Welcome to this very special preview episode of Best Book Forward! Today, I am giving you an exclusive sneak peek into my conversation with the brilliant bestselling author, Dr. Joanna Cannon, ahead of her main episode dropping this Thursday.

To celebrate the launch of her beautiful new novel, An Unlikely Visitor, we are wrapping up today's episode with a very special, exclusive audiobook preview, read beautifully by Emily Joyce. Trust me when I say it is pure joy. It made me want to just curl up in my favourite chair with a cup of tea and keep listening all afternoon!

In this quick preview, I am sharing a little glimpse of what is to come later this week. We chat about Jo’s incredible journey from working as a doctor to becoming a bestselling author and I had a goosebumps moment when Jo talked about how she believes that everything in life that is truly worth having starts with a pinch of anxiety (and I totally agree with her)>

What really shines through for me in this whole episode is Jo’s completely infectious love of books, and I just know you are going to absolutely love this chat. Both the main interview and An Unlikely Visitor release this coming Thursday, and I hope you'll be diving into both.

If you are already subscribed to Best Book Forward, your podcast app will send you a little notification the moment the main episode lands. In the meantime, come and say hello to us both over on Instagram by hitting the links below!

🎧 Listen & Subscribe https://best-book-forward.captivate.fm/listen

📲 Connect with Us

• Follow Helen on Instagram: @bestbookforward
• Follow Joanna Cannon on Instagram: @joannacannonauthor

Hello and welcome back to a brand new season of Best Foot Forward, the podcast where I talk to incredible authors about the five books that have shaped their lives.

I'm your host, Helen and I'm so excited to welcome you to our very first preview episode for season six.

From now on, I'll be popping into your feed every Tuesday to give you a little sneak peek into into our upcoming Thursday interview.

In these episodes, I'll be sharing a little bit about the conversation that is coming and also I'm really excited about this sharing exclusive author readings and audiobook clips to give you a little taste of what the book is all about.

So to kick off this brand new summer season, I'm joined this week by the absolutely incredible Dr. Joanna Cannon.

Jo is joining me to talk about her beautiful latest novel, An Unlikely Visitor, which is out this Thursday.

And trust me when I say you're going to need to treat yourself to this book.

You're going to absolutely love it.

And if you keep listening to the end, you'll get to hear the prologue clip from the audiobook and it is just lovely.

So anyway, in this episode Jo talks about her fascinating career, not just as a best selling writer, but her time working as a doctor too.

I honestly had goosebumps at several points during the conversation, especially when Jo started talking about how everything in life that's truly worth having starts with a touch of anxiety.

And I do believe that I think sometimes you have to put yourself into that sort of discomfort zone.

She tells us about deciding to return to school in her 30s and becoming a doctor in her 40s, and how she started her writing in her car during her breaks to protect herself from burnout.

Which kind of makes me wonder if my little burnout prevention naps need to be reconsidered when maybe I could be doing something a little more productive too.

Of course, we also chat about the five books that have shaped Jo's life, and what I felt really was shining through in this episode is Jo's completely infectious love of books and how much stories mean to her.

She talks about how every book has the power to change us or move us.

And she actually managed to slip in a few other recommendations too, so you get some bonus books in this one.

If you follow Jo on Instagram, you will know exactly how passionate she is about books throughout May.

She recommended a different book every single day.

And let's just say that every book that she recommended that I had already read, I loved and the ones that I hadn't, I'm now trying really hard not to buy because I know her recommendations are always as brilliant as her own books.

I've put a link in the show notes for Jo's Instagram, so if you want to go and give her a follow, you'll find that there.

So the full episode drops this Thursday, same day as the book comes out.

It feels like perfect time to treat yourself.

If you've already subscribed to Best Book Forward, it will land right in your feed as soon as it goes live.

But if you haven't yet, just search Best Book Forward wherever you get your podcast and hit the follow button so you don't miss it.

So that's it for today.

These episodes are going to be very short and sweet, but I am going to leave you with a special treat.

Here is a little glimpse into the wonderful audiobook of an unlikely visitor, which is read beautifully by Emily Joyce.

I hope you enjoy it and I'll look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Prologue 40 years earlier the ash tree grew, and we grew alongside it.

We moved in, unsure and newly married when it was just an adolescent, awkward and gangly, it needed support and encouragement, a stake to lean on, a wooden frame to keep it safe.

Soon, though, it began to flourish all by itself, its bark a smooth, cool grey with branches reaching out to claim its place in the world.

Summers and winters passed, and the ash tree grew strong and more certain of itself, with roots now anchored deep in the soil.

It was the first thing I saw when I drew back the curtains each morning.

Sometimes I would stare at it from the landing window for a small reassurance, because no matter the tangles and twists life threw our way, like church bells and birdsong in it was a reminder to myself that nothing really changes.

As the years passed, the tree became large enough to offer shelter from the heat.

I would sit beneath it on summer afternoons, staring at the sky through a patchwork of leaves, Jeannie and her toys spread out on a blanket, listening for the sound of Derek's car on the driveway.

In colder months, it spared a circle of grass from the frost and the snow, and I waited there, stamping my feet and watching Ziggy draw patterns in the lawn with her nose.

After it happened, when everything changed and the days became dark, the tree was a confidant, because when my thoughts became impossible to share with Derek, I would visit the tree and whisper them into the bark.

