🍂 Introducing The First and Last Summer

There’s something about the turning of the seasons that always makes me reflective and a little melancholy. The golden old master style light of autumn, the sense of endings and beginnings woven together, and the wistful beauty of change as the year leans towards its close makes me long for new starts yet also yearn for the past. It's a time for new starts and projects - new terms, pencil cases and pristine school books - so it feels right that my new novel, a story about love, memory, and second chances, will be published this October. The heroine, Kat Beauchamp, is certainly in the autumn of her life and the novel opens with widowed Kat doing her best to come to terms with knowing her time at her beloved house is drawing to a close.

Set on the sun-drenched island of Mallorca, THE FIRST AND LAST SUMMER is a departure in location for me. It's a change from the worlds of Rosecraddick and Polwenna Bay and one I needed this year. Cornish inspiration is never far away, but this time my imagination decided to take me on holiday even if I physically stayed at home!

Inspired by a friend’s beautiful house , by stories of love and loss, and coloured by the nostalgia of the 1970s ( always tinted orange to me since was a seventies child! A little like the sutumnal hues outside) I found myself weaving a tale that is both wistful and hopeful. It's a meditation on how the past continues to shape our present and that the people we become are moulded by the people we were.

At the heart of this story is Kat Beauchamp, a widow returning to Mallorca for one final summer. As she faces the autumn of her own life, Kat must also confront the echoes of her first great love which was lost decades ago to bitter political divides. Alongside Kat's journey is that of Lily, a young woman navigating heartbreak and whose tentative steps towards new love are shadowed by old secrets. Across generations, the two women find their lives entwining in unexpected ways, their stories bound by friendship, legacy, and the enduring magic of first love.

The First and Last Summer is a book for anyone who has wondered about the choices not taken. It's a story for anyone who has asked, what if? It’s nostalgic, tender, and full of sunlight as it reminds the reader of the beauty found in endings as well as beginnings. I cried my eyes out when I finsihed it and the ending has stayed with me. It's hopeful and real. I can't say too much more...

Anyway! I can’t wait to share this book with you this October, and I hope it becomes the perfect companion to your autumn evenings, whether you’re curled up with a blanket and a mug of something warm, dreaming of golden Mediterranean days as the leaves fall outside your window, or grabbing some late sunshine on a beach somewhere!

Keep your eyes peeled for more insights, pictures of the places that inspired the book and details of publication dates - on my social media.