My novel writing has had three phases, spanning thirty years. I started off with a humorous thriller From Mushrooms to Murder set in London and Poland, which was taken up by a reputable agent and praised by various major publishers without any tangible result. I then wrote a sombre murder mystery set in Somerset which again was agented but not published. I became disillusioned by the traditional publishing world and decided not to continue on that route.
Some years later a small publisher took up Moon Garden, a light-hearted magical realism novel. It did very well, becoming popular in pagan circles just at the time when the internet was making wider publicity possible. I found writing a second similar book much harder. The Five of Cups, about fetching up in a foreign country, with a tarot theme and a first appearance of the Breton landscape in my work, eventually emerged and, again, proved popular. But I felt no more desire to write fiction and turned to guidebooks to take my career in another direction.
Twenty years later, the pandemic provided the peace and time for new things and, out of the blue, over two and a half years and on only an hour a day of writing, I produced a trilogy of novels set in a fictional Breton village, Ploubrannec. The Stolen Saint, The Ambling Rock and The Tearful Tree each have a separate story but connect with the other two through characters and place. It was a labour of love for me, a tribute to Brittany’s landscape, culture and people. I’m really proud of their success, with The Stolen Saint a swift sell-out.
I do have another novel in my head, something completely different, a split-time story involving ancient and modern Brittany with lots of history and walking, my two greatest loves. But whether it will ever see the light of day, who knows?
