Unlike lightning, serendipity can strike the same place more than once

Hobeck author Alison Morgan has a lot to answer for. If it wasn’t for her I would never have fallen in love with Eric. And if it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t have had two other fabulous authors join our team over the last couple of weeks.

It was thanks to Alison posting her news about joining Hobeck, on what a good friend of mine calls ‘FaceTube’, that Linda Huber came across us and decided to submit (and so glad we are that she did). It was also thanks to Alison’s postings that day that Kerena Swan came across us and decided to submit (see above). It’s a shame we don’t pay commission… Alison, you could be a rich lady if we did!

So I want to say a big thank you to Alison, for accidentally finding us two great authors. Linda joined our team a couple of weeks ago, and now Kerena is here with us as well. Kerena Swan (known as Kerry to friends and family) hasn’t always been a writer (although, like Linda and many other writers, she felt the pull of storytelling from a young age). Before she seriously put pen to paper and finger to keyboard, Kerena spent her working life supporting children and adults with disabilities. With a social work degree and 25 years’ experience in social services, latterly in senior management, she left the safety net of her career to set up a care agency for children with disabilities. After receiving an ‘outstanding’ rating, nearly losing her eyesight and being diagnosed with cancer she decided it was time for a fresh challenge and to tick ‘getting a book published’ off her ‘Yet to Achieve’ list. She signed up for a novel writing course and within a year had received an offer from a publisher for her first novel.

Fast forward to now, three books later, and Kerena tells us she feels delighted to have been offered the opportunity to write a series for us featuring the tenacious DI Paton and his engaging son Tommy. We can’t wait to see this series blossom. We loved the first book, which was Kerena’s submission, and felt that DI Paton and Tommy had a lot of love to give a new audience.

Welcome to the team, Kerena! We look forward to reading more about the lives of Dave and Tommy Paton.