A Reading Adventure Begins

What you say...

On Rowan's Well: "possibly the most human bad guy I have ever read." BR Maycock, book-blogger

On Fitful Head: A Ghost Story: "If you like your thrillers with a hint of the occult this one is for you." 5 star Amazon review
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​​​Hi. I'm CJ Harter.

I'm from the great city of Manchester, UK and still live close to it. I’ve dissected human bodies in Sheffield, shushed library-users in Wigan, shared poetry in Liverpool, organised bedbaths in Salford.

Now I am a proofreader and editor, and member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders.

  • Businesses: I can help you finesse your marketing literature to make that all-important professional first impression.
 
  • Publishers: I currently proofread for a big-five publishing house. I am happy to take on copy-editing and proofreading projects from publishers, big and small.
 
  • Students: I can proofread your Humanities dissertation or thesis to ensure you make the grade.
 
  • Authors: whether you are planning to self-publish or you are preparing to submit to agents and publishers, I can help you make your manuscript shine and stand out from the crowd.
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 I also help budding writers connect with their creativity on my creative writing courses. 

I have a degree in Literature and Philosophy, fifteen years of fiction-editing experience and twenty years of experience delivering adult education. I’m mother to two adults, wife to one, and slave to a tiny dog.

​My first novel, psychological suspense Rowan's Well, won a coveted Chill With A Book Readers’ Award, was shortlisted in the Words With Jam First Page 2017 Competition and garners fabulous 5 star customer reviews. 

Psychological suspense Fitful Head: A Ghost Story won second prize in Liverpool Writing On The Wall Festival’s Pulp Idol 2017 contest and came eleventh out of 3,112 international entries to the recent UK-NWC competition . It's now receiving high praise from readers. 

I love telling stories, creating characters who'll make you laugh and cry, tales to make you gasp and think. My love of writing flows from my passion for reading - the chance to immerse myself in other lives, other worlds. You know that feeling, right? When I'm reading, my day-to-day life recedes, and I can live those other people's lives, see through different eyes, travel the world and sometimes off it, maybe even fall in love a little, and return home when I'm ready, feeling I've really been away.

​I love to hear from my readers. I want to know what you think of my novels. So start exploring and get in touch!
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Psychological suspense Rowan's Well won a  coveted Chill With A Book Readers' Award, was shortlisted in the Words With Jam First Page 2017 Competition and garners fabulous 5 star reviews (see below). 

​Who's the one person you'd trust with your life? Think again.
Mark Strachan has everything: good looks, beautiful, doting wife, great job, loyal best friend... and a secret flaw that goes to his very core. A deep secret he’ll wreck lives to protect.

Mark’s life is about to change. He’s going to commit an act so shocking there’ll be no going back.   Unless someone can stop him.

At Rowan’s Well, on North Yorkshire’s rugged cliffs, Mark will force his family, and best friend Will, to face the consequences of loving a man like him.

At Rowan’s Well, it’s hard to tell where love ends and hatred begins…

If you like psychological thrillers with page-turning suspense and shocking twists, you’ll love this.

 "A sophisticated, compelling thriller", "I couldn’t put it down", "Gripping to the last page",     "Extraordinary and uncompromising", "Compelling family drama that wouldn't be out of place as a BBC drama", "Had me in its thrilling spell", "Highly recommend!"
Amazon reviews
Or claim your free preview of Rowan's Well here!

Amazon Customer Review

5 out of 5 stars "Gripping"

"I was soon drawn into this tale of impossible life scenarios, of conflicting loyalties and sad conclusions. It challenged me to see an awful crime from a different perspective and helped me to understand the complexities of being human. A compelling read, very well written and with a convincing plot. It would appeal to a wide audience; anyone who's ever been a parent or a best friend."

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Amazon Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars "Excellent!"

"So to begin we're not actually beginning at the beginning, but sometime closer to the end of the story, it is ten years after, although what the after is we don't know. Mark Strachan is telling a story while 'looking out of the window at the upper floors of the high-security wing opposite' about an event when he was young to someone whose part in this story we don't know. His story is vivid and packs a punch almost straight away-I could tell this character had issues and was very likely to be telling of something that had played a part in something he had done (hence the 'after') or the person he had become.

