murder mystery

New year, new books

/ Caron Allan / Leave a comment

Most of us had to get back to work this week, and that includes writers! I’m at the creative stage, ideas flowing, crazy ones or a bit more sensible, I’m making a huge amount of notes, then just as likely, crossing them out the next day, only to come back a day after that and think, ‘Yes, actually, I like that idea, it could work really well.’

I’m not much of a planner but I’m doing my level best. I’ve been looking ahead, and trying to plan a work schedule.

I’m intending to spend the next five weeks drafting my new Dottie book – hopefully that will be out in December. That will be book 9 of the series, and I’m calling it The Rough Rude Sea. Dottie and William return by steamship from their honeymoon. Obviously it’s not going to be smooth sailing. (sorry about the pun).

Then, mid-February, it will be all change, and I’ll be in editing mode as I tidy up and polish Through Dancing Poppies, the third book in the Miss Gascoigne mysteries series. Miss Gascoigne.

Then…

…at some point I’ve got to crowbar in rewrites and polishing etc of Dirty Work, book 1 in the new trilogy Families Can Be Murder. This is a spin-off of my original trilogy Friendship Can be Murder, book 1 Criss Cross was first published in 2012. This time it’s Matt, not Cressida, writing the diary entries and confessing all.

Apparently I’m also going on holiday… I think I might need it!

***

 

Coming soon: The Cousins

/ Caron Allan / Leave a comment

I’m always a little bit surprised when I meet a deadline. Not quite sure why, maybe it’s because a book seems such a huge thing to undertake, until, bit by bit, it’s done. I imagine it’s the same with any project – you break it down into small chunks and that makes it easier to handle. It’s also easier to measure progress, and you don’t (sometimes!) get overwhelmed by the enormity of the thing.

So with more than a little relief, I’m pleased to announce that The Cousins will be released on 12th December as planned.  It will be available in eBook format, paperback and large print. It’s not part of a series, it’s a stand-alone book.

Please be aware that it contains some emotional scenes, and some description of memories of child sexual abuse.

Here’s a little bit about it:

The Cousins.

Secrets. Everybody has them.

When Caitlin sits by her grandfather’s side as he lays dying, she thinks she’s about to lose her entire family. Before he passes, he makes an odd comment, leaving her with something to puzzle over, along with a set of old black and white photographs.

Then at his funeral, she meets her long-lost cousins, and soon there are even more questions to answer and puzzles to solve. Where have they been all these years? Why haven’t they been in touch if they care so much about ‘family’?

The past holds secrets. Everybody seems to have something they are keeping to themselves.

And that includes Caitlin.

Intrigued? Click here to read more.

If you’d like to order this book, please click here.

‘So, where do you get your ideas?’

/ Caron Allan / 3 Comments

I know I’ve written on this topic a couple of times before, but it’s one of those questions that never goes away.

‘Where do you get your ideas?’

This is one of the first questions people usually ask me – and I’m pretty sure it happens to other writers all the time. It kind of makes me want to groan, because it’s next to impossible to give a sincere and considered answer to this question without boring the pants off everyone by talking for an hour. The short, somewhat trite answer might be, ‘Everywhere!’

But if we really want to answer the question, it takes a minute or two longer. Because really there’s no single answer. Ideas don’t come from one unique, unvarying source. Nor do they come in the same way each time. Anything from the world seen or unseen can come to my attention and lead me to think, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting…’

Inspiration, which is what ideas really are, comes from everywhere and nowhere. A snatch of song, a news story, a little patch of colour on a card in the paint section of the DIY store, the turn of a person’s head making you think just for one split second it’s someone else, someone from another time, someone who should be dead. An unexpected view of yourself in a shop window, that odd moment before you recognise yourself, that brief second when you think, slightly puzzled, ‘I know you.’

An overheard snatch of conversation, ‘Don’t lose my hat, man, my hat’s my identity,’ and ‘Of course she never did find out who’d sent it.’ A film, a book, a taste, a smell, a memory, a story your mother told you – you’ve known her all your life yet this is the first time she’s ever mentioned this particular incident.

I have based two full-length stories on dreams, three short stories and one novel on songs, a poem on a piece of art, a novel based on a documentary I saw on TV about ancient tapestries, (Opus Anglicanum: Latin for English work), and another about the Reformation. I’ve written a short story about an arrowhead, and another about ancestral bones and the relevance they might have to a Neolithic man, about a couple of  trips to Skara Brae in the Orkneys.

