Life has been rather complicated of late and I’m struggling to fit in everything I’d like to, but I simply couldn’t let publication day for Allie Cresswell’s Salad Days go unmarked. You see, Allie has always been so generous to me as a reader, sending me copies of her books with no expectation that I’ll review, but just hoping I’ll enjoy reading them.

Allie also provided a super guest post about mature characters when her book Widow’s Weeds was published that you’ll find here. Consequently, the least I can do is bring Allie’s new book, Salad Days to your attention – especially as it sounds fantastic.

Available in ebook too, Salad Days is published in paperback today, 7th June 2024, and is available for purchase here.

Salad Days

“My earliest memory is of you, Arthur. We were children, running across the garden at Granny’s house. The sun on your hair made it look like copper wire. Then you stopped, and I cannoned into you. We both went headlong into the rockery. It was 1964, the summer before I started school, so I was nearly five. You would have been just three.
It’s strange, isn’t it? That my first memory is of you. Or maybe it isn’t very strange at all.”

Prudence and Arthur take a nostalgic trip down memory lane to the sixties and seventies; turbulent, changeful years that contrasted with their idyllic childhood at ‘Salad Days,’ the market garden run by Prue’s extended family.

But was it idyllic? Tragedy makes uneasy waypoints in their journey of recollection, and Arthur’s overbearing father casts a dark pall. How did he inveigle himself into Prue’s close-knit family circle? What was his hold on them?

As Prue and Arthur retrace their youthful attempts to get to the facts, it’s clear that truth and memory aren’t always the same.

What of the mysteries that defy the clarity of hindsight? The uncanny auspices of eccentric Mrs Glenister, latest in the line of ‘peculiar’ Glenister wives—why did she only materialise at times of calamity? And most oddly of all, why, in all their reminiscing, does Arthur never speak a word?

Memory is a curious thing—unreliable and awkward. Shaping it into an account Prue and Arthur can both live with might take a lifetime. Or two.

***

Doesn’t that sound completely brilliant? I love the way the cover has a slightly indistinct quality, rather like the unreliable quality of memory explored in Salad Days. I think this sounds a very special book.

About Allie Cresswell

Allie Cresswell is the recipient of two coveted One Stop Fiction Five Star Awards and three Readers’ Favorite Awards

Allie was born in Stockport, UK and began writing fiction as soon as she could hold a pencil.

She went on to do a BA in English Literature at Birmingham University and an MA at Queen Mary College, London.

She has been a print-buyer, a pub landlady, a book-keeper, and has run a B & B and a group of boutique holiday cottages. Nowadays Allie writes full time having retired from teaching literature to lifelong learners.

She has two grown-up children, two granddaughters and two grandsons, is married to Tim and lives in Cumbria.

For further information, visit Allie’s website, or follow Allie on Twitter/X @Alliescribbler, Facebook and Instagram.