Last year already seems a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? As we live in these ‘interesting’ times, many of us think of endings and new beginnings: sometimes with fear and anxiety and sometimes with excitement and hope. Even in Southwest Scotland, the roller coaster keeps jinking around more corners than any of us would have predicted.

My (The) Last Year series has grown from both of those emotional wells. And my desire to tell women’s stories that also include weird happenings, cheeky banter and occasional drunken singing is also a strong compulsion.

The first in the series, now called Deborah: (The) Last Year, 2014, tells the story of a woman who faces the predicted ending of her life with a year of tying up lose threads – and a lot of gin. As well as at least one doppelgänger. Deborah has benefited from reader feedback and now reappears with a new cover and a re-edited interior.

The second, Jane: (The) Last Year, 2016, focuses on a good friend of Deborah’s.  Jane isn’t worried about her health; she is, however, disconcerted by some experiences she is having around the river of her home town, Dumfries, which continue as she travels to Japan. Finding a way to make her art and her life fit together, alongside the important relationships she has with old and new friends, is the focus of Jane’s year.

The trilogy finishes with Róisín: (The) Last Year, 2019.  Róisín’s story takes her to Kirkcudbright, the Artists’ Town of Dumfries and Galloway and then on to Moniaive, the Festival Village of Mid-Nithsdale.  She links up with lots of locals, including one of Deborah’s closest friends and one of her twin sons, while failing to complete her novel, continuing to write her poems and the libretto for Moniaive’s rock opera tribute to The Who’s Tommy as it celebrates its 50^th birthday.

All three novels benefit from covers created by Amy Whiten, (with some Recoat design input from Ali). They are worth owning just for the art on the front and back covers!