Front Page Fridays Week-23
Welcome to Front Page Fridays Week-23. On Fridays I highlight a new book by showcasing the first page.
My Front Page Fridays Week-23 guest is Stephanie Carty and her soon-to-be-published thriller A Safe Place.
Here’s the first page:
Chapter One
Cate
The sun is almost at its highest point in the sky which means it’s the middle of the day. I like middles; not too much and not too little. I like to be middling. I’m a grateful girl, that’s very important. I have Mam and our village of Halham – the two best things. That means I don’t need anybody or anywhere else. I pinch the skin on the back of my hand to try to stop the next thought from coming again but it comes anyhow. Not exactly a thought with words in sentences that can be put in order. More like a tunnel. If I look through the long, long tunnel in my mind, I spy things that I haven’t seen in real life yet. I spy with my little eye something beginning with O.
Outside the village.
I can’t quite imagine what it looks like it because I don’t know what there is past the woods and farmland. There must be other villages of course, and far bigger places like cities that are still in England. There’s Rome and Greece, although they’re not ancient any more. There is Notre Dame cathedral, the Pyramids, chocolate factories, soldier barracks, graveyards, the desert and ginormous boats that float on the surface of the sea because of physics. There are babies and girls the same age as me and fathers and millions of people who might be sitting in their villages right now wondering what other places look like or sound like or smell like, and whether it’s true as Mam says that there’s no place like home.
About the Book
A Safe Place: A gripping novel full of secrets, lies and drama
What happens when your home becomes your prison?
Twelve-year-old Cate has never left her village. She’s never had a friend. She’s never even hugged her mother.
Imogen, Cate’s mum, spent her youth travelling the country with her father. He believed she had a gift and used her for his own gain. With her innocence snatched away, Imogen vowed to build an idyllic and safe childhood for her daughter.
But Cate soon becomes curious about life outside their home, and Imogen begins to wonder if the decision to close them off from society was the right one. Then when Zach, Imogen’s enigmatic ex-lover, returns to the village, years of deception come to light.
Why has Imogen never touched her daughter? Is Zach responsible for a heinous crime? And what is Cate truly capable of?
A Safe Place will be published by Bloodhound Books on 26 November 2024 A Safe Place: A BRAND NEW gripping novel full of secrets, lies and drama eBook : Carty, Stephanie : Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Available on kindle, paperback and audiobook
https://amzn.eu/d/fYtKMlU
About the Author
Stephanie Carty is a writer and clinical psychologist living in Gloucestershire. Her short fiction is widely published and her collection The Peculiarities of Yearning won its category in the Eyelands Book Awards 2023. An early version of A Safe Place was a finalist in the TLC Pen Factor Novel Competition 2022.
Twitter / X - @tiredpsych
Instagram - @stephaniecartyauthor
Facebook – Stephanie Carty Author
Website – stephaniecarty.com
https://stephaniecarty.com/about/
https://psychologyforwriters.thinkific.com/
I hope you enjoyed reading Front Page Fridays Week-23. Please come back next time when I’ll be featuring a different author and the first page of their book.
And please take a look at books already featured on Front Page Fridays:
1. Blood Ribbons by Lin Le Versha – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-1/
2. Fatal Blow by Brian Price – https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-2/
3. Can I Trust You? by Rob Gittins – Front Page Fridays Week-3 – Rachel Sargeant
4. The Last Bird of Paradise by AJ Aberford – Front Page Fridays Week-4 – Rachel Sargeant
5. Never Forgive You by Hilly Barmby – Front Page Fridays Week-5 – Rachel Sargeant
6. The Mists of Pencarrack Moor by Terri Nixon – Front Page Fridays Week-6 - Rachel Sargeant
7. The Thief of Joy by Stacey Murray – Front Page Fridays Week-7 - Rachel Sargeant
8. Edge of the Land by Malcolm Hollingdrake – Front Page Fridays Week-8 - Rachel Sargeant
9. The Mind of a Murderer by Michael Wood - https://www.rachelsargeant.co.uk/front-page-fridays-week-9/
10. The Midnight Man by Julie Anderson – Front Page Fridays Week-10 - Rachel Sargeant
11. Dark Road Home by Sheila Bugler – Front Page Fridays Week-11 - Rachel Sargeant
12. Her Charming Man by Rachel Sargeant – Front Page Fridays Week-12 - Rachel Sargeant
13. Wedding Bells at the Lakeside Hotel by Linda Huber – Front Page Fridays Week-13 - Rachel Sargeant
14. Dark Island by Daniel Aubrey – Front Page Fridays Week-14 - Rachel Sargeant
15. The Shame by Maureen Myant – Front Page Fridays Week-15 - Rachel Sargeant
16. Dead Mile by Jo Furniss – Front Page Fridays Week-16 — Rachel Sargeant
17. The Violin and Candlestick by David Jarvis – Front Page Fridays Week-17 — Rachel Sargeant
18. New Memories by S.E. Shepherd – Front Page Fridays Week-18 — Rachel Sargeant
19. Young Blood by Victoria Gemmell – Front Page Fridays Week-19 — Rachel Sargeant
20. Private Investigations by Rob Gittins – Front Page Fridays Week-20 — Rachel Sargeant
21. The Car Horn revolution by A.J. Aberford – Front Page Fridays Week-21 — Rachel Sargeant
22. What Lies Beneath by Maureen Myant – Front Page Fridays Week-22 — Rachel Sargeant