tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56268887659182144162024-02-18T18:06:51.356-08:00Bev's writer's blogBev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.comBlogger238125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-43125508418123530792020-11-24T08:45:00.000-08:002020-11-25T08:05:55.616-08:00Fun with Bev and Carol - excerpt from One Summer in France<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Want some light relief?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Enjoy a Bev and Carol adventure on me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">FREE ebook (links below)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Available in paperback too!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
Here's a taster for you:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We had been in the South of
France for more than a month and were tanned, healthy and very well read. I had consumed <i>Madame Bovary</i>,
salivated over <i>Les Fleurs du Mal</i>, delighted in <i>Le Chateau de ma M<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">è</span></strong>re</i>, and done my best with a bit
of Proust’s <em>À</em> <i>la Recherche du Temps Perdu</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Carol had listened to my
observations and generally provided a slant to French literature that I found
both original and highly disrespectful, which was one of the many reasons I
loved her so much. She eventually
agreed to read a ‘proper’ book, if we could find one, and so we set out for
Perpignan in search of something she could get her teeth into.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Perpignan was a short bus ride
away. We had been there with Luc, but
now we were independent and full of a new excitement. We decided to make a day of it and got up well before
eleven. The next decision was more
difficult: whether to put on some clothes or not. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Do you think they’ll let us on
the bus in our bikinis?’ I asked Carol.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Could be a byelaw against bums
on seats, I suppose.’ Her tone was distinctly dubious. After all, this was France, not Switzerland.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘It’s not going to rain,’ I
added.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We looked up at the cloudless sky
and decided that we would take a sundress with us, just in case.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It turned out that the bus driver
was a woman and that the dresses were obligatory. Even then, she wasn’t keen on letting us on her bus. As usual, it was Carol who charmed her,
telling her that her auntie drove a bus in London and was, like her, a woman
who flouted social conventions and excelled in a male dominated profession. In
summary, and as her French was almost non-existent, this is how it went: </div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Auntie Flo says women are better
drivers than men,’ announced Carol, waiting on the first step, newly adorned
with her dress on back to front.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Too much macho!’ replied the now
slightly more jovial driver.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘La soeur de mon auntie. She drive like you! Strong woman!’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Oui, oui. Yes, I like! Enter, enter, English woman.
Yes!’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Throughout the journey the driver
winked and gesticulated in the mirror in our general direction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Does your auntie really drive a
bus?’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘No. She works in a sweet shop,’ said Carol.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘I didn’t know that!’ </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘That’s because I haven’t got an
auntie, you lovely dope!’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘You have your dress on the wrong
way round,’ I told her, gently savouring my revenge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘I know,’ said Carol, giving me
one of her superior smiles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She took it off as soon as she
stepped off the bus, and our new best friend hooted and waved as she pulled
away, leaving us standing in the middle of a busy shopping street, in the shade
of an enormous building that looked like a palace.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We went inside the palace, which
was in fact a cathedral, and were glad once more of our emergency
clothing. We sauntered along the river
with its laurel trees and quiet walkways that made me think of Wordsworth and
Keats and made Carol’s sandals rub. We
bought a <i>jambon buerre baguette</i> and devoured it as we wandered around
the harbour looking for millionaires. Carol read from a booklet we had picked
up in the Tourist Information Office, telling me about the medieval buildings
we were looking at, the Spanish influences of the town and the impressive
history of the Hotel de Ville. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Eventually, when we had stopped
looking for one, we found a bookstall in the market, run by a French woman with
a penchant for English literature. Her
collection was eclectic, to say the least, but her prices were reasonable and
her sales skills second to none, so we came away with <i>The adventures of
Benjamin Rabbit</i>, <i>The Railway
Children</i> and <i>White Fang</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Did you know it was a bookstall
for children?’ asked Carol, when we had
got far enough away.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Not quite,’ I admitted.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘What are we going to do with
these, then? Lug them around or dump
them?’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was enough to make me stop in
my tracks. I could tolerate most of
Carol’s indiscretions, but the throwing away of books, especially such
classical treasures, was sacrilegious.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Well?’ said Carol, dangling the
bag over a large litter bin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘I’ll carry them,’ I said,
grabbing it, before she could drop it amongst the empty drinks cans and
cigarette packets.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘I wasn’t going to, anyway,’ she
confided, moments later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
That was Carol. You thought you knew her, and yet…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="margin-top: 0cm;">
It was getting towards six
o’clock and we were pretty sure the last bus left at around six-thirty, so we
made our way to the bus stop, casually.
As it came into sight, so did a bus that was just leaving. The last bus had gone and we were
stranded. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘We could walk,’ I suggested,
contemplating Carol’s sandals and wondering how far we would get.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘How far is it?’ said Carol,
looking at her watch as though it might suddenly be able to tell her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘About ten miles, I think.’ I knew for a fact that it was more like
fifteen, but ten seemed like a much more reasonable number.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It turned out that we were
running out of steam before we’d even left the outskirts of the town and so,
not for the first time in our short lives, we stuck out our thumbs and hitched
a ride back to the campsite, praying that the advice our parents had lavished
on us, with tales of unspeakable dangers and unimaginable perverts, would not
come true on that particular day; that we would be transported, without
interference, to our longed-for tented oasis of comfort and joy, where we could
laugh about our trivial ineptitudes and live, unmolested, to fight another day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We decided that we would only
take a lift with a woman, with or without children and then took the first
offer we got, with a man wearing a beret and a scowl. He didn’t speak much, but dropped us off outside <i>La Belle Sir<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">è</span></strong>ne</i> and wished us a good
evening. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Funny man,’ I said. ‘ Didn’t
even look at my legs once!’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
‘Perhaps he doesn’t like
mottled,’ chirped my cruel friend, skipping off towards the shop and Anna’s
meat counter.</div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">‘Better than flabby,’ I called out after her.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-46539716707023091742020-06-19T03:19:00.004-07:002020-06-19T03:19:53.119-07:00Dark Psychological FictionExcerpt from My Grandfather's Eyes:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-Ussu-W3mBuYIlriXG2lc10m3khapt_2dDruBlryAQtR6g2gwVShq3P7U0kDNNyyCF7de4VgEBu3UTOqsGhQb4ObUv41pdLFkVDB4tIAa2lP39vyFSnslSDzGVmPaoxtvXA18_WFaLsI/s1600/my+grandfather%2527s+eyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-Ussu-W3mBuYIlriXG2lc10m3khapt_2dDruBlryAQtR6g2gwVShq3P7U0kDNNyyCF7de4VgEBu3UTOqsGhQb4ObUv41pdLFkVDB4tIAa2lP39vyFSnslSDzGVmPaoxtvXA18_WFaLsI/s320/my+grandfather%2527s+eyes.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>
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<br />
<h1 align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc406007181">Thirteen</a></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Lizzy gets married at a registry
office, in the summer before my own wedding, and I am invited to attend, as I
knew I would be. She is stronger than me, or else she does not feel the pain I
feel. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“You have to come, Al. Promise you will!” She knows I will do whatever she asks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It is the final day of our
camping trip to Thetford forest. The
holiday has been my last chance to be with Lizzy before she is taken from
me. The weather has been warm and sunny
and we have been on long walks together, looking at birds with the cheap
binoculars she has brought, arguing about names and making up new, ridiculous
species, according to where we spot them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“That’s a tangle-bramble
sparrow,” Lizzy announces, “and that’s
a muddy-arsed thrush.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We collect insects in a jar for
her to draw – she has always been good at drawing. I hold the magnifying glass,
and she uses a soft pencil to sketch them, going over the outline with a darker
one afterwards. I tell her she has a
real talent and that she should send some sketches to a publisher. She says I am a stupid bint. She says I would make a good mother. She tells me to shut the fuck up. She draws a stick insect with my head on it.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As she sketches I think about the
absurdity of the unstoppable wedding day.
Here in the forest, there is no excuse for the banal future she has
planned for herself, and my frustration simmers dangerously near the
surface. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“I don’t want to come Liz,” I
say, so quietly that I do not know whether I have spoken the words at all. “I hate weddings, especially yours.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Her pencil hovers for an instant
and then resumes. “But you will. For me?”
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
I say, for her, I would do
anything.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We brood for the rest of the
afternoon, and make the short hours together last as long as we can. Lizzy has hardly spoken about the wedding,
which is to take place on the following Saturday. Nevertheless, as we pack away the tent and the rest of our gear,
the fact of it hangs in the air, a palpable force, drawing us reluctantly
towards it. I am desperate that my
friend should not marry this man I have never met, but I know no way of
preventing it. She has, it seems,
resigned herself to her fate, like some tragic nineteenth century literary
heroine. She will not be swayed by
reason or logic, and I fiddle with blades of grass and pick up pebbles, turning
them, letting them fall through my fingers, not knowing what to do, or what to
say. She watches me, willing me not to voice my feelings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“There’s no point, Al. It’s going to happen,” she says, when I beg
her not to go through with it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“But you don’t love him.” I smash my fist into the soft ground, and
feel the sting of tears boiling up in the corners of my eyes. Lizzy sighs, but stays where she is, cross-legged,
her knees muddied.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Love is not important in a
marriage. My mum told me it was
over-rated, and that money and kindness were what mattered.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Her words sound hollow, and I say
so. “Utter crap, and you know it.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“No, I think she’s right. Anyway, I don’t need to love him, I have
you.” And she jumps up for me to chase
her, laughing and taunting me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
I am not in the mood to be
teased, and she comes back, coaxing.
“Don’t be sad, Al. We can still
have lots of time together. I’ll have plenty
of dosh, too. We can go travelling,
like we said we would. To Europe, or
America if you like.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Her enthusiasm is childlike, its
irony crushing. I want to make her
stop. It is pointless to persist, and I force myself to stand. I can bear the intensity of her closeness no
more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Come on you fat cow, we’d better
shove this stuff in the car.”
Carelessly, I grab the stove and a couple of noisy pans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Look, Al!” She points into the forest, her voice
hushed, her body tensing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The deer emerge just in front of
us, a mother and her fawn, twitching in the dappled low light, alert to our
presence. Hardly daring to breathe, I
observe the delicate sinews moving under the sleek skin of the magical
creatures, their eyes a rich, earthy brown, born of the forest. I feel the bond between them, and, looking
back at Lizzy, who has a single tear running down her face, I am startled by
the realisation that what I hold most dear is to be lost to me forever. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
I cannot say that Lizzy knew what
was in my heart; perhaps she has never known such anguish as I held inside
myself during those brief seconds, when I knew, with certainty, the transitory
nature of my bliss. My unutterable,
impracticable love.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
***</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
I arrive at the registry office
ahead of time. The previous, now
married, couple and attendant assembly have spewed out onto the car park, in a
frenzy of cheap frills, outrageous hats, and garish make up. They screech and cavort in extravagant
vulgarity, and I am transfixed, in spite of myself, by this parody of a
ceremony. The bride is a hefty girl of no more than eighteen or nineteen, clad
in layers of traditional taffeta that barely contain her enormous, fleshy
breasts. The groom is a skinny-faced
buffoon in hired attire, winking and joking uneasily with his circle of leering
cronies. There are sweaty uncles, with
slicked back hair and smart suits, and aunts in various ill-fitting outfits,
puffing and strutting like the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and mean-faced
children, spiteful and wheedling in their fancy dress. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
I sit on a bench under a willow tree, and wait for
them to squeeze into expensive cars with the windows wound down, eventually
driving off, presumably to some lavish hotel or other, where they will be
overcharged for everything, and have the dubious privilege of being free to
make an exhibition of themselves. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The last of the party hoots its way down Castle
Hill, and there is a momentary vacuum, in which I can almost sense a settling
of the fabric of the universe around me.
The afternoon is still again. And, in the stillness, there is time for
yet more regret and hopeless longing.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
I seek a new distraction. In front of me, the
registry office building affronts me.
It is an annexe, and looks like an after-thought. I imagine what lies beyond the disabled ramp
and the conspicuous fire doors. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
A uniformed parking attendant uninstalls himself
from his glazed lookout, and marshals what must be some of the guests for
Lizzy’s wedding towards their allocated parking space. I do not know any of them, although I am
relieved they seem more demure than the previous crowd. As more cars arrive, I begin to sort out who
is who, and think I recognise a couple of people from school. This makes me feel uncomfortable – I have
come out of a duty to my friend, I do not wish to reminisce. I am approached
however, and find myself hugging and kissing, making predictable remarks. We are jolly. We are full of good will.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“There’s Justin.
There, look. There he is!” One of them says.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“He’s bloody gorgeous, don’t you think, Alex? What a catch!” says another.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“I should say so!” replies a
third. “And his parents are
loaded. Lucky bitch!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
I see a tall, staggeringly
handsome man, immaculately groomed, step elegantly out of a silver Rolls
Royce. He wanders casually round to the
front passenger door and holds out a hand to a small, beautifully dressed woman
with fine features and obvious breeding.
His father stands beside him, and shows us what his son will look like
in twenty-five years’ time. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Well?” Susan persists. “What do you think?” She elbows me, and I remember her in her
school uniform, chewing gum and goading boys who weren’t interested in her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Not bad, I suppose. Better than I had expected, anyway,” I
answer, truthfully.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“She told me he was nothing
special. Typical Lizzy, she’s always
been a bit of a dark horse.” Caroline twirls a strand of hair as I contemplate
this assessment of my closest friend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
We all decide that Lizzy has
played down her fiancé, and, privately, I wonder whether she has lied about
anything else. Does she love him? Was she too afraid to tell me that she
did? The thought makes me feel angry
and sick at the same time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Come on, Alex. Let’s grab a seat. We don’t want to be stuck at the back.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent3" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
They link arms with me
and more or less drag me inside the building.
I am puzzled as to why, if Justin comes from such a wealthy family, they
have chosen such an uninspiring venue. I wonder whether it has anything to do
with the bride being pregnant. Poor
Lizzy.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent3" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
When the classical music
fades and the first triumphant blasts of the wedding march sound, I am afraid
to look round. I am not sure I want to
meet her eyes and find out that I mean so little to her, so I keep myself
rigid, while my school mates nudge each other and stifle their gasps. Lizzy will, of course, be a beautiful bride.