I’ve written a whole series of stories about the fact that all too often people think it’s okay to take the law into their own hands. (I’m looking at you Cressida, MC of the Friendship Can Be Murder trilogy!) I’ve written about work situations, about hopes and plans for the future, about family tree research, about children, and pets, and parents. About love. About the absence of love. About Faith. About fear. About books I read as a child. And books I read as an adult. I’ve written about identity and what it means to be who I am, who you are. I’ve written about death – loads.

I saw a gorgeous man on the bus many years ago and wrote a story about him, (The Ice King – still not ‘available’, but if you’re intrigued, here’s a link to a short bit about him.) I’ve read news reports and been inspired to create my own story around some of those. I’ve written in hospital having just given birth, in hospital awaiting treatment for cancer, at work during my lunchbreak when I felt so depressed I just wanted to run away and hide. I’ve written when sitting on the loo, sitting in the garden, on holiday, in bed with flu, and in cafes all over Britain, Europe and Australia. I’ve written on buses and trains and planes. I’ve written when someone I cared about has died. I’ve even got inspiration from sitting down at my desk every day and just making myself write. Sometimes I’ve written page upon page of ‘I don’t know what to write’, like lines that we had to do at school, and still nothing has come to me and I’ve gone away desperate, feeling that the well has not only dried up, but was only a mirage to begin with.

If you are a writer, you squirrel away in the eccentric filing cabinet known as your brain EVERY single thing that you ever experience, and a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle or creating a patchwork quilt, you keep trying pieces together every which way until something fits and makes a pleasing and meaningful picture. There’s not really a pattern to it, there’s not a system or a set of regulations to follow. You just do it.

That’s where I get my ideas.

***

Criss Cross: Friendship can be Murder: book 1

/ Caron Allan

I first published Criss Cross in Feb 2013.

It wasn’t the first book I wrote, but it was the first book I decided to take the plunge and self-publish. An early reviewer said it was the worst book they’d ever read, which made me feel quite proud. It was an achievement of sorts, though maybe not in the way I’d hoped! 😀

I suppose it’s not for everyone–stylistically, it doesn’t suit a lot of people’s taste. It’s written in the first person, in diary-entry sections rather than chapters, and the character herself, our narrator Cressida is ‘posh’ (which is why the trilogy was, to begin with, called the ‘posh hits’ murder series).

But I like to think the story has heart. and it’s not so much a murder mystery as a murder confessional – throughout, Cressida tells us–more or less–exactly what she’s up to. Of course, the joy of first person narration is the reader can only know what the narrator knows, so if she doesn’t know everything, well, well, well…

Some people liked it though. One reviewer seemed to ‘get’ it. To my great joy, they said:

“…the heroine is completely without morals…You really should not like her, but you find yourself wishing her every success in her increasingly bizarre schemes and personal entanglements”

Whilst another (I’m bragging now – sorry!) said,

“Outstandingly witty, daft, exciting and so enjoyable!! This is the best book I have read in a long time. Exquisite!!”

And someone else said,

“…enables the reader to enter into the twisted world of the main character … reading her journal … you take voyeuristic pleasure in her inner thoughts, plans & audacious exploits”

Why am I going on about it? Well, I’ve just started writing a new book for a new trilogy, which is a ‘twelve years later’ spin-off of the Friendship can Be Murder series. The new one is called Families Can be Murder, and book 1 will be called Dirty Work. You can find an extract from the book on this page:

These books are quite different to my Dottie Manderson and Miss Gascoigne series. It can be helpful to write something different. I don’t want to get into a rut with my other two series, and it’s nice to write something that feels new and different, and gives me scope to write outside of the historical periods of the other books.

The first books, though, Criss Cross and the other two books in the series were a bit of a leap of faith for me. Could I really do it? Could I actually write–and publish–books that would sell? It was scary, and 12/13 years ago, self-publishing was still quite a new concept to many people.

Some people told me I was kidding myself, that I was just a wannabe, that if it wasn’t published by a traditional publisher then clearly my book was rubbish, and a mere hobby or wishful thinking. Oh well, you can’t please ’em all!

Just in case you’re interested though, let’s go back to the beginning. Here’s what Cressida had to say in book 1:

(Caution: contains bad words!)

