JILL LANCHBERY
Griefs and Fears
Jill is currently working on her second novel, Griefs and Fears, due to be published later this year.
Griefs and Fears is a novel about journeys - both actual and emotional. Melissa unearths skeletons which make her question her own identity, lead her into a life-threatening situation and ultimately change her life forever.
A short flashback prologue seen through the eyes of Guy, Melissa's father, sets the scene geographically and acts as a springboard for the present. This also conveys an underlying sense of mystery and suspense.
The novel opens in Cape Town where Melissa is about to embark on an exchange teaching post in England. She's arranged this partly because she's bored with her job and unsure of her feelings for James, but also because she wants to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding her divorced parents' marriage. Her mother Annemarie, a dancer, is from a wealthy Afrikaans family while Guy is an English lawyer. Melissa knows nothing of her father's family or background except that he grew up near Maidstone. It's not therefore, a coincidence that she has chosen to live and work in Kent.
She quickly becomes involved in the life of the small Kentish village and its inhabitants - in particular Nick a teaching colleague, Dan his friend who is a reporter on the local paper and Dan's sister Sophie who's small daughter Anna is one of Melissa's pupils.
The story moves between Cape Town and Kent.