Bound By Blood

by Paul J. Teague

  Charlotte reached out and squeezed Kate’s arm.

  ‘We’d best get to this party,’ Charlotte said, standing up and checking the time on her phone. ‘I’ve been promising the staff a night out for weeks. It’s the least I can do after all the shifts they’ve been covering for me. Shall we go?’

  Kate stood up and picked up her bag.

  ‘Let’s do this.’

  Although the get-together was a little overwhelming for Charlotte, it was long overdue. As she pulled the streamers out of her hair and looked around the table at all the smiling faces, she reflected on the people who’d come into their lives since returning to Morecambe.

  There were several copies of The Bay View Weekly on the table, the biggest selling edition ever printed. She and Nigel had shared the front page byline and Teddy had been ecstatic at the national attention their reporting had received. Any issues around police complaints, stolen jet-skis and damaged company vehicles swiftly faded away after that.

  George and Isla were there, getting on well with everybody, but looking much older now. It was unfair to ask Isla to keep working at the guest house; she deserved to retire.

  Olli, Lucia and Willow had formed a little gang, and they’d gravitated to Callie and Hollie by virtue of their ages, along with Piper and Agnieszka.

  Will and Nigel were chatting away about some funny news story or other. She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, knowing she owed all these people a debt; they’d been through so much together. She’d put her husband through quite enough to last one lifetime already.

  As Charlotte sat there, watching and enjoying everybody’s happiness, she noticed Kate was similarly quiet and reflective. It was impossible to go through what they’d been through without it affecting their lives.

  Kate smiled at her as if she knew what Charlotte was thinking. Change was coming. For all of them.

  The third and final Morecambe Bay trilogy will be released Winter 2021.

  Author Notes

  Phew, what a close call for Charlotte once again. I reckon she deserves a break after all that action.

  I hope you enjoyed reading the conclusion of this second Morecambe Bay Trilogy as much as I enjoyed writing it. The good news is that I have one final trilogy planned for Charlotte and her friends, which is scheduled for release in late 2021. The last three books will bring together all the characters you’ve met across the series and you’ll find out what happens to them.

  I came up with a massive shock plot twist for the third and final trilogy in the middle of writing this set of books, so I can’t wait to get to work on this new story and weave that big surprise into a new plot. I can tease ahead a little though, to give you a hint that DCI Kate Summers and Charlotte will be working closely together on this new adventure.

  You’d think they’d have had enough of each other after their recent exploits. But in the next book, the two friends will stumble across a clue as to who was responsible for the death of Kate’s father all those years ago. His killer is still alive and after years lurking in the shadows, he’s started to kill once again.

  That’s all I’m saying for now, but as you’d expect, it’ll be non-stop suspense, twists and turns plus the usual array of deadly situations for Charlotte.

  So, Bound By Blood finally tied together all the loose ends set up in Trust Me Once and Fall From Grace. Many people write to me saying they knew so-and-so did it early on in a trilogy, but the truth is, I usually don’t commit to the final plot outcome until I’m writing the third book, so even I’m not sure who it is until I’m forced to choose a particular character by the plot. I like to set up all sorts of possibilities and then choose a final course of action as late as possible in my writing.

  For instance, David Irwin was going to be alive, until I wrote the scene in Bound By Blood where Kate has blood on her hands in one of the scenes set in 1999. I decided then that David dying would give Joanne Taylor her motivation for revenge. There was also a possibility of Rowan’s role being very different, making him one of the baddies alongside Joanne, but I liked the idea of him and Brett making a life together in Australia and giving Kate Summers a happy ending. I believe she deserves it.

  The legal situation Tiffany is caught up in is not unlike that of Britney Spears, whose father secured control over her estate after her own highly publicised breakdown. Despite her efforts to regain control, she has been unable to at the time of writing. Tiffany’s dilemma is not too dissimilar, though in her case, her evil brother does not have her best interests at heart.

  The final scene at the top of the wind turbine was always going to form the ending of the last book in this trilogy. Having been to the top of one of those structures and looked out of the open doors at the top across the open landscape whilst working for the BBC, it was simply too good a dramatic opportunity to miss.

  As I was writing the scenes where Brett is packing his items into container storage, and Will and Charlotte are breaking into it twenty years later, I was packing my own belongings away too. We moved to Spain for the winter of 2020, so it was useful for me to gain first-hand knowledge of how it all works. I was packing my own gear away one day, then writing all about it the next. I won’t be leaving my container abandoned for two decades, but many storage units do get left for years.

