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The Days After She Went Dancing - Backstory • Sam Hawksmoor Nia gets a warning of imminent danger from a fortune teller - 'These are probably the worst cards I have read all year Nia. I’m not kidding... don't wait, leave your husband now'. Getting home and finding her husband has stashed money, a gun and a fake passport in the freezer she takes the cash and flees to Spain - her dream to study Flamenco. When her husband is found shot dead the police and the media are on the hunt for the 'killer housewife' who fled the scene... Long, long ago I was on sabbatical and took a month off in Jerez La Frontera in Spain (taking in Cadiz and Seville along the way).  I fell in love with Jerez, the Jacaranda lined streets and friendly people I met there. Can’t say I liked the hotel I stayed in or having to eat at ten pm at night as is the local custom, but I befriended a Canadian woman and her partner who let me stay in their home with them. They lived in the old barrio; the locals having been negotiated out of their rent-controlled homes that had mostly disintegrated around them. Now the whole area was being gentrified. And these were huge spaces meant for very large families. My hostess had a huge space with small rooms arranged around large inner courtyards, ideal for two women obsessed with studying Flamenco. I began to write a mystery novel set in this location informed by the student dancers all come to study Flamenco, plus the costumes and traditions associated with it. It all looked very painful and hard work to me. I seem to recall I wrote the first half of the screenplay as well as writing several chapters into the story. (There was some initial interest back in London from a producer but I long ago learned that it is easier to believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden than anything a producer says). Two things happened. One, I was on an unpaid sabbatical and the money was running out. I needed to get back to teaching. Two, my laptop was stolen. I had backed it up on a memory stick (as I always instructed my students) but once I was back in Portsmouth, could I find the darn memory stick?  No chance. Starting up a new MA in Creative Writing Programme took up all my time, alongside teaching undergrad courses, not to mention researching for my pandemic novel ‘Another Place to Die: The Endtime Chronicles’ and all thoughts of my Flamenco mystery vanished. Sometime around January this year (2025) I was moving a desk to my redecorated study when I found the long missing memory stick.  I read the story again with the knowledge that I hate to leave a project unfinished. I discovered I’d got half-way and debated whether to pretend to myself that I hadn’t found the darn stick or try and complete it. A great deal has changed since I wrote the earlier draft. Technology, politics, and my memory for starters. It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. For one thing I’m a different person, aside from being older.  I reckon that each one of us fundamentally changes emotionally in character every ten years as we allegedly mature. Could I take myself back to the Sam I was back then in Spain? I remembered I was getting over a broken relationship, ending one teaching contract before giving myself time before starting another. What had I intended back then?  This was all before I had started on a long period of time writing YA fiction. Several of the main characters in the story were all based on very real people I had met in Jerez.  No use in getting in touch with them again, assuming it was possible.  They would long past being interested in being reminded of those days of sweat and grind under the watchful eye of the martinet teacher who regarded them all with hostile intent. All the relationships were so intense and volatile, every single one of them was running from something and clinging to dance to save them. I doubt they’d want to be reminded of that time. Some may even be dead. But I very much remember them all and what they put themselves through. So, could I finish this story and put myself back in Jerez? I had been back to Spain several times since then, but these were beach holidays with my then partner. Happy times rather than intense or fraught moments with very competitive personalities. I have no idea whether I have succeeded, that’s for you to judge. Initial reviews have been positive at least.  My pal Kitty asked me when I started this project ‘Do you really want to put yourself through this?’  And at times I did struggle. I think going back to a story is a challenge. Last year I went back to ‘The Repossession of Genie Magee’ series and wrote an entirely new story about Genie ‘Whatever Happened to Genie Magee’. It was built on the foundations of the previous three novels, but exploring the young woman she has become.  The Days After She Went Dancing turned out to be similar in that, now I’m older, I’m much more interested in the main character’s emotions and how she reacts to the events around her. That reflects the changes in me. I often think about early relationships I had and wish I had been more mature or understanding and not let them dissolve.  Silly really, when young you’re never going to be rational or mature. What I learned from writing this book is that it is much harder to pick up an unfinished work and complete it than write something from scratch.  With luck The Days After She Went Dancing will strike a chord and provide a few hours of entertainment. You don’t need to know how hard it was to write it. There’s probably a very good reason there are so many unfinished symphonies or novels out there. This one is finally finished. © Sam Hawksmoor October 1st 2025 Download the ebook or order the print version wherever you are. * Ebook best viewed in portrait mode USA Amazon link Catch up with Sara Troy's interview with Sam Hawksmoor here. Oct 1st 2025 Ist Chapter sample available here 2nd Chapter here The Repossession of Genie Magee available in print or ebook. No 1 in the series. Winner of The Wirral 'Paperback of the Year'.