(Update: Last Child is now live on Amazon UK and Amazon.com, and all other Amazon sites. It's also on Goodreads It is the sequel to Kings And Queens (please click HERE for US link), which was published in April 2014)
Kings and Queens is the story of charismatic property developer Harry Lanchester, told through the eyes of six women in his life; his story parallels that of Henry VIII and his six wives. Last Child continues the story, with the 'reigns' of Harry's children: Jasper, Isabella and Erin (who closely resemble Edward VI, Bloody Mary and Elizabeth I!)
Here's the blurb for Last Child:
LAST CHILD is the sequel to Kings and Queens, Terry Tyler’s modern
take on the story of Henry VIII and his six wives.
Harry is gone, his legacy passed on to his children ~
Thirteen year old JASPER, who views the directors of Lanchester
Estates as Harry Potter characters, and finds out that teenage love affairs are
no fairytale…
ISABELLA, the eldest daughter; lonely and looking for love, she
returns from a holiday in Spain with more than just a suntan...
… and impulsive, independent ERIN, the girl of Transport manager Rob
Dudley’s dreams, whose priority is not a husband and family but the
continuation of her father’s work.
You will also meet the ambitious Jim Dudley, ex-nanny Hannah Cleveley,
Rob’s long suffering wife Amy, and Raine Grey, whose nine days as PR manager
for Lanchester Estates have a devastating effect on her life. LAST CHILD takes the drama, passion and intrigue of Kings and Queens into the present day, with echoes from the past ~ and a glimpse or two into the future....
A short excerpt from the first chapter of LAST CHILD:
The children's ex-nanny, Hannah, is talking to Kate, who was the last wife of Harry before he died. She has since married Aiden Seymour. Harry's two youngest children, Erin and Jasper ('Jaz'), now live with the newly weds.
I
followed her eyes over to the window, and saw immediately why her expression
had changed. Angie and Erin had joined
the boys outside in the sunshine. Erin
had changed out of her amazing Chloé dress into faded denim shorts so small she
might as well have walked out into the garden in her knickers, worn with a
Motorhead t-shirt and calf-high lace-up boots.
She looked like something out of a rock video; Aiden’s eyes were popping
out of his head.
I
remembered the Christmas before last, when the two of them had been caught
mid-snog at the Lanchester Estates office party. That was when Kate was still married to
Harry, of course, and Aiden was a free agent, but it caused an uproar
nevertheless. Erin was only sixteen, and
Aiden thirty-two. Now, as I watched her
prance around the garden, swinging her neat little hips and flicking her hair
over her shoulder as she shot sexy sidelong looks at Kate’s husband, I saw that
the flirtation was far from over.
“Don’t
say anything—just don’t,” Kate whispered.
Her eyes were filled with tears and I leaned towards her, but she put up
a hand to ward me off. “No, please,” she
said. “I have to ignore it, or I’ll go
out there and behave like a jealous old bat.”
“Come
on,” I said, pouring out more wine.
“She’s only exercising her power over men. I’m sure that’s all it is, and Aiden adores
you; you know how long he waited to marry you.”
She
dragged her eyes back to me. “I know, I
know. But honestly, Hannah, sometimes I
want to just—just—oh, what’s that thing Jaz says? Bitch slap her!” At least that made us both laugh again. “Thing is, she’s not an innocent little girl,
not at all. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She comes down to the kitchen to get a Coke
out of the fridge in her underwear, even though I’ve told her not to, she makes
deliberate double entendres at the
dinner table; I tell you, the way she eats asparagus spears ought to be
X-rated! I mean, what the hell’s going
on here? She’s not my daughter but she
happens to live in my house, except it’s her house, really, isn’t it? Hers, Isabella’s and Jasper’s. Harry’s will stipulates that I can live here
as long as I want, but it will never belong to me, and why should it? My twelve-year-old stepson is my landlord! Then I think, why can’t I just enjoy being
with my husband without the constant presence of this sexy young woman who
keeps flirting with him? We can’t leave
because of Jaz—it’s just such a weird and very difficult situation.”
She
was extremely overwrought; I could see it was more than just a slight
annoyance. “Presumably she goes out a
fair bit? Has her own life?”
“Oh
yes, it was great when she was away in New York, and she’s always zooming off
in cars with her various other admirers; if it’s not Rob Dudley it’s a chap
called Eddie Courtenay from the office, or Tim Wyatt, who’s the nephew of some
old lover of Annette’s. She certainly
knows how to play the opposite sex—the apple has not fallen far from the tree,
and I’m not talking about her mother.” That amused us both. “So, yes, I
do get to spend evenings at home with my husband, just us, alone—until we get
called out to deal with another scrape that Jaz has got himself into. Only last week I had a phone call from his
friend Guy’s mother, asking me to pick him up from their party—he and Ollie had
smuggled in two bottles of that paint stripper type cider that down-and-outs
drink, and were so drunk they’d been sick in one of the bedrooms.”
