Here’s a little sneak peek of Page 1 of my upcoming supernatural mystery folk-horror novel – ‘Black Soil White Bread‘.

Pre-order now for an introductory price of $1.99. Available on 10 June 2025.

2018 – NANCY

Chew, chew

Where are you?

Sister, sister

Black and blue.

Three small girls in knee-length school uniforms sang. Above their heads, orange bunting fluttered from every maple tree and lamppost down Station Street. They squealed as they sprinted past the bakery.

‘Last one gets gobbled up by Agnes,’ called out the girl with the swinging black plaits. Her freckled friend leaped over a crack in the footpath.

From her bakery doorway, Nancy squinted into the golden afternoon sunshine. The three girls, like beetles with their oversized backpacks, scurried away. She pushed her slippery glasses back into place. Agnes? Did that little girl say Agnes? She looked again but the girls were already half-way down the street, out of earshot.

Stepping back inside the faded Victorian two-storey building, Nancy flipped the sign to ‘Closed’ and pulled down the roller blind. With a sigh, she trudged across the black and white linoleum floor and stacked the four iron chairs on top of the two tables. Next stop was the till, and on the way she passed the glass display cabinet fully stocked with golden scones, vanilla slices and coffee scrolls. It was a similar story on the wall, the bread racks were heavy with unsold baguettes, white block loaves and speckled multi-grain rolls.

She pressed the tally button on the grey cash register with a clunk and sighed again. $5.70. Four hours in a hot kitchen, mixing and kneading while the rest of the world slept, for a grand total of three customers. And yet this was her best day’s takings to date.

Until three months ago, Nancy had lived thirty-eight years without even knowing she had a Great Aunt Agnes. Sickness and death often brought families back together. Sometimes.

Arriving in Hopetoun with a key and a letter from her family solicitor, it had taken a month of hard work to reopen the bakery and make the flat upstairs liveable. Without money for repairs, Nancy had to do the best she could on her own.