Gracie. Marie Maxwell
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GRACIE
Marie Maxwell
To You, the Readers
I have so many supportive and loyal readers both of Marie Maxwell and Bernadine Kennedy and I continue to appreciate every one; I still get a thrill when someone contacts me about a book!
I remember the first ‘fan letter’ I received after my first book was published in 2000; it was hand written on a ‘thank you’ card and forwarded to me from my publisher.
It was so exciting to realize that not only had someone actually read the book, they had also taken the time to write to me about it; reader feedback is so important and I do take note of all the comments.
Nowadays feedback comes through my own website, Amazon and other assorted reader writer websites, but I’m still amazed that readers take the trouble to contact me.
So thank you for supporting me over the years, I hope you enjoy Gracie as much as Ruby. Next will be the story of Maggie who may just turn out to be a bit of a Swinging Sixties rebel!
Bernadine Kennedy
www.bernadinekennedy.com
Table of Contents
Read on for an extract from Marie Maxwell’s first novel, Ruby.
‘Hello little one …’ the young woman said quietly as she stared at the baby she was meeting for the first time. ‘I’m your mummy …’
Reaching out her hand, she touched her fingers on the clear wall of the incubator, willing the tiny person inside to know she was there with her and fighting for her. As she spoke the words, she could feel her heart beating so hard inside her chest she thought it might explode with the toxic mixture of love and fear that was racing through her whole body.
‘Touch and go’ was what they had said when they’d grouped around her bed to talk about the health of the child. ‘Touch and go’ – because they simply couldn’t say if the child was going to live or die.
She ran her hands back and forth across the machine that was imprisoning the premature baby in order to save her life and tried not to cry again. It had been nearly forty-eight hours since she had given birth and apart from the fact that her baby was alive she knew nothing, except that it was ‘touch and go.’ Forty-eight long hours, enduring mental anguish and physical pain, before she’d been allowed to make the short journey from