Heaven Sent

By Anne Grange

A short story by Alan Botham...
Do you believe in the afterlife? Perhaps you hope to go to heaven one day?
But what if heaven isn’t everything that we believe it to be – and what if there is a way back from heaven?
John, an ordinary man in an ordinary town, is about to find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Grange
• Release date: May 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463780312

Anne Grange

At school, I’d get into trouble for “not listening”, but I was actually lost in my imagination, fed by weekly trips to the library. My GCSE English coursework folder was filled to bursting with enthusiastically written essays and stories. My writing has always been inspired by my love of music. As a sixth former, I listened to ‘Outside Inside’ by the Levellers and Paul appeared in my head: a vegan who inherits his uncle’s butcher’s van. I went to university in Sheffield to study English Literature, and I concentrated on having fun for a few years. But the characters from my novel were demanding to be written about, coming to life. Life kept intervening, but I began working hard, writing in my spare time. In 2010, I graduated from the Writing MA at Sheffield Hallam University. I had finally finished my first novel, ‘Outside Inside’. A few edits later, and here it is! I left my full time job in 2013 to launch a freelance writing business, Wild Rosemary Writing Services, and I love helping people to tell their stories. I still live in Sheffield, and I love it. In the summer, you’ll find me at music festivals, volunteering for Oxfam.

Book preview

Heaven Sent

A short story by Alan Botham

First Published in 2018 by Alan Botham

Written by Alan Botham

Editing by Anne Grange Editing

Text Copyright © Alan Botham 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Heaven Sent

By Alan Botham

John was gazing in his usual dreamlike way through the kitchen window. The lawn and flowerbeds expressed an appearance of tidiness, rather than Shangri-La – colourful but not spectacular. He was not born with green fingers or blessed with the gardening dexterity that many of his friends possessed. Quite simply, he could spend all morning slaving in the garden; then surveying his work afterwards, he always wondered if he had changed or achieved anything.

Today, it was the top of the shed that caught his attention. He reminded himself that he must re-cover the sloping roof before Masie gave him another roasting. It was true. His wife had reminded him on a