Author Duncan Smith is back with a new novel, From Abersoch with Love.

The normally peaceful seaside village of Abersoch is experiencing some uncharacteristically turbulent times.

The amateur dramatic society is in turmoil and disarray following its director’s seemingly reckless decision to stage a version of Les Misérables in the small village hall when everybody knew that Dad’s Army would have been a much safer bet. That decision, along with the director’s ‘prima donna’ style, has divided its members.

Matters have been made worse by his decision to import ‘new blood’ into the society at the expense of some of its long-standing, albeit far from theatrically competent, thespians.

The fear is that empty chairs at empty tables will be the fate of this production, catapulting the society’s finances into an even more parlous state.

Walk-outs, resignations and calls for the director’s head are in abundance!

Meanwhile, the proposed development of a new five-star hotel with nightclub and helipad on the outskirts of the village has drawn support and opposition in almost equal measures.

The village’s crusading cleric is trying to recruit a group of paramilitary parishioners to march on county hall to try to scupper the application while two local councillors have hatched a plan to derail the entire project.

The mysterious claim made by an unknown organisation calling itself the Council for Rural Archaeological Programmes (CRAP) that the development site was once an Iron Age settlement has also firmly put the cat among the pigeons in the authority’s corridors of power, throwing impartiality and objectivity out of the window when it comes to decision making.

Together with the threat of demolition hanging over its village hall, clandestine attempts to run its ‘crusading cleric’ out of office and rumour and gossip rife in the shops, cafes its back gardens about certain corrupt business practices, everything is far from tranquil in this corner of north west Wales.

Abersoch with Love joins Duncan’s other novels: Fairway Tales and Rough Lies – a fictional account of the humorous and often hilarious side of life on and off the fairways of a British golf club; 24 Heures Du Abersoch – three young people from the Llŷn dream of competing at the famous 24-hour Le Mans endurance race; From Abersoch to Chequered Flag is the sequel to 24 Heures Du Abersoch; Heaven’s Above – trouble and strife threaten the tranquillity of the Kingdom’s celestial paradise in 2018! Can ‘Brexodus’ get done?