Oxford 1940. 17-year-old Alice ties on her facemask and enters a laboratory to harvest a potential new miracle drug called penicillin.

 

Never Closer
By Margot Shepherd

Publication Date: 18th November 2023
Publisher: UMBEL
Page Length: 260 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

An ordinary day in 2017. Jo receives a phone call about her 18-year-old daughter, Jessie. It is the call that every parent dreads.

Oxford 1940. 17-year-old Alice ties on her facemask and enters a laboratory to harvest a potential new miracle drug called penicillin.

The lives of these women become entwined when Jo finds Alice’s diary in a vintage handbag. Past and present overlap and merge as life-changing events resonate for them all across the gulf of time.

This is a story about a diary opening a door on the past, chronicling a young woman’s determination to succeed against all odds, while unknowingly inspiring others to step into a better life. Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, the infancy of antibiotics and a modern medical emergency and its consequences, it not only reminds us how fortunate we are to live now, but also serves as a stark warning about the fragility of life and the dangers of complacency.

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Never Closer

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Margot Shepherd

Margot Shepherd is a British author who was born in Yorkshire where she spent her childhood. She now lives in rural Sussex with her husband and Springer Spaniel, Genni. When she’s not writing she works in medical research at the University of Surrey. She writes about family relationships with a particular emphasis on women and science from a female point of view.

Margot has an MA in Creative Writing & Publishing from West Dean College in Sussex for which she received a distinction and the Vice Chancellors prize.

Never Closer is her debut novel.

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