Kim's Promise

Susan has worked at many things, including over twenty-five years as a dyslexia specialist, as Head of a Dyslexic Unit in a sixth form college and later as Special Needs tutor in a private practice, tutoring all ages from 4–40, including university students.Recently, she has been working at her abstract drawings and has had two exhibitions as well as selling on SaatchiArt.She has written plays, memoirs, travel stories, and novels with her children's novel, ‘Kim's Promise’ published in September 2024. One play, ‘Shelley, Byron and the Allegra Story’, was performed at the Keats House Festival in 2013.Although ‘Kim's Promise’ is a Young Adult novel (from age eleven on), it is influenced not only by fairy tales, but also by the wonderful eastern stories of Idries Shah, which Susan used to read and were loved by her own children.In “Kim’s Promise”, Prince Kim, aged 15, promises his dying mother to find the unknown kitchen boy who overheard a terrible family quarrel and a secret curse. He travels incognito, while his father, the king, sends soldiers to stop him. After being left for dead by bandits, Kim meets with a wise old man living on a mountain and later a kind herbalist who helps him find the kitchen boy. But once found, things are not as simple as they should be.Meanwhile, Kim’s childhood sweetheart, Princess Sagesse is ill with the threat of a marriage to her mother’s choice of a husband if Kim does not finish his task in time.A tale of mystery and adventure, of fear and generosity, of contamination and survival.