I have no doubt of that.</div>
As she draws level, she turns, smiling, towards us,
and I feel a warmth rising from my toes, rushing upwards, making me feel that
distant, echoing dizziness that can overwhelm you during those moments when
your only desire is to somehow be transported away from where you find
yourself. As her gaze settles on me for
an instant, I feel, for the first time, a sense of betrayal. <span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Grandfathers-Eyes-B-Spicer-ebook/dp/B009B7W10U/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=my+grandfather%27s+eyes+b+a+spicer&qid=1592322416&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Buy now for 99p/99c</a></h2>
Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-68188328253343010232019-11-28T11:57:00.000-08:002019-11-28T08:39:13.591-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Hit and Run by B. A. Spicer</span></h2>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"A gripping, skilfully written tale that will keep you guessing to the end."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "amazon ember" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">You think you've worked it out and then BOOM another twist!!"</span></div>
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<h1 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc513057380"><span style="font-size: 20pt;">Chapter
One</span></a><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The smell of wet grass filled the air as Alice Candy opened
the front door and walked quickly to the garage. A rich, sharp aroma of new sap.
All very well in April or May, but it was early January and the
temperature was three degrees below freezing. The patch of grass at the front
of the house bristled white with morning frost. It could only mean one thing: Something was out of kilter with
the world. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
She hoisted the up-and-over door and listened to it
rattle alarmingly. It would probably
fall on her head one of these days.
Inside, her VW had escaped the big freeze, unlike some of her
neighbours’ cars that had been left out overnight. Across the road, Ed Sherry emptied a kettle of hot water onto his
windscreen while his wife, Maureen, stood in the doorway in her floral
housecoat, arms tightly folded, waiting to refill it. Maureen waved, calling out something that Alice didn’t
catch. She smiled and waved back
anyway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was eight thirty. She had half an hour to get to the
station. Plenty of time. Gone were the days when she’d started out as
a police constable and was forever in a rush.
She’d had a bedsit, an overdraft and a Skoda, not to mention a young
daughter to look after. Now, she lived
in a detached two-bedroomed house, had a healthy savings account and a
pension. Jude had grown up and married a
man who loved her. Life was good. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
However, it was with a feeling
of fragile tranquility that Alice
climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, selecting hot on the
heating control. She waited for the car
to warm up, watching her dragon breath thin and disappear. The Skoda’s heating system had been better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ed Sherry glanced up
philosophically as she drove past.
Maureen put on her most long-suffering, woman-to-woman smile.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The petrol gauge showed a low reading and a red
light clicked on as Alice turned in to the police station car park. There would be enough for a couple more days
– the VW ran on fumes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Swinging into her space she
switched off the engine. Almost two
years in her new placement. Almost two
years since her promotion to Detective Chief Inspector. And almost two years of pulling into the
same slot to see her nameplate attached to the red brick wall at an angle that
irritated her on a daily basis. But
Alice had the kind of mind that forgot about such trivia as soon as they were
out of sight. It made her laugh, and
sometimes caused unwanted complications.
She could be alive to the subtlest of nuances, the slightest change in
her environment, but she’d forget to renew her tax disc or keep a dental
appointment. Jude often came to the
rescue. Jude was more like her father
had been. Organised. The name plate caught Alice’s attention once more. She would definitely mention it when she got
in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was the second Monday after
New Year. The holiday drunks had
already been sent home with a warning.
The station would be quiet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
But something bubbled away at the
back of Alice Candy’s brain, and she knew what that meant only too well. She took a deep breath and tried to harness
the normality she saw around her. Then,
in the rear-view mirror, she saw DS Elsie Granger, young and eager, waiting
outside the station. Alice acknowledged
the inevitable truth of the morning’s unease and sighed. Something had happened. Something serious. She opened the door and
the cold hit her. She could feel the
urgency of her best researcher’s gaze. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>A boy</i>. The thought came from nowhere. She shrugged
on her coat, took her bag<span lang="EN-US">,</span>
and locked the car. <i>A teenage boy</i>. More than instinct. She was certain. Her intuition invariably led her in the right direction, but it
drained all her energy as surely as a virus.
She would have no rest, little sleep.
Not until she had come to the end of whatever it was that had just
begun. Crossing the car park, the smell
of new grass assaulted her senses again.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Elsie stamped her feet and hugged
her arms around her body. Her smile was
tight.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Bad news?” asked the inspector,
as she mounted the three steps.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“There’s been a hit and run. Happened around seven thirty this morning,
in Allarton.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It wasn’t exactly what Alice was
expecting to hear. She’d been so
sure. “What do we have?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“The victim, an Adam Chandler, is
at St. Helen’s in intensive care. We don’t know the extent of his injuries yet,
but initial reports suggest it’s not good.
Forensics are in attendance – it happened on a private road leading to
the Breton estate, just outside the village.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice nodded. She knew it well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Elsie continued. “There’s no sign
of the vehicle involved and no witnesses as far as we know. We received an anonymous tip off at seven
forty.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice looked towards the station
entrance. “Where’s Will?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Upstairs.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Get some coffee and join us,
will you?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Right.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Once inside the building, the
young woman turned left, while Alice said good morning to Constable Gus Winter
at Reception and continued straight ahead along the corridor that ultimately
led to the holding cells, turning right through double fire doors and taking
the stairs two at a time. Through more
doors that slammed shut behind her, she strode into the open plan area on the
first floor, taking in the gentle hum of machinery and the aroma of coffee
mixed with the more subtle scent of people.
She raised a hand to those officers who looked up from their desks and
advanced towards a tall man in his early thirties with pale blond hair cut
short and eyes the colour of cornflowers.
He wore an air of expectation.
She nodded for him to go into her office.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Morning, boss.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Morning, Will. What news?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Taking off her coat and slinging
her bag onto the back of her chair, Alice Candy sat at her desk ready to
listen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Detective Sergeant Will Brady
stood before her, strong and already showing the determination and focus that
would take him far. They had worked
together for long enough to feel at ease in each other’s company. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
He began in a voice accustomed to
delivering facts. “The call came in an hour ago. The woman wouldn’t give her
name. Said she’d seen a silver BMW with
its boot left open in the hedgerow on the road going past Breton Manor. Very
specific about the fact that the car was partly hidden. Didn’t mention anything about a hit and
run.” He shrugged and passed a hand through his hair. “Anyway, Joe Winston took a car up there. Found the BMW then heard someone
moaning. Found Chandler about a hundred
metres away on the side of the road leading up to the house.” He looked out
onto the car park. “We tried your
number but you must have had your phone turned off.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice grabbed her bag and looked
inside. No phone. She’d left it at home. It wasn’t the first time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Lines zagged across Will’s
forehead. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Don’t say anything.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“I wasn’t going to.” He took his usual seat next to the window
just as Elsie arrived and handed round
coffee. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Will looked up and smiled briefly
before consulting the file on his lap.
“Elsie checked him out – Adam Chandler owns the franchise on the
pharmacy in Allarton. He’s
thirty-seven, in the process of divorcing his wife, Malin. Just your average guy, except that he’s
currently shacked up with Malin’s sister, Agneta<span lang="EN-US">,</span> and they live on the Winter Gardens
estate.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Winter Gardens was an exclusive
address. Alice raised her
eyebrows. “Any idea where the money
comes from? I’m presuming a pharmacist’s salary wouldn’t pay the mortgage.”
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Probably his wife. <span lang="EN-US">Apparently </span>Malin Eriksson is a successful artist. Her latest painting’s supposed to be worth
more than a million. It’s been
exhibited all over the place – the UK, Italy, Germany. Here, take a look.” He held out a photocopy. “Oil on canvas. It’s <span lang="EN-US">called</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><i>Wonderland</i>.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice took the picture. “A million
pounds, you say?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yep.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She gazed into the strange,
pearlised eyes of a girl with long dark hair who held a finger to her
lips. In the background, just
discernible at the entrance to what looked like a maze decorated with various
everyday paraphernalia<span lang="EN-US">, stood </span>a
shadowy figure in a top hat<span lang="EN-US">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Alice set the
picture aside with a small grunt.
“Doesn’t do much for me.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“I think it’s creepy,” said
Elsie.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice stared into the middle
distance. “What about her sister, Agneta, did you say?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Will put the photocopy back
inside his file. “We don’t have much on her at the moment. Used to model for one of the lesser fashion
houses. We can follow up if you want
more.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Maybe. Anything else?” She
checked her watch. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Just that Adam and Malin have a
seventeen<span lang="EN-US">-</span>year<span lang="EN-US">-</span>old son, Johan and another,
Luka<span lang="EN-US">,</span> who died over a
year ago in a boating accident.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Who has custody of Johan?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Joint. The mother has a townhouse in Sturley.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Right. We should get over to Breton Manor and see
what forensics have. Can you bring the
car round? Elsie, phone the Eriksson
sisters. We need to interview them
both. Are they aware?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes Ma’am. We sent an officer to Adam Chandler’s
address. Agneta said she’d inform her
sister personally.” Elsie rose to go.
Alice watched her push her hair behind a child’s sized ear. She had intelligent eyes and perfect skin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Ma’am?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice lifted an eyebrow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Do you want to interview Johan?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>A teenage boy</i>. She hesitated then said, “Not for the
moment, thank you Elsie. We’ll give his mother some time to contact him. I presume he’ll be in school?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. St. David’s.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Phone the hospital and check on
his father’s condition Oh, and find
out who’s at home at Breton Manor, would you?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Elsie nodded once and left.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“St. David’s? That’s a private school, isn’t it?” Alice
asked Will.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Elite, I’d say. You need money or brains.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Her expression registered playful surprise. </span>“When
did you become so cynical?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Will shrugged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice picked up her bag and coat
and followed him out of the office, down the stairs<span lang="EN-US">,</span> and into car park.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“We’ll take your car,<span lang="EN-US">” she said.</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US">“</span>I’m almost out of petrol.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Anything you say, boss.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Breton Manor<span lang="EN-US">, the scene of Adam Chandler’s accident,</span>
was ten miles from Allarton. Streets
lined with unremarkable houses soon gave way to quiet country lanes and mature
trees rising out of fields of winter crops.
The manor house lay at the end of a long driveway in a natural dip,
making it barely possible to see from the road.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Not the main entrance. It’s the next turning on the left,” said
Alice. “Jude took me on a picnic here
last summer. The owner allows the public to use one of the meadows at the back
of the house.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Jude’s lived in Allarton a long
time, hasn’t she?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Longer than me.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“It must be nice to have her
close by.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes, it is. Look out! Here’s the turning.” Alice snapped a little. Will had driven her home to pick up her
phone without a word. She was irritated
with herself for running late.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a small sign on the
open gate that read Private Property.
Will pulled onto the estate and parked up next to the police van already
on the scene. Two officers in white
protective clothing were talking to a man in his fifties wearing an oilskin
jacket, corduroy trousers and wellington boots. Tape fluttered on wire posts, cordoning off a small area of land
to the right. Another constable jogg<span lang="EN-US">ed</span> over to meet them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Morning, Ma’am. Morning, Sergeant. Forensics have just about finished here. Where do you want to start? Chandler’s BMW is outside the gates down the
road and fairly well hidden.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“We’ll speak to Jenny first. Thanks Joe.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As the group approached, <span lang="EN-US">chief forensics officer </span>Jenny
Hendrick looked up and smiled, coming forward to meet them. A second forensics officer seemed deep in
conversation with the man in the oilskin jacket.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Good morning, Ma’am. Sergeant.
We’re done here. Not much to
show for it I’m afraid to say. But everything’s documented and photographed.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Good morning, Jenny. Is that <span lang="EN-US">Lord </span>Langford talking to Tony?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. He didn’t see anything, unfortunately, and didn’t know a thing
about the accident until we called the house.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice glanced in the direction of
the rise that hid most of the house from view. “What about the staff?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Not as far as we know,” said
Joe. “There’s a gardener, but he’s out
sourcing fencing. Lord Langford says he
won’t be back until lunchtime. The
butler has taken one of the cars in to the local garage for a service. The gamekeeper and the rest of the staff are
up at the house.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Alice considered the fact that so many potential
witnesses had seen precisely nothing.
At seven thirty on a freezing January morning she supposed that people
would not have been out and about before they had to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“What did you find, Jenny?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Well, there are tyre prints indicating a stationary
vehicle parked fifty metres towards the house.
There’s evidence of speed and braking.”
She raised an arm. “Just before impact the tracks swerve.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“So the vehicle came from the
direction of the house and left through the gate?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. And we have footprints.
The driver stopped and got out, possibly to check on the victim, before
going back to the car and driving away.
<span lang="EN-US">The car</span> turned
right out of the gate.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice reflected for a
moment. “Where was Chandler found?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“At the side of the road – he
must have dragged himself a short distance.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Did you get samples?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Spot samples. It was difficult – the ambulance needed to
get him away quickly. We sent an officer along to bag his clothes at the
hospital.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice nodded. “Was Chandler
conscious when you arrived, Joe?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. He was making a lot of
noise. Kind of bellowing. I was over by the other car at the time –
the BMW parked in the bushes. I
initially thought it might be an animal in trouble. Didn’t sound human. I
found him curled up on the edge of the road with his eyes closed. He wasn’t making a sound by then. I didn’t move him, but he didn’t respond
when I asked him a couple of questions.
I called the ambulance then the station. Jenny got here just as the paramedics were loading him onto a
stretcher. He seemed to be totally out
of it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“He had obvious head trauma and
two badly broken legs.” Jenny
frowned. “I’d say there’s a fair chance
he might not make it.” She paused. “I
can’t be sure, but it’s possible that he took a second impact.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Wait a minute. You mean the driver
might have knocked him down and then gone back to finish the job?” Will
asked. He had his notebook open and was
sketching the scene.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“It’s one possible
interpretation. I’ll know more when
I’ve checked the track measurements.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The conversation was interrupted
by the approach of Lord Langford and Tony, the second forensics officer, who
spoke rather too cheerfully, “Chief Inspector, this is Lord Langford”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Thank you, Tony. Lord Langford,
I’m Detective Chief Inspector Candy and this is Detective Sergeant Brady.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Hello.” He shook hands with each of them before
stamping a clod of earth into the mud.
“Hell of a morning. Never seen
anything like it.” He frowned at the
police tape then said, “Call me Miles.
Can’t stand the title. Never
could. Terrible accident. Don’t know what on earth happened. Will the chap pull through, do you know?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice thought him the picture of
a landowner from a former time and probably a bit of a bombast. “I’m afraid we
don’t know yet. Would you mind if
Sergeant Brady stayed behind to ask you and your staff a few questions?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Not at all. However, as you can see, the house is a good
distance away and I can assure you that this part of the drive is only visible
from the top floor. No one up there these
days. No need of the space,
sadly.” He held out his hands to show
there was nothing he could do about it even if he’d wanted to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Nevertheless, we must be
thorough, as I’m sure you’ll understand.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. Yes, of course. Come with
me, Sergeant. We’ll get some hot coffee
and rally the troops.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice gave Will a nod and left
him to it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Show me to the BMW, will you,
Jenny,” said Alice. “You can leave the
rest to us, thank you Joe. Good
work. And tell Elsie to phone me, will
you?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes, Ma’am.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Joe drove past the two women as
they turned left out of the gate. No
other vehicle had passed by the estate since Alice had arrived. Silence, apart from the occasional cry of a
bird, made the occurrence of such an incident seem almost surreal. Just as odd, was the sight of a brand new
silver BMW well hidden in a natural arbour fifty metres from the gate. Entering the shadows, Alice sensed the
pressure change as the oppressive undergrowth swallowed her. She turned to see Jenny standing at the rear
of the car. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“The boot was open when we
arrived,” she said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Empty?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Any trace of anything?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“<span lang="EN-US">Nothing obvious. </span>I’ve got samples for
the lab. Dusted for fingerprints.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“So, Chandler parked up, left the
keys in the ignition<span lang="EN-US">,</span>
and walked onto the estate for some reason.
