Sleep Sister: A page-turning novel of psychological suspense (33 page)
Read Sleep Sister: A page-turning novel of psychological suspense Online
Authors: Laura Elliot
E
va sinks
a spade into the loamy soil and turns the first sod. She continues digging until the hole is deep enough to receive the roots of a slender magnolia tree. Beth places it carefully in position and Lindsey flattens the earth around it. Years will pass before it blooms but when it flowers its beauty will be unsurpassed. Beth kneels to hammer a small plaque with Sara’s name emblazoned on it into the earth. She wills her sister to speak to her, to breathe gently through the green, fluttering leaves. This search for an ethereal presence never leaves her but Sara’s spirit still eludes her.
Eva lays the spade aside and instinctively presses her hand against the small of her back. Rebuilding her marriage has been painful but now life grows within her, a fragile beginning but strongly rooted.
Lindsey stands above the plaque, her head bowed. Soon she will travel to Italy. Her tentative first step towards reconciliation with Peter. This is another beginning that may in time develop roots but she will only ever love one father.
I
n a small medieval
hamlet in Tuscany, Peter gazes out over a valley where rows of vines are guarded by sturdy rose bushes and avenues of poplars tremble in the evening breeze. So much beauty laid before him but he turns to the white studio wall where Sara’s photographs are displayed. He begins to paint. Familiar smells, the heartbeat of anticipation, the knowledge that it is pain, not pleasure, that will dominate this painting. He does not stop to eat or drink. When darkness falls he is still at work, stretching beyond hunger and loss until there is only the sense of movement fused on canvas. This painting is alive. Leaning rocks, mossy and dank, sentinels guarding an ancient site. The play of light and shadow on a jagged landscape. Dangerous clouds darkening the moon, haphazard and chaotic; a world ending and beginning. He continues to paint until the night closes in and he is able to lay his love to rest.
D
ear Reader
,
My books always begin with an idea, shadowy yet insistent. This is the one percent of inspiration described by Thomas A. Edison, who claimed that the other ninety-nine percent was due to perspiration. But that one percent is the catalyst that propels an idea from my imagination onto the page. The months that follow, as the story forms and reforms, allows plenty of time to mop my brow and wonder why, when the sun is shining and the world is at play, I’m creating an imaginary world with rules that only I understand. Finally, it’s over – the redrafting, editing, proofing and angst are forgotten as my book travels outwards into that great space occupied by you, The Reader. I cannot watch you turn that final page, or lay down your reading device, yet I know you are out there – and your support is the motivation that inspires me to begin yet another book.
Sleep Sister
was influenced by hidden stories that are locked away in the memories of women, their secrets carried to the grave. Some stories become public, either through whispered word of mouth or as a headline on a news bulletin. I remember a young woman from my childhood who gave birth secretly in her small bedsit. When her baby’s body was found abandoned in a nearby doorway she was traced, arrested, charged with infanticide and confined to an asylum. Years later, I was shocked and appalled when a teenage mother died with her son after she’d given birth to him secretly beside a grotto. Even as recently as last year, a day-old baby was found abandoned by the roadside close to a busy suburb. The baby survived against great odds, so, although the dark days of a one-time closed, judgemental society have passed, these tragedies can still occur.
Sleep Sister
is a fictitious story set in an imaginary landscape – but those are some of the stories that inspired me to explore the corrosive nature of shame and secrecy, the corruption of innocence and the brutality of power. If you enjoyed
Sleep Sister
(which is an extension of a novel I wrote some years ago called
When the Bough Breaks
) and would like to leave a review on Amazon or Kobo, I’d be most appreciative. Finally, if you’d like to
keep up-to-date with all my latest releases
, just sign up here:
Warmest regards,
Laura Elliot
A perfect divorce. A new flame. And a deadly obsession.
Nadine and Jake Saunders were married as teens. Tied to one another by a night of passion that resulted in a pregnancy neither could turn away from.
Now, years later, their children have all flown the nest and the pact they made as teenagers – to give one another the freedom to pursue their own dreams – has resurfaced.
But freedom comes at a price …
While Nadine and Jake begin to untangle their lives from one another, Jake embarks on a passionate affair with a beautiful woman, Karin Moylan. What he doesn’t know is the dark history Karin shares with Nadine.
As lust spirals into dangerous obsession, Jake must break free from Karin. But he must also ask himself how well he ever really knew Nadine. What secret is she hiding? The truth, when it is revealed, could destroy them all.
If you devoured
The
Girl on the Train
,
The Husband’s Secret
and
Gone Girl
then make sure THIS is the book you pick up next.
