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/

The Towpath

The Towpath has been an amazing book for me to write but after the fifth read / edit, I was all towpathed out. I've had a little break from it and have finally finished crossing the t's and dotting the i's. The next task was writing a 250-word pitch which I always find daunting. Writing a book is easy. You just sit down and write it. But condensing the story into just 250 words is hard. Writing a synopsis is even harder. But I've managed to complete both and am really happy with everything I've done. The book is with a reader at the moment and I avidly await his feedback. And then I shall start submitting.

I remember an email I received from an agent after submitting The Charm several years ago. It was a rejection email and said these exact words:

Malorie Blackman wrote 9 books and was submitting for 2 and a half years (and got 82 rejections) before her first book deal... and then she became Children’s Laureate - so do persevere!

Those words of encouragement stick in mind and always will. I know it's hard to get that book deal but I will try as hard as I can to get one! In the meantime here is the 250-word pitch I wrote for The Towpath. I do hope you enjoy it.

It’s the end of May 1953. A relentless heatwave has burned the country to a crisp and the whole nation is at fever pitch as it prepares to crown its’ beautiful new Queen. Streets are scrubbed spotless. Red, white and blue bunting is strung from every lamppost. And thousands upon thousands of kitchens have produced thousands upon thousands of cakes as the countdown begins to a magical day full of pomp, pageantry and patriotism, the likes of which this post-war kingdom has never seen before.

Barbara Songhurst and Christine Reed, two young friends from Teddington, have planned the weekend leading up to the big day with military precision. Christine is preparing to battle through the crowds just so she can see the dashingly handsome Prince Phillip with her very own eyes. And Barbara has bought a yellow and white floral bathing suit from the West End which will hopefully clinch her the title of Beauty Pageant Queen 1953.

Just a few streets away lives Alfred Whiteway. He despises the Royal Family and he despises the Queen and everything she stands for. The only plans he has for the 2nd of June are to get completely rat-arsed and fuck a prostitute. Maybe two. With a penchant for knives and a reputation locally as a lunatic who swings from tree to tree like an ape, Alfie is the kind of man best avoided.

But on the 31st of May, two days before Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II, Barbara and Christine's paths crossed with Alfred Whiteway's.

It was totally unavoidable. And it cost them both their lives.