New2TheScene Novel Award

I’m very happy to share that The Peat Cutter’s Wife made the final fifty of the New2theScene summer 2025 novel award. The novel has travelled a long way to get here. You might know it under the title: 1597, The Year of the Living. It’s a thing, apparently, author’s changing their mind about their titles - often we start off with an idea to write one story, then our characters have different ideas. It took a while for my title to catch up.

The New2theScene Award exists to spotlight emerging voices across every genre, and making it through to the final fifty means it stood out in a large and competitive field. Who knew? I might be alright at this writing thing. It’s a lonely business - you never quite know if you’re getting there because feedback is so subjective. So this feels like a milestone worth enjoying.

The Peat Cutter’s Wife is about a 1597 couple trying to save each other and their marriage, across a huge gulf in their beliefs, against persecution, poverty and spiralling witch-fear. It’s a tender, aching love story about a couple who can’t quite reach other but never stop trying, no matter how hard things become.

Based as it is on true events - the horror of which we can only begin to imagine - writing it sometimes took me to dark places. And I owe huge thanks to the wonderful Remembering Accused Witches of Scotland society for their help with facts and encouragement with the truth I worked to convey. I also owe gratitude to the wonderful people around me, friends and family, who patiently read early drafts and gave me honest feedback and support at every step.

I’ll share more news on this book as I am able - another thing I have learned about writing: from finishing to publication is a long… long… process, and one not for the faint-hearted.