Sheffield author captures the reality of friendships and family with three superb novels

Pictured is the Susan Day novel Who Your Friends Are.

Susan’s debut novel Who Your Friends Are tells the story of two young girls who become best friends in the 1950s and whose lives move in very different directions.

Her second publication The Roads They Travelled starts with a bike ride on a wartime morning among friends and follows the paths they take in the ensuing years through good times and bad, marriage and work, children and divorce, illness and loss. And the story is all wrapped up with an unsolved mystery.

Pictured is reporter Jon Cooper reading Sue Day's novel The Roads They Travelled.

The Roads They Travelled is so wonderful there is every likelihood it will stay with the reader long after they finish the final page.

The line “I’m not comin’ if she’s comin’” just echoes so many typical spats between young friends as all this book’s characters become so likeable and even lovable.

Subsequently, readers will not want this book to end.

The characters are painted without a shred of sentimentality and even grimly at times but they are real and that makes you love them.

Pictured is Sue Day's novel The Roads They Travelled.

Their ordinariness, their “little lives” are made to feel so heroic and that is the measure of great writing.

This book finishes with an emotional masterstroke that will leave readers reaching for the tissues.

For those lucky enough to have already enjoyed Who Your Friends Are and The Roads They Travelled, there is also more in the offing with Susan Day’s latest book Hollin Clough.

This book bravely ventures into the secrets that families may hold and the possible dangers if truths are ever known which can tear relatives apart.

Pictured is Sue Day's novel Hollin Clough.

Daughter Jen admires her father in Hollin Clough and dad Frank believes that his daughters are happy but the story revolves around the premise that no one in any family knows the whole story.

This family has survived fractures before and been patched up by secrets and evasions but how long can this last.

A superbly tangled web is spun by Susan Day losing nothing of her skill to brilliantly continue to capture endearing and flawed characters.

All three of Susan Day’s Leaping Boy Publication books, Who Your Friends Are, The Roads They Travelled and Hollin Clough, are available by ordering via Amazon www.amazon.co.uk and Waterstones www.waterstones.com.

For the direct links visit the bottom of www.susanday.books.co.uk.