We are shot back to twelve years before where Mark is starting in boarding school, noticably without any of the parental support other have. I think books like this hit me hardest, with characters that would be so different if they had a family who showed them the love they so craved, and Mark is a character I'll probably be adding to my 'best of' list come the end of the year. Luckily, he falls in quickly with the lovely Will, and you get the impression that they'll both have each other's backs. We're shown a lot of how the boys get on and interact, and I really enjoyed both the banter and light/ dark humour. Then things happen, and one fateful night we see Mark saving Will, but at the cost of another lad's life.

Mark is an interesting character, where Will is an open book, we constantly wonder whether secretly all the bad luck that piles up in stacks around Mark, is actually his own doing. When I say bad luck, there are a number of events that take place over their lives, most involving expanses of water, that are so real, you feel the fear, the panic, that comes with being trapped under water. (There are a number of these, and you do wonder why they choose to stay anywhere near water!!)

The outstanding imagery also left me in no doubt that this was to be a beautiful read (I was to be correct!) Actually, I have to admit here that I can sometimes have to force myself not to skim over imagery, but I couldn't even consider that here, it was second to none, powerful and vivid and amazing.

We are told there's something in his eyes that make people nervous, yet the author is pretty excellent at showing us Mark's point of view, making us worry that all the bad luck that befalls him ISN'T because of him. This is an interesting book because it has a hint of all the light horror stories I read as a teen  and it had me hooked.
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There is the added dimension of his home life, where we wonder about his mother, and see him gravitate towards Will's family. The jump comes when both him and Will fall for two women who are twins, and so we know they're bound together for life. So begins a chapter in Will's life where he truly has someone to love. I have to admit I read through this somewhat impatiently, and sometimes was confused, in particular as to their family dynamic, which I didn't find so clear, waiting for something bad to happen, and when it did, when we found out what Mark did, we were placed in a scenario of having to find out if it was intentional, planned. To get Marks viewpoint throughout this, while looking at the prison system and seeing the differing opinions of Mark on the outside and through the prison employee's eyes, was excellent. Actually it was Mark's time in prison I enjoyed the most as Mark tried to communicate what had led him to this point, his horrendous past and I really empathised (special mention for Fitz, who broke my heart) and noticed that he was possibly the most human bad guy I have read to date. I read this book as I would watch a film, and the last scenes played out perfectly, with my heart in my throat. If I am to find any issues with this, it's the descriptions of the timeline, I think I'd have rather to have just been given the dates as opposed to this 'x years before or after, ' but, saying that it probably won't bother most, I also found some parts a little confusing, but more seasoned readers of this genre will figure it out! I would highly recommend this book."
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​Imagine you lose your mind... and something’s waiting to take its place.

Isobel Hickey’s husband, Richard, was intense, exciting and crazy, and she wants him back. The problem is she can’t have him: he died two years ago in circumstances too painful to remember. Now, she must keep going for teenage children, Ben and Melissa, and her dog, Brodie. But how can she when nothing makes sense anymore? When she’s haunted by ghostly footprints in the snow, and a sinister stranger who knows too much about her?

When a mute old woman speaks from her death-bed, she plunges Isobel into terrifying danger, a nightmare chain of frightening events where Richard’s secrets lurk and threaten Isobel’s sanity. Now she has to fight to save her children from an insidious evil she doesn’t understand. She must uncover who, or what, is haunting her. And any mistake could cost her more than her life.


