FEATURED AUTHOR: CATHERINE MEYRICK
an excerpt from her book.
by Catherine Meyrick
Ellen Thompson is young, vivacious and unmarried, with a six-month-old baby. Despite her fierce attachment to her family, boisterous and unashamed of their convict origins, Ellen dreams of marriage and disappearing into the ranks of the respectable. Then she meets Harry Woods.
Based on a period in the lives of the author’s great-great-grandparents, Sarah Ellen Thompson and Henry Watkins Woods,
Cold Blows the Wind is not a romance but it is a story of love – a mother’s love for her children, a woman’s love for her family and, those most troublesome loves of all, for the men in her life. It is a story of the enduring strength of the human spirit.
Amazon UK
Amazon AUKobo When she is not writing, reading and researching, Catherine enjoys gardening, the cinema and music of all sorts from early music and classical to folk and country & western. And, not least, taking photos of the family cat to post on Instagram.
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EXCERPT: COLD BLOWS THE WIND
George grinned at her. ‘We thought we’d give young Billy some air.’ There was a glitter in his eyes. ‘And then we ran into my mate, Dan, here.’ He nodded toward Dan. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Dan?’
Ellen raised her eyebrows. ‘Was he?’ She passed her parcel to Alice and took Billy, settling him on her hip and pressed her nose against his hair, breathing in deeply. She looked up to see Dan Roger’s forced smile.
Ellen wondered what George had threatened him with.
Ellen pressed her lips tight shut against the laughter bubbling up. She almost felt sorry for the skinny gutter rat.
Ellen held tight to the coin. She’d buy Billy a toy, that brightly coloured spinning top she had seen in the window of the pawnshop. She could already hear his burbling laugh.
‘I’ll remember that if there’s a next time.’ She had forgotten Dan Rogers was related to Hawkes. Will and George had done a month in gaol three years ago for the hiding they had given him. Rogers should remember that Thompsons never forgot a wrong.
‘Perhaps he’s sweet on you,’ Alice said.
They turned into Watchhouse Lane, past the mercifully quiet Sunday School on the corner. The children bellowing out their raucous hymns on Sunday mornings made sleeping late almost impossible.
‘Mr Woods has his son staying with him.’
Halfway along the lane, Ellen pushed open the gate with her foot. ‘I suppose he would be. Mr Woods is ancient. How do you know all this?’
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