Katharine Davies – författare

Eira is alone. Thirty-six years old and living on her own. She loved Jack, but their relationship had to end - she could never have a baby with an alcoholic. Now she works in a quiet museum, in the middle of a park, desperately lonely and aching for someone to love. And one spring morning, she finds a baby in a box on the museum steps.Looking back to one unforgettable summer many years ago, that began as a hot, magical idyll but ended in tragedy, we see the painful confusion of a young girl caught up in very adult affairs.The guilt about what happened will stay with and shape Eira, and the horrific discovery of her thin and mysterious older sister's secret will scar her. In Katharine Davies's haunting and many-layered story, the pain of an intense and unfulfilled longing is evoked in luminous and beautiful writing. Hush, Little Baby is about love and youth, longing and age, but it is very much a poignant and vivid exploration of a woman's experience and the visceral need to be a mother.

When her twin brother breaks a promise and returns to their childhood home in Sri Lanka on his own, Valentina decides that it's time to make some changes in her life. She cuts off her hair and takes a job as a gardener (although she'd prefer to be a writer) in a small town near the sea in Wales. And so the story takes us to Illerwick, an alluring, timeless place, and to the people who live there. Leo Spring, an eccentric musician, lives alone in Beech House with a once beautiful garden that has now become overgrown and wild. Valentina has come to help Leo restore the neglected garden to its former glory, and she soon falls in love with him. But Leo is consumed by his unrequited infatuation with Melody, the beautiful headmistress in mourning for her brother who leapt to his death from the cliffs. Mr Boase, the alcoholic and bullying deputy head, also holds a flame for Melody; and one of her pupils, Fitch, is another who daydreams about her. As summer draws near, and the garden is gradually transformed, Leo organises a garden party in an attempt to impress Melody. But on the night of the party, events come to a head, secret passions are revealed, and the characters are jolted into understanding that facing their feelings can be a matter of life or death. A Good Voyage is a magical story that charts the voyages of its characters as they move from the pain and comedy of loss and longing to self-realisation and love. Katharine Davies writes with an astounding poise and lightness of touch, making this first novel, with its air of disquiet and enchantment, an unforgettable pleasure.

Valentina has decided it's time to make some changes in her life. She cuts off her hair and takes a job as a gardener at Beech House in a timeless and alluring small town near the sea in Wales. The garden at Beech House is wild and overgrown and as Valentina works her magic to restore it to its former glory she begins to fall in love with its owner, eccentric musician Leo Spring. But Leo's attention lies elsewhere; he is enchanted by the beautiful headmistress, Melody. In the heat of the summer a garden party is planned and the stage is set for secret passions to be revealed.But as the magic of the garden casts its spell over the characters they begin to face the awful truth that their feelings can be a matter of life or death.Winner of the Romantic Novel of the Year Award.