Please Release Me: A Blog Splash and a Gale

Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog splash for fellow ChocLiteer Rhoda Baxter to celebrate the release of her latest book, Please Release Me, which has a rather unusual premise for a romantic novel. In Rhoda’s own words, “Please Release Me, is a contemporary romance with a touch of the paranormal, published by Choc Lit Ltd. It’s set in a hospice (granted, that’s not the most intuitive setting for a romantic comedy…) and features Sally, whose body is a coma while her ghost gets to walk through furniture; Peter, who reads to his comatose wife every day; and Grace, who is the only person who can see or hear Sally’s ghost. It’s a story about moving on in one way or another and about how people need each other, especially when they think they don’t.”

Something else you need to know about this book is that Rhoda’s generously donating half the royalties from it to Martin House Children’s Hospice.

When Rhoda invited me to take part in her blog splash she suggested ‘being stuck’ as a possible prompt because her characters are unable to move on. Perhaps it’s because we’ve just bought another boat that I thought of Veryan, the first and loveliest of our boats and when, on an early Epic Voyage, we found ourselves galebound in Ramsgate…

“To describe what I did this morning as ‘waking up’ would be stretching it. Although we were expecting a gale, it blew up really quickly” my sailing diary records. “One minute I was washing up in the cockpit and the next I was leaping ashore because the boat was jumping around all over the place. We felt very vulnerable on our mooring but couldn’t move because the wind was driving straight onto a pontoon. We did what we could to make the boat safe, then waited… and waited, but the gale didn’t stop. It blew throughout the afternoon, evening and all through the night making even the most innocuous sound seem threatening.”

Veryan (and her crew) take a battering!

However, there was a silver lining to that storm…

“Last night was one of the worst of my life after one of the nastiest journeys, but it suddenly occurred to me that if the advice is to write about what you know that this is what I should be writing about! Some of the characters we’ve met here would fill several books …”

Well, two so far, Turning the Tide and Follow A Star (directly recalling that time in Ramsgate!) which just goes to prove that sometimes you need to be stuck to move on. And once we set sail again, next summer, who knows where those adventures will lead?

Please Release Me

What if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?
Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.
That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.
In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.
But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after …

Please Release Me by Rhoda Baxter is out now and you can buy it here.

Happy Endings, New Beginnings

Blended families come with conflicting loyalties and at Christmas time nearly everyone has somewhere else they feel they ought to be. Throw partners into the equation and it gets even more complicated. Since Tom and I aren’t especially hung up about Christmas we’re happy to let our children go with the strongest flow, but I have to say it was a great delight to have the girls and their partners staying with us this year. When such moments are few and far between they become very precious. My stepsons weren’t far from our thoughts either, not least because we had the very happy news on Christmas Day that my elder stepson and his girlfriend had become engaged. Congratulations Dan and Gill, here’s wishing you every happiness together. Tom and I end a year that has seen the fruition of many years work, both of us crossing important thresholds within weeks of each other. I’m really looking forwards to seeing Turning the Tide published next year and it’s been so satisfying, after al...

Fly Free, Dottie Do

‘How many days to my birthday?’ Ma asks. I do a quick calculation. ‘Eighteen,’ I reply. ‘Eighteen days until your ninetieth birthday.’ Ma pulls a face and shakes her head. Every sentence is hard work for her now, when each breath is a struggle. ‘You’ll have to write a book about this, you know,’ she says, with one of her quick, mischievous smiles. ‘“Carry On Dying”. Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry.’ The smile fades. ‘Who knew,’ she adds wearily, ‘that dying would be such a palaver?’ It’s only eleven days since Ma was diagnosed with a high-grade, aggressive lymphoma, four days since she was overwhelmed with pain and breathing difficulties and was admitted as an emergency to hospital. Until a few weeks ago, she lived completely independently; shopping, cooking, cleaning and tending her much-loved garden. The deterioration in her health is shockingly rapid. The eight days preceding her death are a living hell, a constant battle with the ward staff to get Ma the pain relief she’s been p...

Since You've Been Gone

Well, Ma Mère, There have been so many times when I’ve gathered up all the little shiny moments I’ve collected during the day, ready to present to you in our evening phone call and then I remember all over again that you’re not there. But, Mum, so much has happened since you’ve gone - maybe you know, maybe you don’t - that I’ve decided to write to you instead. A few days after you died, we sold our house! After all those months! We even joked about you rattling cages somewhere. At first, nothing happened and then suddenly everything happened at a breathless pace and the next thing I knew I found myself driving (yes, me, driving!) along the M4 to Bridgend and the Time Capsule House, the one you said you and Dad would have bought. I remarked, when we first viewed it that if it was meant for us, it would come to us. Over a year later, when it had been under offer twice, we moved in. Oh, Mum, you and Dad would have loved this house; it’s peak Seventies and the decor - the pampas ensu...

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