Well, at long last, I have finished ‘Elyse’, the fourth book in the series of Evening Wolves. There really was no excuse for it to take so long to write this book but my life has been a little crazy these last couple of years.
Firstly, I moved, with all of my family, to France. We moved in December, which was hard going, to be honest, but we did it. In January, I went down with a dreadful dose of flu, which ended up as pleurisy and with me on a breathing machine. I was barely over that and my older brother became ill and died suddenly within two days. It was a terrible shock, made worse by the fact that my eldest brother had died the previous year, just months before I moved to France.
The next period of time was spent going back and forth to the UK, sorting out my brother’s affairs, as I was his official next of kin.
Later that year, we started on the renovations of the entire property, which were quite extensive. Living in building chaos is not conducive to writing but I did manage the odd chapter. We began with the gites and then moved on to the house. It all took much longer than I had planned, as it usually does. I had just finished painting the last room in the house, when, in March of that year (last year) I fell down a few stairs and badly fractured my ankle and leg in no less than four places. I had to undergo an emergency operation, which was a harrowing experience, to say the least. As if that were not bad enough, the fractures became displaced and I had to have a second operation on the 1st June, where they re-broke all the bones and re-set them. I am now full of metal bars, screws and nuts and bolts.
After a truly nightmare time of it over a period of many months, I began my recovery. Having been in casts, boots and a wheelchair for over 6 months, I required intense physiotherapy. I had to learn how to walk again and slowly, very slowly, begin to use my ankle. I am still having physiotherapy twice a week, more than a year after the accident.
Being immobile for months, friends thought that I should use the time to write, specifically to finish the last book I had been sweating over. But I was pretty ill those months and my days were filled with hospital visits, nurses and physiotherapy appointments. The last thing I felt like doing was writing!
But, as I began to feel better in myself, I set about finishing Elyse. It is now ready to go to print and should soon be available on Amazon. I have posted the first few pages of the book for those who have been eagerly waiting for this next story in the Evening Wolves series.
Meanwhile, I have started the next book; Esobel, set in 1652. I have written the first few chapters and am looking forward to writing this book, as there will be some pretty horrendous subjects explored in it. The date it is set in should give you a clue as to what the story contains.
I will go into more detail about ‘Esobel’ in my next blog – it’s good to be back!!!!!
Amelia.