Books by Simon Kettlewell

 

Books by Members: Simon Kettlewell 

Simon is the author of five books which range from gripping thrillers to family fiction.

FOUR CHILDREN. ONE MAN. HOW HARD CAN IT BE?...

Dear Chloe, Emma, Ruby, and Ollie,

‘I am applying for the position you haven’t advertised, has no specific job description and no hope of fiscal reward. I am applying because I have this misguided belief that it will look like it does on the cover photo of ‘The Complete Guide to Childcare’ where everyone appears relaxed and bright-eyed, not knackered, irascible or covered in snot.

Armed with a pristine copy of ‘The Complete Guide to Childcare’, ambitions to be the next literary giant and live off the grid, what could possibly go wrong?

‘Five minutes after Brigit’s maternity leave ended I realised the magnitude of my error. I was now the sole carer for two six-month old children who thought the hands smearing yoghurt over their faces belonged to somebody else, and a two-year old who walked for five steps and decided it wasn’t for her.’

I crashed into a world of mainly strong, resourceful, resilient women, a mountain of nappies to rival Kilimanjaro and a widening gap where my self-esteem used to reside.’

I am a man. I soon discovered this was not an excuse…’

Despite forty-five difficult years of marriage, Nell and Gordon Lewis seem to be drifting quietly into retirement until Gordon begins an affair with Cath, a woman twenty five years younger. To save her disintegrating marriage, Nell seizes on Cath’s dire personal circumstances, and invites her to come and live with them. Nell believes this will give the opportunity to observe what she hopes is a doomed relationship. Accepting Nell’s offer, Cath moves in, but instead of remaining the watchful victim, this arrangement quickly exposes Nell’s complicity in her long and turbulent marriage, her contempt for her husband, but also her capacity to find love where and when she least expects it.

I didn’t intend for Nell Lewis to have a life after the end of ‘The Truth About Us’. However, in response to its enormous success, requests to know what happens to her have come flooding in. There is no doubt that I left Nell in a real predicament, and once I began this little story, I could see that her journey was far from over. Whilst this is a short piece, I have tried to make it a rich and inspiring one that I hope people will enjoy reading as much as I have writing it.

Derek Jackson, 12 years old, promises his bedridden mother to find his father, Colin, who has absconded from the family home. Mam, his gran and Aunt Mavis all believe that Colin is mentally ill and should be put in a home for his own protection.

Colin had promised Derek to take him on a big adventure to the South Pole but he knew that his father had no intention or the courage to embark on such a journey despite having built a boat with a steel hull to crack the ice. Derek knows the truth of what his father is doing but this is just one more secret he has to keep. He begins to buckle under the increasing responsibility to keep the family secrets and the web of untruths he is expected to tell. He confronts his father living in a back street with Louise Draper and is side-tracked when he sees the object of his dreams – a colour telly as big as the flicks! He is quickly disarmed by his father with two cans of Double Diamond.

Derek returns home, sure that his discovery will kill his mam, and wonders if he should tell just one more lie.

A down-to-earth story of a young boy weighed down with lies to cover family secrets; of a feckless father and a mother unable to confront the truth and the shame that in 1972, ordinary people struggling to make a better life, simply can’t have ‘the man of the house sneaking away like a thief in the night’.

Marianna Ursu has always been a fighter. The daughter of a dead dissident, divorced with one daughter, she lives in a small and corrupt Transylvanian town, Tilda in post communist Romania. She receives a smuggled letter from her sister Anka who is trapped in the sex trade in London, Marianna is resolved to find and bring her home.

In London, Marianna infiltrates the traffickers’ world but discovers that Anka is believed dead. She has to kill when her own life is threatened and the far-reaching network of the sordid trafficking world now wants her dead. Desperate for help, Marianna places her trust in Jack Stratton, drawing him into a terrifying world where the police are no longer an option and his employers and the people he admires are not what they claim. Back home, Marianna’s daughter is taken hostage and she must decide between finding Anka or returning home.

Tilda is a town on the brink of collapse and is torn apart by fear and confrontation between those still fighting for liberty and those intent on its suppression yet it is the strength of the human spirit, the bonds of family and the belief that truth and honour still mean something that brings the story to a moving conclusion.