The Widow's Mite by Allie Cresswell - Book Tour
The
Widow’s Mite
Minnie Price
married late in life. Now she is widowed. And starving.
No one suspects this respectable church-goer can
barely keep body and soul together. Why would they, while she resides in the
magnificent home she shared with Peter?
Her friends and neighbours are oblivious to her
plight and her adult step-children have their own reasons to make things worse
rather than better. But she is thrown a lifeline when an associate of her late
husband arrives with news of an investment about which her step-children know
nothing.
Can she release the funds before she finds
herself homeless and destitute?
Fans of 'The Hoarder's Widow' will enjoy this
sequel, but it reads equally well as a standalone.
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Excerpt
The Widow’s Mite is the
second book in the Widows series in
which I explore the stories of a group of widowed ladies who have formed a
friendship group.
Necessarily,
the books describe the relationship which existed between the widow and her
late husband, his demise and her ensuing grief. All these things are
inter-dependent. In The Hoarder’s Widow,
the first book in the series, Maisie had loved her husband but his obsession
with collecting things had made her life almost intolerable. Although she
mourned him there was, in her inner, secret heart, a guilty nugget of relief.
Minnie’s
situation is quite different. She had met Peter late in life and their marriage
had been all-too brief. It is clear that
she is not going to cope well on her own.
Peter
had died suddenly, unexpectedly. Her mind, like a small vessel cast adrift,
pitched and rolled on a vast sea of grief but found itself particularly swamped
by those two waves of circumstance; the suddenness and the unexpectedness of
it. It had been Saturday – their favourite day of the week – characterised by a
lie-in, a cup of tea in bed and a bacon breakfast before a pleasant sequence of
jobs to be done in companionable co-operation. On Saturday evenings, to round
off the pleasure of the day, they sometimes drove out to a country inn for a
steak dinner. This – or something like it – had been the prospect before them
on that day. One moment Peter had been perfectly well, opening up the garden shed
to get at the ride-on lawn mower, speaking of a trip to the garden centre later
in the day to buy mulch. Then, in seconds, he had been dead, sprawled on the
block paving. The shock of it had been appalling; so violent that Minnie had
thought for a few moments her own heart would stop. She had been hysterical,
screeching at the 999 operator and at Peter, incoherent with panic. She had
been distraught, angry, disbelieving as the paramedics had worked in vain to
revive him and afterwards, when they had lifted him onto their stretcher and
covered him with a sheet, and told her there was no point in her accompanying
them to the hospital. No point at all.
It
had felt like an enormous hoax; as though the paramedics had in fact kidnapped
Peter and she would soon hear from them requiring payment of a ransom to secure
his release. It still felt that way, only now the undertaker and the vicar and
all those people at the funeral were complicit in insisting Peter was dead,
properly dead, and not shackled in a dark and smelly lock-up somewhere
wondering why she had not redeemed him. She had been left to stew. No one had
come near her for days. Were they trying to wear down her resistance? What
resistance? She would have paid any amount of money to anyone at all if it
would only have brought her husband back, but what was she to do when no one
had told her the amount or where it should be delivered?
This
was a fantasy, of course, a vain thread of hope which, although a terrible
prospect, was less terrible than the truth. Six years. That was all the time
she had been allowed with him. It seemed so unfair; a too-brief enchantment. He
had brought her from the shadows of anonymity and loneliness into the light and
now she must go back.
She
knew, in a far pocket of conviction which was, however, too weak and careless
to galvanise her into any kind of action, she ought to get showered and
dressed, make a shopping list and go out. She must move on, which, for Minnie,
meant nothing so much as going back.
Author Bio
–
Allie Cresswell was
born in Stockport, UK and began writing fiction as soon as she could hold a
pencil.
She did 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, 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, two grandsons and two cockapoos but just
one husband – Tim. They live in Cumbria, NW England.
The Widow’s Mite is her
tenth novel.
You can contact her
via her website at www.allie-cresswell.com\
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