Blurb:

Spoilt society girl Cressida Barker-Powell wants to murder her interfering mother-in-law. In her diary she carefully plans the perfect murder but when she arrives at the scene, she finds the old woman already dead. Soon it becomes clear that her Hitchcock-Movie-loving best pal, Monica, has carried out the deed for her! Taking the murder-switch idea from their favourite Hitchcock movie, Cressida decides the only real way to show her gratitude is by killing off Monica’s philandering husband and his bimbo girlfriend. Monica should appreciate the idea of swapping murders. That’s what she wants, right?
Wrong!
Cressida quickly discovers this was not what her friend had in mind, and a devastated Monica is now hell-bent on revenge. Which means their friendship is definitely over. Isn’t it?

Criss Cross:

Sun 24 June

To my darling Cressida

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! Have fun writing down all your thoughts and plans and dreams, then when we’re old and grey we can sit together on that terrace in Capri and watch the sun go down, drink a glass of wine and you can read me the spicy bits from this journal and we will have a good laugh and talk about the old days!

With all my love forever and ever

Thomas xx

Same day: 10.35pm

She must die!! I hate her!! I refuse to put up with her a moment longer, she is an evil, conniving old bitch without a grain of family feeling and it’s time she was dead!!

Mon 25 June—2.35pm

Have you noticed how some people just never seem to realise they’ve gone too far?

I was going to start off my new journal with something terribly erudite and wise. Like a new school notebook, I particularly wanted the first page to look lovely. But I suppose it really doesn’t matter if the first page isn’t perfectly neat and everything: the whole purpose of a journal is to pour out one’s innermost thoughts and give vent to all the frustrations that, as a nicely brought-up person, one can’t give full reign to in ‘real’ life, and so obviously even the first page can get a bit messy. And now just look at it!

But I digress. I must explain from the beginning…

It was my birthday yesterday. 32 already. God, I’m old! I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror this morning and even in the flattering south-facing light and all steamy and fresh from the shower, I’m absolutely certain I could see the tiniest line down the left side of my face from my nose to the corner of my mouth—I’m convinced it wasn’t there yesterday. Wonder if I’ve left it too late for Botox?

Among a number of very extravagant birthday gifts, my Darling Thomas gave me this sweet little journal. I’d mentioned weeks ago that I used to keep a journal when I was a melodramatic teenager, and how nice it was just to write down everything that happened and to really get it out of my system and add in lots of ‘grrr’ faces and heavy underlining, and lo and behold, the dear man, he surprised me with this journal for my birthday. So here I am.

It’s an absolutely beautiful book. It has a hard cover with a weird kind of gothicky design in the most gorgeous shades of black and purple and gold, with a magneticky bit in the front flap to keep it closed, and the pages, somewhere between A5 and American letter-size, are edged in gold too, so it feels very glamorous to write in—In fact I was a bit afraid to begin the first page, hence all the fuss about it looking nice and neat, I almost got a kind of writer’s block!

But all my good intentions and deep thoughts and years of accumulated adult wisdom and the desire to create something really special went out the window when my cow of a mother-in-law turned up on a ‘surprise’ visit and now my first page—well second really, under that really sweet little message from Thomas—Is absolutely ruined! I only hope to God Thomas doesn’t read it!

Not that she’d remembered it was my birthday any more than my own mother had—oh no! One can’t expect her (or either of them in fact!) to keep track of trivial little details like that. No, she needed Thomas’s advice about some financial matters, and thought she’d pop over. After all what’s an hour and a half’s chauffeured drive here or there? Of course she didn’t bother to ring first, see if we were in or free or anything. Clarice is used to everyone falling in with her plans.

‘I knew you wouldn’t be doing anything important,’ she says as she breezes in, dropping her coat in the middle of the hall, frowning around at the décor before settling herself in the drawing room, demanding tea. Not just the drink! By ‘tea’ she means that Victorian/Edwardian meal between Luncheon, as she calls it, and Dinner. She expected crustless sandwiches, crumpets, cakes (large and small), scones, jam and cream, the works. And copious amounts, of course, of tea-the-drink. China, not Indian. With lemon slices in a dainty little crystal dish, not 2 litres of semi-skimmed in a huge plastic container.