Whatever he had in the boot could have been unloaded either before or
after the accident.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Jenny indicated the ground where
it was softer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“The same footprints<span lang="EN-US"> as the ones found on the estate</span>?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“No. These are definitely men’s shoes – I’d say the other ones could
belong to a woman.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“How sure can you be?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“They had heels.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice walked around to the open
car door and laid a gloved hand on it.
She heard the sound of someone running into the forest, the crushing of
leaves and the snapping of branches, and felt the hairs rise on the back of her
neck.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
After a moment she returned her
attention to the area around the BMW.
“It looks as though the ground is well trodden here.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. Some of the tracks go round to the road. Look, just here.” The area was taped off.
“They’re overlaid several times.
Wellington boots and everyday shoes.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“But the second car was parked
off the road?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. Over here.” Jenny
indicated an area close by inside the arbour, fenced off again, with clear tyre
tracks in the soft ground.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. It looks as though a second car reversed in so as to make the
exchange easier. Nicely planned, I’d
say.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Any idea of the make?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“The tyres are wide. The impressions deep. Could be a four by four. What’s interesting is this.” Jenny led Alice to where<span lang="EN-US"> they believed</span> the bonnet of the second
car <span lang="EN-US">would have </span>been
facing. There were signs of wheel spin
where the ground was churned. And there
were tyre marks on the road where it exited the shelter. “Someone was in a hurry to get away. I’d say the underside of the vehicle would be pretty messy.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“So, how many sets of tracks do
we have?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Two off road and one on
road. And the footprints indicate that
at least one person moved between the BMW and, let’s say the four by four. But there are at least two and perhaps three
sets moving from the BMW towards the road and a probable third vehicle.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice preferred to deal in
certainties. It must have shown on her
face.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve
got more precise information.” Jenny
grinned.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Good.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The phone in Alice’s pocket rang.
It was Elsie.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“I’ve found the Eriksson sisters,
if you’re finished there.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Where are they?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Agneta’s at the hospital and
Malin’s at home. I told them you would need to speak to them today.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“How’s Chandler?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Still unconscious. He has an intracranial bleed<span lang="EN-US">.</span> It could go either
way. Both legs are crushed and he’s
lost a lot of blood.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Is there an officer posted?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Yes. We’ll know as soon as <span lang="EN-US">Chandler</span> comes round. If
he does.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Alice remembered Will back at the
house with Lord Langford. “Send a car to the estate to pick up Will – you’d
better warn him to round things off for the moment. We’ll see Malin as soon as he gets back.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
“Right. Understood.” Elsie hung
up and Alice walked back to where Will had left his car, climbed into the
driver’s seat and accelerated towards the gate, which hung lopsidedly, its near
post stuck in the mud. Someone had
ignored the sign, driven in early that same morning, run Adam Chandler down and
left him for dead.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> The scene played out in her head, but it was too soon
for a clear picture to emerge. A new
case always threw up a myriad of questions and today’s was no exception. What was Chandler doing in the middle of
nowhere at that time of the morning?
What did he have in the boot of his car? And who had taken it? Who
would want to run him down? And what
would the attacker do when he or she found out that he was still alive? If Chandler had been knocked down and then
run over, surely the assailant had meant to silence him for good...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-16686471538497880512019-11-14T08:41:00.000-08:002019-11-14T08:41:08.917-08:00Review of 'Flesh' by Dylan Morgan.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://amzn.to/2CJujov" target="_blank">view on Amazon</a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
This is my second read by this author.<br />
<br />
Story telling is an art. Dylan Morgan combines essential ingredients to keep his reader hungry for more. There is undoubtedly a good deal of brilliantly worked traditional graphic horror, but there are also characters to side with and characters to side against, providing true reader investment in the outcome of dynamic, tense drama. I really have to care about what happens to a protagonist - otherwise, I lose interest.<br />
<br />
If I had to comment on one outstanding feature of 'Flesh' it would be the author's particular style of writing. He uses language in a distinctive way to drive the story forward and enliven characters. Thoughts <i>tumble</i> into Keller's mind; goosebumps <i>pop</i>; monsters <i>slither</i> and shadows <i>seep</i>. <br />
<br />
It's good, creative stuff. More please!<br />
<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-3315969039749794312019-09-02T06:10:00.000-07:002019-09-02T06:11:24.520-07:00Gripping Crime Fiction<div style="text-align: center;">
<h2>
<b>Locked Away</b></h2>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<h3 align="center">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc461382816"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Chapter One</span></a><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<h3 align="center">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ellie’s body jerked and her eyes
flicked open. Darkness. The sound that came from her mouth was
muffled. Something approximating to <i>mah</i>! For a split second, she could not think.
Then the questions came thick and fast: Where was she? Why was it so cold and
dark? Why was she lying on the ground? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Her breathing quickened. Blinking, her mind still racing, she
suddenly lay still and quiet, playing dead, trying to make sense of what was
happening. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
In the muddy darkness she
couldn’t see anything. No matter how
widely she opened her eyes, there was no light. All around, it was deep dark like the dark of a forest at night,
or a cave she’d visited as a child in Wales, where the lights had gone out
before a dazzling show, leaving her thrilled and trembling. There would be no show here. That much was clear. She moved her shoulders and realised her
hands were tied behind her back. It was
an unlikely fact, but she took it in and once more her breaths came short and
fast. Next, she registered pain: her
arm hurt because she was lying awkwardly on it. She shifted again. Her nose
flared and she smelled the dankness of stale earth beneath her, coarse against
her skin, the individual pieces of grit and stone pressing into her. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The last thing she took in was that she really was not able to
speak because there was something covering her mouth. This was somehow much worse than the darkness or the cord around
her wrists. She tried again anyway, but
a stifled note like a muted trumpet was all that came out. Squeezing her tongue between her lips, she
pushed and the tape pulled her skin but would not budge. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
All these sensations became clear
to her in seconds, almost but not quite simultaneously. Now she wore them like
a new skin. A skin that made her feel
vulnerable. Exposed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Stay calm</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Not so easy, when what she felt
inside was panic. A kind of panic that
she’d never imagined she could feel.
Thousands of sensors went off like fireworks in every organ of her
body. At the same time, a terrible
black silence flooded her head.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Where am I?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Ellie was not the kind of girl to
get hysterical. Steadying herself, she breathed in and out through her
nose. Her pulse slowed. She lay still. There must be something to see in the darkness. The more she
stared, the more she could make out. To
her right, quite close by, there was a wall made of what looked like large
stone blocks. She strained her eyes to
see higher. Yes, there was the ceiling,
not level and crossed with shadows.
Beneath her, the floor was hard, uneven and darker than the wall. She
felt once more its cold, grainy surface.
Only then, did she register the fact that her bare skin was touching the
earth. She was wearing a tee shirt and shorts.
No shoes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The strange air was cold against her body and, for a moment, Ellie
was truly frightened. She knew also
that she had never been really frightened before. Not even as a child. Not
in the Welsh cave, or when she’d heard creaking on the stairs after her mother
had gone to bed. Not when she’d stayed up late to watch a horror movie on her
own. No, not ever. Here, where nothing
made sense, she felt terror rising from her bowels. Wave after wave. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Come on, Ellie!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She gritted her teeth and
banished the fear. Lying on her side, she had limited mobility. She sat up with difficulty, grazing the skin
on her elbow and the side of her knee. When she was still again she listened to
the sound of her own breathing, this time strategically, waiting for the quiet
gaps to search the darkness for something other than the passage of air into
and out of her lungs. And what if she
did hear something? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Wriggling her toes, it was
strange to imagine that her trainers and sports socks had been removed. Perhaps it was a precaution to make sure she
couldn’t run away… The outrage she felt
was tempered by this petty preoccupation: Where were her shoes and socks? Ellie almost laughed. Then, the muscles in her abdomen
tightened. Who the <i>hell</i> had done
this to her? What right had <i>anyone</i>
to do this to her!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was time to focus, to assess
the situation and do what she could. No
point in dwelling on her plight.
Action. She needed to act! First, she must free herself. The thin cord around her wrists hurt, and
she made it hurt more when she twisted her hands to try to loosen it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Think, Ellie! <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
It was made of something strong,
like plastic. It was tight, but she had the feeling that it would stretch if
she pulled at it enough. This thought
gave her hope. This was good. Hope was essential in situations like
this. In films, when victims were
trapped, there was always a way out, no matter how dire the situation. The victims
were actors, of course, and they knew that in the script there was an escape
plan. She must find her own escape
plan. If she were clever enough, there
would be a way out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
As she worked on the cord she was
able to pick out more detail in the darkness.
To her right and further forward, set into the wall, there was the
outline of something regular in shape.
A door. Ellie held her breath
and stared. Knowing there was a way out
was a good thing, but knowing there was a way in... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Stop! Don’t let it get to you!</i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Okay, so the door was there. Now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t go back
to the time before she’d noticed its fine, firm outline. So she would study it. To be ready, if it should open. It was not like an ordinary door. She remembered films she’d seen about
prisons. The prison doors had a small
window at the top that the guards could slide open so that they could look
inside and check the prisoners were all right.
This door had a window at the top with five small bars across it. Even if the bars had not been there, the
window would surely not be big enough to fit her head through. If her head wouldn’t go through, it would be
pointless trying to fit the rest of her body into it. Pointless. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She continued her painstaking
search. The worst thing was that nothing she saw made sense. Ellie had a
hundred questions going round in her head and no one to answer them. But there
was one question she didn’t want to think about. One question that, nevertheless, kept coming back: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<i>Is there anyone on the other
side of the door?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Although this thought was ever
present, it was important to continue with a logical and calm assessment of her
situation. If there <i>was</i> a person
on the other side of the door, that meant there was someone she could reason
with. Everyone had a weak spot. Even people who were evil. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
She knew there were evil people
in the world. Men who killed
women. Men who killed children. Even women who killed. There had been a man in Austria who had held
a girl captive for years, until one day she had been rescued. Peter Sutcliffe - he had hated prostitutes
enough to take them somewhere quiet in his car and strangle them. With her hands tied together, Ellie would
not be able to stop a man strangling her.
Even if she got a chance to bite him, to kick him, and even if by some
miracle she then got the keys, how would she put the key into the lock? No!
She shook her head to get such negative thoughts out of her mind and
worked harder on the cord around her wrists.
She grimaced against the pain, angry with herself for thinking about
kidnappers and murderers and what they could do to her. With her hands free, she would feel better.
Empowered. In the meantime, she should stick to positive thoughts. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
The room was wide. She could not
see much to the left or in front.
Looking up again, the ceiling seemed higher and it appeared to be
crossed with beams. There was a smell she recognised, too. What was it? It was
damp and pungent, a bit like leaves in autumn when the rain falls on them and
they turn soft on the street. But this smell was not as nice as wet leaves. Wet
leaves made her think of being outside and looking up at the clouds in a big
autumn sky. Here, there was no sky, there were no clouds, and the smell was
old, like air that had not been changed for days or even weeks. It was not a
healthy place to be and she tried not to breathe deeply, to keep the terrible
air out of her lungs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
And suddenly it came to her. It must be a cellar. Of course!
That meant there was a house above and someone who lived in it. A house with carpets and soft furnishings,
electric light and central heating, windows and a view onto a street. Unless the house was in the middle of
nowhere. In a forest or on a cliff top
with the wind buffeting against it and the sea crashing below. It might be
stormy outside. It might be sunny. It might be night. No matter what it was like, it would be better than where she
was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Just then, there was a tickle
under her thigh and she was distracted by another scary thought: perhaps there
were insects on the floor or on the walls. Maybe big spiders hanging from the
ceiling, perhaps just above her head, waiting to fall on her. The thought made
her squeak, like a frightened animal. A
small squeak, like a mouse. The sound
of her voice was strange inside the room and the silence after it
stranger. The memory of it echoed
inside her head, until she thought: <i>How can I be afraid of spiders, when my
hands are tied and I don’t know where I am? How can I be so stupid?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Working harder at the cord, Ellie
planned ahead: <i>What shall I do when
my hands are free? When I get the tape
off my mouth should I shout for help, or should I stay quiet? </i>These were
important, practical considerations. It
would be key to her survival that she chose the right option.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
Just then, outside the door, she
heard a sound. It was the sound of a muffled cough. And she froze. It proved that someone was there listening and,
what a horrible thought, <i>watching</i>.</div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">****</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>To view book on your preferred platform, follow the links below:</b></div>
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<h3>
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-88209815475897235632019-08-21T10:23:00.001-07:002019-08-21T10:27:11.198-07:00Hi everyone.<br />
<br />
Just to let you know that both my DCI Alice Candy books are priced at 99p/99c for the next six days.<br />
<br />
Also, they are available on a variety of platforms including Amazon, Nook and Kobo, all accessible via this universal link:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://books2read.com/u/baWrvL" target="_blank">Bev's books</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #63aac5; color: white; font-family: "raleway" , sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 700; text-align: center;"><br /></span>Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-22497162725053793642019-06-02T05:01:00.000-07:002019-06-02T01:03:55.890-07:00Summer Reads! Available in paperback or as an ebook.<h3 style="text-align: center;">
All three of my humorous memoirs (Bev and Carol adventures) are available in paperback format - perfect for a fun gift.</h3>
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<b>Click the links below to view on Amazon:</b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Summer-France-girls-Carol/dp/149952417X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">One Summer in France</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Bike-Playboy-croupiers-London/dp/1500731749/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1513793951&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Bunny on a Bike</a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranded-Seychelles-teachers-paradise-Carol/dp/1500733520/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1480682776&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Stranded in The Seychelles</a></div>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Happy Days!</span></h2>
Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-44303081896831623612019-05-25T14:22:00.000-07:002019-05-25T12:11:49.169-07:00The writing of 'One Summer in France'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<b>When
it all started</b>: </div>
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1979
(a very good year).</div>
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<b>Where
it all started</b>:</div>
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Keele
University: northern England, non-prestigious, apart from renowned Astronomy
department –run by Sir Patrick Moore's best mate – name on tip of tongue<b>/</b>impressive<b>
</b>English department - gargoyled hall, windows bit too high to gaze out of.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Reason
for trip</b>:</div>
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To
learn French and to contextualise studies.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Itinerary</b>:</div>
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1.
