The Countdown Continues…
Two Days to Go… The Places Where This Story Lives
We’re just two days away from The Light Between Us finally landing in readers’ hands.
Over the last couple of posts I’ve talked about the characters at the heart of the book. Today, I want to talk about something just as important: place. The settings in this story aren’t just background—they’re part of the emotional wiring of Sean and Linda’s lives.
A North London school field, mid-80s
So much of this book begins in what looks like a very ordinary place:
A slightly scruffy school field
A crooked tree at the edge of it
An art room with wobbly stools and paint-stained sinks
It’s the kind of setting a lot of us remember—PE lessons in the cold, hanging around at the edges of things, trying to work out who we are meant to be.
For Sean and Linda, that field and that art room become the first spaces where they’re really seen:
Sean, figuring out there might be more to life than doing what’s expected
Linda, realising that someone actually gets how she sees the world
Nothing dramatic happens there at first. No fireworks, no slow-motion movie moments. Just small, repeated, ordinary afternoons that quietly change everything.
Kitchens, classrooms, train stations
The Light Between Us doesn’t stay stuck in the past. We jump forward and see where life has taken them—jobs, families, responsibilities, tired mornings and late nights.
The adult parts of the book happen in places most of us know all too well:
Kitchens with half-drunk cups of tea going cold on the side
Classrooms where there’s always one more thing to mark or plan
Train platforms and cafés where conversations happen because, finally, they have to
I wanted the story to live in these everyday spaces because that’s where real change often happens—not on cliff edges or in grand gestures, but at the breakfast table, on a commute, in a quiet corner of a familiar street.
Why “light”?
Light runs through this book in lots of small, human ways:
The way late-afternoon sun hits a school field in 1985
The glow of a screen when an email arrives you’re not ready for
The thin strip of light under a door when someone’s still awake, thinking about you
For Sean, as a photographer, light is literally part of his job. For Linda, it’s more subtle—those moments when something in her life brightens or dims depending on the choices she makes.
The title, The Light Between Us, is about that space where two people meet: not quite who they were, not yet who they might be, but standing in the same patch of light for a while and seeing each other clearly.
Why I wanted to write this story
I wrote this book because I’ve always been fascinated by:
The loves we never quite forget
The “ordinary” decisions that quietly change the course of a life
The idea that you can look back with honesty without erasing everything that’s happened since
It’s a story about first love, yes—but it’s also about second chances of a different sort: the chance to tell the truth, to say “I’m sorry”, to admit “I never really let go”, and to work out what that means when you’re no longer a teenager.
Two days to go – and a little favour
If The Light Between Us sounds like something you’d enjoy, here’s how you can help as we hit the two-day countdown:
Pre-order the book if you haven’t already – those early orders truly matter
Share this post with someone who loves nostalgic, real-world love stories
Tell me in the comments: is there a place from your teens that still sticks with you? A field, a bus stop, a classroom, a café? I’d love to hear about it
Thank you for reading, for cheering this story on, and for making this countdown feel very real.
Two days to go.
Soon, you’ll be walking those fields and platforms with Sean and Linda too. 📖✨
