A Letter From Ruby

Thank you for reading my second novel, Every Little Secret. I hope you enjoyed coming on this journey with Maddy, Max and Alison. If you enjoyed this book, I would be grateful if you could leave a short review. It really makes a huge difference!

This is a story that I strongly felt needed to be told from all sides. I’d heard about men having two families and it was always treated as a bit of a joke with people wondering what would happen if both ‘wives’ found out about each other. My fascination with the subject grew and over the years I collected many articles and real-life accounts, mainly told from the women’s point of view.

One first person feature stood out to me because it was told from all three sides. The man wasn’t the typical jack-the-lad that I’d first imagined. He’d almost unwittingly become entangled in a relationship triangle with two women who both wanted to have his babies. The consequences were devastating and damaging for all involved.

I wanted to explore how a wife in this situation would react to finding out her husband had a secret family. I imagined that her jealousy and desperate need for answers would lead her to behave completely out of character, being driven to stalk the other woman and worse. I tried to push all my characters to the very edge and hopefully showed that there are no winners.

I love hearing from readers, so do get in touch via Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads or through my website.

Thank you very much for your support.

Ruby x

@rubyspeechley

rubyspeechley.com

Acknowledgements

Firstly, none of this would be possible without the love and support of my dear husband, Richard. He has been there from day one, driving across the country to pick me up from my first Arvon Foundation course twenty years ago, and listening to me wittering on about writing ever since!

This novel was conceived over ten years ago on a writing MA at Sheffield Hallam university, and will be recognised by many friends and fellow writers as The Black Garden. Finally seeing it in print is a wonderful nod to my struggling younger self and the solid belief I always had in this story. It’s taken enormous hard work and endless drafts to finally get it published and there are so many people who have helped me along the way – it’s impossible to name them all.