Bad Habits. We all have them.

Morning! Just a little plug for my latest book! Please let me know what you think of it if you read it. I'd love to hear your comments. Good or bad! :)

Judith Croft is a respectable, middle-aged, God-fearing schoolteacher. She is also a virgin. One day, she overhears two colleagues talking about her in the staff loos. Deeply wounded by their disparaging remarks, she sets about reinventing herself but to what consequence? Her life, after meeting the equivocal yet captivating Hunter Kyloe-Pilkington, descends into debauchery, which in turn sees her questioning everything from her faith to her status as a morally upstanding pillar of the community.

A dark, brutally honest, sexually-explicit and at times hilarious tale of friendship, family, colleagues and life. Bad Habits. We all have them.

Here is an excerpt from the book.

She drained her coffee cup and stood up, packed her trolley and retrieved her coat from the hook in the store cupboard.
‘I’d better get off home. I’m having dinner with my parents tonight. And my mother is attempting to cook beef cannelloni.’
‘Out of jars or from scratch?’
‘From scratch. She said it’s one of Delia’s. I assume she means Delia Smith.’
‘I thought she was dead.’
‘No. That’s Fanny Craddock.’
‘Fanny who?’
‘Never mind. I just hope it’s edible. I don’t trust my mother with tinned tomatoes at the best of times let alone mozzarella. She didn’t even know what mozzarella was until this week. She thought it was something the Pope wears. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that's a mozetta.’

Bad Habits is available now as an eBook on Amazon priced at £4.99 or FREE if you are Kindle Unlimited subscriber.

www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Habits-Tracy-Hefferon-ebo…/…/B07PGBHRH5

Time and Tide well under way!

It seems like ages since I last posted on my blog. It is ages. Two months to be precise. But I have been writing, when I can find the time. I've had a busy few weeks with only one day free for writing during half term but I'm plodding along, writing whenever I can snatch a few minutes in between working, swimming, gymming, walking, shopping, cooking, cleaning, eating, breathing and sleeping. It's tough but I have now written the first two chapters of Time and Tide, which equates to around 10,000 words.

I've had a lot of research to do with this book, mainly about the early 1900s and the first world war. The trouble is I get easily distracted during this phase as I end up reading one article then something will grab my attention and I find myself researching that too, whether I need to or not. It has been very interesting so far. It's a good thing I love history so much!

I have tried to put myself in the position of someone who has just woken up one hundred years in the future and just how surreal that would be. I've also tried to see it from my main character's point of view; stumbling across somebody who claims to have been fighting in WW1 one minute and flat on his back on a Cornish beach the next. I need to make it as realistic as possible even though the notion of time travel seems improbable to most of us. In my book it has happened. As absurd as that may sound. It has actually happened and both Kitty and Edward have to deal with the consequences, whether they like it or not.

I love writing. It is my favourite hobby. I have self-published three books and written a further two which are currently with agents but even if I never get a bona fide publishing deal, I don't really care. I write because it is my escape. Interestingly, I wrote an article recently for a women's magazine where I talked about a recent study discovering that a creative hobby is one of the best things we can do for our mental health. And I completely agree. Writing, painting, singing, crafting, gardening, dancing... the list is endless... all make you step away from your every day life and allows you to create time for you; an hour or so of pure escapism where your sole attention is focused on what you are doing in that moment. I will publish the article on my blog soon so you can read it and hopefully take up a creative hobby!

It's true. Honestly.

With the Boggins and Towpath novels both out for consideration with agents, I have nothing else to do than START WRITING ANOTHER BOOK! My sixth novel (have I really written five books?) will be called Time and Tide and is based on a mind-bending experience I had on a beach in Cornwall nearly two years ago. And no, it didn't involve any kind of enchanted fungi either. In fact I got home from my holiday and wrote down the outline of the story straight away, it affected me that much. I have only now got round to writing it.

To cut a long story short, I think we – yes other people saw him too – might have seen a time traveller. Ok, it sounds weird and you're probably sitting there laughing and thinking 'oh my god, she has totally lost the plot altogether' but it happened and I really, REALLY wish I'd taken a photo of him. Actually, I really, REALLY wish I'd asked him straight out who he was. But I didn't. I had just found a three-foot-square pitch of wet sand to sit on after driving for two hours in increasingly bad weather to find the bloody beach. You'd think it was Torremolinos, it was that jam-packed. And everywhere we looked, glum, irritated, pale faces looked back at us as if to say 'isn't Cornwall shit when it rains?' After umming and aahing whether to stay there or not or just go back to the static caravan, watch the telly and crack open the red wine and Doritos, we decided to have our picnic then leave. I wasn't in the best of moods, it has to be said.

