Accidental Damage by Alice May - Book Tour
The House
That Sat Down Trilogy: Omnibus Edition
Inspired
by a true story, The House That Sat Down Trilogy is a tale of triumph over
tragedy. It is an astonishing account of sudden, first-world homelessness in
the heart of the New Forest, and the unexpected consequences. Written entirely
from a mother’s point of view, following the collapse of her family's home, it
is an uplifting and positive read in spite of the subject matter, with a thread
of wry humour throughout. Follow this ordinary woman on an extraordinary
journey of survival and self discovery as she reels from disaster, before
picking herself up and coming back stronger and wiser than before.
Packed with humorous observations about what it
is like to live in a tent in your garden with your husband and four children
after a significant part of your house falls down out of the blue one day, this
story takes you from the depths of despair right through to the satisfying
heights of success against the odds, with lots of tea and cakes on the way.
Follow this crazy family as they cope with
disaster in their own truly unique and rather mad way, and celebrate each small
triumph along the way with them.
Purchase
Links:
Accidental
Damage – Tales from the House that Sat Down.
Book
1 in The House That Sat Down Trilogy
If you think the normal school run on a
Monday is entertaining, you should try doing it from a tent in your back
garden, surrounded by the jumbled-up contents of your entire home. It is vastly
more diverting.
Our heroine has survived the sudden
collapse of her home – or has she?
Certain events, two and a half years ago,
led her to deliberately destroy an important piece of herself, hiding away all
remaining evidence that it every existed. What happens when she decides to go
looking for it?
Does she really deserve to be whole again?
Book
1 Accidental Damage – Tales from the house that sat down
Accidental
Damage is also available in Large Print format
ExcerptHello and welcome to a
small passage from The House That Sat Down.
I’ve chosen the
following passage for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to demonstrate
that, in spite of the awful situation my fictional family are living in, it is
still possible for them to have a good time. However, at the same instance, I
wanted to demonstrate the fragility of the whole situation. How, underneath the
children’s superficially idyllic garden camping experience, the mother is
struggling with the weight of fear for the future.
‘Back to the past…
We should consider that the responsibilities of
adulthood can frequently make us neglect the true meaning of life as we become
swept up in the pursuit of ephemeral goals, forgetting to enjoy every moment
for what it is.
Taking a lesson from the supreme wisdom of Monty
Python, I would suggest that we must attempt to look on the bright side of
life, and it would be a major mistake to think that everything about that
fateful summer was to be doom and gloom for our intrepid little band, for it
most certainly wasn’t.
As always, life with the Barbarians was never boring.
Over the years it has been a profound privilege to bear witness to them
evolving. Observing them throwing themselves into new life experiences with a
joyful exuberance has been truly awe inspiring, if simultaneously exhausting
and terrifying from a parental perspective.
That summer proved that our Barbarians definitely had
living in the moment sussed, possessed as they are of a highly developed sense
of the ridiculous leading to frequent bursts of hilarity, no matter how bleak
the prospects around them.
The prolonged period of warm, dry weather provided the
most delightful of rare but perfect British Summers, which resulted in our
protracted garden camping existence definitely having its more positive
moments. After all, we were taking our inspiration from Enid Blyton’s Famous
Five and camping in the ruins of our home, much as they had camped in the ruins
of a Castle in their very first adventure. An Englishman’s home and all that,
although there were no lashings of ginger beer, we can’t stand the stuff.
As soon as the school holidays commenced officially,
our Barbarians, the boys in particular, were able to indulge their wilder sides
on an almost permanent basis, thoroughly enjoying being out of doors.
At night though, in spite of the bright sunny days, I
have to admit that I still felt the cold. Perhaps it was the contrast of the
night time temperatures with the daytime warmth. However, this didn’t seem to
affect the Barbarians at all, no doubt helped a little by the hot water bottles
I would stuff into their sleeping bags last thing at night while they snored
away peacefully, just before I collapsed into my own bed. Conceivably, it was my age that meant I felt
the cold more than they did, or maybe it was the chill weight of sheer dread I
was carrying around in the core of my being like a block of ice slowly freezing
my heart, which made it impossible to warm up.’
I hope you
enjoyed reading this extract.
Love Alice
Website: www.alicemay.weebly.com
About the Author
I
am a multi-tasking parent to four not-so-small children, and I am fortunate
enough to be married to (probably) the most patient man on the planet. We live in, what used to be, a ramshackle old
cottage in the country. Our house began to fall down out of the blue one day,
which resulted in the whole family living in a tent in the back garden for
quite some time, while we worked out how to rebuild our home.
A
few years afterwards, I decided to write a book and, once I started, I found I
couldn’t stop.
Inspired
by true-life events ‘Accidental Damage – tales from the house that sat down’
wouldn’t leave me alone until it was written.
Within
six months of self-publishing my novel, I was delighted to learn that it had
won two ‘Chill with a Book Awards’. This was a massive honour and motivated me
to continue writing. Accidental Damage became the first book in a trilogy.
The
Omnibus edition of all three books in the House That Sat Down Trilogy is now
available via Amazon in both paperback and kindle format.
Social
Media Links –
Website:
www.AliceMay.weebly.com
Facebook
www.facebook.com/AliceMayAuthor/
Twitter:
@AliceMay_Author
Instagram:
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