TRUMPET BLOWING LINDA MITCHELMORE

.....and a roll of drums, please. The third book in my 'Emma' trilogy is out! The bubbly has been cracked open! 9th January 2015. Published by Choc Lit. It's been a long journey for Emma and me. I didn't set out to write a trilogy. But when I finished writing TO TURN FULL CIRCLE - which can stand alone - Emma 'told' me her journey wasn't over. She still had hopes and dreams for her future. So I wrote on, thinking a sequel would sort things for her. EMMA:THERE'S NO TURNING BACK could have ended when Emma has made her choice to go to Canada with Seth and his infant daughter, Fleur. But just before leaving, the charismatic Matthew Caunter has come back into Emma's life - what might her future be with him? And again, there was that deep need in Emma for something Seth was unable, despite his deep love for her, to provide. EMMA AND HER DAUGHTER almost wrote itself. Of the three this is the one I most enjoyed writing. In the first two books Emma had run baking businesses - she was queen of the crab tart and the tarte Tatin. but I thought it would be a bowl of pastry too far if she were to do that in the third book. So I turned her into a dressmaker. Now, I'm not a dressmaker, so why, I hear you say, have I filled this book with fabrics and fashions and shoes and bags and fancy hats? Well, it's often said we should write what we know and my childhood was filled with all those things because my mother was a very gifted dressmaker. She'd been taught tailoring by her grandfather and could copy a garment just by looking at it ... well, that and cutting a pattern for it out of anything she had to hand - newspaper, tissue paper, a roll of wallpaper once I remember. I've set EMMA AND HER DAUGHTER in 1927 indulging myself more than a little with that because goodness, did I have fun researching fashions of that time. Emma makes a wedding dress for one of the characters in the book, and a headdress rather than a veil.

In the first two books which were set between 1909 and 1913 Emma's clothes were ankle length, and rather less than glamorous for the most part. But the 1920s means the Charleston and flappers and I had a lovely time trawling the internet for photographs to inspire my writing.

So, what's next? Emma now has her heart's desire in more ways than you might suspect. Her story has ended here. But Fleur? What will her future be? And in this book I've introduced a new character, Stella Martin - she, too, could carry a book on her own, I think. Hmmm..... back tot he keyboard, then!