The Gatehouse

The Gatehouse: A compelling family saga begins with tragedy and loss leading to new beginnings. From his childhood home of Henley Hall in Kent, England, Kenneth Henley and his four children struggle with the death of his wife and their mother after a long illness. In the months ahead he must help his son Stephen deal with his conflicted emotions and assist his daughter Alicia deal with her "fantasy" mother. Taking on a new appointment as Master of the College, Kenneth also faces difficulties with the new writer-in-residence, a woman who makes no bones about her dislike of his privileged upper-class heritage and his apparent playboy lifestyle. As Kenneth comes to peace within himself, a new romantic relationship looms on the horizon. But their new-found joy is clouded by an unexpected threat to both. There is a mystery to be solved and serious decisions to be made. While it is not of their making, it embroils them completely and threatens to undermine their belief in their own country.

The Gatehouse: A compelling family saga begins with tragedy and loss leading to new beginnings. From his childhood home of Henley Hall in Kent, England, Kenneth Henley and his four children struggle with the death of his wife and their mother after a long illness. In the months ahead he must help his son Stephen deal with his conflicted emotions and assist his daughter Alicia deal with her "fantasy" mother. Taking on a new appointment as Master of the College, Kenneth also faces difficulties with the new writer-in-residence, a woman who makes no bones about her dislike of his privileged upper-class heritage and his apparent playboy lifestyle. As Kenneth comes to peace within himself, a new romantic relationship looms on the horizon. But their new-found joy is clouded by an unexpected threat to both. There is a mystery to be solved and serious decisions to be made. While it is not of their making, it embroils them completely and threatens to undermine their belief in their own country.

My love of books and reading started as a young child in a very small community library. Long before I could read I remember going to the library with my sisters and my Mother. Thank goodness Mother enjoyed reading to us because she was pestered every evening to do so until I couldread on my own. I think my interest in ordinary and perhaps extraordinary people began in that rural setting. A one-room schoolhouse with all grades gave me the opportunity to “listen in” and watch. In a rural church, going to a rural high school and joining local clubs I was probably more given to watching and listening to others than I was listening to the “teacher or leader”. I do apologize for that. I had become a “people watcher”. I spent most of my working life first as a nurse, then as an educator and an academic. I love nursing and will always call myself a “nurse”. As a nurse you see others in their finest and their worst moments. When you can help in any small way, often just by listening, you see and feel their pain, sorrow, joy and humanity. At a time when our contemporaries were retiring, my husband and I started a small business, which we continue to run and grow. I suppose it was our way of not “retiring”. I write in spare moments, essentially telling stories. They stem from that “people watching” thing again. Although the characters, setting and story are pure fiction, the lives and emotions and adventuires of the people in my book remind us of real and shared experiences. We love, we raise families, we work, we experience tragedy and loss and sometimes we are frightened by theworld around us. This book is about all of those things. I hope you enjoy meeting my book family and their life experiences. The Gatehouse makes no claim to be a literary masterpiece. But if it makes you sad, makes you smile, or cry, or better appreciate the rich saga of human experience, that will be good enough for me. Beth O’Kelly, October 2014.