I wrote Daffodils, the first book in The Katherine Wheel Series, many years ago. The location is loosely based on the village where my children were born in Wiltshire. It took me ten years to write, off and on, as life distracted me many times. It was so long ago when I wrote it that the internet wasn\’t really up and running and research was a lot more difficult to access. Many times I felt like giving up, especially as I delved into the atrocity of World War One, not a subject I had any previous inclination to explore. There was no getting around it though, as I followed Katy and Jem\’s lives through that devastating period in human history. And now I\’m doing it again with their children and their struggles through the Second World War!
And yet, as we all face challenges through the lockdown and witness new tragedies happening to families who are victims of this horrible virus, sometimes the dark side of life is inescapable.
I published Daffodils back in 2013 so I was especially pleased to see a fresh review from a discerning reader who posted it on Goodreads. Here\’s the review:
5 *s *****
\”I was given this book by a friend who thought that the WWI setting would appeal to me. It did. But that\’s only a tiny part of the book\’s charm.
Daffodils is a powerful book that puts you into the mind and heart of Katy, an inconsequential servant in a grand English house at the start of WWI.
Katy longs to break free of the restrictions and conventions that govern her life and you feel her frustration living in her claustrophobic village. Jem is a gardener on the same estate and has always loved Katy and when she agrees to marry him it seems that their path is set. However, tragedy strikes with a cruelty that threatens their relationship and things take a turn that leads them both into fear and danger.
I felt I really knew Jem and Katy. What happened to them mattered and I wanted to make things better for them. They are rounded, believable characters and their suffering was all the more real as a consequence. There are other, distinctive people in the book -some of them with character failings that make them unpleasant and even dangerous.
Katy does get to travel, but not under ideal circumstances. Her time during the war is written with a clarity and understanding that was wholly convincing and some of the detail concerning field hospitals in France was fascinating.
I loved this book and am now going to buy the next in the series.\”
www.intheplottingshed.com 