When Maggie Taylor accepts a new job in Manchester, she is sure it is the right move for her family. The children have settled well although her husband, Duncan, doesn’t appear to be so convinced.
But nothing prepares her for the shock of coming home from work one night to find that Duncan has disappeared, leaving their young children alone. His phone is dead, and she has no idea where he has gone, or why. And then she discovers she’s not the only one looking for him.
When a woman who looks just like Maggie is brutally murdered and DCI Tom Douglas is brought in to investigate, Maggie realises how little she knows about Duncan’s past. Is he the man she loves? Who is he running from?
She doesn’t have long to decide whether to trust him or betray him. Because one thing has been made clear to Maggie – another woman will die soon, and it might be her.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF RACHEL ABBOTT
I don’t think there
is such a thing as a typical day for me, and in some ways I’m quite
glad of that. At least life never gets boring!
As an independently
published author, I wear lots of hats. While I like to think of
myself primarily as a writer, I do have to think about marketing and
that takes up a very significant amount of my time, particularly
around the launch of a new novel. And, in common with all authors I
suspect, there are the admin tasks and the accounts to take care of.
So it’s not all a case of sitting thinking about my next book,
sadly.
On an average day, I
get up at 7 although I might give myself a lie in at the weekends
until 8. Then I usually burn my porridge. I put it on and whizz into
the office just to see what’s going on, check the emails, etc and I
get totally absorbed. Suddenly I leap to my feet and scurry back to
the kitchen to the aroma of cremating porridge, scrape whatever is
edible into a bowl, make a quick cappuccino and rush back to the
office. This isn’t a random occurrence. This is practically every
day, and I don’t seem to learn.
After that, how the day
develops depends on many things: the stage I am at with my writing;
whether my PA is coming in to work; whether I have a launch
approaching.
On days when I’m
writing, I try to do nothing else, other than answer essential
emails. I save the admin tasks up for the days my PA comes in to the
office, because they don’t required quite such intense
concentration. I drink several cups of cappuccino in the morning, but
never in the afternoon.
There isn’t really
any such thing as a typical writing day either. I may be planning,
researching, defining characters or sending long, detailed emails to
my police adviser to check that I’m not suggesting something crazy
in my story.
I’m quite organised
in my writing. I used Scrivener – a piece of software that allows
me to write as if in a word processor, but it has a whole range of
features that I use to keep control of my plot. I spend a lot of time
on character definition – I like to know what my main characters
enjoy in life and what their attitudes are to people around them. I
even selected images from the web that I think represent how they
might look. They need to be firmly in my head.
I don’t really break
off for lunch – usually I eat that at my desk. Bad, I know, but I
just get very absorbed. I usually have a bowl of salad that I can eat
with a fork and use the time to do some reading – usually research.
The marketing days are
a bit frenetic. I am a great planner, and I have detailed marketing
plans – especially around launch time. There is a huge amount of
preparation to do – not least for the launch party that I always
hold on Facebook. This is actually less about marketing and more
about thanking my fabulous readers for their support.
I won’t bore you with
admin days – there’s nothing exciting and glamorous about filing
and checking the accounts! I do enjoy them, though, because my PA is
a hoot and we laugh from when she arrives until she leaves.
Depending on how thing
are going with the book, marketing, and all the other tasks, I
probably stop work any time between 6 and 8 in the evening, and I do
generally work weekends too, squeezing in the shopping somewhere in
all that madness.
Despite all of this
frenetic activity, I also have a great social life. What Alderney
lacks in number of inhabitants (about 1800, at the moment) it makes
up for in enthusiasm for having a good time! There is always so much
going on, and everybody is always up for a party, a dinner, a book
club, singing, dancing, you name it. And of course, it’s the most
beautiful place to live.
The important thing is
that I look forward to getting up every morning. I can’t wait to
get into my office and get started on whatever the day has in store
for me. I work hard with very long hours, but I wouldn’t change a
thing.
EXTRACT
12 years ago – May 7th
Sonia Beecham almost didn’t
recognise the eyes staring back at her in the mirror. They were still
pale blue, of course, but the pupils were slightly dilated with
excitement, and the eyelashes were tinted with grey mascara – an
unusual indulgence, but she wanted to look her best because today was
special. In fact Sonia thought it was her best day since starting at
Manchester University six months previously. She had always found it
difficult to make friends, and the eagerness on her parents’ faces
when she came home each night was painful to watch as they waited to
hear whether she had met new people. She knew it was out of love for
her, but they didn’t understand the pressure it put her under.