Train to South of France.</div>
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2.
Put up tent.</div>
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3.
Go to beach.</div>
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<b>Activities</b>:</div>
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Reading/lounging
about/flirting/moped mastery/selective sightseeing (pinnacle – Dali’s museum –
bonkers).</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Places
visited</b>:</div>
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Lots
and lots.<br />
<br />
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<b>Friendships formed, (in order of importance/in no particular order – bit of a mix, really)</b>:</div>
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Carol: best friend/totally brilliant/mad/blond/netball fiend, wing-attack/can be trifle politically incorrect/bit sweary/good punch.</div>
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Alison: uptight/control freak/all-round freak/not really friend but essential enemy/obsessive milk hoarder – (all property is theft, Alison).</div>
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James: hopelessly besotted with Bev – (brash totty)/betrothed to Jocasta – (posh totty)/<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>doomed/dishy/dope/eventual accountant, argh!.</div>
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Andy: undergraduate in French/lord-of-manor type if not actual lord of manor/Shrewsbury estate/heart of gold/spotty/def. not shaggable.</div>
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Luc: entrepreneurial market trader/south of France poseur/admirer of Bev’s dream-goddess bikini (and contents)/eventual carnal interest of Carol.</div>
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Lawrence: (cor!)/French/married – (bummer!) – ambiguity not intended).</div>
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Charles: French/pancake chef/bit stinky/animal/non-runner – pity.</div>
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Antoine and Cedric:French/caravan-dwellers/benevolent/gallant/(lecherous old buggers).</div>
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Others too numerous to mention.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Best
bits</b>:</div>
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Beaches
(normal x 2, naturist x 1)/port – gallon thereof/Jean-Paul Sartre – ‘Huis Clos’
– intellectual stimulant – Carol not enamoured/Spike Milligan – genius - worm
verse – best poem ever written - Carol's opinion, not mine/being freeeeee!</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Worst
bits</b>:</div>
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Mohammed’s
couscous poison/paranoid, raw-meat-eating Anna (don’t ask).</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Summing
up</b>:</div>
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Totally
amazing time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love Carol forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Best friend in world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks to Ms. Adams (finance), my father
(extra finance), and to Dave (emergency finance).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have grown as person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have brilliant photos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>French improved (beaucoup). Tan – golden. Hair –
ruined (in a good way).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Power over
opposite sex – incalculable. <b>N.B. government grant/tax payers' money - repaid a thousand times over since adventure, so don't even think about getting on your high horses! </b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Developments</b>:</div>
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Wrote
book: ‘One Summer in France’, humorous memoir of three-month study break in
France (obligatory)<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<b>Additional
information</b>:</div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">It might be cheaper for a couple of days sometime in July... </span>Can’t
wait?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get it now and blow the
expense!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Best consumed with big smile
and bigger glass of port).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://viewbook.at/B00B2HFOO2">viewBook.at/B00B2HFOO2</a> </span></div>
Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-34031705632697985712019-05-21T03:31:00.001-07:002019-05-21T08:05:20.602-07:00Download Hanson's Hunch - Free for a limited period. Click on the link at the end of the post.Author's note: So sorry, everyone. The free promotion got interrupted somehow, but will be live again tomorrow and the following day (22nd/23rd May).<br />
<br />
I love to write in all kinds of genre, but I must admit that detective fiction is one of the most interesting and challenging. It may begin with a simple idea, a general plot line, a couple of well formed characters, but it soon leads me down paths that demand I follow, whilst keeping an eye on what has gone before and what will happen next.<br />
<br />
I must create intrigue, I must bring my reader along with me, shining a light on certain details, hinting at a resolution, leaving them to fill in the gaps and carry a set of possible outcomes in their own imaginations. Who could the killer be? We rule characters in then rule them out. It's a delicate balancing act, and one that kept me awake at night when I was writing the Alice Candy series, particularly Hit and Run, which took so many turns that it required five drafts and two professional edits before it could be published.<br />
<br />
If I read a book, any kind of book, I notice inconsistencies. These inconsistencies are even more pronounced in detective fiction.<br />
<br />
Hanson's Hunch is a short story, so the pitfalls may not be as great, but the challenge is the same. I strive to draw believable characters, some of whom we can empathise with, some suspect, some dislike, all brought together in a story that, hopefully, has integrity, and the all important quality of creating interest in the reader, sustaining their curiosity, and providing an ending that satisfies.<br />
<br />
Classed by Amazon as a '45 minute short', I invite you to investigate, along with Inspector Hanson, the death of a local young woman - I wonder whether you will solve the crime before he does...<br />
<br />
This is how the tale begins:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b> </b><b>“She looks
almost peaceful,” said the officer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No
blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No sign of a struggle.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
<b>“That may be so, lad,” replied
Inspector Hanson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“That may be so.”</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
<b>There was a moment of
expectation in his young colleague’s face, a subtle straining to glean what
wisdom, what hidden meaning lay beneath his superior’s words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the moment passed and both men resumed
their contemplation of the young woman lying on her front, but with her head
turned towards them, eyes open and lips slightly apart, as though she were
about to speak. Her legs were bent at the knee in a position reminiscent of
sideways running.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost comical, apart
from the fact that she was as far removed as it was possible to be from such
whimsical cartoon imagery, being made of flesh and blood, recently gone cold.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
<b>Hanson grunted and looked up at
the spreading dawn sky with its split clouds lit by weak sunshine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be a lovely June day, later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Download the rest of the story (free) <a href="https://amzn.to/2LZ8tVw" target="_blank">here</a><br />
<br />
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<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-27889196007000609372019-05-01T07:02:00.000-07:002019-06-05T23:52:08.351-07:00The Boxer and the Hoopoe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>More adventures of Carol and Bev </b></h2>
<br />
The house is cool, and the light curtains move pleasingly in the breeze.<br />
<br />
'Look at that!' says Bev, dreamily, from her comfortable bed.<br />
<br />
'What's the matter!' Carol pulls the duvet quickly over her head.<br />
<br />
'Blue sky!'<br />
<br />
'Eh?' Carol relaxes for a moment and then adds, 'What about the incessant barking of the neighbours' brainless bloody boxer?'<br />
<br />
A volley of barks sounds nearby.<br />
<br />
'All morning, mark you! "Woof, woof, woof...and...woof".'<br />
<br />
The dog confirms the pattern of Carol's complaint.<br />
<br />
'I suppose-' Bev begins, still contemplating the view.<br />
<br />
'Don't say anything nice! I know what you're going to say. "It's not his fault. He's just lonely. He's seen a cat! He just wants a walk." I'm going round there to sort it out, and you can come, or not! What's French for "dog" and "kill"?'<br />
<br />
'Shall I make some coffee and get some croissants? There's a boulangerie on the corner.' <br />
<br />
Carol grunts heavily.<br />
<br />
Outside, some children start a ball game against the wall of the house.<br />
<br />
'What? Jesus! What's that?' Carol sits up in bed. She has mascara on her cheek and her hair is flat against her head on one side. She goes to the window.<br />
<br />
'Oi! Clear off! Go away! Get lost!'<br />
<br />
They stare up at her and smile. One of them says: 'Bonjour Madame!'<br />
<br />
'Bonjour les enfants!' Bev leans out of the window and Carol goes off to the bathroom in disgust.<br />
<br />
Bev hears the front door open as she finishes the coffee and puts the croissants on a plate.<br />
<br />
Outside, Carol chases away the children, who squeal in delight. Then she advances on the boxer. There is a woman of indeterminate age and developing corpulence holding onto a child which has inherited its mother's pug nose and sullen expression.<br />
<br />
'Good morning! Are you the owner of this dog?' Carol says, in an unmistakably belligerent tone.<br />
<br />
The woman does not understand and scowls at the English girl with the flat hair and blackened face.<br />
<br />
'Ah, bonjour Madame!' Bev arrives. 'Nous sommes en vacances juste <span class="st">à</span> c<i>ô</i><span class="st"><i></i></span>t<span class="item">é</span>.'<br />
<br />
The woman does not reply.<br />
<br />
'Tell her I'm going to poison her dog if-'<br />
<br />
'Je m'appelle Bev et mon amie s'appelle Carol. Enchant<span class="item">é</span>e!' Bev puts her hand out.<br />
<br />
The woman turns and goes back into the house. A moment later, a man comes out. He smokes a cigarette in an aggressive manner and stands in the doorway to the house, his chin jerking up, once.<br />
<br />
The dog barks.<br />
<br />
The child wails.<br />
<br />
'It's like The Good, The Bad and The Bloody Hideous,' whispers Carol.<br />
<br />
Bev is undaunted. 'Bonjour Monsieur!'<br />
<br />
The man steps forward and puts a hand on the gate. He takes the collar of the boxer in the other and lifts the latch.<br />
<br />
Still he does not speak.<br />
<br />
There is a moment when the threat of violence is tangible.. <br />
<br />
'Je vous souhaite un bon matin!' says Bev, jauntily, taking Carol's arm and leading her away at a brisk pace.<br />
<br />
'What did you say to the ugly bastard?'<br />
<br />
'I wished him a nice morning!'<br />
<br />
'You're such an optimist!'<br />
<br />
They stagger back to the house hooting with laughter.<br />
<br />
'Let's hope the latch on that gate holds!' says Bev.<br />
<br />
'I'm hungry,' says Carol.<br />
<br />
Bev sets a tray of freshly baked delights on the garden table and tries to decide between strawberry and raspberry jam. Carol fidgets for a while and then settles.<br />
<br />
'They've stopped now,' she says, 'listen'.<br />
<br />
Carol helps herself to butter and stares at a pair of hoopoe wandering around the lawn. 'Never seen one of those before...'<br />
<br />
Bev grins. 'They make a noise like their name.'<br />
<br />
And they did.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<h3>
If you like this, you can read more about Bev and Carol in One Summer in France, Bunny on a Bike and Stranded in the Seychelles. Links are to the right of this post. Thanks for looking:) </h3>
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<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-45916039276057542742019-04-19T07:11:00.000-07:002019-04-19T11:20:25.491-07:00<br />
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Dip a toe in the water and see if you are a Bev and Carol kind of person...</h2>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranded-Seychelles-teachers-paradise-adventure-ebook/dp/B00IPJ9BIK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">View on Amazon</a></h3>
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</h2>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc381355328">Chapter
One</a></span><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Older but not wiser, we perused the Times Educational
Supplement for jobs, on a dull afternoon in August at my house in Milton
Keynes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carol was back, and suddenly,
living in Milton Keynes didn’t seem to matter as much!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My bosom buddy had spent the previous year
working in a school in the Himalayas, and had finally flown back to somewhere
nearer sea level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
Outside, nothing was
happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inside, the walls remained
perfectly aligned and painted magnolia. Carol sighed and looked out of the
large, double-glazed window onto a square patch of lawn penned in by a
chest-high, cheap, wooden fence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“How
can you live in a place called Pennyland?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
As I didn’t know the answer to
this question, I hedged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s only a
name.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
“It’s a stupid name.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
I had to admit that Carol was
right. It couldn’t have helped that she had been used to living in a
mountaintop retreat in Tibet, above the clouds and as remote as you can get
from affordable housing, inadequate porches and gas central heating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
“How do you stand it?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
“It’s not that bad,” I said,
half-heartedly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
A man cycled past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Christ!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s worse than science fiction!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
Baffled as I was by this
particular insight, I laughed, and Carol gave me a look that I recognised
instantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a look that said it
was time to set out again into the world, united against the banal, the drab
and the superficial, determined to have some fun and wreak some havoc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went back to the newspaper and kicked off
with something contentious:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There’s one here for a maths teacher in Beijing. I could be
the stay-at-home housewife.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No thanks,” replied Carol.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Too much of a culture shock? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t want the Saturday morning military training?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Nah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t stand
Chinese food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All those wriggly bits.
