Does that ever happen to you? Does the strain of a particular song or a scene in a particular film, or perhaps the atmosphere captured by a particular painting, ever bring a kind of pang to your innermost being? A gush of nostalgia, longing, wishing you could be back there, or still in there, in [...]
Guilt-ridden au pair Kitty O’Hara urgently needs to atone for a wrong done to her best friend Dianne Lenore, who lives in an isolated state at the top of the sea-view Cliff House. Before turning out my bedside lamp in the small hours, I decide to do something very bold. Even by Kitty O’Hara standards. [...]
Generally speaking, I don’t like making sweeping statements. But I’m going to make one now. The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett is one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read. There. I’ve said it. And that’s coming from someone who has read lots and lots of books. I used to think it [...]
You’re in my bed again, at last, tonight. You’re in my home again - or maybe prison to you, but home to me - at last, tonight. The moon is out, as it was that first night; but tonight only one pair of eyes is watching it. Yours are closed as you lie fast asleep, [...]
On her first day working as an au pair at Cliff House, Kitty discovers the true colours of the family pet, Boris the Mad Belgian Malinois. .......... “BORIS!” I yell as the sodding animal wrenches the lead out of my hand and bounds off after a large ball that appears out of nowhere. “Boris! Come [...]
In my last extract, traumatised Kitty O'Hara gate-crashed the graduation ball of her ex-colleagues at St Andrew's University. Reaching rock bottom, she now realises that something has got to change in her life. CHAPTER TWO Okay, let’s take a step back. For the first six months after the incident, I fought bitterly against the idea [...]
Here’s a preview of my latest novel. Following a traumatic incident that occurred halfway through her university course, quirky Kitty O’Hara has secluded herself in her home town these last two years, finding herself angry and aimless in life. When she gate-crashes the graduation ball of her former friends, she reaches rock bottom and realizes that something [...]
Wendy Skorupski 