FATAL CHOICES

'Fatal Truths',  my new psychological thriller and the last in the Louise Moon series,  is now available on Amazon Kindle. It's a brand new novel, published for the first time as an e-book by Endeavour Press.

Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fatal-Choices-ebook/dp/B00BHYCQQE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361381329&sr=1-1

Set mostly  in Switzerland the book is about assisted suicide. I wrote it after watching a documentary made by Terry Pratchett (best-selling author of the Discworld series) who followed the journey of a couple as the husband was preparing to go to Zurich to die. There has also been a TV drama about this process, starring the excellent Julie Walters - can't recall the title. I followed the Pratchett documentary up with some research into Dignitas, the Swiss clinic cited in the programme and was amazed and saddened to read blog posts to the Dignitas website from people desperate to  die, often because of emotional distress, or plain dissatisfaction with life,  It's a sobering choice to make, and I don't think I would ever make it. I want to live with cancer, not view it as a death sentence. The way to go, I think, is more funding for palliative care. So let's hope the NHS stays free and the Tories are not re-elected....

THE NEW YEAR COMETH

I don't know what the full moon portends - my daughter said it was madness; I thought it affected the tides. Cornwall is surrounded by water - English Channel to the south, Atlantic Ocean to the west, the River Tamar splicing us from Devon. There has been a lot of rainfall lately and the waters are rising.

Some things don't change. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols doesn't change, except this year, the Dean and members of the Chapter were handing out mince pies and hot spiced apple juice to the people queuing to get in last Sunday. (This service is so popular, they repeat it on Christmas Eve.)  The shopping frenzy doesn't change - food halls crammed before Christmas, shops opening their doors at 6am for the Boxing Day sales.  What changes then? The weather, the moon, the tides. They change,  and the news, of course. The news always changes, irrespective of our attempts to stay it with a few days in front of the TV or at the sales. But I love Christmas because it is, in spite of everything, a respite, one of those Magic Mountain moments in which time contracts and shuts out the never ending march towards the future -   Janus, the two-headed Roman god who can look both forwards and backwards, but who gave us January.

And I look backwards to those friends of mine who have been having cancer treatment this year, and forwards to those who will have treatment next year for cancer and cardiovascular disease and who, like me, will still be here seven years later, not just because of medical intervention but because they still have things to do which carry them forward and infuse them with hope and will and a sense of the ineffable.

Full Moon over Truro on Christmas night. (Morgellyn)

BOOK LAUNCH - 'GRAVE TRUTHS'

My relaunched title 'Grave Truths' is now available on Amazon Kindle. Click the link below for a sample:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grave-Truths-ebook/dp/B00ASLDT0O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1356602622&sr=1-1

TINY TIMS

Recent events in Connecticut made me think of A Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim, the child without a future:

"God bless us, everyone"


God bless us, everyone and Happy Christmas.

photo by Cara Loukes

BOOK LAUNCH: REMAINS OF THE DEAD

My new e-book,  launched yesterday by Endeavour Press,  is now available on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Remains-of-the-Dead-ebook/dp/B00AHVFYR6/ref=dp_return_1?ie=UTF8&n=341677031&s=digital-text

Readers of this blog may know that I write psychological thrillers involving the dead  (victims of murder, victims of social neglect,  sudden heart attacks, dramatic suicides). They are commercial but serious in tone - at least that was my intention when I wrote them. I'm now flattered to see my new publishers (Endeavour Press)  comparing me with Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs in the Amazon publicity.

What I want to say to anyone reading this post who may be having cancer treatment or just had a new diagnosis, is that my books are most definitely not inspired by cancer but by my long career as a flaneur -  a term defined by the French poet Baudelaire as someone who wanders the streets of a great city, constantly observing the crowds who pass by and inventing stories about them.  I started doing this when I first lived in Paris  as a teenager and sat for hours in cafes watching 'le grand spectacle' of people walking up and down the boulevards, and listening in to their conversations - often startling and always disjointed and surreal because,  as an eavesdropper,  I only ever caught the gist of what was going on.  I slid easily into the psychological thriller genre perhaps because it seemed to develop naturally from my observations of big city life.  All my novels are set in London, where I lived and worked for nearly twenty years and which continues to inspire me every time I go up there, which is often, because  I always find something new. London is the focus of my inspiration and Cornwall is my writing base. I find it difficult to write stories about Cornwall because it has never presented me with any tensions - apart from my hospital treatments. And therein lies the single link my fiction-writing has with cancer.  When I was recovering from chemo, neurosurgery et al,  I was unable to write at all and lay staring the oak outside my window, dreaming up dark tales...

THREE DEGREES

This message came into my mail box today. Timely, because those of you who follow the blog know it's an issue that has long been on my mind:

""Dear Anne,

Local campaigns to protect our NHS are getting going all over the country.

38 Degrees members in St. Austell and also county-wide are working to prevent privatisation of the NHS. The county-wide group recently met with the Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group (KCCG). They delivered the 38 Degrees petition and discussed changes to the CCG’s constitution that will help to protect locally NHS services.

Ellen, a 38 Degrees member in North Cornwall, has also made this request:

"A group of us from North Cornwall would like to get together to work on local issues. These may include problems with Serco’s out-of-hours service and the lack of staff at the Launceston hospital.”

If you’d like to get involved there’s a meeting on:

Thursday 6th December, 7pm

Clease Hall,
Clease Road,
Camelford, PL32 9QX

Directions: If you're coming into Camelford from the west, turn left opposite the Co-op store and take the first left into the Hall’s carpark. If you're coming from the east, turn right opposite the Co-op store and take the first left. The Hall is opposite the North Cornwall Museum and Gallery, which will be closed.

If you'd like to get in touch with Ellen, you can call her on 01840 230 311. If you have any questions generally about the 38 Degrees NHS campaign, please email ccgsupport@38degrees.org.uk.


Thanks for being involved''
 

SECONDARY BREAST CANCER AWARENESS DAY 13 OCTOBER

October is breast cancer month when all the pink ribbons pins, lipgloss et al  go on sale in high street chains that support Breast Cancer charities. Please support awareness month by donating or by buying one of these items. The metal badges make very good (and chic) lapel pins - I have quite a collection of these now!

Many women with breast cancer are treated initially for primary tumours, and, provided the disease hasn't spread to other parts of the body,  they can be cured.  However, Secondary Breast Cancer (the type I've lived with for seven years) can't be cured, only treated, which is why Breast Cancer Care are launching a special press campaign for Secondary Breast Cancer patients on 13 October. The issues affecting women living with secondary (advanced) disease are very different from those with primary breast cancer  - see the My Day posts on the BCC website. The link is at

http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/secondary-breast-cancer-awareness-day/day-your-life/anne

The link for the blog launched 13 October 2012 on The Huffington Post is

Anne Morgellyn: Shining a light on Secondary Breast Cancer

my desktop (Anne Morgellyn)