My second novel is complete, in terms of a ‘final’ draft MS. Now it is time to put it on one side for a short period, then get back to it for review, revision and third party edit.

BIRCHLAND HALL has not been at the head of my work list, it was first drafted a few years ago, but in January when I was in two minds on the best way forward for PUFFBALL, a current novel set in West Somerset, my best course to keep writing was to revert to work on Birchlands, now written as a final draft with a revised outcome.

The novel is set in the 1990s, the tale of two long estranged cousins, strangers to Yorkshire, who inherit the dilapidated Victorian mansion built by their great-great grandfather when Mayor of Dewsfield. Neither has married, both are only children. Despite differing circumstance, they are bound together in their search for family connection, in an endeavour to bring life back to Birchlands. Strangers to Yorkshire, they discover the sway their Holtbury forebears held in the once proud manufacturing town, drawing the cousins back into serving the Dewsfield community.