Sledging, for Christmas

The snow had transformed everything. Zac’s hill had become a mountaintop, the whole park some storybook kingdom; even the other kids’ high-pitched shrieks were softened by its padded, magical layers. Zac sat in the sledge. He was perched on the brink of the highest peak, breathing in crystals and wishing he was gone.

And yet – what a view!

He felt compelled to admit that, just as he felt unable to stop looking. In the distance, beyond the fairytale trees, the deserted playground had transformed into a futuristic city. It was all strange, glittering angles, sci-fi walkways and suspension bridges, elegant towers with head-spinning drops. Today, it would be padlocked. It didn’t belong to the children anymore, not to these present-day children anyway, although they were everywhere else, moving in fits and bursts and surging ripples. Scattering across the other hills and craters like blown confetti, their bright coats and flying scarves unreal against the white.

Almost everything was white. The sky all around Zac, and his chattering teeth, the air that snapped between them. His knuckles, he was sure, were blanched to the pale of their bones beneath his gloves. Zac wondered if, in all his life, he had ever felt this scared.

The rope tied to the front of the sledge was frayed and grubby, not much more than a handful of unravelling strings. Yet he leant forward to wind it tighter around his woollen fists and as he shifted, the snow directly beneath him creaked and dipped. Like the warped old wooden boards of some galleon, the precarious deck of a sinking ship. Any moment, he knew, it might give, it would collapse. He’d be sent flying, falling, spinning over the edge –

As if that wasn’t the whole point of being up there. What was wrong with him?

He couldn’t give up, couldn’t trudge down to where the little kids were playing, closer to the bottom. Far too vividly he could picture that return: Mum and Dad waiting with Jamie, while the sledge bumped along behind Zac as if he were a toddler dragging some dead-eyed toy about, a plush, stuffed dog on a lead maybe, a duck with wheels. He knew how, as soon as they saw him, they’d start to laugh.

Of course there was no possibility of retreating. And yet – no way he could sledge down.

He’d started to shake, he realised. To shiver. But that was just the cold, surely? The cold, which was everywhere. Pushing up through the snow and the sledge, through his jeans, his flimsy skin. A cold that seemed to rise directly from a secret darkness packed far beneath the blinding earth. A chill so abruptly cutting, stinging, that Zac was forced to blink back tears. He blinked and blinked, wishing with all his might that he was sitting at home, beside the fire, watching television perhaps, and eating toast. Definitely eating toast, he told himself. Although truly, he longed to be anywhere else, doing anything else. To be anyone but Zac.

Except that then, suddenly there, between those confetti kids and their sledge tracks, through his own ice-bright tears and all that white, there was Mum. She was heading towards him, red-faced, arms pumping, puffing out steam and grinning as she waded closer. She was wearing her new suede coat. Such a deep, burnt orange colour, that coat; she flared like a flame against the snow. Briefly, Zac recalled church, the Christingles lining the deep stone sills. And then, despite how obvious it was that he was stuck, trapped, that he wasn’t about to go anywhere, Mum shouted. Shouting loud enough so that even the people waiting, far away, might hear.

“Hey, Zachary! Wait up! Wait for me...”

And almost before he realised what was happening, she was climbing on to the sledge behind him, wrapping her long, warm arms around his belly.

“You’ll be ok,” she whispered, and then she pushed.


And although Zac knows that the flight must have been exhilarating, that his heart was bound to have lifted as trees and kids and powder went tumbling past, his main memory of that sledge ride is of Mum. He remembers her arms around his middle, her cheek pressed against his own – and then, flickering out around them, against that glaring, spilt bleach sky, her joyous amber coat. The most vibrant, living colour, he’d thought then, in the entire Universe. Reaching out to grasp it with one flailing, grateful fist.


(glimpsed from The Dawning)

Happy Christmas x

Hello Snow

"Here, Philip," Barbara murmurs, and he feels her lapping closer.

She brings with her warmth and a cool, bright perfume, a delicate, lime-tinged scent. He feels the pull of her, the gentle glow of her – but he waits until she is standing right beside him before he turns to her directly. A part of him resists being drawn away from the tall French windows. Like a child, he has been captivated, mesmerised, by the falling snow.

