This week I have been desperately searching for a healing story. To begin with, I dug into my memory for what R S Thomas called something to set against the heart in the long cold.
But the state of remembered tranquility was not enough. I wanted a story, with a beginning a middle and an end. Particularly I wanted a happy ending.
And serendipitously, the search got me back to a place where I really did feel healed. This is how.
January sees the publication of my 70th book for Harlequin Mills and Boon and in the darkest days of winter, it offers the scents and colour of warm early summer days.
When a book is written and has been through the publication process, I often struggle to remember what inspired the original idea. How it got from a blank screen to the physical book that I’m holding in my hand.
Redeemed by Her Midsummer Kiss was like that.
I do know that I was thinking about an earlier book in which the garden had featured heavily and which I’d loved writing.
That one had started with blackberries hanging over a garden wall. Continue reading