My books

Hello and welcome.

If you want to buy my books, by the way, you can go straight to the Bookshop on my website. Or read on, to learn more about them.

The latest book ‘Burning Secrets’ was published just a few months ago, in June 2018. It’s set in 2001, thirty years on from the previous story, at the time of the catastrophic Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in Cumbria, where I live. I was intrigued by the impact of the outbreak on peoples’ lives, including children who had to choose whether to stay barricaded on the family farm for the duration of the crisis, or to go and stay closer to school and not go home. Helen Heslop chooses school, moves into town, and a week later she disappears into the bleak dystopian landscape, leaving behind a family torn apart by guilt and long-held secrets. The police team searching for her have their problems too – a clash between old school and ‘new brooms’, male and female. It’s a dark story – classic Cumbria noir.

In November 2015, my first crime fiction story ‘Cruel Tide’ appeared, and almost at once readers were clamouring for the sequel. 

‘Fatal Reckoning’, published in 2016 picks up the story two years on, adds another twist and brings back our two young investigators, journalist Judith Pharaoh and DC Sam Tognarelli to try to finish what they started.

Crime fiction was a new venture for me in 2015, and I learned a great deal from writing ‘Cruel Tide’, including the problem of portraying wrong-doing in a recogniseable local setting. That was one of the interesting issues raised in my BBC Radio Cumbria interview with Paul Braithwaite on November 26th 2015. To listen to the interview, click  here.

The sequel ‘Fatal Reckoning’ is set in Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven in 1971, so the local interest is still strong. You can read it without having read ‘Cruel Tide’, or as the second in a series. If you’ve read my first three books, details below, you’ll recognise some of the characters from those too, but again, each story can be read on its own. 

You can order ‘Fatal Reckoning’ and all the other books through any bookshop, and most bookshops in Cumbria have them on the shelf. Or you can buy through my website  site using Paypal, – the one-click buttons are below – or from Amazon. The ebook versions are all available through the Kindle Store.

Ruth Sutton’s Cumbria trilogy ‘Between the Mountains and the Sea’

 

1937: Jessie Whelan has always been a good liar, trying to protect her independence and her career as a teacher in West Cumberland. But she risks everything when, after years of discreet loneliness, she embarks on a love affair, while her secret past draws ever closer…

(ISBN 978 0 9523871 76)

 

1947: Jessie’s lies are beginning to unravel, and the truth could overwhelm her. In the gloom of post-war Cumberland she struggles to maintain her job and the respect of her community. There is one man for whom honesty will matter more than most.

(ISBN 978 0 9523871 83)

 

1957: Jessie has finally come to terms with her past, but events at Windscale, the nearby nuclear plant, bring a compelling stranger into her world and possible devastation to the entire community.

 

(ISBN 978 0 9523871 69)

 

In North America, by the way, the easiest way to purchase is direct from my distributor, Portage and Main Press of Winnipeg. Their website is http://www.portageandmainpress.com.

I think that covers everything. I hope you find a way to buy that suits you, and that’s it worth it in terms of reading pleasure!

If you’d like to listen to a radio interview I had when A Good Liar was published, click here. And you can read my regular blog by clicking on ‘My Blog’ on the menu, or access it on ruthwords.wordpress.com