And oyster sauce – can’t eat oysters since Alice!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In Wonderland?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Yeah.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Walrus and the Carpenter?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The very same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poor
little oysters…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I realised that, cartoon horror apart, and allowing for
Carol’s sketchy knowledge of proper Chinese cuisine, this would be a
deal-breaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Food was top priority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Followed closely by sunshine, a great beach
and a good library.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good looking,
intelligent men of independent means were also a consideration. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
“No blokes there, either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too short.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Too Chinese.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
I could not argue, although I
would not have put my feelings in quite the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carol spoke her mind, whilst I generally harboured my sharp-edged
opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t mention the fact
that, this time, she was indulging in a stereotypical assessment of a nation
containing over one hundred million people, not all of whom would be too short
or, indeed, too Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
“What about this one?” I
suggested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>English teachers
required by the Seychelles government</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sounds interesting.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Aren’t they in the Indian Ocean?” Carol sat back in her chair
and poked a finger into her ear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
was as beautiful as ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How I had missed
her!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I believe that is correct, you lovely tart,” I replied,
pretty sure that Carol knew a lot more about the Seychelles than she was
letting on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Capital?” she asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mahé.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Climate?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Tropical.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Food?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Fish. Creole style.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Chips?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I think it’s more likely to be rice,” I said, although I was
not entirely sure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Fish and rice with curry sauce!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We can make our own chips,” I said, reasonably.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Just need a chip pan and some Trex.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Granted.” Carol chewed the pencil we were using to circle
ads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had also served as a coffee
spoon and more recently, to kill an ant.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Shall I read the rest of it?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Don’t see why not,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>The National Youth Service of the Seychelles seeks</i>-</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The National <i>what</i>!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Youth Service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Must
be something like the Department of Education.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Doesn’t <i>sound</i> like the Department of Education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go on. Let’s hear it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<i>The National Youth Service of the Seychelles seeks
qualified teachers of ESL to instruct secondary school students on the island
of Ste. Anne</i>.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Never heard of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s Mah<em><span style="font-style: normal;">é</span></em> and Praslin
and some kind of bird island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me
see.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carol grabbed the paper. “<i>Twelve-month
contracts. Flights and accommodation provided. Interviews to be held in London
on 14<sup>th</sup>/15<sup>th</sup> August</i>.” She closed the newspaper and
got up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Want a cuppa?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I followed my friend into the kitchen, thinking that the
interviews would be at the end of the week, in three days’ time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where d’you keep the biscuits, you bugger?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope you’re not still buying those
Poptarts!” Carol was opening cupboards, rummaging.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There are some Jammy Dodgers in the cutlery drawer,” I told
her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mention of Poptarts had
brought back a momentary nostalgia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She eyed me and I eyed her back.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Are we going?” I asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Book it, Danno,” she said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were not the kind of girls to pass up an opportunity like
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had been through university
together and worked for Playboy in London, as blackjack dealers. After that,
Carol had left England to sell encyclopaedias in Germany and had thrown it in
after meeting a businessman at a party who offered her a job teaching English
to Buddhist monks in the Himalayas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
had gone on to work as a secretary in London at various establishments which
were practised in the art of exploiting as little as possible of a person’s
potential and where, at my lowest ebb, I had slavishly typed out legal
contracts for solicitors who patronised both their staff and their
clients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, I had worked for a very
nice family with a business just off Oxford Street, in a small office, up some
rickety stairs, where I had learned all there was to know about high-tensile
low-density bin bags (didn’t take long), including how to fold them and label
them, before sending them off with a quote for anything from a couple of
hundred to tens of thousands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And,
after just over a year of knowing that I didn’t want to be in plastic for the
rest of my days, I had applied for and, to my utter amazement, been accepted by
Queens’ College to do a postgraduate teaching certificate at Cambridge
University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I subsequently took up my
first post in Milton Keynes, where I discovered that I was no good at
controlling a class of secondary school kids who didn’t care about Keats, and I
gradually came to realise that the next proper adventure was long overdue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All I had needed was the return of my best
friend and sparring partner.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
Carol had descended from the
mountains under slightly mysterious circumstances, which she refused to
divulge, but which had probably involved some kind of extra-curricular activity
with one of her students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had
telephoned me to say that she wanted to come and stay for a while. So, with my
probationary year as a very eager, but more or less ineffectual English teacher
at Stantonbury Campus mercifully completed, and with no one begging me to stay,
there was nothing to stop us, apart from fear of the unknown and crushing
financial limitations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were in the
market for some excitement and risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
teaching job in the Indian Ocean, with all expenses paid, seemed an opportunity
too good to miss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 3.0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We looked up trains to London and, in the meantime, found out
that the Seychelles was a group of volcanic and coral islands stuck in the
middle of nowhere, with a language that was based on French, due to the fact
that they had been colonised by… France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Following this, the islands had been subjected to British rule, before
gaining independence in 1976. I wondered vaguely whether we would be welcomed
by the locals, until Carol pointed out that anything “we” had done to them was
bound to be better than the treatment they would have received at the hands of
our closest allies, the French, who, according to Carol, had used the inhabitants
as slaves to work on their plantations and probably taught them to roll their
Rs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
I dialled the number in the
advertisement and asked to be put through to Roseline Bananne.</div>
<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-90373664515513296492019-04-03T02:29:00.001-07:002019-04-11T12:19:26.738-07:00<h2 style="text-align: center; text-indent: 18pt;">
Limited time promotion: Get all three of Bev and Carol's adventures less than the normal price of one!</h2>
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<h2>
<span style="background-color: white; color: red;">NOW ENDED!</span></h2>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K5IL6QE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i15" target="_blank">Amazon.com link</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00K5IL6QE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i15" target="_blank">Amazon.co.uk link</a><br />
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<h2>
Excerpt from Bunny on a Bike:</h2>
</div>
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<h1 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc381701417"><b><span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: 24.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></h1>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc381701418"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Why Don’t You Ask Me I Might Say Yes!’</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></h1>
<h3 style="text-indent: 18.0pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">I wanted to be a bunny as soon as I saw the
advertisement. Why wouldn’t I? There
was no question that it was the most interesting job prospect I’d seen so far.
I thought: casinos, glamour, fast cars and millionaires. But most of all I thought it would be better
than working for a living. So I told
Carol and she said we would go to London together. Easy. After all, we
didn’t have anything else planned for the rest of our lives. We had both put in just enough effort to get
our degrees and, having got this far, didn’t have a clue what to do with
them. Some of our friends were going to
be doctors, solicitors or even teachers.
They knew what they wanted. I
hated them all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">We met up at King’s Cross, eventually. Carol had managed to get herself almost
arrested for slipping past the toilet attendant but, in a stroke of genius, had
invented a relative who worked as a toilet attendant in Exeter station and who
had been given an award for the cleanest toilets in the South West of
England. Mary, the London loo keeper,
thought that she had heard of auntie Georgina and asked Carol to make sure to
pass on her regards, before pressing a free token into her hand and wiping a
metaphorical tear from her eye, saying that it had been a great pleasure to
make her acquaintance and that, when you got up in the morning, you never knew
what was going to happen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Why do you do
it?’ I yawned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘What?’ Carol replied, as though I may have
inadvertently changed the subject.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Make things so
bloody complicated.’ I saw from her
expression that she thought I was a dullard.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘What would you
have done, then?’ she turned on me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Paid the
woman! I mean how much can it cost to
have a pee?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Ten pence.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Really?’ It seemed implausible. ‘Whatever happened to the spending a penny
idea?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> Carol gave me
one of her blank stares before suddenly noticing the effort I had made with my
appearance. ‘What the hell have you got on?’
She looked me up and down in what can only be described as a less than
complimentary manner.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> I was wearing
figure-hugging jeans and a tight tee shirt with ‘Why Don’t You Ask Me? I Might Say Yes!’ written across the
front. I could understand her taking
exception to the incorrect use of capital letters, but I knew that maths
graduates were more or less unaware of punctuation. My carefully selected attire kind of set the mood, I thought, the
mood being, as far as I was concerned, one of extreme levity and foolish
indulgence. To add to the effect, I had
on a pair of disarmingly conservative calf-length beige zip-up boots, cunningly
worn over my jeans, as was the fashion for young women of a certain type, that
type being acutely bimboesque. I thought
I looked brilliant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.4pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Carol, in my opinion, hadn’t got
a leg to stand on as far as dress code was concerned. She was wearing a tatty kaftan coat and gypsy earrings in an
effort, apparently, to be as inappropriately dressed as possible and thus give
an uncomfortable edge to the proceedings: she didn’t agree with the concept of
an interview. There were a lot of
things that Carol didn’t agree with so, to save time, I said that I thought she
looked brilliant too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> In short, we
were confident, provocative and loud, we were backward birdbrains about to
learn the hard way that there was ‘no such thing as a free lunch’. We had no notion of what it was like to have
a job, apart from serving curry in the Students’ Union bar to salivating youths
hoping for a post biryani snog and a grope; we were young, hopeful and out to
impress with our individual ideas of what was inspiring in a world brimful of
desperately dull people leading desperately dull lives. How could we be
wrong? How could the people at Playboy
not love us?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Shall we get on
with it?’ said Carol, looking at the over-sized watch on her wrist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Whose is that?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Dave’s. I haven’t got one. Didn’t want to be late.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Is that a cow
on the face?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘Yeah.’ She held it up for me to see. ‘He likes
cows.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">London was a huge and shapeless
odorous maze and we cursed, laughed and stumbled our way towards Edgware Road
via the ubiquitous London underground, which seemed like something out of a
Victorian history book. Or do I mean a book on Victorian history? Anyway, I discovered, interestingly, that I
was in fact claustrophobic, and taunted myself with the thought of being trapped
in the dark, shiny tunnels, never being able to get up to the surface
again. My reflection looked so serious
in the dark, glossy windows of the carriage while I entertained these thoughts
that Carol found it necessary to practise her favourite grimaces until,
catching my eye, we both started laughing.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 18.75pt;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">The other passengers were not
amused, as it turned out, although this only served to bring out more of our
loutish behaviour. We finally left them
in peace as we burst out of the sliding doors and exploded up the stone steps
on to the street, quite exhausted and gasping for air, believing ourselves to
be hilarious. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> The tube station
was not far from the casino and when it came into sight I thought it looked
more like an enormous, ungainly office block.
It was on pillars, but not the classical kind, and it looked so, so
wrong. The windows were high up and
masked by long curtains which, presumably, hid the bright, luxurious
interior. I suppose I thought the
building would be grander, more ornate, dripping with wealth and
sophistication. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> ‘What a dump!’
said Carol.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> She wasn’t
wrong. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> Then, we saw all
the people. There were hundreds of
them. Girls and some boys too, just
standing there, in the longest queue I had ever seen. It went along the side of the building, round the corner and on
for at least a hundred yards. On closer inspection I noticed how the young
trendies were dressed. Never had I seen so many fashion mistakes in one
place. I pushed back my dyed blonde
hair and eased up my skin-tight jeans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></div>
</h3>
Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-14915838223510849352019-03-29T00:19:00.000-07:002019-03-29T02:29:51.681-07:00'One of those books you don't want to turn the light out for...' Amazon reviewerIf you like intense psychological drama, you might enjoy Alex Crane's story. Click on the link and you'll be able to read the first chapters free on Amazon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggeE5cRzeEitd8WMVpDk97-v4NiCueCZ4ZSo4GHBn7bM0lpG_HgF5POw-UdXCo-cGIMJNwcHWGZX38bLecAyWU2v5_Ue-5mpbk0WfnXAoJt2b5THevLPZM2u8aiUGPAfN_AjorblbuQcn/s1600/GrandfatherBLEED.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgggeE5cRzeEitd8WMVpDk97-v4NiCueCZ4ZSo4GHBn7bM0lpG_HgF5POw-UdXCo-cGIMJNwcHWGZX38bLecAyWU2v5_Ue-5mpbk0WfnXAoJt2b5THevLPZM2u8aiUGPAfN_AjorblbuQcn/s320/GrandfatherBLEED.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Grandfathers-Eyes-B-Spicer-ebook/dp/B009B7W10U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550834239&sr=1-1&keywords=my+grandfather%27s+eyes" target="_blank">View on Amazon</a></div>
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-74351650857527603832019-02-25T11:09:00.000-08:002019-02-25T01:49:52.347-08:00Prequel to Bunny on a Bike - and my dream goddess bikini...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqiEA9lwwQ-YeIlzourTY0DTO1erDIrk8-ysQpfXW7kW3Q5O6EHlQ9Heg2auKsj7H_mK3PHJ6Ya6LZWpoCGw9eW4JCK8ipR00BGpNv_bgo_ozjDJl5yIDS29t_lZQ3w38-IZEolKbHGO6n/s1600/dream+goddess+bikini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="597" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqiEA9lwwQ-YeIlzourTY0DTO1erDIrk8-ysQpfXW7kW3Q5O6EHlQ9Heg2auKsj7H_mK3PHJ6Ya6LZWpoCGw9eW4JCK8ipR00BGpNv_bgo_ozjDJl5yIDS29t_lZQ3w38-IZEolKbHGO6n/s320/dream+goddess+bikini.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>
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Bev in 1979 at Argeles-sur-mer in her dream goddess bikini (worn later for her job 'interview' at Playboy...yes, I know, please don't judge me!)</div>
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Carol and Bev met at Keele University in the north of England in October 1977. They had no idea that they would be firm friends for the duration of their courses and beyond. In fact, no-one could have foreseen such a pairing.<br />
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Carol is matter-of-fact, down-to-earth and a no-holds-barred kind of girl, whereas Bev is prone to over-thinking, loves literature and thrives on the random workings of the human mind.<br />
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The prequel to Bunny on a Bike has taken me back to my youth once more, to a time when government grants enabled most people, who were able, to go to universtity without taking out a substantial loan and when, at the end of a degree course, you could more or less count on getting a good job.<br />
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Bev and Carol went through a lot together, the good and the bad, the memorable and the forgettable. One Summer in France is based on the three months I spent with Carol in France in the summer of 1979 as part of my French studies. It was one of the most rewarding and diverse periods of my life and, although the book reflects the youthful flippancy we attached to life, it also seeks to dig deeper into those moments when the human mind discovers the layers which lie beneath, be it through literature, people-watching, food-poisoning or nude sunbathing.<br />
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Our trip was hugely entertaining and, in retrospect, we were hilariously naive. It's been great fun to write and I hope you get lots of enjoyment from what must be some fairly universal experiences!<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Summer-France-girls-adventure-ebook/dp/B00B2HFOO2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1551086441&sr=8-1&keywords=one+summer+in+France" target="_blank">Click here to view on Amazon</a></h3>
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I do write mystery/suspense, too. All my books are listed on the right. Just click and you can have a closer look.<br />
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Bev<br />
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<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-18321404274844392862019-02-18T06:27:00.001-08:002019-02-18T09:28:28.573-08:00A Few Days in La Rochelle<div>
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Blue sky, random packing, bra too tight, eating up those miles at sixty with a few bits of motorway where we can get out of the crawler lane and ramp up the petrol consumption.</div>
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Yes, it's a mini break to La Rochelle. Justification, if needed: we didn't get a holiday in 2018.</div>
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<div>
Mme. Peugeot has been ditched in favour of our very old but still gorgeous Audi tt. We are escaping routine trips to LeClerc, office slavery, book writing, and unsolicited phone calls.</div>
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Le Champlain, our favourite hotel, is a haven of soft furnishings and elegance. Our little sports car is nestled amongst top of the range monsters. Our adventure can begin with the knowledge that we have time to unpack and settle for more than a moment in our upgraded room, where the window opens onto a garden and the hot water is endless. There is squirty soap, too.<br />
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Sorting out a pair of tights and wondering how such things can be so badly designed to cut a body in half, I put on a dress and, (why not?) some BB cream. Love the magnifying mirror in the bathroom - never has my eyeliner been so perfectly applied. Boots, coat, trainers, hat, scarf, gloves in bag (just in case it snows).<br />
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Glorious sunshine. Just the right amount of people. Archways, shops, the occasional dog turd. What's that Al's saying? Ah yes, bagels. Cereal for me and cheese topped for him, both with chicken of some kind or other garnished with green bits. Into Monoprix for two small bottles of Bordeaux (screw top). A short trot to the harbour wall, where we sit among the pigeons, vocal homeless, and buskers for a picnic lunch. Bliss.<br />
<br />
Having decided not to discuss Brexit, we turn right at the Murder Tower (you will cry, if you go there), and follow the coast. My face aches from smiling. My greedy lungs swell with ozone. What a wonderful thing it is to be alive. I beam at Al and he tells me his ankle is only hurting a little, but veers towards an empty bench for a lie down. Peace, peace and peace.<br />
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Swiftly followed by gin and tonic at the casino, specifically, on the terrace looking out to sea. There is a very elegant woman wearing a black lace dress and crimson lipstick - she sits opposite and waits for a friend who turns out to be a young refugee whom she has taken under her wing. They discuss visas and freedom. It's humbling.<br />
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We head back to the hotel for a rest before dinner, watch a terrible film, get changed and saunter down to our favourite wine bar: 'O bon 20' (Al worked it out before I did the first time we found it).<br />
Gin and tonic (toxic quantities...) for me and a nic red for Al, to accompany delicious tapas: grilled chorizo, and a cheese platter served with bread - I would elaborate, but simple good food is best left free of adjectives.<br />
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No need for dinner.<br />
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And four more days to look forward to. Formidable.<br />
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-36020296575664320482019-02-11T01:10:00.001-08:002019-02-11T01:10:55.569-08:00Excerpt from The Price of Love by Bev Spicer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01sVGe3oByA-eSIoEB5Q8leWc_OIj0TrRm7fvlDEqSTcPU8owjADTyMEDhLEJK-UGZnC8qnkEqm6Ujjf7WNNFMmjxAUesPyDTGmQQm2-aNYG-6eriODRvU6J46HyB_YLShGC4W8c05IL9/s1600/Price+of+Love+new+title+digital+CVR+FINAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1025" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01sVGe3oByA-eSIoEB5Q8leWc_OIj0TrRm7fvlDEqSTcPU8owjADTyMEDhLEJK-UGZnC8qnkEqm6Ujjf7WNNFMmjxAUesPyDTGmQQm2-aNYG-6eriODRvU6J46HyB_YLShGC4W8c05IL9/s320/Price+of+Love+new+title+digital+CVR+FINAL.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Price-Love-B-Spicer-ebook/dp/B00ALIV3MA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549875867&sr=8-1&keywords=the+price+of+love+b+a+spicer" target="_blank">View on Amazon</a></h2>
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<div align="center" class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc379142669"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter
1</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
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<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Rethymnon had not changed much. His mother loved the place for its
intransigence. It kept itself to
itself, she said, sniffing the air and turning a blind eye to the pettiness of
tourism. But she would not have wanted to live there. Xania, a little further along the coast, had more to offer to
people who wanted ‘culture’.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve watched the wide street as it shimmered
remotely in the afternoon heat and wondered what his mother would say now. She would never guess that he had chosen
Crete to escape to.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Run to the bakery, Stephano, and bring bread!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He raced down the cobbled steps, clutching the coins
she had given him and staying in the shade.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The shop was near the harbour of his mother’s
hometown, and so he did not go directly to the baker’s – he liked to watch the
boats rocking in the water. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Two breads, please.” He had spoken Greek then.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The baker joked with him about his blond hair and
Stephano didn’t understand. But he
grinned anyway because he knew the baker would give him a lollipop from a
saucer he kept behind the counter. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Come here, boy.