Thomas reminded her that it was my birthday and that consequently we had plans for the evening. She waved a negligent hand. Her hair, a shade too brave, was salon-perfectly waved if somewhat stiff-looking, and her clothes were at least one generation too young for her, but hideously expensive as well as just—well, hideous. Did I mention I hate her?

‘Oh that can be set aside. You can easily go out some other evening. My financial affairs are of the first import.’

Thomas looked at me. He didn’t want to fight with his mother and I knew there would be no point in trying to push him to resist the onslaught, so for poor Thomas’s sake, I sighed and shrugged and he sat down next to the old dragon and asked what she wanted to know. Meanwhile I dashed off to ring Monica Pearson-Jones and a few others, to let them know that we would either be horribly late for the theatre party, or quite possibly not turn up at all. I have to admit I was feeling quite cross and rather sorry for myself. However, Huw and Monica’s machine had to take the terrible news, as they were out. I hoped to God they weren’t already on their way.

***

Thanks for reading!

Quick catch-up!

/ Caron Allan

Writing.

It’s one of those things that everyone you meet says they could do too if they only had the time. Maybe they are right. but I’ve always felt that if something means a lot to you, you find the time, you make the time, you figure out your priorities and squeeze your passion into every crack and crevice you can.

I can remember grabbing time on my commute to work, or during lunch breaks, in the evenings when my better half was watching something on TV that didn’t interest me, or just any spare moment or snatched ten minutes I could find. Ten minutes, several times a week can give you one or two thousand words, times that by 52 weeks in a year, and you’ve got a novel.

These days, I’m officially old, and I no longer work outside the home, so I can spend quite a bit of time every day (not as much as you’d think, there are always distractions…) writing or thinking about what I’ve just written or what I might write next.

My latest book, Midnight, the Stars, and You: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8, came out in September. And in December, I have two books being released, The Cousins, a sort-of mystery, a stand-alone novel, is one of them, the other is the German language edition of my book A Wreath of Lilies: Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 2. The German title is Ein Kranz aus Lilien.

I’ve already started looking ahead – I’m always doing that – and have plans to publish Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 3 Through Dancing Poppies in maybe April next year.

Then after that… well, so many decisions to make, so many books to write…

We’ve just come back from holiday. In fact, I’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of holidays this year and they had elements in common: a seaside location, and a large number of diverse people in a small area. This is exactly the kind of thing that breeds ideas in my head. I made COPIOUS notes, did a ton of people-watching, took hundreds of photos, and now I’m sitting at my desk thinking, ‘Hmm… what if…?’

It’s too soon to make any announcements, but something is definitely brewing…

 

cover image by Agalaya.

***

A bit more about Midnight, the Stars, and You: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8

/ Caron Allan

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I thought I’d tell you a bit more about Midnight, the Stars, and You: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8, which is the next book to be released: on 6th September 2025.

Here’s the blurb:

Book 8 of the Dottie Manderson mysteries finds Dottie fed up with waiting and all the fuss, and just wanting to get on with being Mrs Detective Inspector William Hardy.

An unexpected invitation could be just what she needs. How wonderful it will be to get away to a weekend house party and forget all the worries of organising the wedding! Unfortunately it’s a house party that will never be forgotten: squabbles, cliques and even unexpected death.

Of course, William, like all husbands-to-be everywhere, has no interest whatsoever in the problems of the right kind of lace or the perfect place setting. In any case, he’s got a special kind of investigation going on, as if there isn’t enough going on with jewel robberies and murder!

I hope you’re intrigued…

Here’s another little snippet for you:

Christiana led them onto the start of the rose walk, paved, weed free and smooth with no nasty traps for their heels. The rose walk was exactly that—a path edged on either side by climbing and shrub roses that meandered up a large framework that went over their heads and down the other side to create the effect of being in a tunnel with shafts of sunlight coming through here and there. Hybrid tea roses were dotted amongst the climbers, all seemingly in flower or about to flower, spilling their silken petals and sweet scent into the air. It was like being in another world.

‘Christiana, it’s exquisite!’ Dottie, fervent in her praise, wanted to run from plant to plant, sniffing every bloom and stroking every velvety petal. She’d never seen such a profusion of roses all together in one place.

But when she heard her mother say, ‘My dear Mrs Milner,’ at almost the same time, Dottie realised that she was several paces ahead of her hostess. Turning, she saw that Christiana had halted and was fumbling for a handkerchief to stem a sudden flow of tears.

