The Night Butterflies

Screen Shot 2014-06-28 at 8.23.10 PM(c) 2014 NKW-Illustration. All Rights Reserved.

ONCE UPON A TIME, a seven-year-old girl put the finishing touches on her latest masterpiece. The house was littered with them. Little stories that came from who knew where in her head. By eleven, she decided it was time to release a bestseller and sent a gritty horror novel to Penguin (it was a novella really – but she was smaller then). She’d like to take this opportunity to thank Penguin for their kind and encouraging letter of 1996 – hopefully you’ll be hearing of her.

Penguin said, ‘Don’t stop writing.’ But ten years later and what had happened to that wonder; that wit; that imagination; that self-belief in being a best-seller waiting to happen? It was all still there – just buried like hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box. As she grew up, she continued to read like the clappers but her creative writing whittled. After leaving school, she only wrote academically. She put away her childish things. She went to Cambridge and studied theology & philosophy. She wrote a dissertation on whether human fulfilment was possible and immersed herself in utopian hopes and dreams. She was published in an international theological journal. Her inspirational supervisor said, ‘Don’t stop writing.’

From this promising point, she got sucked into the city and became an accountant. Always she told herself it would be worth it one day to do for accountancy what John Grisham did for law. She would write thrillers about regulatory compliance some day – just you wait. Meanwhile, it was worth it because one day she’d have her own business and be able to do her own bookkeeping. The writing bug was still there, just distracted by spreadsheets and financial reporting on risk and control.

Anyway, one day, one internal audit too many was too much. She escaped. She went on an epic adventure to the other side of the world, defying near-death experiences and finding love along the way. She decided to make a living doing something she was passionate about and studied to become a freelance editor. She started her own business. And she took back out her childish things – her hopes and dreams, crumpled but still creative. And she started to write…

***

The Night Butterflies is the long-awaited debut novel from Sara Litchfield. It is about neither accounting nor regulatory compliance. Described as: ‘I don’t like the way your mind works’ and ‘Don’t you realise the dystopian genre is saturated?’, this book looks forward to joining the ranks of the colourful and creative works out in the world that touch on what Wells described as ‘the essential solvent without which there is no digesting life’. Hope.

Due for release August 2014.

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16 thoughts on “The Night Butterflies

  1. Barbara

    Hi Sara, I saw that you visited my blog – thanks for that. I have been fiddling all day it seems – trying to see how it works. I will spend more time looking through yours. Love your cover. Se you on Wednesday.
    Barbara

    Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      Your blog’s looking great Barbara! Great choices on the stories there 🙂 thanks for visiting me here! Looking forward to Wednesday!

      Reply
  2. Deborah Makarios

    Oooo! That’s next month! (typed ‘moth’ by mistake)
    Definitely make a splash about where it can be purchased when it’s out – it’s not self-promotion when people want to know!

    Reply
      1. Sara Litchfield Post author

        Ah thank you sooo much 🙂 really lovely of you… I’m definitely going to delve into your other nominees on that post, they look intriguing! Time to plan an acceptance post! Coinciding with my one-year blogiversary actually!

        Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      😀 I will! Your beta feedback was invaluable in making the book better so you’ll be in the acknowledgements!!!

      Reply
  3. swiveltam

    WOW! Congratulations Sarah. Keep us posted and I’ll make sure to share where to buy! Can you tell us more? So, this is something you wrote when you were ten and then picked back up for NaNoWriMo? That’s amazing and such a beautiful story! Are you self-publishing through create-space, small press or agent? I’d love to hear more about your publishing journey 🙂 WTG!!!!!

    Reply
    1. Sara Litchfield Post author

      Ah thanks Tam! I’ll definitely keep you posted – so nervous excited! I’ll have to write another post with a bit more detail on the book itself when it comes out – this story was all from scratch for NaNo, but bits and pieces of ideas had been floating in my mind a while.. I studied dystopian lit at uni and have always been drawn to imaginings of the future-possible… I’m going through create-space first off, want to have my own imprint… Was planning to query PDMI, but they’ve closed their July submissions! But that’s good because it’ll give me the chance to go through the SP process and then query in October instead!

      Reply

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