When I was a child, I adored reading adventure stories.
From The Magic Faraway Tree to The Secret Seven, I progressed to The Famous Five and then The Phoenix and the Carpet and Five Children and It, to name but many.
Taking fairly ordinary people out of their lives and dropping them into extraordinary situations is the perfect set up for a novel full of chaos, excitement and ultimately, adventure.
As an adult I still crave these stories and the excellent, Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce is a perfect example. Ordinary character, extraordinary adventure.
In my latest book, The Old Girls’ Island Getaway, Dorothy Reed and her companion, Gina Knight are in Corfu visiting an elderly friend. They think they are just there for the sun and sea, and to spend a week in a luxurious villa but, of course, things for these two old Girls never run as smoothly as that!
Into the wings steps a young Corfiot man on a mission to discredit elderly Rupert, the villa owner. Thanos is convinced that he was responsible for a heist many years previously and is determined to find a missing thirty-five carat yellow diamond – The Star of Athens.
British actress, Florence Quinn, whose politician husband has just put a rocket under their marriage, arrives with the intention of finding the lost love of her life. She lost contact with Andreas after a long hot summer full of passion turned into tragedy but is she sharing the full story?
So ensues a caper around the beautiful Island of Corfu.
The Old Girls’ Island Getaway is a sun-soaked story of strong women who take whatever life throws at them and have the greatest of adventures.