No woman is ordinary...and neither is her story.
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When Shirley Sullivan signs her elderly husband out of the dementia ward, she is determined to take him on one final not-exactly-legal road trip.
On the run from the police and free from Frank’s memories of who she once was, will Shirley finally let go of the past and embrace her true self?
Do you really know what happened to shirley at the end?
Two separate events led to the development of the novel.
Many years ago, I came across an article about an elderly couple who had escaped from their nursing home and gone on the run. They evaded authorities for days – even slipping out of police custody at one point! I was captivated by this story. I kept wondering where they were running to. I knew I wanted to write about these gutsy octogenarians one day and I kept the idea percolating away at the back of my mind for almost a decade.
Then, in 2018, I discovered a box filled with my parents’ old love letters. These were written in the early 1960s and were filled with fascinating details of day to day life at that time. It occurred to me that I could use these letters as the inspiration for the elderly couple’s back story.
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I live, work and play, paying respect to their elders and storytellers, past, present and emerging.