Annie's Ghost: A Romance In Five Days

Left on her own on Black Mountain, Vermont, in January when the North Eastern states are experiencing one of the heaviest snow storms for years, Annie is slowly recovering from a hysterectomy. Her husband, John Jackson, is attending a conference in New York City. Her two grown-up children live a long way away, her daughter in Montana and her son and his family in Florida. Annie is exhausted both from the operation and the problems of trying to deal with her husband’s inattentions and the fact she is unable to work at the job she loves: teaching children in an all age school in rural Vermont. Once John has set off for New York she is both relieved and worried. At last she falls asleep and sleeps for over twenty hours. When she awakes she hears a voice from the garage asking her for help. And so begins Annie’s dilemma for once she revives the young man she finds in the garage does she succumb to his attentions? Annie’s Ghost is a deeply romantic love story with a shocking twist at the end that may break your heart. Praise for Annie’s Ghost “I think it (Annie’s Ghost) could be one of those books that becomes part of you, a quiet unassuming gentle book that grips your heart so tightly that it won’t let you go.” “I began by thinking what is this about but afterwards I thought this is a lovely little book that I would recommend very much.” “This is a small book but it packs an intensity that many so called big books lack.” “An intelligent little book.”

About the Author

I have three grown up sons and a grown up daughter, two grandchildren and have been married for 50 years to my wife Sylvia. I am 70 years old, a retired high school teacher of English, Drama and Special Needs, and have been writing off and on for as long as I can remember. My old school, Walbottle High School, always puts on a musical as the main production every summer. In 1997 I wrote the book, music and lyrics for my musical Ghostwalk. It is a rock and roll musical set in an American high school, circa 1955. It is loosely based on my favourite play, Hamlet, by the greatest writer who ever lived - William Shakespeare - and also refers in some of the events and names to my other hero, Elvis, the greatest singer who ever lived. I have also written a horror novel for children 11 to 12 years old. This came about because I wanted something that would work as a class reader when I was Head of English at my previous school. I even had one of the top agents for children's books at the time but the offers I received meant mangling my book to fit into a series and I simply wouldn't do that. GLOBE came about because a dear friend of mine got me started writing again when he came up with the idea of a molecular computer. We couldn't afford to build it - but Craig Venter is now making great strides in this area - so we decided to write a novel about it. GLOBE is actually the first part of a planned trilogy so if sales go well on Kindle then we will have to get cracking and write the next part. Annie's Ghost is a romance, something entirely different for me. It is more of a novella than a novel but, I hope, expresses something eternal about the human condition and the need for love and companionship. Sylvia's Sonnets is a collection of Petrarchan love sonnets written originally for my wife. The Alchemist's Daughter is part one on a series of seven novels. It follows the adventures of 12 year old Freya Vanaheim in 1900 Edinburgh when her father, a pharmacist but also secretly an alchemist, makes Freya his apprentice. This is against all the rules and unleashes terrible and terrifying forces against which Freya has to battle in order to save her family and friends and ultimately far more. The saga roams across time and history and alert readers may recognise a variety of allusions to different parts of the British Isles and historical events.

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