Was this what happened when you took a life? The thin end of some sinister wedge? Even when the act was one of love and compassion, the last shared ritual?

Alfie, a fifty-something artist, assists his wife’s suicide, is arrested and bailed. He seeks a simple life on Dartmoor where he can grieve for his beloved Meg, and come to terms with the crime he has committed in the eyes of the law. This peace is threatened however, when he meets twenty-something Esther who’s escaping a troubled past in London and working at the local pub.

Her green eyes remind him of the wife he misses, and she sees in him the father she never had. Can they make it work or is their attraction a recipe for disaster? Does Esther’s ex-boyfriend offer her a better future? Will Alfie’s daughter ever forgive him?

Preview A Place of Safety

Jill Treseder’s first career was in professional social work and the second in the human side of management development. This work led to a PhD, and eventually, in 2004, to the publication of The Wise Woman Within: Spirals to Wholeness, a self-development book for women exploring feminine wisdom. For some years Jill ran workshops based on this manual alongside her day job of social research and development projects in the area of child protection.

Since 2008 she has been able to focus on her third career of writing fiction which is what she’s wanted to do since she was seven years old. The common theme is exploring how people develop and change.

Her first novel The Hatmaker’s Secret appeared at the end of 2013. She is currently working on a third about two sisters who escape to England from Budapest during the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

Jill Treseder deals with some very profound issues in this book, but as they are woven into an emotional roller-coaster of a plot on an entirely individual level, they never seem to weigh heavy. I was reminded of some of Thomas Hardy’s novels in which stories of passion and pain are played out against a backdrop of English countryside with a small but vivid cast of secondary characters. This is a surprisingly gripping, credible love story, and a cracking good read.
– Christa Laird, prize-winning author of the companion novels for young adults 'Shadow of the Wall' and 'Beyond the Wall'

There is a profound wisdom to Jill Treseder’s fiction, worn lightly as befits this subtle, engaging storyteller, but always there, always thought-provoking, and always enlightening.
– Peter Stanford, writer, journalist, broadcaster and biographer of Lord Longford, C Day-Lewis and the Devil

Download the Advance Information (AI) Sheet here.

Read about Jill in By the Dart.

Read about events organised by Jill in the Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette

See Jill chatting about her latest book at Dartmouth Library.