Out on submission & a playlist

Miracles are like birds, they zip through the gap between heaven and earth on hollow-boned wings. You can't catch them with traps or nets or special glue, you have to use words.

It’s autumn and things are dying everywhere. Flies speckle the windowsills in the school toilets and the leaves on the hedge in the back garden are as crispy as Bran Flakes. There’s a big, dead spider in Jacob Bradley’s bedroom, all folded up like a hairy umbrella and Mum is there too, lying in the bottom bunk, silent and still like sleeping beauty. 

The bit about Mum is a secret. Dad says people wouldn’t understand, so it’s best not to tell. Jacob is good at keeping secrets, he has one of his own; as soon as he has found the right words and grown enough faith he is going to perform a resurrection miracle like the ones in the Bible stories Mum used to read aloud at bedtime. 

Dad says believing that everything will turn out all right in the end is the best kind of faith. But the end is ages away and Jacob can’t wait that long. His miracle will send things back to how they were and then Mum will get up and make the tea and put the clothes away in the right places. And they will all live happily ever after. 

Told by each member of the Bradley family, during a time of particular sadness, Here We Are Together is a keenly observed, story of doubt, faith and absent miracles amid the enduring and sometimes chafing bonds of family. 

So, my novel...

It was sent off to publishers earlier this week and now I have to wait. Fingers and everything crossed! It's called Here We Are Together (at the moment) and that's the blurb, above. Above the blurb is a picture of Southport beach, about a mile from the shore - an important place in the story. 

A little while ago, short story writer Adam Marek blogged about the playlist that accompanies his latest book The Stone Thrower (a brilliant collection which I discuss in this Thresholds piece). 

After I read Adam's blog, I made a list of the songs I listened to as I wrote and edited my novel. Some of the songs in my playlist are mentioned and/or sung in the novel (including a couple of hymns) while others have simply served as background music.  

Here is my playlist.