Sue Reed
Sue Reed lives in rural Northumberland where a love of the wild inspires her writing.
Born in Worthing, Sussex, Sue has migrated slowly north and has worn a variety of hats in her professional life.
Once a teacher of pupils with severe learning difficulties, Sue wrote sensory dramas and curricula that would bring the world alive to those for whom exploration was difficult. She then brought history to life as a museum guide at a lead mining museum, in Upper Weardale. For seven years Sue ran her own business upcycling waste wool knitwear as The Woolly Pedlar, and then in 2019 went to Newcastle University to do the Creative Writing MA.
Her first novel, The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn was published in 2023 by The Book Guild.
She also writes freelance for publications and non-fiction essays on Substack as Down Clarty Lonnen, writing about life through the menopausal gateway and on Substack and online as The Bridge Cottage Way, about living in tune with the seasons, reducing the drain on our planet;s precious resources,
Sue Reed's Books
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The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn
28 Oct 2023It’s spring 2020 and fifteen-year-old Molly McFlynn is uprooted from town life by her mam to live with her bohemian grandparents in rural Northumberland. Molly is furious – her friends abandon her, the food is inedible and her grandmother is doing strange things in the garden at night.
Life takes a new direction when she meets a girl in the woods who appears to be on the run. Martha is from the seventeenth century, and a life lived on the edge of society. She is fleeing from the witch finder and the men who have hurled her mother, Ann Watson, into the dungeons in Newcastle. As Molly’s friendship with Martha grows, Molly reconciles with her true self, develops a love of nature and moves away from her consumerist lifestyle.
However, as Covid strikes, and a local witch hunt takes place, Martha’s is not the only life that is in danger. Molly must stand up for what is right, help heal family rifts and come to the rescue in a moment of peril.
'We all need a Molly in our lives. Brave and impetuous, with an honest, distinctive and timely voice, this girl is the real thing. I loved getting to know her.' Ann Coburn, author of Glint