Silver Betrayal is 5 years old today!

'Silver Betrayal' is a standalone novel, written after I was given some reader feedback about the Woodford Mystery series. People are always stopping me in the street to tell me what they think, or popping into the antiques shop, and there is one person who writes down his feedback and hands me the paper when he sees me! This time the feedback was given freely at the fuel station, when I was on my way to the kiosk to pay after filling up the car's tank with diesel.

'Kathy! I loved the "Silver Salver Mystery"!'

'Thank you, I am really pleased.'

'Another good book written by you, well done. I have read all of them, and you are getting better and better with each one.'

'Thank you'

'Why don't you write a book just about the antiques trade? None of this horse rubbish in there.'

'Oh'

So did he enjoy the four books I had written to-date, which were all Woodford Mystery books involving horses somewhere within them?

The conversation carried on for another five minutes, during which the staff in the kiosk were probably getting twitchy about how long my car was sitting at the pumps without me paying for what I had already taken. He is an antiques dealer and keen reader, and I was as keen to hear what he had to say as he was to share his thoughts.

I decided to have a go at writing a book outside of the Woodford Mystery series. It was difficult to do. I had become used to the world of the people in the town of Woodford, the social interactions, the pub, auction house, riding stables, tearooms and antiques centre. I had written four books in two years, to start again without those characters was difficult, and it took a while to find the story. I was working at an antiques fair in London a couple of times a month, as well as others in Sussex, and the ideas began to develop. Antiques dealers love to tell their own stories, and I was never short of suggestions. I also decided to use a professional book designer for the cover, and love it!

'Silver Betrayal' is about an antiques dealer, Julie Collins, who lives just outside Shaftesbury, in a secluded house on the edge of a woodland estate, and begins with a freezing early morning start with which all antiques dealers will be familiar. She goes through her usual routine of making coffee in a travel mug, letting her dogs out for a quick wee while the van warms up ready for their journey along the dark lanes to the main roads heading to London. The dogs know the routine, and every time they enjoy a few minutes of sniffing along the isolated woodland track to see who has been trespassing on their land over night, before piling into the van. This time they don't come back, and Julie starts to look for them in the dark and eerie silence of the woods surrounding her home.

As the story unfolds we discover that an international gang who steal antiques are operating in the area, and unfortunately Julie and her dogs have stumbled across their recent activities. Julie is in for some shocking discoveries, and has some serious questions about what is certain and who she can trust.