Come choose.” The man’s face was greasy and his mouth stayed open a
little after he had stopped speaking.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Thank you.
I would like the orange one, please.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Orange, like the sun in the evening. Here!
Take it and go home to your mother.”
He clapped his hands together to see the boy jump, turn tail and
run. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Stephano could hear him laughing all the way home. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Come, my love, we are ready to eat.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Why does the baker always make fun of my hair,
Mamma?” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Because it is rare, my child, and a sign of your
true heritage.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He
knew she would say this. It was a
question he had asked before and he liked the answer, even though he did not
quite understand it. If his father was
there, he did not ask. His father would say, “What rot!” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
That had been a long time ago, when he had been a
child, spending the summers in his grandfather’s house, playing by the harbour
and staring at the boats, sitting together and watching the lizards on the
garden wall.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He had returned to the island now, but not to the
town. He had chosen a place he did not
know so well. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
In front of him, moisture rose from the sea and
disturbed the air, causing the surface to blur and swim. He drew on a cigarette, narrowing his eyes
against the smoke, looking out over the predatory women who glanced his way,
choosing to ignore them. He was
preoccupied by the audacity of what he had done, brazen and without
remorse. He laughed involuntarily. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
In the cloudless sky, Steve followed the line of the
sun’s rays from ninety million miles away to the pavement at his feet – even
this did not impress him. He had done
something so absolute, that the ordinary world seemed to have stalled around
him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Now, he would concern himself with the immediate and
the manageable, and his present discomfort, with the building giving no shade,
made him want to move. Over his shoulder, away from the sea, the shadows were
cooler. Next to a vacant, solitary
chair, a boy started up a scooter, a shard of purple light with its metallic
drumming. Noise ran down the side
street, climbing the walls of the buildings and spilling out onto the main
drag.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
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<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Be careful, Stephano. Watch out for the boys!” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
By ‘boys’ his mother had meant boys like this one,
who rode their scooters around the town, indifferent to the safety of
pedestrians.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve squinted again, scanning the high houses with
their crumbling stone and dark, cool windows, wondering what it would take to
fix them up. Some of the shutters were
closed to the heat, or perhaps the buildings were empty. Either way, it didn’t really matter.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The boy revved his engine and set a helmet on his
head, its strap left dangling. As the
scooter started towards the busy tourist street, an old lady dressed in black
emerged from a doorway and shouted something after the boy. It seemed that he had heard her, but he did
not look back. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Bowing her head, the woman installed herself, her
body awkward and graceless, on the waiting chair. She frowned, fingering the
beads in her lap, gazing after the boy.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Can I have <i>Papou’s</i> worry beads, Mamma?”<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Why do you want those old things, my child?” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Please.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
His grandfather’s beads were Tiger’s Eyes, with
small metal balls between and a silver shield where they fastened. <i>Papou</i>
always left them for him, on a shelf in the hall.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“You may take them.
But remember to replace them where you found them.” His mother’s eyes were darker than the
Tiger’s Eyes.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes, Mamma.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The scooter drew level with the main street, the
boy’s features sharp and symmetrical. He cast a lazy glance towards the tall
stranger, looking for a gap in the pedestrian traffic, and slid past Steve with
a nonchalance that had all the powerful disregard of youth. The scooter rocked and righted itself,
weaving through the crowd. Steve
followed its progress until it was out of sight.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I saw a lady drop her baby today, Mamma.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Mother of God, what do you mean, my child?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“She was sitting on the back of a scooter and it
went like this, to go round an old man who had raised his stick.” He showed his
mother how the scooter had swerved, with a movement of his small hand. “And the
woman made a squeaky sound and dropped the baby.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Was it all right, my love?” She had pulled him onto her lap and was
stroking his hair.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I think so, Mamma.
But the woman was crying and the man shouted at her.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Never mind, my love. Never mind.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The harbour wall took Steve’s attention now, and led
his eye out to sea, his thoughts once more to England; more particularly, to a
village church, chosen for its idyllic setting and pretty stained glass, its
kissing gate and ancient willow tree. He sighed heavily and dropped his
cigarette, stubbing it out with his foot. When he had been a child, life had
been simpler.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It was not yet eleven o’clock; the sun would get
hotter. He had not yet eaten but felt
no hunger in the heat, only thirst. Nearby,
there were people laughing and drinking, but Steve was loath to join the throng
that had settled along the beachfront.
He preferred the smaller bars in the back streets, where a cold beer
could be bought, accompanied by a plain dish of olives, nuts or even small,
salty baked potatoes. The veneer of the
beachfront bars and caf<span class="hps">é</span>s was not for him just now,
although later he would seek them out.
He turned down the alleyway, moving with his usual subtle swagger,
indifferent to the eyes that followed him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
As he came level with the old woman, he looked
quickly past her, into the house she had emerged from. There was a narrow passageway of cool
stone. At the end, he glimpsed a garden,
luminous and startling, and in it, a man sitting at a table holding a glass in
his hand. Steve did what he could to pass by slowly and when he looked back
over his shoulder, as he knew that he must, the old lady was staring directly
at him. Steve had been certain that she
had not paid him the slightest regard.
Her eyes were as blue as the Cretan sky. They were the boy’s eyes. She must be the his grandmother. He smiled
to himself. There were hundreds like
her on the island. Old women dressed in
black, waiting to die.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Your grandmother was a beautiful woman,” <i>Papou</i>
told him in his whispering voice. “She knew you would come.” His grandfather always nodded when he said
this, as though he were listening to her say the words, before he repeated them
in a voice that was meant to be hers:</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“<i>I know he will come. He will have golden hair, like the sun</i>.” <i>Papou </i> laughed then, and put his hand to his grandson’s cheek, before
pinching him on the nose.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“<i>Papou</i>!” But he was not hurt. He only wanted to see the picture of the
beautiful woman that was his grandmother.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Make
sure no one is looking when you open it.
It was given to me by your <i>yia yia</i>, and your mother will take it
from me.” <i>Papou</i> put his hand
inside his shirt and pulled out a locket, whilst holding a finger to his lips
and looking from side to side. “<i>A
grown man should not wear such an item</i>!”
He sounded just like Stephano’s mother now, and he laughed at the
mischief of it all.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
With
their heads almost touching, the boy carefully opened the catch and pulled the
locket apart. He liked the tiny hinges
and their resistance to his fingers.
Inside, was a picture of a young girl with dark hair and a long,
straight nose just like his. The glow
of her calm expression made him feel warm from the inside.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“She is beautiful,” Stephano sighed and bent forward
to kiss the photograph.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes, your grandmother was a beautiful woman,” Papou
repeated, shutting the locket and putting it back inside his shirt.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“<i>She will be young forever</i>,” said the boy,
mimicking his grandfather’s voice.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Of all the…! Well!” He made a grab at his grandson,
but Stephano ducked. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Then they would go down to the harbour and watch the
boats. Sometimes, Papou would teach him
how to sketch them. His grandfather’s
drawings were always better than his own.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
At the end of the street, Steve took out another
cigarette and chose a road he had already travelled. Outside the first café he
came to he returned the stares of the Greek men, with their richly coloured
faces, their eyes sharp with something like wisdom, making him feel as though,
to them, he were of no consequence. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“These men from the village, my child, who sit all
day drinking <i>raki</i> and<i> </i>smoking cigarettes – these men are good for
nothing.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Why, Mamma?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“They do not work.
They live careless lives and take from others.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
One of the men spat into the gutter as Steve passed,
looking up at him as if to beg a comment, as if he could read the thoughts of
the stranger. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Soon, he arrived at the bar he had been looking for
– the one he had visited the previous day, and where he would be able to sit
undisturbed, out of the glaring heat.
He read the faded wooden sign above the door: <i>Kooki’s</i>. That was
it. He supposed that Kooki was the man who came to serve him from behind a
panelled wooden counter at the back of the small interior. Today, Steve was his only customer.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It looked as though Kooki was wearing the same dirty
brown trousers and had the same soiled cloth over his arm, with the same long
moustache hairs interfering with the pink gash of his mouth. He had full, womanly lips. There was dirt under his fingernails, as
though he had been digging the earth with his bare hands. The olives he brought were black and oily,
heavy with saltiness, and served in a bowl filled from his fist. The potatoes arrived in the same way and the
beer was opened at the table in front of him, with the large man standing over
him, too close. Kooki had said
something as Steve had entered, which he had recognised as a greeting. The
Greek he had learned as a child had mostly deserted him. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Inside, the floor was swept with sawdust. On the counter, there were bottles of clear,
alcoholic liquid and on the shelves behind the large Greek proprietor, an
eclectic collection of glasses and a mess of faded photographs amidst the ubiquitous
worry beads (none of them was threaded with Tiger’s Eyes) and religious
artefacts. To one side, there was a
buzzing refrigerator and next to it, a spit roast oven housing the corpses of
half a dozen chickens turning slowly, their fat dripping onto greasy potatoes
sprigged with oregano. It was the kind
of place Steve’s mother would have avoided at all costs. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The olives and potatoes made him thirsty, as they
were supposed to, and he held up his hand for another beer. Kooki brought one over and stood looking at
him, holding onto the bottle and perhaps deciding something. Steve smiled a little, but Kooki continued
to examine him impassively. Then, just
as Steve had the impression that the man would say something, he took a
toothpick from his apron pocket and, baring his teeth, commenced a grisly
excavation. The offending remnant of
food was released and his hand dipped back inside his pocket. This time, a handkerchief came up, and Kooki
pushed his large, pitted nose from side to side. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve stared in amusement, wondering whether he should
say something. Kooki’s hand, still
clutching the soiled handkerchief, slid onto the young man’s shoulder and the
proprietor of the caf<span class="hps">é</span> shook out an explosion of a laugh
as he pushed his customer towards the second beer, which stood on the table in
front of him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve had a notion that Kooki had formed an opinion
of him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Would you like something to eat?” he asked, in
Greek. “The chicken and potatoes are
delicious!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve looked
up and saw that the persistent café owner wanted him to eat something. He was pointing at the chicken turning on
the spit, making gestures and smacking his lips together. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve began to wonder whether Kooki were deranged in
some way that he hadn’t noticed the previous day.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Noo, no.
Thank you, not hungry. <i>Ochi,
ochi</i>,” he said, shaking his head. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He pronounced the word easily, and Kooki’s face
brightened. He made shushing noises and pressed Steve into his chair so that,
before he could do anything about it, there was a plate of food in front on
him. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Sarah would have laughed at him. He saw her flashing eyes. ‘<i>Just eat the chicken and potatoes - the
nice Greek man wants you to be strong.
Make him happy. Go on, you might
like it! He might give you seconds</i>.’ And as he thought about Sarah making fun of
him, he ate the food, wishing that she had come with him. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The sun was no longer overhead when he left the
small bar after several raki and a huge bowl of yoghurt with honey. He had told Kooki that his name was Steve
and had tried, unsuccessfully, to teach him how to say it. He did not say that his mother was from the
island and that she called him Stephano, still. He thought that he now knew that Kooki had a brother and a sister
and that one of them was no longer alive, or else had gone away somewhere. He had stayed longer than he had intended –
Greek hospitality was impossible to turn down.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“It is the Greek way. There must be respect between the host and the guest. It is a two-way process. Learn this lesson well, my son. It will be with you all your life.” And in
case he had not realised the importance of his mother’s words she would say
them again, more slowly, fixing him with her loving eyes, “All your life!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Kooki
had refused to take payment for the meal, and now Steve couldn’t help thinking
that he had promised to do something for the café owner, although he had no
idea what it was.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Out in the fresh air again, he did not want to go
back to the hotel. Going back to his room would lead to thoughts of the life he
had rejected. The hills rose up behind
the town and he turned towards them, crossing the main road, going up a steep
track bordered by forest, clinging to the shade where he could. He had no hat, nor any water; it would be
foolish to go too far. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The track rose up more steeply after a while and
turned away from the coast. A man
passed by in a motorised cart, raising a cloud of dust. Sitting next to him, another old woman
dressed in black. Steve raised a hand
in greeting and the man nodded, the expression on his face impenetrable. The woman did not look at him. The road
wound on and pebbles rolled and crunched under his feet. He smelled the
dust. Further on, there was a wizened
tree growing out of the rock. It was not like the other trees, and was laden
with fruit, oval in shape and prickly.
