PURE, FLAWLESS HAPPINESS

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The Author

To clinch a publishing deal has never been easy. In these days of 3 for 2 offers, supermarket discounts, and celebrity dominance, it's tougher still - but I believe there is still room for someone determined to make their own luck.

I work as a postman to support my writing. Not that I can compete with Anthony Trollope, who knocked out 47 novels while running the GPO. I console myself that he probably didn't have to cope with quite as many dogs.

Pure, Flawless Happiness is the first of three planned novels: perhaps not so much a trilogy as a loosely-connected period sequence. I love the research almost as much as the writing.

I am old enough for my parents to have been on active service during World War II - and young enough to have a son at primary school. Work that out for yourselves. This book is dedicated to my mother, Ruby.