  Sunderland Point has served as a rich environment for this trilogy and I’m so pleased my wife and I spent a day scouting locations and re-familiarising ourselves with the area.

  By the way, did you spot a baddie from another book making a fleeting guest appearance? Vinnie mentions his friend Kyle who helps with the unpleasant end of the business from time-to-time. Kyle is a central figure in my standalone thriller So Many Lies. If you want to find out what bespoke services Kyle supplies to the local criminal fraternity, give it a read. And if you’ve read the book already, you’ll never look at a meat pie the same way again!

  I’ll tease you for the final trilogy by saying we spent a day in and around Morecambe prior to departing for Spain, where I came across a couple of superb locations to use in the final story. I lived in Lancaster for many years and had never heard of these places before, let alone visited them, but once again, the seaside landscape will provide me with some excellent material for my psychological thrillers.

  I plan to start releasing the final books in the series from October 2021 and all three books will be published by the end of 2021, concluding my Morecambe Bay series.

  Until then, if you haven’t read it already and you’re missing the Morecambe Bay books, do check out my Don’t Tell Meg trilogy, which is set in the same geographical area and which introduces Steven Terry and DCI Kate Summers for the first time.

  The best place to find out about my writing is at https://paulteague.net.

  So, I have a lot of writing to do in order to bring Charlotte Grayson’s adventures to a fitting conclusion.

  A final word about the fictional nature of these trilogies.

  Although I do set in them in real-life locations and make the settings as accurate as possible, I do sometimes have to bend the facts a little to fit the story.

  So if you find yourself thinking that something is not quite right about one of the locations used, remember that I’m writing fiction and not local history books, an occasional flexing of the truth is required as an author to make the story work better.

  Oh, and just for complete clarity, absolutely everything in these stories is made up, it bears no resemblance to real people or situations.

  Thanks very much for reading my books and watch out for those new releases towards the end of 2021.

  All the best,

  Paul Teague

  Free Gift

  Are you enjoying the second Morecambe Bay Trilogy?

  You can now access an exclusive gift showing you many of the locations used in the book, with many amazing photographs of Sunderland Point.

  Grab your FREE copy of Charlotte’s Sunderland Point Scrapbook …

  This downloadable sc
rapbook will show you all the key locations used in the second trilogy.

  You’ll get to see what Sunderland Point looks like as well as several other key locations, such as Happy Mount Park, Hest Bank, Lancaster University and the stone graves at Heysham.

  To grab your copy click here or head for

  https://paulteague.net/SB2 on your PC.

  Also by Paul J. Teague

  Morecambe Bay Trilogy 1

  Book 1 - Left For Dead - read it here

  Book 2 - Circle of Lies - read it here

  Book 3 - Truth Be Told - read it here

  Morecambe Bay Trilogy 2

  Book 4 - Trust Me Once - read it here

  Book 5 - Fall From Grace - read it here

  Book 6 - Bound By Blood - read it here

  Note: The Morecambe Bay trilogies are best read in the order shown above.

  Don’t Tell Meg Trilogy

  Features DCI Kate Summers and Steven Terry.

  Book 1 - Don’t Tell Meg - read it here

  Book 2 - The Murder Place - read it here

  Book 3 - The Forgotten Children - read it here

  Standalone Thrillers

  Dead of Night - read it here

  One Last Chance - read it here

  No More Secrets - read it here

  So Many Lies - read it here

  Two Years After - read it here

  Friends Who Lie - read it here

  Now You See Her - read it here

  About the Author

  Hi, I'm Paul Teague, the author of the Don't Tell Meg trilogy as well as several other standalone psychological thrillers such as One Last Chance, Dead of Night and Now You See Her.

  I'm a former broadcaster and journalist with the BBC, but I have also worked as a primary school teacher, a disc jockey, a shopkeeper, a waiter and a sales rep.

  I've read thrillers all my life, starting with Enid Blyton's Famous Five series as a child, then graduating to James Hadley Chase, Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay and Mark Edwards.

  If you love those authors then you’ll like my thrillers too.

  Let’s get connected!

  https://paulteague.net

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Author, except where permitted by law.

  Copyright © 2020 Paul Teague writing as Paul J. Teague

  All rights reserved