‘I’m so sorry, Dottie, Mrs Manderson. I’m so silly. You’ll think me such a rabbit. Honestly. It’s so silly… I’m a fool. But it’s just that I wanted the weekend to be perfect, and then the way Sebastian was so rude to you both earlier… I can’t think what he is about. I realise he’s not feeling at his best, but really such abominable rudeness… I can’t apologise enough.’

One of them on either side of her, brows furrowed with concern, they hastened to reassure her that it didn’t matter at all, that they perfectly understood.

And then a slight movement a few feet away had the three of them glancing around.

Dottie saw there was a bench, and upon it was Mamie Cotton. She had been seated—and now she had thrown aside her shawl, notebook and pencil and was lumbering over to them in her slow, heavy manner. She dragged Christiana into a tight matronly hug, and said, in a fierce voice,

‘What’s that so-and-so done now? Really, he is the flaming limit, Chris. I don’t know why you married him, I really don’t. He’s as like flaming Harold as it’s possible to get. And he’s practically twice your age! Really, my girl!’

‘Hardly twice my age, he’s only fifteen years older than me,’ Christiana protested, but feebly, dabbing at her eyes.

But unconcerned by this detail, Mamie continued patting Christina rather forcefully on the back and telling her off about her husband.

Somehow this approach seemed to calm her, and Christiana got her weeping under control. With a final wipe of her eyes and a blow of her nose, she stepped resolutely out of Mamie’s arms. Grumbling now, but smiling too as she retorted, putting her hands up as if surrendering.

‘All right, all right. I know you never liked him, but it’s too late now so you might as well get used to it.’

‘Humpf,’ grumbled Mamie, and her doubtful look told Dottie that Mamie Cotton and Sebastian Milner were never going to be friends.

Mrs Manderson again assured Christiana that she and Dottie quite understood that a gentleman with a heavy cold was not likely to feel particularly sociable, and that Christiana should not make herself unhappy about it.

Mamie added, not very helpfully, ‘Too flaming right! Not that Seb Milner is ever in the mood for making himself pleasant to his wife’s friends.’

‘Mamie, please!’ Christiana murmured in a tone of mild reproach.

Mamie took little notice. ‘Now look here, my duck,’ she said to Christiana, ‘just you go up to your room and fix your face, before anyone wonders what’s going on, and I’ll show these two ladies the rose walk then bring ’em back to the dining-room.’

‘But…’ Christiana began then glanced at her watch. ‘Goodness,’ she yelped. ‘The gong will be sounding in less than ten minutes!’

*

Intrigued? Midnight, the Stars and You will be out on 6th September in these formats: eBook, paperback, hardback and large print paperback.

The eBook is available now to pre-order only from Amazon, you can find the link here.

***

Summer news – 2 things!

/ Caron Allan / 6 Comments

I hope you’re all having a fabulous summer–you parents are probably already counting the days to when the kids go back to school, though, right? I remember the first day back when I used to sit and just listen to all that silence… bliss!

Welcome to all the new subscribers–there have been quite a number of you just lately – thank you so much, and I really hope you enjoy your free book. And a warm welcome back to you stalwarts who have been with me for a few years now, thank you so much for your continued support and interest.

I just have two quick things to tell you this month–I’m keeping it short (about time, I hear you say…)

1. Guess what? I’m now ‘officially’ cancer free!!!!!!!!!!! Woo!!!!!!!!! After almost two years of really tough times, we finally got the good news from my oncologist a couple of weeks ago. I can’t take it in, it still seems unbelievable. Hopefully I will start to enjoy my new freedom from hospital appointments, treatment, endless tests and checks, and just… well, get on with my life. Trips to the hospital comprised 75% of my social life–I have no idea what I’m going to do with all that free time now. Here’s a pic of the top of my head – I’m ecstatic to have hair again, it’s soft like a baby’s and a bit curly – though rather greyer than I remembered! (Yeah but my skin’s still awful!)

