Rumour has it, I have a new book coming out soon (7th July, apparently I forgot to put it on this image)
It starts with someone arriving into Castlebury by what is my favourite 1920s mode of transport, the steam train.
I'm not the only one who loves it, as you can see from the opening lines of the book...
‘Next stop, Castlebury Magna,’ announced the train conductor as he made his way through the carriages. ‘Castlebury Magna, next stop.’
Not that Mrs Charity Murphy needed telling once, let alone twice.
After all, she’d spent her whole life in the village and loved travelling by train, whether it had been down to London for her annual Christmas shopping trip, or to her sister’s in Gloucester, or even to the beautiful, hauntingly flat Fenlands, where her husband’s cousin lived. She and Jasper even went to Edinburgh by train for their honeymoon, which really had been a once-in-a-lifetime trip for Charity.
She’d been back more recently, naturally. Why not, when her painful hips and chronic asthma and widow’s pension were no longer stumbling blocks to her desire to see the country she’d lived in and loved for 63 years?
Plus the extra, hmm… nine years she’d been permitted to continue her mission.
Besides, it seemed selfish to waste her, ahem, extended existence by doing her duty only to those locally. There were people all over the place who needed her, and there was no reason she couldn’t help as many as possible and enjoy herself at the same time. The fact she’d mostly been to places she’d longed to see before she died but never got the chance was purely accidental.
And each time she went somewhere–anywhere — she enjoyed the gentle rhythm of the steam engine and listening to all those fascinating conversations people had in the privacy of a train carriage.
Really, the things people talked about when they didn’t think anyone was listening…
The Phantom Murder will hit digital shelves on 7th July 2023, and you can preorder your copy now
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Thanks for reading! Catch you next time :)
Love,
Saff xx
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