5,742 DAYS

On 20th July 2013 15-year-old schoolgirl Martha Fernback died suddenly after swallowing half a gram of MDMA powder, more widely known as ecstasy. Within hours her mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, started a diary to channel her shock and to try to make sense of the tragic loss of her only child. Martha’s death was international front-page news. We have received a massive amount of media interest and serialisation rights have been sold to The Guardian and The Sunday Times. Anne-Marie is eager to have her story heard, and has already spoken in radio interviews with BBC Radio 4 (Woman’s Hour) and BBC Radio 5 Live. Further interviews and features are also scheduled, including a review in The Sun (published last Friday) and interviews with Good Housekeeping Magazine and Woman Magazine.

-Gripping and deeply moving real-time account of a mother’s battle with grief

-Huge media interest. This shocking story knocked the royal baby off the international front pages in the UK

-Book starts a massive drug awareness campaign

A gram of MDMA powder, more widely known as ecstasy. Within hours her mother, Anne-Marie Cockburn, began to write down her feelings as a way to channel her shock and try to make sense of the tragic loss of her only child.

From an early age Anne-Marie has used writing to try to make sense of her life. This recent tragedy propelled her out of the shadows and gave her the confidence to share her writing with the world. In this book we join her in real time on her shocking and agonising journey, as she deals with the impractical demands placed upon a grieving single parent, begins to cope with the realities of life on her own and faces up to a future she could never have predicted. From the moment Martha died, Anne-Marie recognised that she still had a future, a life to live. This revealing, emotional and, ultimately, uplifting book shows how she used the art of writing, combined with determined self-belief, to guide her during this terrible time.