Steve was thirsty already, and the melon-like aroma of the fruit tempted
him, but he did not know whether it was edible, so he left it. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It was unwise not to turn back to the town, but he
looked up the rise ahead and continued anyway.
After a while, when his thirst had become harder to bear, he saw a
scattering of houses ahead and decided to ask there for water. Even the thought
of water excited him. He could smell
and taste the memory of it and feel it moving over his tongue and down his
parched throat. It surprised him how quickly thirst had come upon him. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
As he approached the first of the houses a tall,
long-haired girl hurried inside, and a babble of Greek could be heard as he
drew nearer. He looked towards the
door, which was ajar, and cleared his throat.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Hello. <i>Kalimera</i>!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
A young boy came out, warily. He must have been about twelve or
thirteen. His sister, who looked older,
stayed inside. Keeping his distance,
the boy looked at him. It was the same
boy who had ridden a scooter past him on the seafront. There it was, parked at
the side of the house.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“May I help you, sir?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It was odd to hear English being spoken so carefully
in such a remote place. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes. Could you give me some water?” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The boy’s confidence dissolved and he looked
confused, he had not understood and, shrugging his shoulders, looked back to
the house where his sister was waiting, all the while twisting his hands inside
his pockets and becoming more and more agitated. From inside the house, the girl spoke urgently.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“He wants water.
Give him water!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
At these words, the boy disappeared quickly inside
the house once more. Steve waited,
wondering whether he would get water, or whether yet another person would come
to see what he wanted. He was impatient
for a drink. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Further up the road, there was the sound of an
animal squealing. Three men were
holding down a pig, and it looked as though one of them was tying its front
legs together while the others sat astride the animal, pinning it down. One of them had a large knife between his
teeth. The others were shouting and
laughing, gregarious in their efforts to control the animal. One of them stood up and looked down the
hill; the other two glanced at Steve and immediately looked away.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Just then, the boy came out of the house with a jug
of water and a drinking glass. The
squealing of the pig suddenly increased and then there was silence. It was the echoing silence that comes after
the clamour of loud noise. Steve knew that the man with the knife had cut the
pig’s throat. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The boy poured out some water and handed him a
glass. Steve put it to his lips and
closed his eyes as he swallowed, holding out the glass for more when he had
finished. The boy looked in the direction of the pig and a large smile spread
across his young face, his eyes dancing with pleasure. The girl looked out too, towards the group
of men, who shouted something to her.
The boy nodded up the hill, gesturing to the girl to hurry, and poured
out more water for the man, slopping it in his impatience to be released.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
A moment later, the girl emerged, a scarf newly
arranged on her head, covering her hair and some of her face. She carried large bowls and quickly headed
up towards the men standing around the slaughtered pig. Steve watched as one of the men drank from a
beer bottle, his Adam’s apple pulsing.
The pig lay still in the dirt, its blood running along the dusty ground
like a ribbon.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Can we make cheese, Papou?”<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes, my child.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Stephano fetched the lasso and the bucket.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“That’s right, gently now. Don’t excite her. Good.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Shall I throw the lasso?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“If you have to throw it, you must throw it. If you are too far,” Papou murmured.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Now?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes, now.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The goat pricked its ears and started to jump.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve saw the girl watching him. The men were busy
now. He thanked the boy, wondering
whether he should offer money. But,
remembering his mother’s words, he turned away, deciding not to, and took the
same road back to the town. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc379142670"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter
2</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The hotel was new, sprawling and luxurious. Inside, there were marble floors and
pillars, opulent and cooling. Steve
stood at the reception desk and waited.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Good afternoon, sir. Your key. And one
message.” The receptionist’s Greek
accent amused him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Thank you.”
He took the envelope and the key, staring shamelessly at the woman’s
breasts. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The lift carried him to the top floor. As he turned the key in the lock, he felt
the envelope, smooth in his hand but had no curiosity about its contents. Inside the room, he slid it onto a table
next to the telephone and walked across the wide lounge, out onto the roof
terrace. There was shade now, and he
slipped out of his long trousers and cotton shirt, pulling off his pants and
stretching, naked in the fresh air. On
a chair, next to the small private pool, he found a pair of hopelessly
unfashionable trunks, a bathrobe and a pile of freshly laundered towels. The water was cool and silky, but it smelled
strongly of chlorine. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Swimming in the sea as a child, the water had been
so clear that it had sparkled in diamond patterns, bouncing on the breeze,
hurting his eyes. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Can we go fishing<i>, Papou</i>?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Perhaps in the morning. We must ask your mother.”
He winked and smiled with one side of his mouth. He had a sort of stiffness on the other side
that made it stay down when he smiled.
Mamma had told Stephano that the dentist had hit a nerve and that it was
an accident that could happen to anyone.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<i>“Can we roast the fish on the barbecue?” he
asked, hoping that he never had to go to the dentist’s.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“First we must catch the fish,” laughed his
grandfather. “They are clever and do not want to be roasted on our fire.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“But we are more clever, aren’t we, Papou?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“We shall find the answer to your question on the
end of our fishing lines, my child.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve did not want to think about his
grandfather. What he craved now was
company of a different kind. The girl at reception drifted into his thoughts,
and he allowed himself to examine her perfect skin, brown eyes and blue-black
shiny hair. Her neck was long and
smooth, leading down to large breasts, concealed under a white blouse, which
bore the hotel insignia. He wondered
what kind of underwear she had on. As
he floated, gently rocked by the water, the pale face of the girl he had seen
that afternoon and the spectacle of the slaughtered pig came back to him,
spoiling his fantasy. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He tried to sink back into his daydream but it was
no use. The sound of a bird wailing and
the noise of the street below intruded.
Irritated, he turned onto his front and swam, feeling his muscles work
in the water, but the pool was small and he soon tired of it. The “El Greco”
was a travesty. It professed to be
something it was not. The building was
new, but lacked true grandeur or style.
He was used to better.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Back in his room, Steve turned up the
air-conditioning, drying himself with one of the large, soft towels. The bedroom was spacious and airy, with tall
mirrors along one wall. Tacky. As he entered, he saw his reflection. What was the use of being wealthy and good
looking, with brown skin and a toned body if you were on your own for the
evening? </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He remembered the letter and fetched it, ripping
open the envelope disinterestedly and pulling out the note: <i>Telephone call – Mr. Reek – 14h.</i> He
smiled, imagining the receptionist trying to spell a name that made no sense to
her. There was a litterbin next to the
window and he dropped the note into it.
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The room was too big. It felt like an empty space.
Fatigued not only by the heat but also by the intricacies of his
predicament, Steve lay down on the bed and pulled the sheets over him, happy
for sleep to take him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The sound of the telephone next to his bed woke him.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Hello?
Steve? Is that you?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Uh? Yes… yes.
Hang on.” He made himself
comfortable, tugging at pillows and sitting with the phone still against his
ear, listening to his friend’s breathing and the clatter of pans in the
background. The sun had sunk low in
the sky and he turned the air-conditioning off, flicking the remote control on
the bedside table. Goose bumps spread
over his body. And, finally, his long
eyelashes came down softly as he let his eyes close and answered lazily,
“What’s up, my friend?” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
There was a pause. “What’s up? What the hell is going on with you,
you…? I’ve rung you on your bloody
mobile God knows how many times. Sent
texts too…” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve sighed. “I texted you the hotel number, didn’t
I? No need to panic, man. Just having a nap.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He tested Rick’s patience with an audible yawn. On the bedside table, his mobile phone was
no doubt full. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Hell, Steve.
Man, what a mess! You’ve really
left a pile of shit behind you this time!
What the hell are you up to? Are
you okay? Shit, what a mess! Man!”
His words went nowhere, his voice barely softening.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I know it.
Couldn’t do anything else, Ricky.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“But, why didn’t you say something?” He paused,
waiting, but as there was no answer, he said what he had been instructed to
say: “Your dad is bloody furious and your mum looks about a hundred – been
using some pretty colourful language, in Greek, by all accounts.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve pictured his mother, gesticulating and raising
her eyes to heaven.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Rick hadn’t finished. “May’s distraught – you
know? And her parents, well, I should
say you’d be safer staying out of the country for a good while longer. God, mate…” His voice trailed off, before a
new thought struck him. “You know
they’re thinking of getting some bloke to look for you? Some kind of private eye?” Rick’s voice faltered for a second.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yeah, should be easy to find, mate. Still got my dickie bow on. Tell them I’m on the top floor, penthouse
suite at the El fucking Greco. Biggest shit-hole on the island.” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The two of them started to giggle and then gave in
to deep, soothing belly laughs until they could laugh no more. The last thing
Steve heard was a woman’s voice rising above the cooking noises, telling Rick
to grow up. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Talking to his friend hadn’t solved anything, but it
<i>had</i> put an end to the inertia that had built up inside him. Rick had agreed to fly out to Crete, and
together they would come up with a plan.
In the meantime, Rick had taken it upon himself to patch things up as
best he could back home, and buy Steve some time. Time for what, he did not say.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Steve lay on the bed, contemplating the soft light;
watching the edges of the furniture become less sharp. His body was heavy and his mind slow,
sifting unconnected thoughts, following them without interest, until they
dissipated and dissolved. In the end
they all came back to Sarah, which left a tight ball in the pit of his stomach
that was difficult to ignore.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He brooded for a while longer, not getting
anywhere. It didn’t matter. Nothing would happen until Rick
arrived. In the interim, he had a few
more days to get through, that was for sure.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got to his feet, still
not sure of what to do next, or even what time it was. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
In the bathroom, he cleaned his teeth, picturing May
in her bridal gown; her hair adorned with flowers, waiting outside the church,
if indeed she had got that far, which he doubted. May would cope. She would hate him for a while and then replace
him. What was done was done. She would
thank him later. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Downstairs, in the lobby of the hotel, it was
busy. People were filing into the
restaurant, dressed in formal eveningwear.
The pool area had been cleared and a local band was starting up. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
In the cool night air, the hotel gardens were lit
up, making the plants look surreal. He
headed out of the main gates and towards the beachfront, ignoring the memories
of his childhood, which swarmed out at him as he travelled the generic narrow
streets, with their familiar cooking smells and sounds of people calling to
each other. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The restaurants on the front were full, and the
music from various bars spread out into the evening air. The beach was deserted, and he crossed the
road, stepping onto the sand and heading for the shoreline. The sound of the waves made him think of the
pull of the moon and consider the mass of water stretched out before him, ruled
by forces he did not understand: reasonable scientific explanation seemed
either superfluous or contrived, making him frown at the way his mind worked.
The world was too complicated. Even the
solid, manmade harbour wall was playing tricks on him, indistinct between the
water and the sky, a pale amorphous arm, curving out to sea. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
But Sarah would have loved all of it. And she would have made sense of
everything. </div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
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<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc379142671"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Chapter
3</span></b></a><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
A quick glance in the mirror was all it took for
Joyce Shackleton to realise that she had put on the wrong shade of
lipstick. She gave herself a look,
harsh at first, sliding into vague amusement, as she brought out a moistened
tissue and wiped away the offending colour.
The mauve of her blouse would be difficult to match, and it was no
wonder that the lack of real daylight along with the glare of the office lights
had transformed the delicate pink she had applied so carefully that morning
into a shade that just missed. Just
missing was as good as missing by a mile in Joyce’s book. From inside a tasteful Gucci pouch she
selected a darker lipstick and two minutes later, bosom forward and back
straight, she glided elegantly back to her desk and gathered together the
morning’s correspondence for signature.
There were letters of introduction, enquiry and response. In a separate, unrelated folder was a
selection of high quality stationery in a range of pale greys and creams.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
With one slick movement, Joyce knocked and entered
the office outside which her own position stood like a sentinel’s post. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Good morning, Mr. Firth.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The man she addressed looked up momentarily from his
vantage point and sent out a perfunctory smile of recognition, before returning
to the removal of a splinter from the index finger of his right hand. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Confounded window frame! Can’t get hold of it, Joyce.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce deposited the papers she was carrying and went
quickly to the other side of the desk, gently took the offered tweezers and,
with the alacrity of a seasoned professional, nipped the morsel of dark wood
between the pincers and whipped it out, pressing down on the puncture point to
relieve the stinging.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I’ll get some antiseptic and a small plaster.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The man did not answer, but commenced an
investigation of the morning post.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce returned with a small box, retrieved a cotton
bud and a bottle of TCP, sorted a suitable plaster and was soon finished.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“There. At
least that will keep it clean. I’ll
contact someone to look at the frame.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes, yes.
Of course. Good idea.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I’ve brought in the samples of wedding invitations
for you to see. May wants either this
one or the grey with silver lettering.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
James T. Firth examined the cards briefly.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“May wanted your opinion. They are both very suitable, don’t you agree?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Very.
Yes.” And with a sudden bout of
impatience he pushed the cards away and said, “Whatever you think, Joyce. Please tell her what will please her most,
will you?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“With pleasure.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“You know what to do better than I.” He gave his secretary a twisted, rather
pathetic smile.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce put down the letters to be signed and waited a
moment longer, like a ma<em><span style="font-style: normal;">î</span></em>tre <span style="background: white; letter-spacing: .1pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 8.5pt;">d'hôtel</span>
hovering at the table of an important guest.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I’ll come back when you’re ready, then,” she said,
softly.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The office was not particularly busy. A large campaign was coming to an end and
the next projects were not yet ready for launch. People worked quietly at their desks, doing what they did. Joyce liked the place better when there was
something big coming up – there was a buzz, people were more alive, and she
could attend and serve, in the background.
An essential cog in the ever-turning wheel of the advertising empire of
Firth Enterprises.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The telephone rang.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“James Firth’s office.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Oh, good morning, Joyce. It’s May. How are you?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Hello, my dear.
I’m very well indeed, and how are you?”
Joyce felt a small flush of excitement and sat back in her chair.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Busy.” She
sighed, then laughed.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Bound to be, I should think!” Joyce replied, pleasantly.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Do you have a decision on the – ” </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“The cream with gold.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Didn’t he like the grey?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce did not like to insist. "They are both exquisite."</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Thank you, Joyce.
I suppose the cream is more traditional.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I suppose it is.
Yes.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Right. I’ll
get them in the post.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“If I can be of any assistance – ”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I think I’ve got it under control, thanks. Better get on with it! Will you tell James I called?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes, dear.
Good luck.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce put down the phone and frowned at the
invitations in front of her. The prospect of May's marriage to Stephen Firth
did not please her, but there was still time, and Joyce Shackleton was not in
the business of falling at the last fence.
