LITERATURE MATTERS: TWO BUDLEIGH WRITERS IN PRINT (WINTER 2025)

Set against the backdrop of university politics and ambition, Dark Runs the River is a tender yet gripping story of love, loss, and the strength to endure. 

 For James and Piers, life seems to offer everything – successful careers, financial security, a home of their own, cherished friendships, and holidays spent in Wales and East Anglia. Most of all, they have their deep love for each other. 

 But can their relationship survive the prejudice of others, especially James’ controlling mother, Alice Kendrick, who is determined to tear them apart? 

 As pressure mounts at work, James is forced to confront not only a dark and unsettling past but also the manipulative Marcus Stone, whose influence threatens to unravel everything. 

 Author Lance Hattatt, pictured above, and his wife Jane divide their time between Budleigh Salterton and Budapest, Hungary.   
 

Blending lived experience with fictionalised story telling, The Lizard in Your Mind’s Eye by Budleigh journalist Fran McElhone offers an insight into the misapprehended belief system of spiritualism. 

 The story follows the life of a young medium whose experiences with spirit began in childhood, detailing her poignant – sometimes chilling, often amazing, mostly heart-warming – encounters with the Other Side, highlighting that as spiritual beings, our earthly lives are existentially intertwined with the spirit world, and enriched by it – if only we’d listen. 

 The story begins in the future, in the wilderness of northwest Canada, where she and her young son have journeyed following a prophecy by her late friend and mentor, Pearl. The timeline alternates between past experiences and their journey to a place called Rainbow Lake. The book provides profound, little-known truths about the Other Side, challenging our own perceptions of reality, the paranormal, and life after death. It brings to the forefront of our minds life’s ubiquitous moral conundrums. 

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