A SPECIAL DAY FOR SWWJ MEMBERS

Big day tomorrow when members of SWWJ, friends and guests will be meeting our guest speakers, MP Andrew Lewer MBE and SWWJ colleague, Jane Corry at our Autumn Lunch in London. Jane's work has been hitting the headlines over the last few years and she is now a Sunday Times best-selling author.  Jane has been writing short stories for national journals for many years.   
Recently, Jane's son, Giles Bidder visited our local radio studio in Brentwood Phoenix 98fm  to talk about his own successful career in journalism and music, and was able to give us the lowdown on his Mum's latest success. 

Review of her latest novel below.
 

As a keen gardener, I was delighted with the opening of this third novel from Sunday Times’ Best Selling author (and SWWJ colleague) Jane Corry. Essential oils, herbs and wild flowers are the tools of protagonist Vicki’s healing aromatherapy business based in Penzance, and one that has given this psychologically- damaged woman a degree of balance and peace following years of abuse and wretchedness.

 
Vicki’s tranquillity is disturbed, with the mind-boggling door-step appearance - one cold, February evening - of the police. So begins a nightmare involving her ex-husband David whom she insists she hasn’t seen since their divorce years earlier. He has been reported by Tanya, his new wife, as missing and, although Vicki has no idea of his whereabouts, she realises that she still cares for him and as there is a strong suspicion that he is dead, her mind begins to reflect on their marriage and its harrowing finale.

  
Then we are introduced to eight-year-old Scarlet whom Mum (Zelda) compliments as her ‘clever grown-up girl" who unwittingly helps Mum pass on her drugs via their well practised ‘swing game’ in the park. Soon, Mum is caught and imprisoned, and young Scarlet enters foster care – a singularly dreadful experience, in her case, that shapes the rest of her life.

We meet other unfortunate female characters as the plot unfolds and the reader learns quite a lot about women’s prisons and those who administer control therein. "Time goes slowly in prison. For inmates, that is." Here we have first-hand experience, as the author spent three hair-raising years, working as ‘Writer-in-Residence’ in a high security men’s prison, which has helped inspire this and Corry’s other psychological thrillers, one of which is destined to be filmed soon for television. I moved through the pages rapidly, not expecting the twists and turns of this gripping novel and I must admit, I was hooked. Now want to read more of Jane Corry’s work.