Are You My Mother?

by Louise Voss

  ‘Didya find her, then, your mum?’

  I felt blood rush to my face. ‘No. But I found him,’ - pointing at Tony - ‘and he’s my dad’.

  I didn’t think the man would be interested in hearing that, via my search, I’d also found a husband and a soon to be step-daughter with coffee coloured skin and the sweetest nature imaginable. And a new best friend, Ruth, and her gorgeous daughter Evie. And had managed to extend the circle of my other friends considerably, including Mack and Katrina and Greg and Denise. And had totally changed my life around. I was tempted to explain how this was all due to our original, inauspicious meeting, but thankfully decided that it was best left unspoken.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the man, with more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice. ‘Well, we’re all happy then. Good luck to you.’

  I tucked the Big Issue into my bag, and we moved off, Stella and Tony talking to each other across me; and I realised that it didn’t actually matter that I’d never know whether I helped that man or not. I thought again about how we weren’t steered onto the paths of our lives by anybody else: not me, not Stella, not Ann, Tony, or anybody. They were our own paths, created by our own choices.

  As my sister chatted to my father about what a completely innovative and show-stopping wedding dress she planned to make me, I tried to work out when would be the best time to tell her that, actually, I’d seen this gorgeous one in the window of a little shop off the Portobello Road. In my head I began to rehearse my defensive speech: it was my wedding, I was very grateful for the offer, etc, but - and then I thought, for God’s sake….

  ‘Stella,’ I blurted. ‘Sorry, but I’ve found the dress I want already.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh well. Actually I didn’t really want to make it anyway; not your dress - it’d cost a fortune and take me for ever, and I really have to knuckle down to my degree project next year. But just wait until you see what I’m planning for my bridesmaid’s dress! It’s going to be so outrageously fab. I thought perhaps a mini, with a fishtail at the back and a really tight basque top, maybe we could use some really interesting fabric – there’s a great sort of silvery hologram-type material you can get now….’

  Stella’s words washed through me and over me, and then away into the wide sky over our heads, mingling with all the other words that had ever been said, and all the choices and decisions ever made, good, bad or indifferent. Tony looked up, following my gaze. Then he pointed at something, a small scrap of primrose fluttering away over the rooftops.

  ‘Did you see that?’

  Stella stopped. ‘No. What?’

  ‘Little yellow bird. Must be a canary or something that’s escaped from someone’s house.’

  We carried on walking.

  ‘Maybe he’s just learned to fly,’ I said.

  THE END

  CATCH YOUR DEATH by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards

  Imagine if Dan Brown and Michael Crichton sat down together to write a fast-paced medical conspiracy thriller set in the English countryside, featuring evil scientists, stone-cold killers, a deadly virus and a beautiful but vulnerable Harvard professor.

  That’s CATCH YOUR DEATH, the no. 1 Amazon best-seller from Louise Voss and Mark Edwards, the writing team behind the Amazon Top 50 thriller KILLING CUPID.

  Esteemed virologist Kate Maddox thought she was escaping to a new life. But before she can face the future she must deal with the ghosts of the past.

  20 years ago, Kate was a volunteer at a research unit in the English countryside where scientists experimented to find a cure for the common cold. That summer, Kate fell in love with a handsome young doctor, Stephen. But her stay at the unit ended in Stephen’s tragic death and Kate fled to Boston and a new life at Harvard.

  Now, Kate is back in England and on the run again – this time, from her cruel husband – and trying to find a fresh start for her and her young son. But a chance encounter with Stephen’s twin brother, Paul, sets her on a terrifying path of discovery. What really happened at the Cold Research Unit two decades ago?

  As Kate and Paul travel across England in search of the answers, they are unaware they are being hunted. Pursued by both her estranged husband and a psychopathic killer who has an unhealthy obsession with his quarry, Kate must fight to solve the puzzles of the past – uncovering a sickening betrayal and a truth she never dreamed possible.

  CATCH YOUR DEATH is a fun, page-turning thriller that also asks serious questions about how much we can rely on the people we entrust with our lives.

  Buy the Kindle version Only 99p!

  KILLING CUPID by Louise Voss and Mark Edwards

  He’s Watching Her…

  To be published by Harper, July 2012

  A gripping stalker thriller with a unique twist for fans of Nicci French, Sophie Hannah and Ruth Rendell.

