A New Beginning...

The Legend Of Henry Petch, poetry, and wonderful memories!

Welcome to my first newsletter in 2025. I hope you are well.

My apologies for taking so long to write to you. I needed some time to recover from illness. So I have been reading, going to the library, and sitting quietly at the desk in my bedroom.

Winter is also naturally the time of year to rest, and regain our energy for the Spring. When the sap rises again through the earth, for the trees and flowers to unfurl their leaves and buds.

Giving us a fresh start, symbolised by the delicate and beautiful snowdrops in the photograph above.

Exciting times ahead!

Stepping back from being online as much as usual also gave me more time to focus on the projects I was involved in. I did a course, and learned how to create and manage Facebook ads, so that I could reach more readers. This needed a lot of focus on my part, since I’m much better working with words rather than numbers.

However, I’m pleased to report that both The Bookseller’s Ghost and Old Meg And The Fox are now being read by a lot more people in the USA where I placed my first ad, and on Kindle Unlimited.

The final cover reveal for The Legend Of Henry Petch

I now have a schedule planned for the release of several books across 2025, the first of which is of course The Legend Of Henry Petch. I finally decided on an ebook cover for it, which you’ll find above. I hope you like it.

Both the ebook and paperback versions will be available on Amazon later this month, since I decided after all to share them with a wider audience. After adding a little more to the story, and doing a more in depth edit of the first draft I shared in my earlier newsletters.

Part of the reason for this was seeing Henry wearing a crown on the cover, but which wasn’t difficult to add to the story. Given his close association to the wolves, and obsession for Anne. Although I didn’t see him as a King of men, it wasn’t too much of a stretch of the imagination to believe he might regard himself as King of the wolves. Certainly a bridge between other men, and them, the more he became part of both.

I’m releasing The Legend Of Henry Petch not as the 3rd book in my Ghosts from the Bazaar series, but book 1 in The Dark Side of Folklore. A new series which will be better suited to some of the other stories I also have in mind, based on a swarm of bees in 1840; the ghostly soldiers of a long ago war; a vampire, and so on. All of which will again be based on folklore. Just the same as Henry’s story is.

I have also arranged for there to be an Editorial review of the book, which I will again share with you.

A time for reflection

Taking a break from work gave me the opportunity to remember other things. Including my parents, and grandparents who are no longer with us. That may sound odd, and I certainly will never forget or stop loving them, but my head is usually full of stories and my imagination doesn’t stop working.

For instance, walking past some early daffodils it soon came to me that these were one of my mother’s favourite flowers. Even though towards the end of her life she had lost so many precious memories, she could still recite the poem below.

It’s true that we never know the effect of what we do or say will have on others, but we’ll always remember how they made us feel. None more so than when she unexpectedly repeated Wordsworth’s Daffodils from start to finish. After learning it a long time ago, as a child.

This became a wonderful memory for me, as I listened to the happiness in her voice that she could still share the words. Something I’ll never forget.

Daffodils

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."

William Wordsworth ( 1770 - 1850 )

I also always come back to poetry

There is something very special about a poem. The beautiful words and phrases that may only be a snapshot of a special moment or feeling, but somehow touch the heart, or have the power to reach deeper into the soul.

It doesn’t surprise me that I began to write poetry again in the last few weeks. Using a notebook and pen, as I pondered the words. Something I often did in a past life when I was a lawyer, and hadn’t the time to devote to learning how to be a storyteller, or to put pen to paper other than for work.

Nevertheless, it was enough, as I expect poetry always will be.

The same as my Mother found solace, and joy again, in a poem she had learned more than seventy years ago at school.

You’ll find two of the poems below, that I recently wrote…

They are very different in mood, and content, but there’s a connection between them which I’ll explain afterwards. Here they are:

Waiting For The Right Time

Once upon a long time ago,
I made a promise to myself,
to wear my 'Dorothy shoes' again.

They'll sparkle and shine 
tomorrow, as I dance along
my Yellow Brick Road.

Beautiful shoes, that made me
laugh and smile,
I'll definitely wear them again.

But it was so easy to forget,
tomorrow has already arrived,
and become today!

Life Is For The Living

Beneath a darkened sky
the billowing waves
tossed and turned
in the roaring wind,
with the ebb and flow
of the tide.
As a small boat flew,
up and down alone,
far from the curlew's cry.

"The eye of the storm is upon us!" 
The Captain shouted to himself, 
terrified of the damage it'd do.
While the weary sailors searched 
the churning sea below,
and the face of death revealed,
how much they still wanted to live.

It wasn’t my intention to make anyone feel miserable by focusing on death in the second poem. I always try to be optimistic and look on the bright side of life. Although I do have to think about it, when writing ghost stories. This poem came about after I remembered my Father saying years ago, for some reason or another, that ‘life was for the living’. I couldn’t stop wondering what he meant by this, and after a while, I put my own interpretation on the words. Essentially that death comes when it will. Whether or not we are ready for it, but that’s only part of what I wanted to say. The first poem also needs to be added in here, to explain my train of thought at the time of writing them.

I always loved The Wizard Of Oz movie which I watched many times as a child, and the red high heeled shoes I had in my late twenties were similar to those in the photograph. I always secretly thought of them as ‘my Dorothy shoes’. She wore hers when she went on an adventure, singing and dancing along the Yellow Brick road, arm in arm with the other strange characters in the story. The red shoes played their part in a happy ending, with Dorothy and Toto going home to Kansas.

Looking back now, it seems to me that life has been a series of adventures. Sadly, I won’t be able to wear high heels again. However, that’s not to say I can’t have beautiful shoes, but different ones. That combined with what Dad said made me realise that it was more than time to sort out the storage bag, where I keep the shoes I’m not wearing. I have also learned on my journey through life that it’s best to live in the present, and make the most of every minute of it.

Now that I’m feeling better, I try to think of being ill with gratitude. It made me stop what I was doing, slow down, rest and take better care of myself. Not least giving me an opportunity to create much needed change, and more about that next time.

That’s all my news for now…

I’m leaving you with my favourite flower, the rose.

I’ll write to you again by the middle of March, with more news about the release of Henry Petch, and the changes I’ll be making here on my substack.

Until then, may the magic of story be in your heart, as the days grow longer and warmer.

With much love, and many blessings.

Sharon

Copyright©SharonBradshaw2025