The Ferryboat

My second People’s Friend serial, The Ferryboat, was published in the magazine last year.

Now The Ferryboat is available as a large-print book in libraries. It’s been published by Ulverscroft in their Linford Library Romance series.

I really like the cover. I wasn’t consulted over it but they obviously gave a good brief to their designer/artist.

This is the blurb on the back:

When Judy and Tom Jeffreys are asked by their daughter Holly and her Scottish chef husband Corin if they will join them in buying The Ferryboat hotel in the West Highlands, they take the plunge and move north.

The rundown hotel needs much expensive upgrading – and what with local opposition to some of their plans, and worrying about their younger daughter, left down south with her flighty grandma, Judy begins to wonder if they’ve made a terrible mistake.

When Shirley Blair at The People’s Friend asked me to come up with a couple of ideas for a new serial I thought a hotel would be a good setting. As a student I had two holiday jobs working in hotels so had some knowledge of behind the scenes (and some experiences completely unsuitable for sharing with People’s Friend readers … ) My mother’s father had an inn and I heard lots of stories about it. And of course I’ve stayed in various hotels.

So, thinking of all of these, I brainstormed on paper anything and everything that might be useful. The lovely West Highland setting was clear in my mind. So then all I had to do was conjure up the characters … and some plot … and write it …

My first serial, since you ask, was The Family at Farrshore and it is available in large-print too.

 

So off you go to the library – I do hope there is still one near you.