In the last seven days, two interesting things have happened in my tiny peanut shell of a world. The first is that I have started radiotherapy for breast cancer. Whilst it’s not something that was on my original life wish list, I’m glad that it is now underway and will soon be in my past rather than my future, taking me another step closer to recovery.

A huge thank you to the wonderful staff at Portsmouth QA for their kindness, care, and expertise. To the radiographers: you rock. What you do every day is insanely clever and I’m so grateful. A big thank you also to Mark, for taking nearly three hours out of every weekday to drive me there and back, keeping me calm, centred, and full of tea and cake on our return.

The other interesting thing that happened last week concerns my first two novels. This is a story of two halves (I will be brief). The first is the incredibly sad demise of Urbane Publications, which closed its doors for good at the end of April. I was – and am – gutted about this. Not least because I am very fond of the team there and will always be grateful to Matthew Smith for giving me my first break as a published author; it’s not the kind of thing a writer forgets. It’s sad also, that another innovative and bold indie publisher got crushed by COVID and Lockdown.

Please, readers; continue to support smaller publishers and their authors, or they will simply disappear.

The second half of this story is that, behind the scenes and with his usual magnanimity, Matthew had set about finding a new stable for his authors to bed down in, or in this case, a new kennel, so that our books would not disappear.

Enter the very brilliant Bloodhound Books and after several exciting discussions with co-founder and director Betsy Reavley, in common with many other former Urbane authors, I signed a contract to re-publish my debut novel Seeking Eden and its sequel Eden Interrupted.

I’m delighted with the books’ makeover and I hope that the new look Eden Series will attract new readers to the charming garden suburb of Eden Hill, where nothing is quite as shiny (or as simple) as it seems. You can catch up with Kate and Neil, Ben, Lisa, Martin and all the cast of Eden Hill at Amazon.co.uk: Beverley Harvey