Extract from Work in Progress, especially for Christmas:
When Deborah had been a little girl, the Sunday School party had always frightened her. She was afraid of the other children and of the games, afraid she would be left out, afraid she wouldn't know what to do. Most of all, she was afraid of the moment when bells would be heard on the sloping path running down to the hall and Auntie Ivy would whisper excitedly, “Listen, can you hear Father Christmas coming?”
Deborah would grow tight and cold inside then a strange, monstrous man, huge in a red coat, wearing a long white beard that looked like cottonwool, would enter the hall crying, “Ho, ho, ho, what a lot of little children!”
He carried a big sack of presents and, one by one, he would call out the children's names - he never left anyone out. When he came to your name, you had to go up and take a present from him. Deborah refused to go and Auntie Ivy had to collect hers for her. She couldn't understand why Father Christmas and all the teachers found this so funny. Grown-ups were always laughing at her and she could never see why.
But now, this year, when she was in the Junior Girls’ class, Father Christmas didn't come to the party - they were too old to believe in him any more, of course. The party was different this year in other ways too. Soon after her mother had left her in the hall and Miss Fry had said “Hello”, a girl Deborah liked, called Gabrielle, grabbed her hand and dragged her off to look at the Christmas tree. They stayed together all that afternoon, were partners in all the games, and sat next to each other at teatime.
It was when they sat down at the table, covered in a red paper tablecloth with holly leaves on it, and paper plates piled high with party food, that Gabrielle and Deborah started to be naughty. Not that Deborah meant to be, or even realised she was, it just seemed to happen. It began because Gabrielle said, “Let's see who can get the most food on our plates.” In front of each of them on the table was a small paper plate and cup. The plates were very small and challenged them to try it.
“I'm going to have a sausage roll,” said Gabrielle, helping herself to one, “and a sandwich . . . and some crisps . . . and some cheese on sticks . . . and a sausage on a stick . . . and a cake . . . and a mince pie . . . and more crisps on top!” Gabrielle carried out this stunning feat, balancing each piece of food so beautifully that it all sat upon the plate. Deborah just had to compete, leaning across the table to grab more and more things, carefully building a tower of food upon her plate quite as high as Gabrielle's. All her parents' strict rules about table-manners were entirely forgotten for the first time in her life.
“Look,” Gabrielle clutched her arm, “there are some sweets in that bowl down there. I bet I can get lots of them on, too. Can you get it?” Deborah eagerly leant across the little girl on her left and snatched the bowl. She and Gabrielle began stuffing fudge and coconut ice into every spare cranny on their plates. Deborah's tumbled off again, all over the table, which made them fall about giggling.
“Deborah!” The voice, so filled with horror, surprise and reproach, dashed icily over Deborah, freezing her. She looked up into the eyes of Mrs Blyth, the leader of the Junior Girls'. The eyes were full of shocked amazement, “I expect better behaviour than this from you, Deborah. I rely on you to set a good example because you really know better than to behave in such a rude, greedy, selfish way, don't you? I know your parents have taught you better than this.” Deborah trembled and tears choked up her throat so she couldn't reply. “I hope you're going to eat all that food you've taken for yourself,” Mrs Blyth walked away as if the sight of so much disgusting greed was too unbearable to look at any longer.
“Isn't she silly?” Gabrielle giggled, “We were only having fun and there's loads of food. Would you like a jelly? I can reach one for you.” She passed Deborah a red jelly in an individual paper dish, “Just imagine what would happen if the bowl collapsed when they poured the jelly in,” she began giggling again, “Mrs Blyth and old Miss Fry with thirty paper bowls pouring runny jelly everywhere.” Deborah began to laugh, too, and suddenly couldn't stop.
“Did you have a nice time, darling?” Nell asked her when she drove her home. “Yes, it was fabulous,” Deborah said. Nell looked at her in surprise - Deborah always hated Sunday School parties.
Walking Shadow, Miriam Hasting’s first historical novel, was published in November 2019 under the name of M W Hastings, and is available direct from FeedaRead Books as well as through Amazon. It is also available as an e-book on Kindle. This is a historical novel with profoundly modern themes: the fear of terrorism, political manipulation of information, and issues of religious fundamentalism and intolerance.
Miriam Hastings’ latest novel, The Dowager’s Dream, is available now in paperback from FeedARead Publishing. Also as an e-book on Kindle: The Dowager’s Dream.
In a crumbling mansion on the north coast of Scotland, the Dowager grows old; exiled there by her son, the Laird, she dreams of her girlhood and waits for death, but when the tenants keep talking of a monster in the sea, she becomes obsessed with the strange creature living in the bay beyond her windows.
The people claim the sea monster portends disaster and they are right for the Laird has grand plans to improve the estate. He intends to evict all the tenants from their crofts in order to turn the land over to an army of sheep.
Can the Dowager stand up to her unscrupulous son? If she does, she may have to pay a terrible price.
Walking Shadow, Miriam Hasting’s first historical novel, was published in November 2019 under the name of M W Hastings, and is available direct from FeedaRead Books as well as through Amazon. It is also available as an e-book on Kindle. This is a historical novel with profoundly modern themes: the fear of terrorism, political manipulation of information, and issues of religious fundamentalism and intolerance.
Edmund (aka Rosamund) Shakespeare, younger sibling of William and lead player of female roles with the King’s Men, is the narrator and central protagonist. When the novel opens, it is January 1606 and London is a dangerous place; the gunpowder plot has just been foiled, spies and informers are everywhere, and Edmund is a prisoner in the Tower, charged with treason.
Miriam’s first novel, winner of the MIND Book of the Year Award, is a present-day story with a legendary model. To the people of Crete, the Minotaur was traditionally a creature of darkness and horror. Locked in a labyrinth where no-one could see him, he became the scapegoat for everyone’s worst imaginable nightmares and terrors.
Chrissie and Rachel are Minotaurs. They meet in Bradley, a rambling Victorian institution for the mentally ill. As the novel unfolds and their respective stories are gradually revealed, their growing relationship becomes a rich source of shared experience and a focus for their deepening knowledge of themselves.
Some reviews of Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt:
[An author] “of great talent and wit, the courage to lead us through purgatory and the tenderness to love and understand its inhabitants.” Monica Dickens.
“There are echoes of romantic fiction, but there is also a whiff of grim realism . . . Underlying the narrative is an impressive refusal to attempt glib explanations.” Bernard Ineichen.
“Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt is an engrossing novel set in a mental health institution and in the minds of some of its patients. . .The positive portrayal is very well done, yet it does not pull any punches about the difficulties faced by those with serious mental illness”, Mercia McMahon.
“No matter how dark the labyrinthe of emotions, there is always redemption for the human condition, and this sensitivity to lightness, back-to-back with the darkness, is where Hastings’ writing is at its finest. It has the voice of authenticity.” Vine Voice.
“The Minotaur Hunt is beautifully written with an immediacy and urgency that has you turning the pages”, The Bub.
New Work
Miriam Hastings has recently completed a new novel, The Dowager’s Dream, a surreal fantasy set on the north coast of Scotland at the time of the brutal clearances in the Scottish Highlands. The novel was inspired by the (largely imagined) lives of Miriam’s great great-grandmothers, Margaret MacKenzie and Christine Patterson, and also by an account written in 1809 by a minister’s daughter, describing a mermaid she had seen in Sandside Bay, Caithness. Although The Dowager’s Dream is set in the early years of the 19th Century, the themes of dispossession and ethnic cleansing will resonate with the contemporary reader.
Miriam Hastings, author 