A bit of marketing work has resulted in a quick response from BBC Radio Norfolk. I'm going in next Tuesday morning (3rd February) to talk about Kindred Spirits and the ghost story which inspired it. I'll be on air sometime between 10 and 11 am.
The paras from my Press Release that interested them most, I think, are these:
Is this a real-life Norfolk ghost story?
When author, Lucy McCarraher, had recently moved from London into a 17th century, South Norfolk farmhouse, she was visited by a psychic friend. That evening, a spirit made contact, giving his name and position in the local churchyard. The man wanted Lucy, it seemed, to tell his story and “right the wrong” that was done to him in the 1940s.
Lucy was intrigued, if sceptical, but his gravestone was exactly where he had said and local research revealed, amazingly, that a man of that name (the “Henry Tinker” character in Kindred Spirits), had indeed lived in the village, married, had children and left under a cloud of family suspicion in 1946.
“His descendants gave me as much information as they could, but they were children at the time and all the adults now dead. But I had enough – a death, no will, missing funds, someone blamed, family divisions, lives blighted – to set my imagination, and sense of duty to my ghost, working. After my first novel, Blood and Water was published, I decided to write a second book combining some of my own experiences in moving to the country, with a fictional village of the 1940s – and of course World War Two was a great period in Norfolk history,” said Lucy McCarraher.
When author, Lucy McCarraher, had recently moved from London into a 17th century, South Norfolk farmhouse, she was visited by a psychic friend. That evening, a spirit made contact, giving his name and position in the local churchyard. The man wanted Lucy, it seemed, to tell his story and “right the wrong” that was done to him in the 1940s.
Lucy was intrigued, if sceptical, but his gravestone was exactly where he had said and local research revealed, amazingly, that a man of that name (the “Henry Tinker” character in Kindred Spirits), had indeed lived in the village, married, had children and left under a cloud of family suspicion in 1946.
“His descendants gave me as much information as they could, but they were children at the time and all the adults now dead. But I had enough – a death, no will, missing funds, someone blamed, family divisions, lives blighted – to set my imagination, and sense of duty to my ghost, working. After my first novel, Blood and Water was published, I decided to write a second book combining some of my own experiences in moving to the country, with a fictional village of the 1940s – and of course World War Two was a great period in Norfolk history,” said Lucy McCarraher.
On the basis of my Radio Norfolk interview, I got on the phone to the Norwich branches of Waterstones and asked if they'd order in copies of Kindred Spirits, which they were very happy to do and I may get some signing events at one as well. It's nice that the managers are interested in supporting local authors - hopefully book buyers are too! I shall be ringing round as many Norfolk bookshops as I can, in the next couple of days, capitalising on this piece of publicity.
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