'A wounded mind never truly heals'

Sixty-nine year old local author Stephen Howe has just published his first novel entitled The Wounded Mind.

Stephen was born in Windsor but grew up in Newbury, the eldest of six. He has always been interested in horses ever since his father asked him to pick a horse in the Grand National at the age of 10. He put 6d on each way and it won 50/1.

His other interests are archaeology and ancient history and has a passion for metal detecting – he has been searching Berkshire fields for 40 years and his best find has been an Iron Age coin known as a gold stater, from around 50BC.

Stephen has written several stories for Treasure Hunting and The Searcher magazines.

He has also written two stories about the lives of some of his ancestors from the 18th/early 19th centuries.

Stephen says he was inspired to write his first novel A Wounded Mind by his mother after he told her about a dream of two jockeys riding over the jumps.

Set in Newbury and its surroundings in the year 1936, there is a parallel story of 1914 running alongside.

1914 – Frankie Mills life is a picture of joy. He has just come of age, inherited his fortune and imagines a future of happiness with the girl of his dreams. Yet even as he makes his plans, the looming clouds of war are set to shake the world. How will events affect the lives of Frankie and those he loves?

1936 – Frankie Mills is at the pinnacle of his racing career, his time at war long past and painful memories buried. Yet the wounded mind never truly heals. A freak accident reawakens the long shadows of the past, plunging him into a tragedy that mirrors the horror of the past.

Stephen wrote this novel over the past two-and-a-half years during the pandemic.

The Wounded Mind is self-published and can only be purchased on Amazon bookshelf.

The book is dedicated to Stephen's late grandmother Maud Mary Mills.

Picture Phil Cannings Ref: 51-0122C