His name is Michael Carmody.
He is a writer and a father.
His son is lying in a coma, fighting for his life.
Her name is Lorraine Cheevers.
She is an artist and mother.
An illicit affair has destroyed her marriage.
Michael is desperate to find the couple who left his son for dead, a victim of a hit and run.
Lorraine is desperate to start a new life for her and her daughter.
Michael and Lorraine are about to cross paths – damaged souls, drawn to one another.
They don’t know that their lives are already connected.
They don’t know the web of lies surrounding them.
They are each searching for the truth. But when they find it, it could destroy them both.
Fragile Lies
is out now!
‘Dealing with passion, adultery, deception and tragedy, and how the past has a way of creeping up on you…a really
intriguing page-turner with a surprising twist
.’
Evening Echo
‘This page-turner is gripping, all the more because it presents the dilemmas of betrayal with
brutal honesty
.’
Irish Independent
‘This
well-crafted and compelling story
traces the deceits which begin unnoticed but end in the destruction of friendships and lives.’
The Irish Times
When 15-year-old
Cathy Lambert
runs away from her Dublin home, she is scared and pregnant. Settled in New Zealand with her new son Conor she believes the secret she carries will never be revealed…
Rebecca Lambert
was eighteen when her parents died and she took responsibility for her younger sisters. Years later, she is haunted by fears she hoped she'd conquered.
Freed from family duties, mother of three
Julie Chambers
is determined to recapture the dreams of her youth.
Married to a possessive older man,
Lauren Moran
embarks on a frantic love affair that threatens to destabilise her fragile world.
Anxious to make peace with her three sisters, Cathy invites them to her wedding.
But as the women journey together through New Zealand towards their reunion, they are forced to confront the past as the secret shared histories of the Lambert sisters are revealed.
‘A page-turner…has all the ingredients of a bestseller.’
RTE
‘A gripping, multi-stranded novel… An unusual combination of
fine writing, strong plotting and a huge cast of well-formed characters.
’
Irish Examiner
‘A
well-crafted and compelling story
traces the deceits which begin unnoticed but end in the destruction of friendships and lives.’
Irish Times
If you loved
Daughter
by Jane Shemilt you will love this.
It's every mother's worst nightmare. Carla Kelly wakes to find her two-day-old baby daughter's cot empty. Isobel has been taken.
Susanne Dowling has kept a terrible secret following her fifth agonising miscarriage. When at last she welcomes her new baby daughter into her life she realises they will both be safe as long as Susanne keeps her daughter close, and confesses her lie to no one. Ever.
Carla, a top model, launches a fierce national campaign to find her baby – but the trail is cold. She receives threats and recriminations from strangers – she flaunted her pregnancy in the media, she cashed in on it, she deserves everything she gets – and, pressured by well-meaning loved ones to move on, she begins to fall apart.
But one letter Carla receives stands out from the rest, offering support from a surprising quarter. It sparks a chain of events that opens wounds and exposes shocking secrets from Carla’s past that suggest what happened to her daughter was revenge a long time planned.
And it will bring Carla unknowingly close to the stolen daughter she has sworn she will do anything to get back…
‘
A bittersweet tale of love and heartache.
’
Evening Echo
‘
An entertaining and highly thought-provoking tearjerker.
’
Closer
magazine
W
riting
a book can be a solitary occupation but that solitude is softened by the people surrounding me – and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them. To my family, my husband Sean, my son Tony, my daughters Ciara and Michelle, and their spouses and partner, Roddy, Louise and Harry. To my extended family and to my friends, thank you for your support and wonderful encouragement over the years. I wish to acknowledge a special debt of gratitude to my mentor and writer, the late, great Sean McCann, who, sadly, passed away last year, but will never be forgotten.
To those of you I don’t know but who have taken the time to read and review my books, I offer you my gratitude and thanks. Sometimes, it feels as if my book has entered a black hole – then a review appears, a letter or an email arrives, and I read them with pleasure.
Finally – thanks to my agent Faith O’Grady and to the Bookouture team – the intrepid Oliver Rhodes, the unflagging Kim Nash, Emma Graves for the incredible cover, the vigilant Laura Kincaid, to Natasha Hodgson for her cooperation and attention to detail – and to my editor Claire Bord, whose editorial insights I respect and admire.
Published by Bookouture
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN
United Kingdom
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Laura Elliot, 2002
Laura Elliot has asserted her
right to be identified as the author of this work.
Sleep Sister
is a new, extended version of
When the Bough Breaks
, previously published in the United Kingdom in 2002 by New Island Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-910751-97-8