It is coming down more heavily now, turning and colliding in thick, wet, playful clumps, alternately highlighting and then hiding the trees in Barbara’s garden, outlining the slightly disconcerting silhouette of a statue rising from the centre of her large stone pond. Except that the pond is invisible now, as the statue is faceless, eyeless, almost mythically blind. Philip appreciates this; he likes how the snow brings an uncertainty to things. A mystery and magic – and yet the way that it whips and gathers is very tangible too, reminding him of cake mix, a pale, creamy blend of butter and sugar in a bowl. Forbidden and delicious and irresistible. As he watches it whirl, he remembers the sharp childhood satisfaction of dipping a grubby, reckless finger – the anticipation of a sweetness that makes him shiver, as though with cold.

"Here, Philip," Barbara murmurs, lifting a champagne flute. "For you."

Except the glass seems filled not with liquid, but with a lemony light, and behind it, Barbara’s shimmering too. Her dress is very pale, although not quite white. It glimmers silver as she moves. A long, strapless garment, possibly silk. It fits her narrow body closely. Catching him looking, she hooks his gaze back in with hers, and reels it up towards her sculpted face. She smiles and lifts one eyebrow and, as if from a great distance, he hears his own unembarrassed laugh.

The snow, this house – the smell and shine of her: there is a satiny, dreaming quality to it all …






Extracted from The Dawning

(Available now!! And just what you’re after! An unsettling festive read!)

And it isn’t winter yet, but only autumn

Nicola is five years old again. She is somewhere wide and grassy, lined with paths and ancient trees, and her Dad is there, walking beside her. He’s laughing. It’s so easy to make him laugh; all Nicola has to do is pull a face, or swing from his coat sleeve, or simply chatter. It’s a kind of magic. When he glances down at her, which he does frequently, his grin is wide and real and full of glinting teeth. Even stooped over like that, he seems impossibly tall, as high as the treetops, and impossibly happy. There are dense, glowing ashes piled inside him. She can see them smouldering gently through his eyes.

And it isn’t winter yet, but only autumn. "My favourite time of year," he tells her. The trees are full of autumn. They’re brown and yellow and rust-coloured, a waxy lipstick-red. One of the tallest is even a glorious deep purple. Nicola has been watching that one for a while, watching it grow larger up ahead. She’s longing to reach it. She wants to touch those purple leaves; she’d like to sniff them. If Dad isn’t looking, she might even slide one across her tongue . . .

Biting back a secret smile, she turns her head this way and then that, taking in the clean, crisp sky and the dewy grass, the mushrooms that sprout among the tree roots in a spongy, spreading rash. There are conkers everywhere. They litter the path like fat Maltesers, but Nicola isn’t collecting them, not today. She feels one roll beneath the sole of her boot and her smile grows. The conker’s too hard to crunch down on, but nonetheless the roll itself is satisfying. She steps sideways to make it happen again, but Dad snatches up her hand, and the air stirs and thickens all around them.

It’s smoky, this autumn air, full of the promise of Halloween and Bonfire Night. It makes Nicola think of wet socks and coming home, of potatoes and foil blackening together amidst white, untouchable coals . . . But then Dad pulls her closer still and the smokiness gives way to the familiar scent of his creaking leather jacket. Briefly, she nuzzles her face into his side. He smells sweet and musty, like the inside of the car.

As soon as they reach the purple tree, he’ll swing her up into the branches. Nicola knows that it will happen without her even having to ask. "There you go, Princess," he’ll say, his face big and pink and beaming, and as he lifts her, she’ll reach down with her small, stubby hands. She will run her fingers over his wiry head and watch the ripple of his thick brown curls. Then she’ll look past him to admire her own feet, kicking back and forth through empty space.

He won’t be able to reach high enough to ruffle her hair in return, but his grin will somehow spread even wider, splitting his beard, and: "On top of the world, kid," he’ll say in one of his silly T.V. voices. Then it will be Nicola’s turn to laugh.

Time will pass up in that tree. The bubbles of sunshine between the leaves will slowly stretch and burst and turn a deeper shade of orange, but he won’t make her go home. She’ll cut him off before he can suggest it: "Please, Dad, not just yet . . ."

And he will nod, his big face flushed with the early sunset. He’ll go on holding her safe and steady among the swaying, purple branches until eventually Nicola will feel as if she’s floating. Fluttering. On top of the world. She’ll never have been as high before, never so knowingly happy.



(extracted from The Dawning)

Weathervane Summer Sale!

In the spirit of holiday reading (be it lost in the grass, cocktails at dusk, a leaky cottage or simply a Sunday lie-in) my magnificent publisher, Weathervane Press, are having a Summer Sale.


