Prey Silence
By Sally Spedding
Be brave and begin the journey that will take you to the heart of France’s eerie, unseen side…
Hibou, the remote fermette in the St Sauveur region of France, had looked so pretty when the Wardle-Smith family had first journeyed across the Channel to view it.
The life it offered seemed so appealing: sitting outside in the evening sunshine enjoying a drink with the property’s owner, sculptor Bernard Metz. It should have been the stuff dreams are made of; somewhere that Tom’s wife, Kathy, could recover from her deepening depression, and where their children, Flora and Max, could experience a less frenzied way of life . . . and, of course, it would have been one in the eye for the smug Simistons back in England.
But for the unlucky Wardle-Smiths the dream wasn’t to come true and their plans for a new life are sabotaged from the start: missing furniture, no plumbing or electrics, an eerie cave at the back of the fermette where small bones are discovered . . . and, worst of all, the ultimate neighbour from hell.
Almost everyone has a secret buried in their past, but will their shallow graves keep them hidden for long?
Sally Spedding was born in Wales, going on to study sculpture at Manchester and at St. Martin’s, London. Having won an international Short Story competition, she began writing seriously and her work has won many awards including the H.E. Bates Short Story Prize and the Anne Tibble Award for Poetry. She regularly adjudicates national writing competitions and teaches Creative Writing for Leicester University. She has a house in the Pyrenees where most of her writing and dreaming is done.