  Alex Parkinson is obsessed with his writing tutor, Siobhan. He will do anything to be with her. He stalks her on Facebook and finds out where she lives, buys her presents using her own credit card and sends her messages telling her what he wants to do to her. He breaks into her house and hides in her wardrobe, reads her diary and listens to her while she takes a bath… Soon, he believes, she will realise they are meant to be together. But when a ‘love rival’ comes on to the scene, Alex has to take drastic action. Soon, a young woman lies dead on the concrete after tumbling from the roof of her house. Now there is no-one standing in the way of him and his unwitting true love…

  But after Alex is scared off, Siobhan decides to take revenge. How dare he lose interest? She turns the tables on her stalker and his new girlfriend. At the same time, an old friend of the dead woman starts to investigate what really happened… As their lives unravel and the past closes in, Alex and Siobhan embark on a collision course that threatens to destroy both them and everyone around them.

  Filled with suspense and dark comedy, and with a unique twist at the end that you will never guess, KILLING CUPID is written in alternating chapters, showing the male and female viewpoints.

  Also by Louise Voss:

  GAMES PEOPLE PLAY http://amzn.to/rVTB5v

  A page-turning and emotional novel about ambition, and how sometimes what you really want is not what makes you happy.

  Change is sometimes hard to face up to.

  Rachel is a rising tennis star. But does she want success more than she wants a ‘real’ life, and a steady boyfriend like everyone else?

  Susie is Rachel’s mother. All she wants is her partner Billy - but he’s left her, and it’s a huge shock. Is she brave enough to start again?

  Gordana is Rachel’s grandmother. She has everything she ever wanted: health, wealth, and a loving family - or at least she thinks she does.

  The link between them all is Ivan: Rachel’s father, Susie’s ex-husband, and Gordana’s son. It’s no secret that he can be difficult. But nobody is prepared for what happens when he gets arrested, or the changes that it forces on all their lives.

  TO BE SOMEONE http://amzn.to/toXQDu

  Louise Voss has drawn on her 10-year career in the music business as the backdrop for her debut novel-a touching story of female friendship and self-enlightenment. Helena Nicholls, cult London DJ and former bassist with globally successful rock band, Blue Idea, is knocked seriously off-track following a hideous, and deeply uncool, accident at an industry awards bash. With a long stay in hospital and an unwelcome, but enforced, career break, Helena has time to ponder on her good, and bad, fortune so far and which of life's difficult paths to tread next.

  As she remembers back to early childhood and her first meeting with Samantha, the pretty five-year-old who was to become her best friend and life-long soul mate, key moments in time are remembered with a song. To Be Someone is told in alternating chapters of flashback and the present day; each flashback headed with a "Song of the Day"-a clever ploy, as most readers between the ages of 15 and 45 will find themselves nostalgic over such diverse musical memories as Jackie Wilson's "I Get The Sweetest Feeling", Blondie¹s "Sunday Girl", "Lov
esong" by The Cure and "This is a Low" from Blur. (Yes, of course The Jam's "To Be Someone" is in at Number 11). When Helena is not remembering her parents move to America in her teens, the rise and fall of her pop career and her deepening attachment to Sam, she struggles to come to terms with the present and the injuries caused by her accident, physical and otherwise. Then, a chance meeting in a hospital corridor with a face from her past leaves Helena wondering if the immortalising path she has chosen is the right one after all?

  Voss employs a deliberate teenage-diary style for To Be Someone: naïve, arrogant, self-absorbed yet full of pathos and bursting with all that growing-up still to be done. Hugely appealing to a younger female readership, this voyage into adulthood is rocked with the cataclysmic highs and lows of life, death, friendship and the music business. Judging from the dedication at the front of the book, Voss is clearly writing from the heart. --Carey Green.

  Glamour: ‘A curl-up comfort read’

  Lisa Jewell: ‘Lovingly written and full of warmth…one of the most moving books about friendship I’ve ever read’

  Independent on Sunday: ‘Offers an insider’s view of the music business, telling the story of a pop star turned DJ whose life comes tumbling down after a disfiguring accident’

  Marian Keyes: ‘Beautifully written…by turns comic and poignant, about friendship, love and redemption. I loved it!’

  NME : ‘Warm and funny with touches of sadness. It has been likened to a cross between Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and Kevin Sampson’s rock ’n ’roll tale, Powder’

  LIFESAVER

  If you save someone's life, you become responsible for them.

  When Anna receives a letter from Adam, thanking her for saving his son Max's life with a bone-marrow donation, it's the first positive thing that's happened to her for a long time. Grief-stricken at the recent loss of her baby, she's failed to give life in the past. Now this four-year-old boy is alive and healthy because of her: it's a heady realization.

  Anna is desperate to get to know Max, yet terrified at how responsible she feels for him. So she decides not to tell anyone about him or that she's arranged to meet his father. Soon she is immersed in a complicated double life, spending half the week with her husband, who believes her to be filming out of town, and the other half with Adam and Max.

  But Anna has lied to Adam about who she is. And she's lied about her marriage. And soon these lies will catch up with her...