COSY CONTEMPORARY FANTASY · ART · COASTAL LIFE
Some pictures have more to show you.
Amanda Tomlin opens Slipway Gallery in the harbour town of Alderwick, with her dog Jim for company and six second-hand paintings to fill the walls. Once the pictures find new homes, things begin to change inside their frames. A child turns its head. A hand opens. An object appears where there was nothing before.
Each painting brings Amanda closer to someone with a difficult conversation ahead of them. As she gets to know her neighbours, makes room for love and returns to her own painting, the gallery becomes part of a life she is still learning how to build.
Where to begin
Begin with The Red Child and read the six books in order. Each novel follows a different painting and its new owner, while Amanda’s work, relationships and the story of the paintings’ creator develop across the series. The Elephant completes the main series.
All six ebooks are available from Simon Rudd Books. Follow a book’s button for its full description and buying options.
START HERE · BOOK 1
The Red Child
The first sale brings an impossible telephone call.
Amanda Tomlin arrives in Alderwick with her dog Jim and plans for a small gallery. Six paintings from a house clearance give her something to hang on the walls. When a buyer reports that the child in one picture has turned its head, Amanda’s search for an explanation draws her into a family quarrel and the work of an elusive artist.
Continue through the gallery
Five more paintings find their owners as the seasons turn in Alderwick.
BOOK 2
The Raven Keeper
A painted hand opens, and an old routine begins to change.
Ian Davison buys a painting of a raven and its keeper, then calls Amanda when the keeper’s hand changes. Ian has spent years helping his brother, who now has a home and support arrangements of his own. With fewer practical reasons to visit, he is finding that asking for company takes a different kind of courage.
BOOK 3
The Great Wave
A key appears in a picture of the sea.
Chloe Cunningham chooses a great green wave for her rented flat. Then a small brass key appears among the painted shingle. She and her husband are living apart, though affection still connects them. Amanda wants to help, but her first explanation of the change may say more about her own hopes than Chloe’s wishes.
BOOK 4
The Dog Beneath Blankets
A familiar blue ball brings back a much-loved dog.
Plumber Shaun Dobbins is drawn to a painting of a dog tucked beneath heavy blankets. He and his adult daughter Lori are still missing Lyn, their much-loved lurcher, and finding their own ways to live with the loss. When a blue ball appears in the picture, carefully kept memories return to the centre of family life.
BOOK 5
The Sleeping Mother and Child
Three generations are finding room for their own lives.
Christina Goodwin recognises the tiredness in a painting of a sleeping mother holding a child. At home, she is balancing work and parenthood while her mother Tracie wants time for choir and friends. As the painted mother’s eyes appear to open, three generations must reconsider arrangements they have grown used to.
BOOK 6 · SERIES FINALE
The Elephant
The last painting points towards an unmade journey.
Sharon Tierney buys the last of Virginia Jenkins’s six paintings. At home, she keeps plans for a journey she and her late husband never took, while her sister suggests a few days away together. When the elephant turns towards an opening in the trees, cherished memories and unfamiliar possibilities begin to share the same space.
A place to return to
These are gently paced stories of art, friendship and ordinary kindness, with a little unexplained magic. They make room for grief, including the loss of a much-loved pet, alongside humour, a growing romance and the pleasures of life in a small harbour town.