Title: MILESTONES
Author: HEATHER PECK
Genre: CRIME FICTION / THRILLER / MYSTERY
Book Blurb:
A life is shaped by a thread of decisions. If you don’t like it, do you change the decisions or snap the thread?
Milestones is the story of a life, studded by drama and disaster.
Aelfwyth has lived through some events that shook the world, and others that shook only hers. Now she’s reviewing how her decisions changed her life and those around her.
Between love and hate, romance and revenge, would she make the same choices again?
Excerpt:
STARTING POINT: The Crowning of a Queen
I was born on 2 June 1953. My mother always followed up a statement of my date of birth with the comment: ‘And made me miss the coronation as well.’
What it was ‘as well’ as, varied depending on the year, the time, her mood and many other things. Suffice to say, I was left with an abiding sense of shame that, somehow, I was to be blamed for the inconvenience of the day I chose to arrive.
Coronation was, in due time, followed by christening and the first emitting of the exclamation to which I became inured: ‘What?’ followed by ‘How on earth do you spell that?’
Thanks in part to my mother’s desire for a name that sounded Saxon, and my father’s inability either to listen properly or spell accurately, the name on my birth certificate is ‘Aelswyth’. As a result, I’ve spent my life answering to a range of imaginative abbreviations, Ellie, Al, Elf and Wythy among them. Elf tended to win.
The road between then and now has twisted, turned and sometimes come close to a dead stop. I’ve walked it in full sun with a song in my heart, and I’ve sat on the verge with my head in my hands praying for it all to end.
Both joys and despairs are measured in milestones: markers of events that changed my path. And perhaps because I arrived on such a special day, I find a number of my significant dates are inextricably linked with other days when the world, or at least a lot of it, could say, I know where I was when… Which is why the story that follows is paced by milestones both personal and global.
And why I recall my first contact with the ‘five towns flasher’ not in a particular year, but next to the death of Kennedy.
MILESTONE 1: The Death of Kennedy
Friday 22 November 1963. I was an independent ten years old. Judging from the children around me today, most modern parents would be shocked at how much liberty I enjoyed. Brown hair in plaits bouncing on my shoulders, and shod in my Start-Rite lace-ups, with tartan trews (the ones with straps under your feet) topped by a hand-knitted woollen jumper and a duffle coat for warmth, I would sally forth after breakfast knowing that, on a non-school day, I was free to do whatever I liked, wherever I liked, provided I showed up for meals on time. School days were different of course, in that the trews would be replaced by a skirt. The rest of the ensemble would be identical.
That Friday I’d been to school and was walking home with my best friend Katy. Katy’s mum worked in a potbank, or pottery factory to you. I’d visited with Katy and watched her mum painting flowers and foliage freehand onto china cups. She was a talented artist paid piece rates, which was another way of saying not very much. Katy often came home with me when her mum was working late. That day the sun was setting as we came out of school, and we could see the pink glow over the playground. Without discussion we turned away from home and went up the rough track that led away from the town’s streets and to the area of waste ground and untended fields we called the Banks. The first part of the path bordered an old quarry now half-full of rubbish from the potbanks: broken china, the remains of clay moulds, and anything else that the factories regarded as waste. The shattered cups and plates formed a sharp-edged scree which we used to ski down on the heels of our school shoes, which suffered accordingly.
That evening we walked past the quarry on to the narrow path that led down the hill toward the railway line, canal and ironworks. The flare at the top of the ironworks was burning much brighter than the sunset, and looking at it spoiled my night-sight, so that when I looked up it was several seconds before I saw the man standing in the middle of our path. And several seconds more before I saw what he was doing.
His face was strangely vacant, yet at the same time, excited. His eyes shone lurid in the iron flames when he turned his head to glance over his shoulder. There was nothing and no one behind him. He turned back with that vacant smile, which grew wider as a movement of his hands attracted my attention lower. He was fumbling at his trousers, and I didn’t at first see what he was doing. Katy was more worldly-wise and pulled at my arm.
‘Come back, Elf. We need to go back. Come on.’
I was slow to react. Slow to appreciate what I was looking at.
‘Elf,’ repeated Katy urgently, and we both turned and ran up the rough soil path that we could scarcely see as the sun set behind us. It was now too dark for running. Katy stumbled and I almost fell over her. Then she really fell, and I had to jump to avoid treading on her.
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If you like a crime thriller that’s a bit different, this is for you. Using major world events of the 20th and early 21st centuries as a backdrop, Milestones explores how decisions affect the direction of a life.
WINNER OF BEST CRIME NOVEL IN THE 2024 PAGE TURNER BOOK AWARDS
AVAILABLE AS PAPERBACK AND ON KINDLE
Giveaway –
One lucky reader will win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Open internationally.
Runs January 1 – 31, 2025
Drawing will be held on February 3, 2025.
Author Biography:
Heather Peck is the multi-award-winning author of the DCI Geldard Norfolk Mysteries and winner of the 2024 Page Turner Award for best crime novel, ‘Milestones’.
She has been both agricultural policy adviser and farmer, NHS Trust Chair and volunteer vaccinator. She lives in Norfolk with her partner and a menagerie of dogs, cats, hens and a rabbit.
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