For a limited period, you can pick up any Weathervane title (including The Dawning) at half-price - that's just £3.99 - and with FREE P&P too!



Just what are you waiting for?!?


oh - here's a bookshop link

Lowdham Book Festival 2010

My lovely publisher says ...

Weathervane Press are delighted to announce they will be hosting an event at the excellent Lowdham Book Festival final Saturday on June 26th.

We will be launching the Weathervane Live Vocal Books Tour at this event, which takes place at 10.30 am in the Lit & Phil Tent behind the Village Hall. There will also be readings by Megan Taylor from her thriller 'The Dawning' published in January and Nigel Pickard from 'Attention Deficit' published in March. All Weathervane books will be on sale at the event and throughout the day from our own stall at the Book Fair also in Lowdham Village Hall. The event is free - no ticket required.

Full details of the Lowdham Book Festival programme can be found at http://www.lowdhambookfestival.co.uk/

I say:
Come along! Say hello! You know you want to!

Today's the day . . .

that 'The Dawning' is officially released!!!

Nik's Blog

The lovely Nik Perring has interviewed me (already!) about 'The Dawning'. Please visit his blog if you'd like to find out more ...

Early Release!

A message from my wonderful publisher, Weathervane:

Megan Taylor's terrific second novel 'The Dawning' is published by Weathervane Press on January 23rd, but there's no need to wait - you can order from the Book Shop at www.weathervanepress.co.uk and get free uk delivery right now.

'The Dawning' is a tense domestic thriller set in a wintry Peak District on New Year's Eve - a time for celebration, but for each member of the fragmenting Haywood family this night could mark the end. 'The Dawning' explores the danger that can arise even at the heart of a family, over the course of one dark night.

Megan will read from and talk about 'The Dawning' to members of Nottingham Writers' Studio on January 21st. For more details and information on NWS see www.nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk

The Dawning of 'The Dawning'

There are only two weeks to go until ‘The Dawning’ is released!
I can’t believe it will be happening so soon, although (before the workshops and the revising, the submitting and the waiting) the ideas behind my new novel actually arrived almost three years ago . . .

(I think it might be flashback time - imagine several atmospheric piano notes and perhaps the edges of your screen rippling into dreamy soft-focus)

‘The Dawning’ began in the car with my family, driving back from a day out in the Peak District. It had been a good day, as they still are, although we’d been walking through woodland instead of along one of the Edges as we often did, back then. My daughter, who was five at the time, had been happy hunting for fairies and the freakiest looking mushrooms. My son had, as usual, fallen ‘accidentally’ into a stream. Their dad was at the wheel and I was half-dozing, tired and happy, full of a pub roast and two large, leisurely glasses of dry white wine. Along with the sounds of the kids chatting in the back and the tarmac murmuring beneath us, Regina Spektor was singing from the stereo in her dark and joyful, playful way.

It was getting late. Outside, beyond the road and fields, the trees were black against the sky. I closed my eyes, thinking vaguely about the day we’d had and how I’d come to love the Peak District, and about going home, all sorts of home . . . I thought about our move to Nottingham, and the old London flat I’d left behind . . .

And then, as if out of nowhere, I was picturing a large, stone house with long, gold windows. I saw a back door opening, releasing more gold light and a figure emerging - a small, shadowed figure in a hood. He stood for a moment on the sloping step, gazing out into the dusk.

That image, that boy, would stay with me, although I was already drifting, resurfacing, and thinking simply about twilight – about the day folding in and the night rising. About that feeling that you get sometimes, of going under . . . I thought about one, long night in the middle of winter. A night of secrets, and of endings. I thought about New Year’s Eve.

I opened my eyes, suddenly excited. And all over again, I saw the beauty of those trees.



Far too early the next morning, I crept out of bed while the rest of the house went on sleeping. Throughout the night I’d been unable to shake free those images. It was still dark outside when I started to write what was to become my second novel, ‘The Dawning.’

Sneak Preview

: )

And last night, I read a pre-launch extract at Nottingham Writers' Studio, alongside Steven Wilcoxson, who was promoting his fascinating debut, 'Make Less Strangers'. Everyone was hugely lovely and supportive. It was a really fun night.

And during the next couple of weeks, I'll be sent my final proofs. And we have a tentative launch date - 23rd January 2010 (which happens to be the day before my birthday)!

And it is nearly Christmas!!

I'm so happy I think my head might actually fall off.