Phantom was the quickest novel I've written so far. It took just three months between January - March 2022 during lockdown. For me, it was one of the positives that came out of that strangest period of our lives, another being the way our planet recovered with few vehicles on the road. That's all history now, of course!
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Living in Kent, I'm blessed with having Pluckley on my doorstep; England's most haunted village. I've been there many times and stayed in of it's two hotels. There were incidents in both. At breakfast, I thought a waitress was behind me waiting to take my order but there was no one there. On the second occasion, the handle of the wardrobe started rattling in the middle of the night. The following morning, the owner told me that a lady had died in that room. My most significant encounter to date was at The Mermaid Inn in Rye. I stayed in a room where the rocking horse take son a life of its own. I didn't see it rock but I did feel something very negative in the bed with me! That was scary and, although I haven't seen a ghost yet, it's way up there on my bucket list and I plan to tick that off this year!
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I've always been fascinated with the supernatural, ghosts in particular, and try and stay in 'reputedly' haunted hotels wherever I go. There is always lots of inspiration in these places, not least of all Chillingham Castle in Northumberland. It is definitely one of the creepiest places I've stayed and I plan to return there later this year to do a ghost tour and research for a possible sequel to Phantom. The problem is, I have so many novel that I need to go back and rewrite and others to finish that I just don't know when it will happen!
Stories of the phantom hitchhiker of Bluebell Hill have been around almost as long as I have. We heard them as kids and there was always a fear and foreboding when coming down the hill close to midnight on the way back from visiting relatives in London. Plenty of people claim to have seen her and that is what gives the story some credence. There must be something in it. That's what David Lester believes as he starts his investigation. Things happen for a reason and he is determined to find out why she chose him to step out in front of on the night that ends up turning his life around.
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