2. My new Dottie Manderson mystery is out on the 6th September. It should have been two weeks earlier than that, but a few things have  prevented me from meeting that deadline. And it seemed better to put the date back by two weeks than a few days. So that’s Midnight, the Stars and You – book 8 of the Dottie Manderson mysteries coming out on the 6th September 2025. If you’re desperate for something to do, you could head to this page on my blog and find out more about the book, and if you’ve got a few dollars/pounds/euros burning a hole in your pocket, preorders for eBooks are available here. Pre-orders are not available for paperback, hardback or large print paperback but I promise you they will be available on release day in September.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for the encouraging/uplifting messages you’ve sent me in the past, helping me to get through the dreaded Big C. I really appreciated it.

 

Midnight, the Stars, and You: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8 – coming September 2025

/ Caron Allan

So this happened…

Like an eejit I decided to go ahead and put my next Dottie book on Amazon for pre-order. It will be released on Saturday 6th September 2025.

It’s eBook only at the moment, I’m afraid.  Paperback, large print paperback and hardback will follow around the same time, but are not available to pre-order, sorry. The paperback version will also (eventually) be available from other online bookshops.

This is book eight in the Dottie Manderson mystery series. I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but here’s a bit more detail:

Book 8 of the Dottie Manderson mysteries finds Dottie fed up with waiting and all the fuss, and just wanting to get on with being Mrs Detective Inspector William Hardy.

An unexpected invitation could be just what she needs. How wonderful it will be to get away to a weekend house party and forget all the worries of organising the wedding! Unfortunately it’s a house party that will never be forgotten: squabbles, cliques and even unexpected death.

Of course, William, like all husbands-to-be everywhere, has no interest whatsoever in the problems of the right kind of lace or the perfect place setting. In any case, he’s got a special kind of investigation going on, one that means bringing a good friend to justice, stretching his loyalty to his profession almost to breaking point.

Interested? If you are, you might like to read an extract here!

If you would like to pre-order the eBook, you can click on these links below, or search on your local Amazon platform.

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

Amazon.au

Thanks for reading!

Deleted scene from Rose Petals and White Lace: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 7

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

From time to time, I share a deleted scene from one of my books. And as I was a bit stumped for something interesting to say, I thought I’d share this one, a deleted scene from the most recent Dottie Manderson mysteries, which was book 7: Rose Petals and White Lace. I suppose I could call it an internet exclusive 😀

In this extract, Dottie is on her way somewhere with William’s Uncle Joe and she bumps into William’s ex, Moira Hansom… I hope you enjoy it.

As they made their way back towards the house, a woman coming from the opposite direction stopped in Dottie’s path. It was Moira Hansom. She was clearly as astonished to see Dottie as Dottie was to see her, but Moira recovered her poise rather more quickly. Seeing that Dottie was going to talk to the woman, Joe continued a little further along the road, waiting for her just out of earshot.

Dottie was taking in the other woman’s plumper form, along with the loosely fitting dress and matching coat. A frightened, jealous sensation went through Dottie as she looked at her.

As if guessing Dottie’s thoughts, Moira laughed her smart sarcastic laugh.

‘Oh, you needn’t worry. It’s not William’s,’ she assured Dottie, patting her stomach.

Dottie was scandalised that she should speak so openly about it right there in the middle of the street. But her mind seized on the words and her nerves began to settle back to normal. Dottie nodded but said nothing. What on earth could she say to that?

‘That’s why Gervase’s parents are taking such good care of me,’ Moira said, the smart attitude dropping away with the lowering of her voice. ‘And thank God, I say. I told them we were about to announce our engagement, but that he wanted to wait for the end of the enquiry before making it official. Actually, he didn’t even know, I hadn’t told him. You won’t say anything, will you? Without them I’d really be in a fix.’

She held out her hand to show its only ornament: the old hideous, clumsy ring Gervase had given Dottie, or more correctly, had shoved across the table at her, she amended silently.

Dottie nodded again. She found her voice. ‘You’ve had it altered and cleaned.’

‘Yes. Well, it certainly needed it, we both know that. Though it’s not what I would have chosen for myself, of course, had the opportunity arisen. Still, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers.’ Her voice wobbled at the end of this little speech.

Dottie felt a wave of sorrow. ‘I hope things work out all right. And that everything goes well with the baby.’

‘Thanks. That’s decent of you. The Parfitts, well, they’ve been very good, actually. Gave me a cottage near them, it’s very pleasant and comfortable. And they give me a generous allowance. Promised to put him—or her—through school and college. Of course I have to toe the line, go to all their social functions, that sort of thing. Though not for much longer, of course. I’ll soon be shut away until after the arrival. In any case, it’s the least I could do.’

