Mistress of Trethowan
High on a Cornish clifftop, the towering stone building of Trethowan, holds a dark secret. Someone who should be there is missing. Melissa Pendleton spent all her childhood holidays, at her grandparent’s house, in North Cornwall, but on the eve of the new Millennium, she discovers the secret her grandmother has kept hidden for more than five decades. Who is Anne-Marie? Why did she go away? When did she leave? Where did she go? Is she even still alive? Clutching at the frailest of straws, Melissa’s search takes her from Cornwall to the south of France, and from there across the Mediterranean Sea, where she experiences terror in the hills of Corsica and hostility, where she least expects it. When the trail goes cold, it seems her search must come to nothing.
Following the success of ‘Heartbreak Baby’ my first novel, published in September 2024, I decided to complete one I started about thirty years ago. Whilst on holiday in Tintagel with our young family, I began to plan a novel based on an old house on a clifftop in Cornwall. Then when we were camping in Provence, I thought this would be a great place to set a novel, but I hadn’t really got very far with either idea. Then some years later when Alan and I were in Corsica and driving up into the hills, suddenly a complete story came into my mind, which would start on the north coast of Cornwall and take our heroine through the south of France and on to Corsica. Over dinner and a bottle of wine in a Corsican village, I told Alan the whole story from start to finish. Now all I had to do was write it. Even so, with four children, teaching full time, and Alan’s career as a professional artist blossoming with a new London Gallery, there never seemed much time to write and although I did a bit here and there, I never really saw it as anything more than an enjoyable hobby, with no urgency to finish or publish it..
Now, in 2025, with one novel out there I decided to take up Mistress of Trethowan, and completely re-write it, developing new themes and storylines. It is now finished and is with a professional proof reader, before going off to a publisher. I’m hoping it will be out by the middle of 2026 – so watch this space!
