Post by Ellis Locke

Two weeks since The Quiet House on Tern Lane went out. A note, not a bow.

I have been asked, more than once now, whether Saltchurn is a real place. It is not, and it is. There is no island by that name off the Maine coast and no cottage at the end of a lane called Tern. But every part of it is somewhere I have stood: the ferry that seals the world out and you in, the neighbours who look out for each other and are always, somehow, looking at you, the kindest voice in a house being the one that corrects your memory. I did not invent any of that. I only put it on one island and closed the ferry schedule.

The other question is whether the ending is fair. It is. I say that plainly because I mean it as a promise and not as a boast. Go back to the ferry crossing and count what Beth says. Count what Nora says back. Then read the last chapter again.

That is all. The next book is further along than I usually admit at this stage, and it is a different kind of quiet. More about that when there is something honest to say.