Maggie Cobbett

Hello, and thank you for visiting my site. I hope that you'll return often and always find something of interest about my world and what inspires me to pick up a pen. (This is a figure of speech, unfortunately. My handwriting is terrible!) Here's what I've been up to recently...

‘Shadows of the Past’ is officially launched in Ripon

Riponlaunchproudauthor

There must be something special about an author’s first book launch. Although Shadows of the Past isn’t my first published work, it’s my first novel and has been a real labour of love.

Riponlaunchwares

The sun was still shining when I was ‘setting out my stall’ and, although the heavens opened later and some guests had to battle through a ferocious storm to get home again, nothing could dampen my mood. Many people have asked me about the inspiration for the story, parts of which are more or less autobiographical, and the selection of photographs in the centre of the table was there for them to browse through.

RiponlaunchwithSusanR

By an amazing stroke of luck, I met Susan again at Swanwick a couple of weeks ago and invited her along, upon which she offered to bring her accordion and play some French bal de musette numbers to enhance the atmosphere. As a better wordsmith than I am a cook, I’m also indebted to my good friends Cathy and Sue for providing most of the wonderful food.

People from many different threads of my life came together and some were astounded to discover that they had me as a mutual friend. The quality of the photographs below is variable – my roving photographer was also host, barman and general factotum and didn’t manage to capture everyone – but they will give you some idea of the proceedings. Some of them are stills taken from the video he was trying to make at the same time. To guests who dropped in for a while and left before he picked up his camera or arrived after exhaustion set in, I can only apologise.