Ian Yearsley
THE ESSEX NOVELLA SERIES In the late 1970s and early 1980s teenage Leigh-on-Sea schoolboy Dave Young finds himself falling head-over-heels in love unexpectedly with a beautiful girl from a rival school. Their journeys entwine every day and they regularly bump into one another and eventually speak. Over time they become good friends, but they lose contact when the time comes for them to leave their respective schools. Three decades later, when retracing his steps through Leigh as he visits his hospitalised stepfather who is losing a battle to cancer, Dave begins to experience flashbacks about the girl he was in love with and is unable to shake them off. Full of emotion, he decides to try to track her down to see what has become of her. Dave's search takes him through personal memories, moral dilemmas and dusty documentation, stirring up all kinds of emotions for him on the way. Is the love of his life now dead or still alive? Did she leave the town or is she still living somewhere in its myriad of streets, waiting to be found? Is he right to go looking for her in the first place? Join Dave on his journey through the past and present, as he looks for his lost Leigh love. Author Ian Yearsley draws on his own experiences of growing up in Leigh-on-Sea to create a fictional but very realistic story for this second book in his Essex Novella Series. In doing so, he explores the intertwining themes of love, loss and memory to pen this endearing portrait of a town he loves.
