Transita Books - After Michael

After Michael by Betty O'Rourke

ISBN 1-905175-094 Price £7.99

Available July 2005

'Fiona’s eyes turned to the other people in this small, select group, then paused. Who was that young woman standing behind and slightly to Colin’s right? She knew everyone else gathered here; close friends and neighbours of Michael and herself, but she was quite sure she’d never seen this young woman before.’

Synopsis

When Fiona Latimer learns that her husband Michael has died of a sudden heart attack alone in his London flat, she is shocked but not devastated. She and Michael had led increasingly separate lives in their last few years. At the funeral, two people arrive unexpectedly, each of whom will have a great deal of influence on future events. There is Anthea, a girl who knows more about Michael than she will admit, and Simon, a man from Fiona’s past whom she now realises she should have married instead. Gradually, the secrets of Michael’s past are uncovered, and when the final, shocking betrayals are at last revealed Fiona discovers her life with him was not at all what it had seemed.

‘I was completely gripped by this fast-paced, well-written mystery…only pick this book up if you have time to devote to it, as you will find it hard to put down.’

As a child, Betty O’Rourke wanted to live in a caravan and write books, or alternatively, be a lighthouse keeper, because she had the idea that all she needed to do would be to turn the light on at dusk and off again at dawn, giving her plenty of time and solitude to write.

At the age of 20 Betty went to work in Foyles Bookshop in Charing Cross Road. Later she became a Library Assistant, and studied to become a Chartered Librarian. She met her future husband at Library School. They spent the first two years of married life in the United States where she worked as a children’s librarian at Brooklyn Public Libraries.

On return from the States they started a family. As soon as their four children were sufficiently independent to give Betty some time to herself, she began writing seriously.
Betty joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association and through their New Writers’ Scheme became published by Robert Hale. She has had subsequent successes with Hale, D.C. Thomson, Ulverscroft Large Print and now Transita.

Having written mainly romance with a thread of mystery in the past, Betty wanted to reverse the focus and write a mystery with a thread of romance – After Michael is the result.