The Wise Woman Within

Just Like a Woman

That’s the working title of my first novel – well it had to have ‘woman’ in it, didn’t it?

I finished it in June 2007 and was thrilled to win first prize for the first three pages in a competition at the Winchester Annual Writers’ Conference that summer.  It was particularly exciting because the final stages were judged by the editorial team of a well-known publishing house.  In the end it did not lead to publication but I learnt a useful thing or two along the way and won £75 worth of books.

In case you want to know what the novel is about, here is a flavour.  There are some familiar themes.

Just Like a Woman

A woman’s journey to break the pattern of family lies and secrets, uncover her true identity and trace the father of her twins.

Fran Fairweather has never quite fulfilled the promise of her flaming copper hair.  As a student in the 60s, Fran is on the run from a controlling mother and a disastrous love affair.  She gets pregnant by one man and marries another, and settles for living with the consequences – until a sensational visit to her old friend Zelda in Cornwall changes all that.

But building a new life is not so simple.  As her mother lies dying Fran uncovers new mysteries.  What are the secrets of her mother’s past?  What is her Aunt Goldie lying about?  Will Fran succeed in tracing the student father of her twins?  How will they feel about each other now?  How will she stop these complications threatening her newly found independence?  And who is she anyway?

Themes of the search for identity, family secrets and history repeating itself across generations are played out as Fran starts unravelling clues.

The Hatmaker’s Secret

My second novel is based on my own family history – secrets which emerged when my mother died – and explores the impact of those secrets on a present day family (entirely fictional) and on the relationship between the protagonist, Vanessa and her mother, Thea.

It follows Vanessa’s process of uncovering facts about Thea’s life through the internet and from photographs and postcards.  Although Vanessa sets out to focus on the question of why no-one will talk about Thea’s West Indian grandmother, she is continually compelled to explore her own memories of her mother.

I’m about two-thirds through this story – watch this space!

The Hatmaker’s Secret

Photographs discovered on her mother’s death set Vanessa on a quest to find her West Indian great grandmother.  But she rediscovers her mother instead and struggles to come to terms with their relationship.

Delving into the past, Vanessa sees her mother’s life in the light of new evidence: childhood struggle with prejudice during World War I, determination to leave poverty behind and reinvention of herself as sophisticated Thea.  When her husband dies, poverty threatens again on the brink of World War II.  How will she survive?  Will her secret past ever allow her to relax?

Vanessa is constantly drawn away from the search for Thea’s grandmother to examine her own relationship with her mother.  Who was this complex woman?  How did the beautiful girl turn into the mother Vanessa remembers?  How she can reconcile the two and find peace?

In the 2006 time-frame, the West Indian ancestry explains the birth of Vanessa’s mixed race granddaughter, but it’s no magic cure for her son Joe’s marriage.  Will Joe and Ella survive his suspicions that she was unfaithful?

Other Fiction

Last summer (2009) I was very surprised and thrilled to win three prizes in the South Hams Writers’ annual competitions.  For the first three pages of a novel I won first prize with an earlier version of The Hatmaker’s Secret under a different title.  I also won first prize for a short story, The Pier, which was particularly pleasing as I always say I don’t ‘do’ short stories.

And even more surprising was second prize for a poem entitled Autumn.  Here it is.

Autumn

One morning I smell autumn,
a whiff at the door that’s easy to ignore.

But two days later – listen!
The geese have smelled it too.
The clatter of the first birds departing
is answered by a cackle from the crone in my heart.
She’s up there with the geese
wild and grey and wonderful,
flying to unknown lands,
while I’m left hankering for sun and supple skin.

One morning I smell autumn,
a whiff at the door that’s hard to ignore