Just as I'd got the food out and we sat there staring at a grey sea along with an equally grey sky, popping snack eggs into our mouths like they were going out of fashion, this figure appeared over by the rocks to our right. I noticed him straight away. He wasn't dressed like a tourist so he kind of stood out. There were no combat shorts, slogan t-shirts or Converse on him, that's for sure. No sirree! He was wearing what can only be described as a military uniform. In fact, he looked like he'd just stepped off the set of a World War One movie. I watched as he carefully made his way over the rocks and started to pick his way through the crowd. He looked dishevelled and tired and kept pushing his hair back off his face. He carried an old cloth backpack over one shoulder and looked utterly bemused.

I nudged my partner, then kicked my daughter and said in low tones 'bloke at two o'clock, bloke at two o'clock - looks like he's stepped out of the war'. This confused my daughter initially. She'd never heard of using the clock for positional purposes before so she started rummaging around for her phone to tell me what the time was. I kicked her again and hissed 'just look at that man Florence!' All three of us held our breath as he walked right by our feet and I remember looking at his muddy leather boots as he passed and thinking 'I've just seen a bloody time traveller'. I turned and watched as he disappeared over the dirt bank behind us. I stood up, expecting to see him sauntering across the car park beyond, but he was gone. Vanished. Into. Thin. Air.

I sat down and we all looked at each other blankly. I asked my partner and daughter if they definitely just saw 'that man', thinking maybe I was indeed losing the plot, but they both confirmed they had. All I remember saying was 'that was the weirdest thing I've ever seen'. We talked about him for a few minutes and then carried on eating our picnic in silence.

Anyway, that's my time-travelling story. Last year a similar story made the headlines and national news. A photo was uploaded to Twitter of a beach in Cornwall (honestly) in the 1940s. There in the forefront is a man with both his hands raised in front of him. Somebody commented that it looked like he was using a mobile phone and so the time travelling story exploded. I checked out the photo. I wasn't convinced at all. That man was merely rolling a cigarette. Not texting somebody.

But I saw a REAL time traveller. With my very own eyes. And that is what my new book is about. It's going to be brill.

The Charm

There has been a sudden resurgence in The Charm, five years after it was published! If you fancy reading it, you can find it on Amazon (as an e-book) at the below link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charm-Tracy-Hefferon-ebook/dp/B00KWL9HVA/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=the+charm+tracy+hefferon&qid=1553619446&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Or if you would like to buy a beautifully-printed, white-paper paperback, please click on the link below. 

https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=The+Charm+Tracy+Hefferon&type=

Happy reading!

Bad Habits is now on sale!!

I am very excited to announce Bad Habits is now available on Amazon for Kindle (and other e-reading devices!) for just £4.99! It took a while to get to this point but finally it's out there for all to read! Well, maybe not all but you know what I mean :) And please do leave a review if you read it. It's a very easy process and it will be great to know what you thought of the story.

So, here's a bit of blurb about the book...

Judith Croft is a respectable, middle-aged, god-fearing school teacher. She is also a virgin. One day, she overhears two colleagues talking about her in the staff loos. Deeply wounded by their disparaging remarks, she sets about reinventing herself but to what consequence? Her life, after meeting the equivocal yet captivating Hunter Kyloe-Pilkington, descends into debauchery which in turn sees her questioning everything from her faith to her status as a morally upstanding pillar of the community.

A dark, brutally honest, sexually explicit and, at times, hilarious tale of friendship, family, colleagues and life.

Bad Habits. We all have them...

Please click the following link for more information and to purchase :)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PGBHRH5

Coming soon!

Bad Habits

I've spent an awful lot of time lately fine-tuning the Bad Habits manuscript and making sure all is in order for publication. The story is about a middle-aged, dowdy school teacher, who is deeply religious, unmarried and, as a consequence, still a virgin. She decides to reinvent herself after hearing two colleagues ripping her to shreds in the staff loos. The transformation is staggering and soon she is online and looking for love. Enter Hunter Kyloe-Pilkington, a David Gandy lookalike with a penchant for facial hair and tattoos. Judith's life descends into debauchery, forcing her to question her life, her faith and everything else in between.

