AFTER making a plan to have her first book published before the age of 50, there’s no stopping author Julie Newman now.

Her debut Beware the Cuckoo only came out last year, two months before her 50th birthday, but now she’s already celebrating the release of her follow-up, which according to Julie is already proving to be a much better experience.

“I’m really happy with it,” she tells me. “In terms of the writing, I enjoyed it a lot more than Beware the Cuckoo. That dealt with some pretty heavy themes and although the new book is still very dark in places, I think this also has plenty of lighter moments.

"I suppose you could even say it has elements of being a black comedy - in places.”

Julie has even had some pretty cool feedback.

“This one has definitely garnered more interest,” Julie continues. “For a start it was featured in Take A Break magazine as their book for April, which I was delighted with.”

Julie, who lives in Feering, first entered the world of books by starting up her own publishing company, Poppy Publishing.

“I was volunteering at my children’s school,” Julie adds, “and one of the teachers and I started talking about doing a book together. I would write it and she would do the illustrations.”

The result was Poppy and the Garden Monster, which came out in 2008.

She says: “I really enjoyed doing it and I had a lot of fun reading it to schoolchildren in class but I wanted to set myself another a challenge, to write a full length novel.”Gazette:

And now she’s got two to her name.

In her new novel, The Kindness of Strangers, widow Helen is desperate for a perfect family life and will do everything she can to get what she wants while Afghan veteran Martin is adrift and seemingly without hope.

Finally there’s pregnant teenager Charley who is striking out on her own to create a new life for her unborn child, although her mother Lizzie has other ideas.

As these three seemingly disparate lives connect, the past and the present collide to reveal secrets, lies and how far people are willing to go to hide the truth.

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She says: “I liked the idea of three characters who would never normally come into contact with each but what happens when they do. It’s written in two halves with the first half written in the first person from each character’s perspective.

"The second half of the book is where they meet and what happens but there’s plenty of twists and turns to keep readers guessing what’s really going on.”

Originally from London, Julie grew up in Benfleet going to King John School and then on to Southend Technical College.

She says. “Now the children are grown up, there’s a lot more time for the writing. I’ve already started book three, which is completely different to the other two spread across two continents and two timelines.”

The Kindness of Strangers is out now. 

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