She doesn’t care for the success of her older brother – now a best-selling novelist and confirmed bachelor. She has come to terms with the tragedy of losing both parents in her teens and she thought she could be content living alone in the village where she grew up.

But Rose is finding it increasingly more difficult to control her life. Her upbringing had been far from ‘rosey’.

Increasingly, everyday occurrences and conversations result in episodes of a smothering fog that render her almost unconscious, silently ushered along by the distasteful content of her brother’s novels. She is quite literally having the life choked out of her.

And then an unexpected invitation arrives.

It provides Rose with a dilemma and maybe an opportunity.

A Novel Too Far

Relationships are complex; love, cruelty, jealousy, humour and friendship are ever-present… and often can be controlling. Alan Smith’s debut novel is a story of how Rose finds courage and self-belief… and maybe justice!