Bad Habits is a dark, explicit, humorous tale of morality, friendship and the human condition. Here is an extract from the book.

She drained her coffee cup and stood up, packed her trolley and retrieved her coat from the hook in the store cupboard.

‘I’d better get off home. I’m having dinner with my parents tonight. And my mother is attempting to make beef cannelloni.’

‘Out of jars or from scratch?’

‘From scratch. She said it’s one of Delia’s. I assume she means Delia Smith.’

‘I thought she was dead.’

‘No. That’s Fanny Craddock.’

‘Fanny who?’

‘Never mind. I just hope it’s edible. I don’t trust my mother with tinned tomatoes at the best of times let alone mozzarella. She didn’t even know what mozzarella was until this week. She thought it was something the Pope wears. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that is a mozetta.’

Publishing dates to be announced very soon :)

Good afternoon!

After everything I said about NOT writing another book this year... well, I lied. How can I not?! I had an idea for a novel a couple of years ago and I have been working on the plot outline this afternoon as well as submitting The Towpath to a couple of agents. I absolutely hate the submission process but I am ready for it now, having written the synopsis (a short and a long version) and edited the final draft of the manuscript. It has gone off to several agents / publishers and all I can do is hope one of them sees a glimmer of promise in the story. Until then, I will start work on book number six!

So... to my new novel! The title came to me in about ten seconds flat. It will be called Time and Tide. It is set in the Cornish creekside village of Lerryn and is about a woman called Kitty who is approached on a remote beach by a man dressed in what can only be described as a World War One fancy dress outfit. He seems confused as he stumbles towards her and asks if she speaks English. She says of course she speaks English! He frowns and asks her for water. She hands him her bottle and he drinks it all in one go. He then asks where on earth he is and, bemused, she replies that this is Cornwall, England. His face turns grey and he says that can't possibly be. Just a few moments ago he was fighting against the Germans in Arleux, Northern France. 

'This is the 28th of April, 1917, right?' he asked.

Kitty's blood ran cold as her eyes swept over his face, his clothing and his great, big, muddy boots.

'It's the 28th of April alright, yes...' she stammered, feeling the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. 'Right date, wrong year.'

Edward screwed up his face in confusion.

'What do you mean wrong year?'

Kitty swallowed hard. Why the hell hadn't she stayed at home today and baked some bloody cakes?

'It's not 1917. We've moved on a hundred years from then. Today is the 28th of April. But the year is 2017.'

I'll keep you posted... :)

Happy New Year!

Well, after a snotty Christmas that affected just about the whole family, we're finally into the new year and already it's been a busy one.

I've had The Towpath read by an independent editor who has given me some great advice and a small list of changes, which I am about to do. I will then start the submission process and wait to see if anybody likes it! I am then going to re-visit The Boggins of Willow Drove and a short story I wrote about a year ago about a Robin. It was meant to be the text for a children's picture book but it ended up being far too long so I'm going to be a bit harsh and cut it back by at least half and see if I can shape it into something submittable. (I'm not sure that is even a word.) 

A lot of people often ask me how many books I've written and are surprised when I say five, seeing as only two are published. So for the record, my published books are The Charm and Finding Vega, and can be found on Amazon in both eBook or paperback format. My third book is The Boggins of Willow Drove, a children's book. The fourth is Bad Habits, adult fiction about a schoolteacher who reinvents herself and The Towpath, is my fifth novel, which I have just finished and is based on a true story.

I chose not to self-publish Boggins because it's for children and children like real books. So ideally I wanted to get it published and out there on the shelves. Also I wasn't entirely happy with the finished novel and after receiving some amazing feedback from an agent who told me the submission was great but needed just that extra bit of magic, I took their advice and am going to re-work it. As for Bad Habits, the 'naughty book', I am going to try to get that on Amazon in the next few months. So watch this space!

I have a walking blog you might like to take a look at. It's called Fenland Ramblings and is all about my love of walking. It's quite new and I probably started it at the wrong time of year weather-wise, but it will feature lots of local walks to me and the odd far-flung one when I am travelling so please have a read and let me know what you think. Toodle pip!

http://fenlandramblings.tracyhefferon.com/