushed it open slowly. There was no light, only the intimate sound of Clapton’s voice. She hit the switch by the door, flooding the room with light, blinding herself.

‘…and then she asks me, do you feel alright? And I say yes, I feel wonderful tonight.’

Squinting as her eyes adjusted, Nora searched the room. It was empty. The song was coming from her Bluetooth speaker, sitting on the chest of drawers next to the upholstered bench.

‘I feel wonderful, because I see the love-light in your eyes, and the wonder of it all is that you just don’t realise how much I love you.’

Nora turned off the speaker and sank down on the bench. She tried to remember if the speaker was paired with anything other than her phone and her computer, but it wasn’t important. There was an enormous pressure in her chest, of loss, and grief, and vacancy.

‘Batty…?’ Nora whispered his name. ‘Oh, Batty, I wish—I wish you’d known. I wish I’d known. If I could have told you… maybe you’d have stayed.’

She knew in her heart, however, that he’d have gone to The Ship and Shovel anyway, because he’d have had two things to celebrate with his two best mates.

Nora felt the tears flooding her eyes and overflowing. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t talk about it, after… not even to you… I’m so sorry, baby.’ She hiccupped a noise between a strangled laugh and a sob. ‘You… your baby. I lost your baby.’ Her voice dwindled to a whisper.

It must have been her imagination, but she almost felt an aura of warmth around her, as if he was sitting beside her, close enough that she could feel his body-heat. Which was ludicrous, because Batty didn’t have a body anymore.

She curled her body over the bench and cried until her tears were exhausted She didn’t have any sense of his presence anymore; his scent and the warmth had been an illusion. A sensory hallucination.

Cold and numb, Nora crept back to her empty bed.

Finally, I want to share a new historical fiction release by a fellow writer, Bridge of Lies, by Paula Sheriden. ‘A breathless, run-for-your-life historical thriller,’ Bridge of Lies is about the French Resistance during World War II. A gentle boat-builder puts himself at risk to help a Jewish girl and rescue a British spy while searching for his son, a missing member of the Resistance.

You can request a review copy here, or purchase at Amazon here. (Remember to write a review if you receive a review copy!)

I thought I’d leave you with a photo of some fall visitors to our garden (and part of the masonry project).

Enjoy the—hopefully—crisp autumn weather! Until next time–

Jennifer