Tummy Love... a "gripping" & "heartrending" debut novel that exposes every parent's worst nightmare

Writer and journalist, Sarah Orton, has just published her "gripping" and "heartrending" debut novel Tummy Love. The British author who has burst onto the self-publishing scene as a "talented new voice" has already received high praise for her gifted writing style and powerful narrative, whilst Tummy Love looks set to strike at the heart of every parent's worst fears, making it one of this summer's hottest new reads.

The novel was born out of a bad babysitting situation suffered by the author and her two children and the storyline came into focus after the high profile disappearance of a number of British children.

As Sarah Orton said, "Following the awful disappearances of children such as Sarah Payne and Madeleine McCann, every parent across the country was given an awful glimpse into the horror of having a child taken from them. We didn't have to imagine what it would be like, because the parents' heartache was there for everyone to see. Years earlier, and in a very different circumstance, my children suffered a traumatic babysitting experience at the hands of a seemingly pleasant, but ultimately mean babysitter. In an instant the two storylines fused together hauntingly in my mind, the empty cot and the bad babysitter, and Tummy Love the novel was born."

To this day, babysitting remains the most relaxed and informal aspect of childcare in the West and is often arranged on the basis of word of mouth and trust. The author continued: "When my children were growing up, it often struck me how many of us leave the most precious things in our lives with a stranger whom we know very little about, save for a ‘recommendation' from a friend. That's fine when the babysitter is a well adjusted and caring individual, but what if he is a really bad egg and when you return home, your baby's cot is empty and the babysitter is gone... so begins every parent's worst nightmare."

Tummy Love explores the sickening and terrifying consequences of a parent ignoring their powerful gut instinct about a babysitter. Set in a fictional village in Kent, the story begins as the nation's favourite celebrity children's cook Melanie Henriksen, who is known to her millions of fans as the ‘kiddie cook', returns home with her husband after a successful book launch in London. But when the couple arrive home the teenage babysitter, Darius Sorokin, has seemingly vanished with their youngest child Elizabeth. The glamorous couple's perfect life is shattered in an instant as the desperate search for Elizabeth twists and turns in this compelling tale of love, loss, cruelty and betrayal.

Charlie Jones of Dazed & Confused magazine, said: "Tummy Love is a gripping, heartrending exploration of a family torn apart. Alternating between tenderness and tragedy, it's a promising debut from a talented new voice."

Others have been quick to praise the novel too. American author K Chrisbacher, of The Last Innocent said: "Sarah Orton writes one of the most compelling thrillers of our time. A story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned."

Editor of insideKENT Donna Martin said: "Sarah's writing is fluid and packed with emotion, and the characters' personalities, joys and hardships leap out from the pages, truly engaging the reader and making this book - pardon the cliché - unputdownable."

Publisher Annie Watsham of Grierson Publications, said: "This book is mega from the word go...it's a great mix of intrigue, pulling at the heart strings and generally a brilliant story."

Tummy Loveis available in paperback fromwww.SarahOrton.co.ukand on Amazon Kindle, as well as numerous other eBook formats and platforms. Follow Sarah Orton on Facebook/sarahortonauthor and Twitter@sarahortonbooks or read Sarah Orton's blog for details of a babysitting night that turned very bad for Sarah and her children.

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Click Here for Preview Pages - Tummy Love Copyright C Sarah Orton preview 
 

 
               

For more information contact:

Sarah Orton/Steven Jones
Director
WAC PR & Marketing
T: 01580 890323
M: 07984 886712/07939 114788
E:sarah@wacpr.comorsteven@wacpr.com
W:www.wacpr.com

Issued: 1 July 2014
 

Notes to the editor:

Sarah Orton is the daughter of the eminent orthodontist Harry S Orton OBE and niece of Peter Orton one of Britain's most successful and inventive media entrepreneurs, founding and running HIT Entertainment, the television production company behind Bob the Builder and many other famous children's TV characters. Sarah was raised in Surbiton, Surrey on what she affectionately called "the set of ‘The Good Life'" as part of her parent's wonderfully eccentric self-sufficiency dream, ahead of the hit TV show in 1975. This, together with her mother's outstanding cooking, gave Sarah an early love of food and home cooking and it is perhaps unsurprising that the main character inTummy Loveis a celebrity cook. As a child, Sarah also discovered a natural talent for effortlessly "stringing words together"and after graduating from catering college she combined the two greatest passions in her life - food and writing - by penninga recipe book in her first job. She then went on to train to become a food journalist and quickly shone at RBI - a large magazine publishing house in Surrey. Aged just 23 she became the youngest editor at RBI, editing a baking magazine. Sarah set up her award-winning PR agency 25 years ago in Kent, with her husband, and the agency specialised in food and art PR. Sarah has worked with many of today's well known celebrity chefs and cooks, including Raymond Blanc, Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay and Gary Rhodes, as well as iconic visual artists such as Neil Buchanan the creator of Art Attack, Bob Dylan and Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones. Sarah's work has been published in numerous national newspapers and magazines and she also edited one of the leading art magazines for several years. Sarah says she feels "most alive" when writing fiction and is already working on her second novel,Room to Let, which is a terrifying psychological thriller, set in the 1970s' London.