Not Quite Lost

THE BOOK: Not Quite Lost: Travels Without A Sense of Direction.

PUBLISHED IN: 2017.

THE AUTHOR: Roz Morris.

THE PUBLISHER: Spark Furnace.

SUMMARY: In life there’s the fast lane, and then there’s the scenic route. Take your time getting there and you might meet people whose stories are as gripping as those of any famous name. In Not Quite Lost, Roz Morris celebrates the hidden dramas in the apparently ordinary. Her childhood home, with a giant star-gazing telescope on the horizon and a garden path that disappears under next door’s house. A tour guide in Glastonbury who is having a real-life romance with a character from Arthurian legend. A unit on a suburban business park where people are preparing to deep-freeze each other when they die. But even low-key travel has its hazards, and Roz nearly runs down several gentlemen from Porlock when her brakes give up on her. She takes her marriage vows in a language she doesn’t speak, has a Strictly-style adventure when she stumbles into a job as a flashmob dancer, and hears an unexpected message in an experiment in ESP. Wry, romantic, amused and wonder-struck, Not Quite Lost is an ode to the quiet places you never realised might tell you a tale.

THE BACK STORY: Like most writers, I’m mad about notebooks. One of them is a diary that lives in my suitcase. It’s an old-fashioned visitors’ book, heavy cream paper, gilding on the edges, bound in red leather. It was regifted to my husband’s mother by someone who didn’t want it, and, as she never kept a diary in her life, she gave it to me. Every time we’ve been away, I’ve taken it with me. It’s the notebook I write in when I’m a visitor.

At other times, it lives in the loft in the suitcase, until it’s time to travel again.

So Husband Dave and I went away for a week in December 2016, and on the first night we poured some wine and opened the book.

Past adventures were there, waiting. The time in Lincolnshire when the car window got stuck open on the coldest day of the year and we had twenty miles to drive to get it fixed. The time when we got stranded in Craven Arms and couldn’t find the town’s sole taxi. The tour guide in Glastonbury who told us he could read minds and had fallen in love with a reincarnation of Nimue.

Dave said:’You should put those in a book.’

Me: ‘Yeah, they’ll be useful in a story, someday.’

‘No, publish them as a travel diary. ‘

‘Oh sure. Ha ha ha. Here’s the time we were suckered into visiting the craft fair that sold vintage Weetabix.’

‘I’m serious,’ said Dave. ‘People like that kind of thing. Like David Sedaris, David Rakoff. Bill Bryson.’

‘I haven’t worked as Santa’s elf.’ (Remembering Santaland Diaries.)

‘You worked as a dancer in a mobile phone commercial.’

Yes I did. ‘You think I should include that?’

At first, I didn’t take him seriously. Then I began to like the idea.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Most travel books are big stories in exotic places. But now that more people are staycationing, they’re discovering adventures in lower-key places, just as fascinating, funny, unusual and even life-changing. Not Quite Lost is for them.

REVIEW COMMENTS:

‘Most beguiling… the author has something of Victoria Wood’s funny bone in her DNA’

‘Delightful: amusing, entertaining and often very moving’

‘Bloody good – keep a copy in your guest room and you’ll never see your guests’

‘Move over, Bill Bryson. Beguiling…’

AUTHOR PROFILE: I write fiction and essays about people who are haunted in unusual ways. I’m fascinated by music and the odd fringes of consciousness, and my first novel, My Memories of a Future Life, is about a musician who is channelling her next incarnation. I’m also a devoted horse-rider, which I put into my second novel, Lifeform Three, about the last green space in an overbuilt world. Lifeform Three was long-listed for the World Fantasy Award. Also, I’ve sold 4 million books as a ghostwriter, I teach masterclasses for The Guardian and I’m the author of the Nail Your Novel series for writers.

SAMPLE CHAPTER: Find it here – http://mybook.to/nql

LOCAL OUTLETS: Available in ebook and paperback. Order from your local bookshop.

WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: All ebook outlets – Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books https://books2read.com/nql.

PRICE: Ebook £2.99, paperback £7.99.

CONTACT THE AUTHOR: Tweet me on @Roz_Morris, find my website, email me on rozmorriswriter@gmail.com or explore my newsletter https://tinyurl.com/rozmorriswriter