First of all a huge hello to all the followers of The Story Reading Ape’s blog.  My name is Carole Parkes and I’m here today to introduce you to my debut book “TISSUE OF LIES”, a psychological thriller that can also be included in the genre of family drama.  However, before I discuss the book I’d like to tell you a little about myself.

I’m 67 years of age, a little old to be publishing my first book maybe, but life sometimes has a habit of getting in the way of your ambitions and in my case this was certainly true.  I married at nineteen and had two babies by the time I was twenty one. My third son came seven years later and it was when he started  school that I first began to write.  My first attempt was a series of children’s stories, written to teach my sons that not all things valuable have to cost the earth.  I also wrote several short stories at this time and I started writing about my happy childhood. This is the time I wrote my debut novel.

At the age of forty,  I went back to college as an adult student to do my ‘O’ levels and then my ‘A’ levels.  With those qualifications under my belt I started a degree in Sociology. During the second year of my degree studies my husband had a heart attack and had to give up work.  He was so incapacitated that I had to give up my ambitions to look after him. At this time my parents were also approaching their seventies and becoming dependent on me for jobs around the house.  As my husband’s strength slowly improved my parents’ health deteriorated.  I was their only daughter but I had two older brothers. One had emigrated to Australia the year I married and the other suffered with MS, so it was down to me to look after them. With my husband’s help I managed to look after my mum and dad in their own home until they were into their nineties. At the ages of 91 and 95 they eventually entered a nursing home and lived happily there until they both died last year aged 94 and 97.  They had been married two weeks short of 76 years and my dad still said my mum was beautiful.  Since then I have been working on my novel, editing and re-editing until I was finally satisfied with it and self published it in April.

My husband and I have been happily married for 48 years and have a lovely relationship with our three sons, three beautiful daughters-in law and our grandchildren. Despite his early heart attack and the fact my husband needs a full by-pass operation, we look forward to many more years together.

I have many hobbies besides writing and for the last twelve years I’ve been engrossed in genealogy, art and reading.  My granddaughter calls me an ‘artist’ but I really just dabble. I was trained as a tailoress before I married and have worked alongside fashion designers as a sample machinist producing many sample garments for the big fashion stores. Before I was married, I used to buy materials every Saturday morning, make a new garment for myself Saturday afternoon and wear it that evening to go out with my boyfriend.  Oh, how I wish I had that sort of energy now.  Still, you can sit down to write, thank goodness!

I’m doing a three day free promotion for my Kindle e-book  “Tissue of Lies” inclusive from 2^nd August to 4^th August 2013.  (see also FREEBIES above)

It’s a psychological family thriller and reviewers have said. “It’s a fantastic book, very gripping and original”,  “Keeps you engrossed till the end. I cannot wait for your next book”,  “A thriller of a story enclosed with many tangled lies”,  “A really great story with many twists and turns”,  “I have already encouraged two more purchases to friends.”

My Author websites are HERE  for WordPress and HERE at Amazon.co.uk and HERE at Amazon.com 

“TISSUE OF LIES” Synopsis.

Julie Simpson had always had a vague suspicion that the dear couple who’d raised her, were not her real parents.  Much to her horror, she discovers that not only are her fears about her origins well founded, but unbelievably, this same couple had somehow been involved with abducting her when she’d been just a baby.

Julie longs to find out the truth, but is reluctant to start anything that might end up with her parents being prosecuted for her abduction; she loves them and wants to protect them. Ultimately however, the desire to know her origins wins, and she secretly searches out her real parents and forms a relationship with them.  Owing to the necessity to protect her mum and dad, it’s a relationship formed on lies.

Julie’s husband John, who is in on the secret, fears there is something odd about her new found parents, particularly her mother Jeanette, who strikes him as being insincere.  However, the uncanny resemblance between her and his wife Julie, quickly dispels his fears; they look so alike that he cannot doubt they are mother and daughter.  As the relationship deepens, John too forgets his initial fears. 

Perhaps he would have been wiser to heed his instincts, for all is not as it seems; there is something odd about Jeanette.  Even her husband Arthur begins to notice her changing.  Yet even he is totally ignorant of the conniving lengths she is prepared to go to wreak her revenge.  Surprisingly, her revenge is not aimed at her daughter’s abductors, for there is another, even older score that she wishes to settle.  A tale of lies, deceit, greed, revenge and much more.