Western Gazette 3 July 1891

Emily Powell is a woman whose life is beset with adversity. Her respectable, middle-class home at Chudleigh Villas in Bideford hides her struggle to maintain the illusion of gentility. Coping with her husband’s mounting debts and alcoholism is secondary to her inability to come to terms with the death of her daughter. The loss of Florence, which occurred just before we meet Emily in Chapter 2 of Barefoot on the Cobbles, pervades every aspect of her life. In an attempt to cope with her grief, Mrs Powell all but ignores her other children, who are constant reminders of her loss. Her resulting attitude to motherhood is to have a lasting effect on her young servant, Polly.

Mrs Powell was tall and thin with swept back, wispy, fair hair, and a harassed expression. She was dressed in the deep lilac of half-mourning. Polly knew, from having spent a week listening to Lydia’s raptures about the latest fashions, that Mrs Powell’s gown, although elegant, was not new.’

Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.