Ambassador for Read Easy Telford & Shropshire East Group

Local author -Carys Jones

I’ve always loved stories. Listening to them, reading them. For me, the thrill of the escape, the wonderment they hold, it has always been so important to me. I can still remember, as a little girl, being transported to the vast plains of America in Little House on the Prairie, feeling amazed at how real it all felt even though I never left my bedroom.

As I got older my relationship with books changed, became more important. When I was twelve I became very sick. Over the next ten years I’d be in and out of hospital constantly, undergoing numerous major surgeries. And books always came with me. They gave me somewhere to go, a place where I didn’t need to think about my broken body, or what was going on. Books also became a currency of care on the wards; when people were discharged they often left a book behind for those still in hospital. This was how I came to read my first Harry Potter book.

Reading, and stories, got me through the most brutal years of my life. At twenty three, recovering from my biggest surgery yet, bedbound and weak, I decided to do something I’d always dreamed of doing – write a book. I wanted to give back some of the magic which had helped me so much throughout my life. And that was it, I was hooked. Fifteen years later and I’m now a full time thriller writer for Orion. The magic is still there. Each time I read a book, or sit down with my laptop to write a new chapter, I’m taken somewhere else, somewhere special. For that is the beauty of books; they can take you anywhere. The journey begins with that first page. I wanted to lend my support to my local Read Easy group to help others discover the joy of reading. You can learn to read at any age and it can open up a world of possibilities. I know that I would have been lost without books.