There were times it seemed as though the tree whispered back a magic high above my head as a breeze wandered into its branches and made music with the leaves.

It was a touchstone almost, and I would press my palm into the smooth surface of its trunk and lean into it when the weight of my body became too much to carry, when everything around you has splintered, when the life you thought was solid and firm has been taken away, you search for something familiar, something you recognize.

There are times when the only solace you can find is being with something that lived alongside you in the past, something that knew what life had been like before your world was broken in two, a constant.

But even constants leave eventually, because nothing is forever.

I have learned that much.

It was a storm in the end, one of those storms so huge and destructive the weather people give it a name.

I have no idea why they do this, although perhaps by naming something, it offers the illusion that we have some control over it.

We had no control, of course, oblivious to whatever we had decided to call it.

The storm ripped and raged through the country overnight, smashing roof roof tiles and forcing rivers across fields and into villages.

Cars floated along high streets.

Families became stranded, forewarned of its approach.

Desperate shopkeepers lifted their stock to the highest shelves, only to discover the next morning that the storm had no respect for jobs and businesses, and they watched as years of their lives just floated away.

I woke the following day and thought how lucky we'd been, living in the middle of the country, less exposed, and therefore spared the most brutal impact of the storm and its ferocity.

Until I drew back the curtains on the landing and saw the ash tree.

It was broken, bent, slumped forwards as though someone had sliced right through its core and left it for dead.

I remember running across the sodden grass in my slippers, arms swimming through the air, trying to reach it faster, as if I could somehow save it, if only I could get there in time.

I knew, though, as soon as I found myself in front of the tree, that I was too late.

It was gone.

The air had changed.

You can hear silence if you listen hard enough, and it felt as though the spirit of the tree had disappeared.

All that was left was the empty shell of something that once was.

We called someone in, naturally, a young man who seemed to enjoy tutting.

When he'd finished recording all his observations in a small notebook, he turned to us and said, it was a lost cause.

The tree needed to come down.

He nodded at the house across the fence.

A civil lawsuit waiting to happen.

That was the phrase he used as he returned his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

We called someone else.

Thankfully, the second man was older and quieter, and there was no tutting involved.

He stared at the tree for a very long time and rested his hands on its trunk just as I had done.

After a few minutes, he said he was sorry, but the damage was too much.

For some reason, I trusted this man, but it didn't make his words any easier to hear.

I protested, of course, because when there are wars raging within your life, when there are conflicts that can never be overcome, you concentrate on the small battles instead, the ones where you might still stand a chance.

Nevertheless, I lost the argument.

Derek was adamant.

We've got no choice, love, he said.

It's too dangerous.

The day they came, I didn't want to stay in the house, even though I was 35 and a grown woman, even though it had been 18 months since I'd traveled through the very worst day of my life.

You would think surviving that day would give you some kind of protection, a secret ruler to help you measure the value of anything else life may decide to throw your way.

You might think nothing else would be able to touch you, but the very opposite is true.

It just means that everything else touches you more deeply, even the loss of a tree.

I couldn't bear to watch it all happen, and so I got into the car and I left Miles.

I drove far away until the landscape started to change and the lanes became unfamiliar.

Even then, when I was parked in the quietness of a lay by somewhere deep in the countryside, I fancied I could still hear the chainsaws and the shouting, feel the tree shudder and take its last breath as it finally let go of the earth.

Hours later, when I returned, cold and tired, the house was strangely still.

At first glance, there was no evidence of what had happened save a few small branches littering the driveway.

The back garden, though, was a different matter.

Even before I turned the corner, I knew because the light had changed.

It was so much brighter.

Not in a liberating way when you stare up at the joy of an uninterrupted sky, but in a way that leaves you exposed and vulnerable.

The space where the tree had been was enormous.

I hadn't realized just how big it had been or how many other things on the horizon depended on its existence.

Everything seemed disjointed and haphazard in its absence, nothing else in the garden made sense.

Derek appeared on the patio with a cup of tea in his hand, and he watched me stare into the empty space.

I know he offered me the tea.

Don't worry, Margaret.

We'll plant another one.

I didn't want another tree.

I didn't want another anything.

I just wanted life.

To be back to how it used to be.

And I couldn't decide if it was the tree that was upsetting me so much or the fact that Derek couldn't see that.

Of course, looking back, I now realise he saw everything.

We just didn't have a template for what we were going through.

And.

And whenever we address the situation, it had to be done covertly.

Each emotion expertly hidden within another sentence where it could be ignored or denied in case the weight of it was unable to be carried.

Nearly 40 years later, I understand all my emotions, all the hurt and anger and loss.

I left at the foot of an ash tree because I had nowhere else to put them back.

Then, though, standing in the garden, it was the first time I realized that nothing would ever be the same again.

Not just the garden with its brand new emptiness, but our lives.

My life.

Like a snow globe, the world had been shaken and disturbed.

And although everything would eventually settle and find a place to land, it would never again feel like it used to feel.

Or perhaps it was me.

Perhaps everything was exactly as it had been before.

But I had changed, shifted perspective.

Even after it had gone, I still visited the place where the tree used to be.

I reached out my hand into the empty space where it had once stood and listened for the music in its leaves.

There were times it felt as though it was still there.

I could feel the smooth grey bark beneath my fingertips, hear the leaves shimmering high above my head.

But I just know, looking back over the last 40 years, that was the moment.

The moment I began to measure my life in the absence of things rather than the presence.