She was shy.
Painfully, embarrassingly shy. If anybody spoke to her, she blushed
bright red. It was an instant reaction, and one that made her turn
away. Never in her wildest dreams could she imagine starting a
conversation with anybody. She would rather stick her head in a vat
of boiling oil, if the truth were known.
She had heard her
parents talking once, a few years ago. They wanted to know what they
had done wrong – why their daughter had grown up the way she had.
So now she had that guilt to bear as well. If only she could make
some friends so they would know they had done nothing – nothing,
that is, except love her and shelter her from anything and everything
that would be considered by most people to be a normal experience.
Now, though, things
were changing. Her mum had been so concerned that she’d persuaded
Sonia’s father to stump up for some counselling. Sonia had been
horrified. The idea of sitting in a chair telling a complete stranger
how embarrassed she was to open her mouth in company made her legs go
weak. She had resisted for months, but after Christmas not only had
her mum arranged the counselling sessions, she had insisted on going
with Sonia for the first few meetings to be sure that Sonia was over
her initial embarrassment and was happy to carry on alone.
Sonia had hated it
to start with, but gradually her counsellor had given her some tools
to help build her confidence. The best of these was the name of a
website designed for people like her. She had heard of chat rooms but
never been in one. Within a month she had realised that she had
plenty to say as long as she could keep it anonymous and nobody could
see her face. The best of it was, people wanted to listen. She didn’t
have her own computer to access the site, but there were plenty she
could use at the university, and that was better because nobody would
know what she was doing. If she had had a personal computer at home
her mother would forever have been looking over her shoulder.
What she hadn’t
told a soul – because he had asked her not to – was that she had
met somebody online who was as crippled with shyness as she was. He
had told her he was surprised he could even type without stuttering,
and that had made her laugh. That was his issue, the burden he had to
bear. He couldn’t get a whole sentence out without this dreadful
stammer halting him in his tracks. They had been talking online now
for a couple of weeks, and he said that he thought he might possibly
be able to speak to her. They had agreed that if she went red, or if
he stuttered, it wouldn’t matter. They were both in the same boat.
And tonight she was meeting him for the first time.
She had lied to her
parents. She had never done that before, but Sonia had known what her
mum would say: ‘Bring him home, first, love. Let me and your dad
meet him – do it properly.’ Her mother didn’t seem to have any
concept of how things were done now. Not that Sonia wanted to behave
like some of the girls on campus, but having to be vetted before he
could even go for a drink with her was a sure way to frighten a man
off – especially one as shy as Sam.
Sam was a good name.
Solid-sounding, reassuring. He had said it wasn’t a good idea to
meet anywhere too public. Having other people around was sure to make
them clam up and not be natural with each other. So she was going to
meet him in a little park just off the Bridgewater Canal towpath. He
said it would be okay there, because there would be people on the
other side of the canal at the cafés and bars, but nobody would be
able to hear if they made complete fools of themselves.
Sam had even told
her which tram to get and where to get off. She had followed his
instructions to the letter. The walk along the canal was fine to
start with. It was quite pretty, and she thought it was wonderful the
way places like this were being brought back to life. But as she
walked further on it all changed. There was a lot of redevelopment of
old mills, their blank windows facing onto the canal. There were no
cafés and bars. And no people.
Sonia hurried along
the towpath, ducking to walk through a long, low tunnel. She was
nearly at the meeting place. As she neared the end of the tunnel, a
tall figure stepped out onto the path and for a moment Sonia felt a
jolt of fear, but he gave her a little wave so she carried on
walking. She knew who he was. He was taller than she
expected, and as she got closer, she could see him smiling at her.
‘Hi, Sonia,’ he
said. ‘I’m Sam.’
He didn’t stutter
once.
KILL ME AGAIN – universal Amazon link is
http://myBook.to/Kill-Me-Again
RACHEL ABBOTT
Website: http://www.rachel-abbott.com
Twitter @RachelAbbott
Facebook www.facebook.com/rachelabbott1writer
BOOK TRAILER
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