A Forgiven Friend: Lies, Loss, and Love, But Always Friendship by Sue Featherstone and Susan Pape
Readers
often want to know whether our characters are based on real people.
Absolutely
NOT.
Any
resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
Unless,
of course, there actually is a real, living Heinz 57 person,
who is an amalgamation of all the bits and pieces of the various
people – passers-by, fellow train travellers, customers in the
supermarket check-out queue – who’ve contributed a hairstyle, a
quirky laugh or a penchant for knitted waistcoats to our characters.
No,
the men and women peopling our pages are definitely figments of our
imagination – although I’ve always pictured Teri Meyer, one of
the central characters in our Friends trilogy, as looking very
similar to US Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher. They’re both
tall, slim and elegant – although our Teri is a blonde rather than
a brunette.
But
in all other respects, they’re as different as chalk and cheese.
One
Teri is a successful, award-winning actress, the other is a failed
university lecturer. One was voted the world’s sexiest woman by
readers of popular magazine FHM, and the other – although several
of our male characters think she is pretty hot – has never been an
FHM contender. One hails from Palo Alto, California, and the other
comes from Yorkshire.
It’s
possible that Teri Hatcher shares our Teri’s passion for expensive,
high-heeled shoes – Louboutins, for preference – but, equally,
most women, if offered a choice, wouldn’t turn up their noses at a
pair of beautifully-crafted heels.
Although
Lee Harper, our other central character, who prefers chunky boots,
might struggle to manage more than a couple of steps…
Not
unlike me.
And
Teri’s obsession with expensive leather totes is pure Susan.
But,
that’s okay. The writer’s code – which includes a healthy
respect for this country’s libel laws – means that while Susan
and I don’t have any qualms about endowing our characters with
aspects of our own personality traits, we’d never dream of
modelling them on friends or family.
We
do occasionally borrow real-life incidents. There are scenes in all
three of our novels that are loosely based on something that has
happened to one or other of us. Or something we’ve overheard on a
bus or a train – people should talk more quietly if they don’t
want us to eavesdrop – or sometimes just a glimpse of a woman in a
purple fleece…
But,
in every one of these cases, we do what I always think of as the
Roald Dahl George’s Marvellous Medicine trick, where a simple
premise – a special medicine for George’s horrible grandmother –
is exaggerated to its logical conclusion. So, Granny’s medicine
contains every pill, potion and lotion George can find with
predictably explosive results.
While
we don’t have any actual explosions in A Forgiven Friend, and we
don’t aspire to Dahl’s absurdities either, we do exaggerate.
What
would you do if you’d collected three speeding tickets and were
desperate to avoid a driving ban?
In
A Forgiven Friend Teri, naturally, tries to persuade best friend, Lee
to commit perjury and ‘take’ the points on her behalf. When Lee
refuses, Teri has what in Yorkshire we call a massive ‘strop’,
declares their friendship at an end, and targets her wealthy new
boyfriend instead.
He
too is reluctant to acquire a criminal record, so Teri falls out with
him as well.
Next
she wonders if the boyfriend’s chauffeur, a reformed ex-con, might
have connections who could help out…
Of
course, it’d never happen in real life. Who’d go to such lengths
to keep their driving licence? Oh, wait, wasn’t there an MP and his
wife who –?
Friendship
will always come first.
There’s
only one way out from rock bottom and that’s up, and Teri Meyer is
finally crawling out from the worst time of her life – no thanks to
her best friend Lee. But no matter, she’s finally found love –
real love with a real man, a successful man, a man who accepts all
her flaws. Teri’s never felt like this before, and yet it’s
changing her in ways she doesn’t understand.
And
there’s only one person who can help, one person who truly
understands Teri.
It
seems that no matter how hard Lee Harper tries, there’s a battle
awaiting her at every turn these days, and she’s tired. And as if
she needs the extra stress, Teri continues to create constant and
unnecessary drama. But Lee’s the only one who really knows what’s
going on under Teri’s hard, convoluted exterior, and that’s why
she’s always been there for her.
But
the question is: will Teri be there when Lee needs her most?
The
brilliant and entertaining final book in the unique FRIENDS trilogy
dishes out another dose of rib-tickling mayhem for our favourite
thirty-something professional women.
Breaking Price
News!!
A
Falling Friend (book 1) will be FREE from November 18 - 22 (UK, AUS
and US)
A
Forsaken Friend (book 2): 99c/p from November 18 - 25 (UK and US)
Biographies:
Sue Featherstone and Susan Pape
Sue Featherstone
and Susan Pape are both former newspaper journalists with extensive
experience of working for national and regional papers and magazines,
and in public relations.
More recently
they have worked in higher education, teaching journalism – Sue at
Sheffield Hallam and Susan at Leeds Trinity University.
The pair, who
have been friends for almost 30 years, wrote two successful
journalism text books together – Newspaper Journalism: A
Practical Introduction and Feature Writing: A Practical
Introduction (both published by Sage), before deciding to turn
their hands to fiction.
The first novel
in their Friends series, A Falling Friend, was released in
2016. A Forsaken Friend followed two years later, and the
final book in the trilogy, A Forgiven Friend, published on
November 19.
Sue, who is
married with two grown-up daughters, and the most ‘gorgeous
granddaughter in the whole world’, loves reading, writing and
Nordic walking in the beautiful countryside near her Yorkshire home.
Susan is married
and lives in a village near Leeds, and, when not writing, loves
walking and cycling in the Yorkshire Dales. She is also a member of a
local ukulele orchestra.
