While celebrating publication day for A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow today, I’m delighted to bring some more exciting news for fans of this series.

I can confirm that we have a title for book 5 and I absolutely love it. It may be my favourite one so far. It’s … drum roll … Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow.

It has gone up for pre-order on Amazon today and you can order it for Kindle UK here. It will go up for pre-order on Apple and Kobo and other platforms nearer the time, as well as on Audible but Amazon is the only place where it can go up this early. The cover will follow in due course as well as the blurb. We can’t write the blurb yet as I’ve only just started to write the book!

Those who’ve read A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow already will have seen that it doesn’t end on a big cliff hanger like book 3 but it does leave a few suggestions of where the story may be going which will be picked up in the final two books of the series.

Yes, you read that correctly. The series WILL be ending.

Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow is out on 28th June and the final instalment will be out in September (I think – exact date TBC). Provisionally, that’s called Christmas at Hedgehog Hollow and I think you can therefore guess what time of year it features! However, I have just proposed a slight title tweak to my editor and we’ll see what she thinks so that title may stay or it may change slightly.

It feels so weird saying that there’ll be a final instalment this year. I have absolutely loved writing the Hedgehog Hollow series and continue to be blown away by the gorgeous comments from readers who’ve fallen in love with the characters, the settings and the amazing hedgehogs.

Before anyone turns Kathy Burke in Misery on me and demands I continue, the end of the series won’t mean we never visit Hedgehog Hollow again or hear from the amazing cast of characters but the time feels right to end it after two more books.

I get messages from readers asking me to keep going forever but, in the same breath, telling me off for giving our wonderful heroine Samantha a hard time. That’s the predicament. You see, to write an engaging page-turning story, there needs to be drama and conflict. Bad things need to happen alongside the good which does mean that Samantha has to experience turmoil. I love her very much and I want her to have her happy ever after but, once she gets that, there’ll be no story to tell as who wants to read about a happy couple picking out new curtain fabrics?!

The plan is to tell two more stories alongside Samantha’s from a the perspective of a guest narrator – the format used from book 2 onwards – and wrap up all the the threads that have continued across the series such as Samantha growing in confidence and standing up for herself and the relationship with her mother. I’m not telling you whose stories will come out or how I’ll wrap up those long-standing threads but I do have a plan. There are other stories I think readers will be happy with the two I’ve chosen.

I do still plan on writing a prequel book where I tell Thomas and Gwendoline’s story but I can’t make any promises around when that will be. As for returning to Hedgehog Hollow, I’m planning books that will be set in the Yorkshire Wolds and involve Hedgehog Hollow – just not narrated by Samantha.

I’ve started to write Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow and will finish that late next month then move on to book 6. It’s such a delight to be back at the farm, telling a story that has been burning to be told for quite some time!

Big hedge-hugs
Jessica xx