A Tale of Wending Vale

Not Till Seventeen

Ages 12-16Coming soon

Fifteen-year-old Lauren Hartley can drive four horses better than half the men on the Thornbridge road. She just isn't allowed to, not till seventeen. But someone is sabotaging her father's mail coach, the contract that keeps the family inn is on the line, and on the night the ridge catches fire, someone has to take the reins.

Each book stands on its own. Read the three in any order.

Night on the inn roof: Lauren, in a dark cape with a long fair plait, watches a coach's lamps come down the hill road, while a younger girl with red streaks in her hair leans against the chimney holding an apple.

Lauren on the box of a black and red mail coach in the early morning mist, the reins in her hands, with a younger girl reading on the roof among the mail bags. — The box seat of the mail, where Lauren has always wanted to be.

Where it happens

The Running Horse at Hollin Cross, Raven Bend, the moor road to Thornbridge, and the Vale road through the Long Wood. Places from this book are marked with the coach horn on the map of the Vale.

Where it crosses the other two

The three Tales of Wending Vale happen in the same valley, in the same autumn. If you spot a friend from another book walking past in this one, you're not imagining it.

The Dragonwarden's Apprentice

Lauren drives a crate of glass up to the tower above Wend, and meets an apprentice who hears ‘not yet’ almost as often as she does. And what is that light on the tower roof?

The Song in the Cloth

The abbey's post goes to a quiet girl at the gate, crocheting, who answers the guard's horn on a tin whistle.

See how the three stories line up in One autumn, three stories, and who turns up where in Who's who.

Coming soon

Not Till Seventeen isn't out yet. When it is, the links to buy the ebook, the paperback and the audiobook will be here.