Compellingly readable, Fitful Head: A Ghost Story is a suspenseful and thrilling  ghost story for our times. Caroline England, author of The Wife's Secret,  My Husband's Lies and Truth Games
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​Or get a taste of it with free short story
The Haydock Haunting
here
Book Review on the Radio
I'm blown away by this fantastic review of 'Fitful Head: A Ghost Story' by Hannah Kate on Hannah's Bookshelf , North Manchester FM. The review is at 26:00, but do listen to the whole show: it's a booklover's treasure trove.
Listen to the review here
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Amazon Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars "Literature meets Horror by a Raging Sea"

"Fitful Head is a beautifully written book, almost poetic in its description of scenery and the emotions of loss. In fact, it hovers somewhere on the interesting border between literary fiction and genre fiction: somewhat literary in style, more genre in content. The main characters are well-drawn and believable and the story moves along at a decent pace. The subtler scenes are described in an elegant English style reminiscent of the great M R James; the more intense encounters are more reminiscent of the best American supernatural fiction (Peter Straub, for example). One writer it reminds me a bit of is John Saul. While his books are more formulaic and often deal with disinherited elites, both writers make suggestive use of eerie coastal settings to achieve a foreboding atmosphere full of unnatural malice."
Amazon Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars "Chilling – a modern English ghost story that made me believe in ghosts again!"

"This book pulls you into the emotional fog of newly-widowed Isobel with eerie English landscapes that mirror her grief. From the start, there’s a quiet dread, a sense that something – or someone - is just around the shadowy corner. Is Isobel’s husband haunting her, as he often joked he would, or is it something more sinister?

There’s an early scene where Isobel discovers boot prints in the snow along those she left the day before and they “simply ended… As if whoever made them had evaporated mid-stride.” Unnerving and had me jumping at sudden noises for days!

As Isobel’s battle with her grief intensifies, her family fears what may happen next. Harter takes the reader along a foggy path where grief manifests into something truly terrifying. I love the comparison of Isobel’s grief-stricken mind with the location of Fitful Head, an area in Scotland set on the brink of jagged ocean cliffs, a precarious border where one could slip from life to death.
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I highly recommend this book if you love English ghost stories – any ghost stories at all, really. Readers will love this family, and will hold their breath with every knock at the door. While completely modern in style, Harter crafts suspense through authentic characters and sinister landscapes reminiscent of the best classics."
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​Amazon Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars "Freaked me out so much, but I loved it!!!"

 "You can read from the  blurb that this is a book designed to absolutely freak the frig out of you and yes, it did just that!

This is the story of Isobel, who is sleep walking through life following the death of her husband, Richard in the way only way a mum can, pushing through, marching forward, while having dreams that are disturbing, vivid and frequent. From the off of this book I was unsettled, but in that brilliant, “what the frig is going on” and “what’s going to happen,” way. Her dreams were the type that you had to try to figure out, was the person in them a friend or foe, were the remembrances or even related to whatever had happened to her husband? The settings were perfection, the writing exquisite, with passages that made me read twice, all the while nodding along.

The everyday in this book was done so well that I had that recurring thought I have with most thrillers/ horrors, which is, ‘God I wish she’d write a rom com!’ because while you’re enjoying it you know that soon things are going to get out of hand, and it’s not like a movie where you can hide and listen, you have to experience every-single-moment. And my gosh when things got out of hand, did they! An old dying lady suddenly speaking words that are relevant to Isobel, a doctor caller that Isobel can’t see, a cuckoo clock spinning out of control (nb NOT a spoiler as you have to experience every single one to get the full impact!) I loved that she had someone on her side to confide in, and that they in turn wanted to figure out the entity, as too often when stacking up the odds authors try to isolate their characters too, and it never grabs me as much.
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There were times I forgot that there were paranormal, although those times became more and more fleeting, and that was when I was smacked with something that gave me a shock. At one stage I had to switch books at night because there was the image of someone in my head and I couldn’t sleep! So so creepy, gripping and all in between in the run up to an ending that was brave and excellent. This book took me a few days to read on account of the creep out factor but my gosh it was worth it."



​News

Here's an interview I did with Mary Clinton before Fitful Head: A Ghost Story was published. We chatted about Rowan's Well, author names, genre and what I'm writing now.
Sound/video synch isn't great, I confess, so look away, grab a coffee and treat it like radio!
​Thanks to Mary and to Liverpool FACT.
​marysreadinggroup.wordpress.com