This week my latest novel, Silent Echoes, appeared on Amazon. I have a few dates pencilled in the diary for more public launches but, like so much these days, confirmed dates depend on the progress (or rather recess) of the pandemic.
The novel is based in Coventry which, if you were not aware already, is the UK City of Culture for 2021. It was important to me therefore to ensure the book was published this year while Coventry is a place of interest way beyond the city boundaries.
The novel is in three parts – 1918 – 1930s; the late 1950s; and the early 1970s: three generations of the Carter family with a motif of deafness (the Silent bit of the title) and events repeating themselves (like Echoes). To tell you more would be to give the plot away and then you wouldn’t want to buy the book!
So, no more about the plot, but a bit about my motivation. There is some of my own family history in there, in the section dealing with the early part of the century. It is however heavily fictionalised. One of the comments in the novel is that big, life-changing event, events happen – but no-one in the family talks about them. This was true of my own family, so I’ve had to use my imagination.
Why are a number of my characters deaf? Well, my grandmother was deaf, and I have had (mercifully) brief periods of total deafness. As a writer, I like to try new things and in this book I am forced to see and feel things as a deaf person might. So no overhearing gossip; being aware of doors opening and another character coming into the room, realising a car is drawing up etc. etc. It was an interesting challenge. It certainly made me appreciate how much we normally use our characters’ ears to move a storyline forward.
Link for purchasing Silent Echoes
Ebook-£1.99, Print-£7.99.
NEW!! Silent Echoes: The Carters seem just like any other family. Apart from the life changing events nobody talks about. Will history just keep repeating itself?
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