The Woman who couldn’t find her Room
Have you ever been hospitalised? If so, you’ll know you can encounter some surprising people. Admitted to hospital, a former professor meets a young girl living in the nooks and crannies of the building. The girl, who is a brilliant healer, teams up with the old woman in a raging battle with the hospital director that drives the two to flee. Their plan? Create a dispensary for healing. Doing so, however, has them confronting all manner of challenges.
Free sample chapters
Chapter One – Damn it! Which was her room? She squinted at the hospital bracelet on her wrist. It should’ve told her the number. Her name was legible enough. But the room number was a muddled mess as was her date of birth. (…)
Chapter Two – The woman shuffled after the two angels and peered in at the door. The cowboy lay on the bed with the two winged figures swirling round him, connecting wires and tubes. One spotted her and shooed her away, following her out. “Will he be alright?” the woman asked. (…)
Chapter Three – Soul washing in six easy lessons the poster proclaimed, amid a magnificent ark of bright blue water curving upwards only to fall in a shower of tiny droplets. She had to smile. What a ridiculous idea. As if the soul existed and, if it did, it surely couldn’t be cleansed with water. (…)
Read more about The Woman who couldn’t find her Room.
Everyday reality and the reality of fiction – What is the impact of incorporating elements of everyday reality in a fantasy novel? More widely, what will be the evolving relationship between reality and storytelling in a world of wildly implausible public discourse?
Too big to absorb – A short extract about life in a hospital from the first part of the Woman who couldn’t find her Room.
Beyond scowls – A short extract from The Woman who couldn’t find her room about the difficulty of being a nurse in a hospital.
The writing of it – My latest novel, The woman who couldn’t find her Room was begun at hospital in Neuchâtel in June 2025 and finished at 6am in hospital in Bern mid November. It was a challenging book to write….