Today I am able to bring you an extract from Kathryn Hughes prize winning novel. Her Last Promise, which was published on August 22nd. It was the Winner Book of the Year in Prima magazine Big Book
Awards 2019 . Before the extract, here's a little about the story:
Tara Richards was just a girl when she lost her mother.
Years later when Tara receives a letter from a London solicitor its contents
shake her to the core. Someone has left her a key to a safe deposit box. In the
box lies an object that will change everything Tara thought she knew and lead
her on a journey to deepest Spain in search of the answers that have haunted
her for forty years.
Violet Skye regrets her decision to travel abroad leaving
her young daughter behind. As the sun dips below the mountains, she reminds
herself she is doing this for their future. Tonight, 4th June 1978, will be the
start of a new life for them. This night will indeed change Violet's destiny,
in the most unexpected of ways...
Extract
2018
It all began in the November. I can clearly recall the heavy
charcoal skies and the mist which hovered two feet above the lawn. The damp
smell of rotting leaves mixed with old bonfire smoke. The whole garden seemed
to carry the weight of a burden. I’m not even sure why the wea ther’s relevant
but lots of stories seem to begin with it. Perhaps I’m trying too hard. Perhaps
I should have started with the letter instead. After all, it’s where the story
really begins. It was the catalyst for everything that came after.
I dropped
the letter onto the kitchen table and flicked on the kettle. I knew I needed
the fortification of caffeine before I would have the strength to open it. My
appetite had vanished but in another attempt at procrastination, I pushed some
bread into the toaster and stared at the letter again. My name and address were
type-written and the envelope was a rich cream colour and luxuriously thick. I
might have known. The sender had deemed the contents so important that I’d had
to sign for it. I propped
it up against the bread bin and pulled down my ‘World’s Best
Mum’ mug. I popped a tea bag into the mug and picked up the letter again,
fanning myself with it. I was deliberately putting off opening it because I knew
that when I did, my life would never be the same again.
I left the unopened
letter on the table and took my mug of tea over to the window, prolonging the
state of blissful ignorance for as long as possible. I stared out over the
garden to the shade of the horse chestnut tree where Dylan’s red and yellow toy
car was still parked. A layer of green algae covered the roof, which was no
surprise as he hasn’t driven it for years. His turtle-shaped sandpit was still
embedded in the lawn, the grass underneath long dead. His whole childhood
stretched out before me and I remembered fondly the little tea parties he used
to hold for his teddy bears in the Wendy house when he thought I wasn’t
looking. He calls it the shed now and denies ever having owned a tea set but
it’s safely wrapped in tissue paper and stored in the attic ready for my
grandchildren. I thought of him all alone in his room at university, poring
over his books, rubbing his eyes with tiredness, his stomach rumbling with
hunger as he wondered where his next meal was coming from. On the day Ralph and
I dropped him off, I’d carried a box full of pans and cooking implements into
the kitchen he was to share with his fellow students. There was no room in the
fridge for the fruit and vegetables I had brought as it was already full of the
essentials – lager, vodka and a token bag of lettuce. I’d had a feeling all the years of
nurturing were going to be undone in one term. There would be nobody who cared
if he got his five-a-day, ensured he drank enough water or rationed his Percy
Pig habit. And I was right, for in reality he lives on a steady stream of
Domino’s, Dairylea Dunkers and whichever lager is on offer in Tesco. He assures
me that during the first term ‘nobody’ does any work. No wonder the NHS is in
such a state.
I swilled my cup under the tap and wandered upstairs to Dylan’s
bedroom. The walls were bare, peppered only with the greasy stains from the
BluTack he used on his posters. I slumped down on his bed and smoothed out his
Manchester City duvet cover. His life can be measured in duvet covers. His
first one was pale blue with little rabbits and ducks on. Then we had
Teletubbies, Bob the Builder, a slightly worrying Barbie phase, Thunderbirds
and then finally this one. He didn’t take it to university though. He had
insisted on a plain ‘grown-up’ one and I’d realised then that his childhood was
well and truly over.
He’s studying medicine at Newcastle and I could not be
more proud of him. He’s worked so hard for it and considering his father left
us when Dylan went into Lower Sixth, it’s nothing short of a miracle. It’s one
of the many things I cannot forgive Ralph for, but when your secretary is seven
months pregnant with your twins what can you do? I felt the familiar bitterness
begin to creep in. Ralph and I tried for years to have another baby but it just
wasn’t to be. I think I coped with the disappointment quite well. I threw all
my energies into bringing up Dylan and Ralph threw all his into shagging his
secretary. There has been a long line of secretaries over the years,
culminating in Susie, the mother of his twin girls. I’m sure he loves them but
it amuses me no end to see him struggling to cope with the demands of two toddlers
and a young wife whose IQ is not much higher than theirs. Naturally, Susie has
had to give up work and his current secretary sports a blue rinse and wears
tweed skirts. I can’t help thinking Susie must have had a hand in her
successor’s selection process. Ralph is fifty-five now, the same age as me. He
should be enjoying a more leisurely pace. A couple of golf trips a year with
the boys, a nice flash sports car, time to relax in the evenings with a good
wine and a box-set. Instead of which, he has to go on holidays dictated by the
availability of a kids’ club and drives a huge family bus, the only vehicle
capable of transporting all the paraphernalia that accompanies his new family
wherever they go. As for relaxing evenings, they are consigned to distant
memory. The twins are particularly demanding at bedtime, I believe. He spends
the entire evening carting one or both of them up and down the stairs, offering
more and more extravagant bribes as the evening wears on. Still, you reap what
you sow, I suppose.
I’d known the letter was coming since the day Ralph walked
out but I just couldn’t bring myself to open it. It sounds pathetic now but I knew I wouldn’t be able to read
the words which would officially herald the end of my marriage. I closed the
door on Dylan’s room and headed downstairs, suddenly eager to get it over with.
I picked up the letter and ran my finger under the flap. The paper inside was
the same rich cream colour as the envelope. I pulled my glasses down from the
top of my head and began to read. ‘Dear Mrs Richards . . .’ By the time I’d
finished, my legs would hardly hold me up. The letter wasn’t from Ralph’s
solicitors at all.
How's that for a taster? Here's what others have to say...
'Storytelling at its finest with characters that come alive
and a plot that dances with intrigue. An absolutely first-class read that does
not disappoint' Prima
About the Author
Kathryn Hughes was born in Altrincham, near Manchester.
After completing a secretarial course, Kathryn met her husband and they married
in Canada. For twenty-nine years they ran a business together, raised two
children and travelled when they could to places such as India, Singapore,
South Africa and New Zealand. Kathryn and her family now make their home in a
village near Manchester. Her first novel, The Letter, was a Kindle Number One
bestseller.
You can read my review of The Key here.
Thanks to Kathryn Hughes, and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.
Don't forget these other great bloggers!
Thanks for the blog tour support Pam x
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