Thank you, Rachel, for inviting me to Saga Saturday to talk
about my debut saga.
How it all began for
Heartbreak in the Valley
Many years ago, when I was a teen, we visited my mother's
place of birth in the Rhymney Valley. It was a three up, three down in what had
been a mining village in the first two thirds of the twentieth century. My
great gran, Mary Jones, had lived in that house for the best part of thirty
years, giving birth to all seven of her children there, and finally welcoming a
granddaughter – my mum.
As a child I was always interested in making up stories and
had a head full of characters who had various adventures. I never dreamt at the
time that this village would one day be the basis of the setting for a novel.
Wind forward to around five years ago. As someone immensely
interested in family history, I joined the online Ancestry site. One day a
'hint' popped up for a Great War military record. It appeared that my great
grandfather, Hugh Morgan, (not Mary's husband, but on my mum's other side), had
enlisted in March 1915. By November he'd been given a medical discharge, a
month before his brigade was sent off to France. A lucky escape?
On the military record is stamped the damning sentence: Not
likely to become an efficient soldier. Wow. Imagine marching off proudly with
your pals, only to be told several months later that you weren't up to the job.
And that was the spark for the story of Anwen and Idris,
his return to the Valleys, his subsequent feelings of failure and the heartache
it caused her. I've no idea what my great grandfather really thought about it,
nor my great grandmother who was already married to him, but I only hope they
didn't have as hard a time as Anwen and Idris!
Heartbreak in the Valleys
The world was crumbling, but her love stayed strong
November 1915. For young
housemaid, Anwen Rhys, life is hard in the Welsh mining village of
Dorcalon, deep in the Rhymney Valley. She cares for her ill mother and beloved
younger sister Sara, all while shielding them from her father’s drunken,
violent temper. Anwen comforts herself with her love for childhood
sweetheart, Idris Hughes, away fighting in the Great War.
Yet when Idris returns, he is a changed man; no
longer the innocent boy she loved, he is harder, more distant, quickly breaking
off their engagement. And when tragedy once again strikes her family, Anwen’s
heart is completely broken.
But when an explosion at the pit brings
unimaginable heartache to Dorcalon, Anwen and Idris put their feelings aside to
unite their mining community.
In the midst of despair, can Anwen find hope again?
And will she ever find the happiness she deserves?
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About
Francesca
Several years ago,
Francesca Capaldi pursued a childhood dream and joined a creative writing
class. Lots of published short stories, a serial, and three pocket novels
later, she’s now explored her mother’s ancestral history for a novel set in a
Welsh colliery village. A history graduate and former teacher, she hails from
the Sussex coast but now lives in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando
Calrissian.
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