The Trinket Wife is about the disintegration of a marriage. With fortitude, laughter and tears, Elizabeth makes it through to a different life. Not all marriages and #divorces have a happy ending, but fiction needs an element of escapism.

In many of my Creative Writing classes, I have taught students to write about what they know and I realise that both, Marriage, A Journey, and A #Dog, and The Trinket Wife are about marriages falling apart. The #relationships could have, or perhaps should have, broken up years before the end but life is complicated.

When my first marriage fell apart it did so in three stages; 1. Recognition it was over. 2. Accepting it had been over for some time. 3. Knowing it was never going back together. This can be a time for pressing the self destruct button or finding a new life.

A new life can be just a dream, but dreams can be uplifting and keep people going with a vision in mind. When the last pages of my novels have been read I want to leave the reader with hope for a happy tomorrow. Not a vain and empty hope but one that starts with the will to build #self-confidence before looking for a romance that may follow. The grief of a lost relationship, followed by the finding of self, can deliver personal satisfaction even if romance is not on the cards. That is the essence of what my books are about.

The settings for Marriage, A Journey, and A Dog, begin in a little known market town near where I live. The story includes a trip around France where I have spent many happy holidays. Natalie, travelling alone apart from her little dog, travels on to Spain and Barcelona, such fun places I have visited. You may well have been to these places too. Spain includes the thrilling adventure of flying a glider in the Pyrenees. Going by train from Eastleigh to London gives most readers a place they can identify with.

The second novel, The Trinket Wife begins in the #New forest, where I grew up, again it takes the reader across the English Channel to France and for a bit of glamour the heroine visits the Caribbean, somewhere I have never been but I have read about.

There is more to my novels than circumstances and settings, they are about the heroine discovering herself. There are so many things about people and places we all don’t know about and it is good to find out while stepping out of a comfort zone. A good partner or having no partner could be stepping stones.

#Romance has no guarantee of perfection. If that were so there would be no divorce. Romantic fiction comes with a happy ending.

When the opportunity to live and work as a teacher in a different culture came my way it was too important an opportunity to miss. A chance for personal development with my second husband. Sri Lanka has taught me so much about another culture and how communities are the same but also different. An experience I have benefitted from greatly. Love, loss and seeking success is the same wherever I look.

Sri Lanka is a magical setting and I have been asked why I don’t set a novel there. So far I have accumulated a series of short stories that may one day be in print. I know of many great Sri Lankan novelists and I would not dream I could compete.

After a difficult year for everyone, there is hope for tomorrow and a value put on who we all are and what we can explore. You might like to try #writing.

If you would like to add a comment I would be pleased to hear from you.