About the Author
30-something fiction writer.

Sugar & Spice

Commercial fiction - crime thriller

Sugar & Spice is my first completed crime thriller. Available now on Amazon Kindle and Smashwords (all other ebook formats)

Sugar & Spice is set across the UK, against the background of Britain's fragmented criminal justice system, with the key protagonists the mother and partner of a murdered child.

While taking as their canvas the murky world of the psycho-sexual deviant, these works are multi-layered, with appeal to a broad audience. Beneath the fast-moving, commercial storytelling runs a torrent of sub-plots, while simultaneously engaging in an underlying intellectual debate about the nature of sexuality and how society treats, or rather fails to treat, offenders to its cost.

At once disquieting and challenging, this thoroughly researched novel is always compelling.

The story was inspired by two real-life events: Britain's most prolific child-killer Robert Black; and a news story of a man who begged a Judge to give him a longer sentence, because he knew he would offend again, more seriously, if released without treatment.

I am also working on two other projects:

The Snow White Series: A series of crime novels (with a fairy tale theme, but set in modern day) centering around DCI Cassie White and her team, watch this space!

And a dark, urban fantasy trilogy that will be published under the pen name Saffy Desforges.

Enquiries from agents etc are welcome at: [email protected]

I live in England with my partner and a head full of people I will never meet.

Thanks for looking!

Saffina

 
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SUGAR AND SPICE by Saffina Desforges
It's every parent's worst nightmare: A child fails to return home. As hours turn to days, all they can do is hope. Some children never come back...

Sugar & Spice is a ground-breaking new crime-thriller set against the background of Britain's fragmented criminal justice system, with the key protagonists the mother and partner of a murdered child.

Inspired by a news story of a man who begged a Judge to give him a longer sentence, because he knew he would harm another child if released without treatment, Sugar & Spice is meticulously researched, asking the questions society prefers not to have answered. At once disquieting and challenging, Sugar & Spice is car-crash reading.

Two boys find the severed arm of a missing child.
For the distraught mother, Claire Meadows, and her partner Matt Burford, the arrest of local sex-offender Thomas Bristow seems to offer closure. But doubts soon emerge.

Another child is killed while Bristow is on remand awaiting trial.

Driven by a mother's need to know, Claire visits Bristow in prison. He presents a compelling defence, convincing Claire not only that he is innocent of harming her daughter, but that his previous convictions were not what they seemed. Would you trust a convicted sex offender to help you find your daughter's killer? Claire did...

Running parallel to this is Greg Randall's story: a respectable accountant and utterly devoted father of six year old twins. But for Randall, the murder has brought to the fore private demons he has long been struggling to cope with: When you've got two young children, and you think the unthinkable, where do you turn?

Fearing he might one day lose control, Randall seeks counselling at a prestigious private clinic, licensed by the Home Office to treat sex-offenders. Randall's struggle to balance his family life as he undergoes "therapy," runs alongside the hunt for the child-killer, until eventually the two story-lines inexorably converge.
With the Police inquiry floundering, Matt and Claire embark on their own investigation, teaming up with a second-year psychology student and a fourteen year-old truant schoolboy to bring one man's reign of terror to an end.

Warning: The research is meticulous, and the characters based on real-life studies.

But be warned: In Sugar & Spice not all things are nice...
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