Dottie nodded, once again unable to think of anything to say.

Moira added, ‘I’m thinking that in a few years I might be lucky enough to meet a suitable chap amongst their acquaintance, it’d obviously have to be someone they’d approve of. But a girl needs to think about these things, and make the best of a bad job, I always say.’ She glanced at Dottie assessingly. ‘I suppose you and William are back together?’

Dottie was on the point of nodding yet again but stopped herself. ‘Yes, we are. He’s up here, there’s been another enquiry, this time into… about Gervase… and everything.’

Moira nodded, biting her lip. ‘Yes, I did hear about it. That was Evangeline, Gervase’s mother. She pressured Edwin to do that. It’s not really as personal as it seems. They just wanted to lash out, I think. What with losing his brother shortly before Gervase himself.’

‘It must be a terrible time for them. I imagine that your… news… has helped them a great deal. You’ve given them hope for the future.’

‘I think so.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Well, look, they’re coming. We’re on our way to visit some friends of theirs. I imagine you won’t want to see them.’

‘Not particularly.’ Dottie hesitated. ‘Well goodbye.’ She held out her hand.

Moira surprised her with a sudden brief hug and a cool kiss on the cheek. ‘You’ve got by far the best man,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

She hurried away. Dottie, lost in thought, caught up with Joe.

***

In the Neolithic Village

/ Caron Allan

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you will have seen this one before… I do quite often repeat myself. Mainly because I know anyone who has already seen it will either have forgotten it by now, or will be happy to gloss over it once more, but there will be many people who (hopefully) won’t have seen it yet.

Recently I’ve been digging out photos and other pictures for posting on Pinterest – it’s one of my favourite platforms, as I’m a very visual person, I am inspired by what I see. And during this digging out process I found some more photos I took years ago when we went to Skara Brae, in Orkney, an island group off the north coast of Scotland.

Seeing those houses had been a goal of mine since I watched that iconic Simon Schama documentary A History of Britain, and I had to see it for myself. It’s not often something inspires me to that extent, but that really did. And because I a) love people and b) love history, I wanted to see a place where those two things met. And where so gloriously stunning as the neolithic village Skara Brae, unearthed during a violent storm in 1850, it was last inhabited four thousand years before that. This glorious place set my imagination on fire, and I concocted this short story…

The corridors linking the houses are dark, black-dark, and yet the children run back and forth giggling and jostling as children have always done. They barely pause in their running as the corridors narrow or curve. They laugh in and out of the houses, running amongst the groups, tribes, families. Outside, beyond the house, the sea and the wind roar, and strange creatures prowl the earth. But not in here.

In the houses themselves, the central hearth is the main light and although bright enough to prepare the food by, the illumination doesn’t reach to the farthest parts of the room where the animals are safely housed against thick stone walls. But their soft noises and comfortable smells lull the elders who sit by the fire and prod the embers or stir the cooking-pot by turns.

Soon the eye becomes accustomed to the dimness and it is possible to see not just vague shapes but the shapes of the bodies of the cattle in their pens, or the shapes of the drawings in the sand of the fireside floor, the simple outlines that accompany the story that is being told. A half-grown child, listening to the stories with wide eyes is given instructions and items of interest, are brought from the dresser to the one who speaks, who holds each thing up for all to see and recounts all that is known, the history of the item, the way it happened to be found or created, all that makes it special is told now to those who are gathered. They’ve heard it before. Even last night but still they all look and a discussion takes place, even the child speaks. He will be a fine man one day soon. They look on him with pride. One day, he will be the teller of stories.

The food is passed round, grain and meat and fish and coarse bread, flat and hot from the stones by the fire. Everyone eats and there is a strange hush over those in the house for a time. There is a ritual about eating. There is a ritual about being in the safety of a warm and solid home with the cattle and the fire. This is what it means to be at home.

It is evening, the day draws to a close and everyone is gathered in the safe warmth of the roundhouse, and nearby, there are other houses, with other people gathered, and the children are the running link between them. More stories are told, more conversation and discussion over the nature of the stars and their brightness, of the tides of the sea, of the path of the moon who guides the hunters and blesses the crops.

And over the way, along the dark tunnel then out into the air, in another similar house, the ancestors listen and smile as the brightness of the moon creeps in.

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