Sunrise Over Pebble Bay is a story that’s very close to my heart. Olivia, the main character has important decisions to make, one of which is, when is the right time to have a family? At thirty-nine she is afraid she may have left it too late. 

Olivia is also an actor – she’s had several small parts but has yet to be offered the role that will launch her television career into the big time. She feels as if time is running out, both in her personal life and her professional one.

I remember that feeling so well. I’d always wanted a family, but I also knew that I wanted to be in a stable relationship before I had one and I didn’t get married until I was thirty-five. Also, I’d been a writer for years. I fitted it around my day job, just as Olivia fits her acting around her day job. I really wanted to write full-time. 

Like Olivia, I wondered if I’d left both having a family and writing full time, too late. My husband wasn’t so worried. He had two children already, but then we discovered we had some medical issues to address. By the time we were able to start trying properly for a baby I was forty-one. 

Olivia, on the other hand, is in a new relationship at the beginning of the novel and she doesn’t even know if her new man wants a family. The first thing she must do is to have the discussion with him.  She thinks he might be her soulmate, but he also has his heart set on a thespian career, so this is not an easy thing to ask.

My husband and I had difficulties conceiving. In fact, despite fertility treatment, it eventually proved impossible for me to conceive, but there’s a very happy ending to our story. I became very close to his children. Adam was just nine when I met him and Nikki was fourteen. We all had a great relationship – they were the best stepchildren ever. Nikki and I were passionate about horses so we had that in common. Adam and I were so alike, and so much on each other’s wavelength, that most people assumed we were related. 

Like me, Adam chose writing as his career. He had his first short story published at the tender age of fourteen. Today he is editor of the Guinness World Records Book and I’m so very proud of him. Nikki now lives in Canada with her own growing up family and they love their life. 

Because of my own life experiences, I’m a firm believer that love isn’t dependent on genetics. Families come in all shapes and sizes.  

So, does Olivia get her happy ending? Yes, of course she does. All my novels have happy endings. But you will have to read Sunrise Over Pebble Bay to find out what that looks like. 

Sunrise Over Pebble Bay is set in and around Weymouth, Portland Bill and Chesil Beach. These stunning locations provide the backdrop to my story that has at its heart the themes of choices, second chances and, of course, love.

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Della Galton’s newest book Sunrise Over Pebble Bay is out October 5th.

Available to pre-order/buy here:

https://amzn.to/3gqy6eG

https://amzn.to/3Db4QSP

When I began to plan the Riverside Lane series of 4 books, I had no idea how the past 18 months would highlight the importance of community spirit and the places we lived in.

One of the positive things about the past year has been the way people have begun to change their time for a better quality of life. So many businesses have benefitted from those wanting to stay close to home and connect with their communities.

During lockdown, when people couldn’t travel further than their local area, I began to read so many stories about how pubs were playing a vital role in village life. As well as providing vital food and services, they are also a huge source of human contact for so many people. At that moment, I knew I had to include one in the series!

The Village Inn of Secret Dreams is about the community of Cranbridge, a fictional village in the English countryside. Belle Clarke has lived in the Black Swan Inn for almost all of her life. However, the pub is no longer the heart of the village as its rundown state and arguing landlord and landlady are putting off many customers!

But if the Black Swan Inn closes then Belle loses both her job and her much loved life in the village. Thankfully her oldest friend Pete Kennedy has returned home from working abroad and has a plan to save the inn. The trouble is that Pete has some rather radical ideas for the renovation and Belle isn’t sure that any of them are going to help bring in any more customers.

However, when a snow storm hits, Belle and Pete are forced to put aside their differences and work together to help the village. This idea was one that I was inspired to include, especially when so many local pubs throughout lockdown were providing food and drink to the struggling rural communities.

If any good can come out of this time, I do hope that community spirit becomes a way of life for many of us. Making new local friends and supporting where we live is hopefully here to stay.

Community spirit is one of the many reasons why Belle is desperate to stay in Cranbridge, near to her friends and family. Pete has spent the past 3 years away from his family but if he is able to stop running from his past, he may just learn that home really is where the heart is.

As they both try to save The Black Swan Inn, secrets are revealed and just maybe, they’ll finally find out how they really feel about each other as well!

I do hope you enjoy reading The Village of Inn of Secret Dreams. I’m on Twitter and Facebook if you would like to contact me.

Happy reading!

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Alison Sherlock’s new book The Village Inn of Secret Dreams is out September 30th!

Available to pre-order/buy here:

🇬🇧  https://amzn.to/3D6HI7S

🇺🇸  https://amzn.to/3kevAJB

Blessed with deep water natural harbours and its strategic position at the crossroads of the Mediterranean the island of Malta has been fought over. 

Phoenicians, Arabs, Normans, Turks and many others fought over this small bundle of rock, roughly fifteen miles by eight. 

It was in the sixteenth century that what was termed the Great Siege, and later became known as the First Siege, took place between the Knights of St John for Christendom and the Ottoman Turks. During this period huge fortifications were built by the Knights of St John led by their Grand Master, John Paul de la Vallette – who incidentally gave his name to the new capital – Valetta.

The Ottomans were repelled. The Knights won that battle.

A few centuries later it was Napoleon who tried his luck, determined to create a base for his Mediterranean fleet. For two years the island was under French control but when French soldiers began sacking the churches, the Maltese rebelled and with the help of elements of Admiral Nelson’s Mediterranean fleet, the French were driven out. Cannons from their ships can still be seen around Marxemsett Harbour (part of the Grand Harbour) driven into the rock to provide moorings for boats and ships. It was after this that Malta and the Grand Knights appealed to the British crown to take over rather than revert to Sicilian rule.

Roughly halfway between the British base of Gibraltar guarding the western end of the Mediterranean and Alexandria at the eastern end protecting the Suez Canal and the route to British India the bombs began falling on Malta early in the Second World War. 

Day after day and night after night the shrill scream of the air raid siren sounded through streets, alleys and squares built by past generations including the Knights of St John who famously paid the rent of one Maltese falcon a year to the Vatican state.

Homes destroyed, many Maltese moved underground into the many old tunnels and catacombs where some lived for almost two years. I’ve been down into those domains, alcoves enlarged to accommodate whole families, a chapel and even a maternity unit.

At first, the island had only three old biplanes to protect them, Bristol Gladiators who were named Faith, Hope and Charity by the general population.

As the siege of the island intensified, food became severely rationed, supply convoys attacked the moment they left Gibraltar. Fish, rabbits and tomatoes became the staple diet and not very much of that.

Battered by as many as seven air raids a day, the island was in a state of almost perpetual siege until the arrival of Hurricanes and Spitfires, a welcome replacement for the old bi-planes.

The long-awaited attack into the soft underbelly of Europe on Sicily was launched from Malta, and it was in April 1943 that the George Cross was awarded to the island by King George the VI, the first to a whole people.

The army, navy and air force, could not have achieved the final victory without the determined defiance of the whole island. The George Cross still part of the Maltese flag, was justly deserved.

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Lizzie Lane’s new book Fire and Fury for the Tobacco Girls is out now.