Goodness knows she had overcome greater hurdles than this in the
past. She pictured May, full of hope
and happiness, and redoubled her resolve to prevent disaster. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce put away the sample invitations and busied
herself with the morning’s various duties, following a smooth line, sailing
effortlessly towards lunch. At one
o’clock, glancing at the sky, Joyce put on her jacket, picked up her umbrella
and went out. There was the smell of
rain and a freshness that was invigorating.
The colder months were in some ways as delightful as the prospect of the
warmth to come. The English climate was
nothing if not comprehensive! </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
At a corner table for two, set for one, Joyce
Shackleton waited less than a minute before the owner of the restaurant arrived
to greet her and take her jacket.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Ah, Joyce.
I see you have come prepared!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“It’s better to be safe than sorry, Joseph. How are you?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Very well, thank you. My trip to Paris was …superb.”
He pulled out a chair for his customer.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I do love Paris!
Such a long time since I’ve strolled along the Champs <em><span style="font-style: normal;">É</span></em>lys<em><span style="font-style: normal;">é</span></em>e.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“We must go together one day. What do you say?” He handed her a menu.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I should say yes, of course.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Joyce selected her food and watched people passing
by outside. Joseph came over to ensure
that she was being looked after and, later, to say goodbye.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I shall be in Manchester next week, Joyce. I hope you will miss me.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I’m sure I shall be pining until your return!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Retracing her steps with a smile on her face and a
lightness in her step, Joyce savoured the memory of good food and of Joseph’s
gallant attentions. She sat down at her
desk, ready for a strategically planned afternoon, when the telephone rang with
news that would change the direction of her life for the next few weeks.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Joyce?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It was a voice she recognised immediately, but one
that had never before come to her via her office telephone. “Mother?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Yes. Of
course it is. I’ve been trying to get
hold of you for an hour.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Whatever is the matter?” Joyce looked around the room, hoping that her mother had not
spoken to too many people before being put through.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“I need you to come, the day after tomorrow. There’s been a cancellation at the hospital
and they want me to come in. Most
inconvenient, but they insist I should be there at eight o’clock in the
morning, of all things!”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It would be pointless to protest. Neither of Joyce’s sisters would be able to
help. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“Well? Are
you still there? Joyce?”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
James T. Firth said that of course she should go. Just to make sure there was a replacement
for the time she would be away. So,
having telephoned the agency least likely to let her down, Joyce went home to
make arrangements for her trip. Frank
would not be happy, that was for sure.
Neither would her other clients.
But she would charm them, as always, and after all, she would not be
away for long.</div>
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-73217414024600851532019-01-31T05:13:00.000-08:002019-02-02T08:42:59.164-08:00<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-61285996976416828102019-01-24T02:08:00.001-08:002019-01-24T02:08:42.021-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">My Grandfather's Eyes</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Psychological drama to make your toenails curl: </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-14297070567049471532019-01-08T02:33:00.000-08:002019-01-10T02:20:14.249-08:00My Grandfather's Eyes - Chilling Psychological drama<h1 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc406007168">Prologue</a></h1>
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I have never been beautiful. And, of course, my appearance has
deteriorated over time. It is something
I have become used to. When I look in
the mirror these days, and that is not very often, I am not surprised by what I
see. Neither am I disappointed, as I
have given up hope of catching myself in a good light. </div>
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Let me tell you what I see. First, the shape of my head is noticeably
irregular, with a medium-sized bump just in front of the crown. Next, my forehead is lined. It always has been, ever since I can
remember. People used to say I must be a deep thinker. Only some of them were being kind. Now the lines are deeper, but the traces
they follow date back to my school days, when they did not go unnoticed by
bullies. My eyes are large and green;
some might say they are intelligent eyes, that they are insightful or
sincere. I have learned not to set much
store by what other people say. </div>
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I have meagre lashes, but it is
usually boys who have the lavish kind.
My nose is straight and my mouth is full. My hair is mousy, fine and thin. When I was young, I wanted thick, straight blond hair, like my
friend Lizzy’s. We all want what we
cannot have. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There is perhaps nothing so far
to complain about very much, you might say.
And so I come to my moles: the crawling growths that spread themselves
over the side of my face and the underside of my jaw. If you could see me now, you would probably recoil. I have
noticed that even the most educated, the most sympathetic person has difficulty
in hiding the innate disgust my moles excite in them. Ah, yes. Disgust is not
too harsh a word, I can assure you. And
the others? Those who make no attempt to hide their feelings towards me? They cannot help themselves, but stare in
horror at what they see, as they sit on the bus clutching their shiny, plastic
bags full of new things or as they push their wholesome choices around the
supermarket. Young children are the
worst. I do not admire their honesty,
as their obsequious parents do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
My moles. My nevi. How can I describe them? I should say they are more or less dark
brown in colour, although there are two above my left eye that are noticeably
lighter. My husband called them Castor
and Pollux. All have a rubbery, soft
texture and, apart from one large mole near my ear, are hairless. The one near my ear has short, thick hairs
that bristle untidily. My husband had a
name for this one too. He loved me too
much. He couldn’t help it. None of us can choose whom we love.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
What more can I tell you? That I am ambivalent to my nevi? That
Castor and Pollux are my favourites?
That I like them for being different?
You may think this kind of reasoning strange and I would not blame
you. I can only explain it as a truth,
a principle that has grown inside me as my moles have swelled and spread; have
become part of my life. Now, I am not
sure I could be separated from them. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
There was a time when I believed
my mother loved me. A time when she called me beautiful and, because I was not
yet self-aware, I let myself be preened and cosseted in exchange for the
comfort I felt from the warm glow of her approval. I did not notice how she suffered. I did not recognise the
mortification that lay beneath her smile. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
But wait a moment, a story must
start somewhere nearer its beginning, and so I will go back and show myself
more clearly to you, before I reveal what I have done. I expect that you will judge me.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 14.2pt;">
But I do not care.</div>
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<h2 style="text-align: center; text-indent: 14.2pt;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Grandfathers-Eyes-B-Spicer-ebook/dp/B009B7W10U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542018628&sr=8-1&keywords=my+grandfather%27s+eyes" target="_blank">Click here to view on Amazon</a></h2>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" /></span>Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-43966276020552033842018-11-10T06:58:00.000-08:002018-11-10T09:39:30.332-08:00New crime/mystery by B A SpicerAlice isn't a conventional woman. And she isn't a conventional detective.<br />
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Tall, slim, and some would say elegant in an old fashioned way, she has never married. Her vocation as a policewoman is all consuming.<br />
<br />
Long ago and far away, there was a man she cared for and who cared for her. She sometimes remembers him, especially when she is in the company of her daughter, Jude. It occasionally occurs to Alice that Harald will appear out of the blue, and she wonders what would happen if he did. But for the most part her work absorbs her, sometimes too much.<br />
<br />
Climbing the ranks to Detective Chief Inspector was not easy. However, it was an undeniable fact that Alice Candy had a talent that could not be ignored, and finally she settled in a medium-sized town called Allarton, in the East of England, close to her daughter and her new husband.<br />
<br />
Teamed with Detective Sergeant Will Brady, a bright, meticulous and loyal officer, they make a formidable duo.<br />
<br />
Now in her early forties, Alice feels a calm brought on by personal and financial security. She observes the world and the people she knows with a rye understanding, free of cynicism or judgement. She is content.<br />
<br />
Excitement comes when a case arrives on her desk that ignites her senses to a certain anomaly or incongruity in an otherwise obvious crime. Then, with Will at her side, she dives into a world of subterfuge and lies, sniffing out clues that will lead her to success.<br />
<br />
In her latest challenge, a simple hit and run turns out to be anything but...<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hit-Run-Alice-Candy-case-ebook/dp/B07CT4ZF95/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536587544&sr=8-1&keywords=hit+and+run+b+a+spicer" target="_blank">Click to view on Amazon</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Available in paperback or as an ebook.</div>
<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-6623314449081083162018-11-08T02:29:00.000-08:002018-11-08T03:22:02.126-08:00We all want the same things, don't we?<br />
<br />
Once we are fed and watered, once the bills are paid, once we feel stable and secure, we look for something more. A challenge of some sort, perhaps.<br />
<br />
And as we become more sure of ourselves, more accomplished, we gravitate towards others to share something greater.<br />
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We can call it Love, but Love has many forms. And many obstacles stand in its way.<br />
<br />
Set in France, and with a definite French flavour,<b> A Life Lived Twice</b> follows a group of surprisingly disparate characters whose lives are linked in unexpected ways. They are intelligent people, capable of making intelligent choices. But choices bring unforeseen consequences, don't they?<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<b>A Life Lived Twice</b> is FREE for one day only (9th November).</h3>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Lived-Twice-Bev-Spicer-ebook/dp/B00G04DWWS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541672306&sr=8-1&keywords=a+life+lived+twice" target="_blank">Click here to view on Amazon</a></h2>
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<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-29564562275763694992018-10-31T02:31:00.000-07:002018-11-01T01:26:30.051-07:00Humorous Books by Bev Spicer<!--[if !mso]>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></h3>
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<b><u><span style="font-size: x-large;">Colourful, Fun, and Full of Joie de Vivre!</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">There are three books in the humorous <b>Bev and Carol
</b>series</span><span style="font-size: 24.0pt;">:</span></div>
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<br />
<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">One Summer in France</span></b> (just<b> 99p</b>
for your kindle and <b>£6.49</b> in paperback) is the first adventure, which
takes place, you guessed it, in the South of France, and is based on the
author's experiences during a study break from university. I wanted to
write a humorous memoir about the wonderful sense of freedom and possibility we
all feel when we are just starting out in life as independent people.
It's true that I had some very strange experiences but I had a lot of fun
too. What's more, I learned a great deal about France, its language and
its culture.<br />
Although Carol is an entirely fictitious character, the friendship we share in
the book is real. We don't always agree on everything, and like to get
the better of one another from time to time. <b>Bev and Carol </b>are
certainly very different characters. They see the world in very different
ways.<br />
<b>One Summer in France </b>has received many positive reviews from readers who
perhaps remember a similar time in their lives, when they took so many things
for granted that, in adult life, seem to have all but disappeared.<br />
You can download a free sample to your kindle by following the link
below. Why not relax for a while in the company of <b>Bev and Carol</b>
in <b>One Summer in France (two girls in a tent)</b>. I hope it puts a
smile on your face and takes you back to a less complicated, more spontaneous
time:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cYc7PiejyBDBQJMSfDMCUN5huzYtsNuW7JqrmL4mzeOHqWK9MT1-zlhbnZlYZBjCNl2M3Tb5h82BvwVhIZCpdAXNCzCH8EK9acg1rhyphenhyphenrGkb8aRXbBcEeNimkq8isFsqDNH5OzcTEGIAn/s1600/One+Summer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cYc7PiejyBDBQJMSfDMCUN5huzYtsNuW7JqrmL4mzeOHqWK9MT1-zlhbnZlYZBjCNl2M3Tb5h82BvwVhIZCpdAXNCzCH8EK9acg1rhyphenhyphenrGkb8aRXbBcEeNimkq8isFsqDNH5OzcTEGIAn/s1600/One+Summer.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Summer-France-girls-adventure-ebook/dp/B00B2HFOO2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411895344&sr=8-1&keywords=one+summer+in+france">Go to One Summer in France (kindle version - 99p)</a> </div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Summer-France-girls-Carol/dp/149952417X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1411896057&sr=8-4&keywords=one+summer+in+france+books" target="_blank">Go to One Summer in France (paperback version - £6.99)</a> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12cU0ksn8FD4QU3ObZSPtsEXESQ7FhV18CHFZjhR4VJOfG4guKf139gOHXsJYg2yzVzA7ab7nuUaKl9XpMBTxXYYwp8UllHNCuLmSVSKtV48KYiRNs6WKr37LDJZMvbb4qVwWUJ21G99R/s1600/One+Summer_ABP.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><br /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Bunny on a Bike</span> </b>is the second in
the <b>Bev and Carol</b> series. This time, the author recounts her real life experiences as a Playboy croupier
in London in the 80s. Bev and Carol are eager to stick together after
university and find the prospect of the graduate jobs available too dull to
contemplate. They see an advertisement in the newspaper for blackjack
dealers and apply.<br />
I think you will be surprised at some of the realities of the less than
glamorous lives they lead, always looking on the bright side even when faced
with landlords from hell and stringent training schedules at Victor Lownes'
mansion in Tring. <br />
<b>Bunny on a Bike</b> has the same light touch as <b>One Summer in France.</b>
It's a humorous memoir which follows the lives of two girls thrown into 80s
London, and gives an impression of what happened behind the doors of the
Playboy casino.<br />
Again, you can download a free sample by following the link below, where the <b>Bev
and Carol</b> adventure continues:</div>
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<span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Bike-Playboy-croupiers-adventure-ebook/dp/B0089FB71O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411895638&sr=8-1&keywords=bunny+on+a+bike">Go to Bunny on a Bike (kindle version - £2.99)</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-Bike-Playboy-croupiers-London/dp/1500731749/ref=sr_1_2_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1412771129&sr=8-2&keywords=bunny+on+a+bike" target="_blank">Go to Bunny on a Bike (paperback version - £6.99)</a></div>
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<br />
<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Stranded in the Seychelles</span> </b>is the
third and most recently published volume in the <b>Bev and Carol</b> series,
although I do have plans for a further book at some point. <br />
Our intrepid heroines have had a few years apart after leaving Playboy and have
met up once more for a new adventure, this time in the Seychelles as teachers.<br />
<b>Stranded in the Seychelles</b> is based once more on the author's real life
experiences as a teacher on the tiny island of Ste. Anne in the middle of the
Indian Ocean, and includes lots of local colour and cultural insights along the
way. Bev and Carol are older, but not particularly wiser. They
savour this new opportunity to duck out of the lives they are leading in
England and jet off to somewhere altogether more exotic. Of course it's
not all plain sailing and, as usual, the girls have to cope with the
unexpected, such things as giant spiders, insect infested cornflakes,
heart-stopping bus rides and accident prone cleaners. But they enjoy
their experiences and learn a lot about expat society.<br />
<b>Stranded in the Seychelles </b>will make you laugh just as much as <b>One
Summer in France</b> and <b>Bunny on a Bike</b>, but this time, Bev and Carol
are faced with rather more sobering choices from time to time, in between the
absurd and the hilarious.<br />
Follow the link below to download a free sample and find out what they get up
to this time:<br />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8qMy2BPzrb4XKbNp-bQxxK-ZgyZaXtEm86MpJtRwHgLtuVQ8NKhc8zVyWNI_zxZfFJSBYxg1UuM0HgqyANjcOj9ZcgQiQ2Ewjpk9fJ6H-s5KJRBKZCuV1Jj5q27klCZP7XUlILanB-KWi/s1600/StrandedSeychelles_ABP.jpg"><span style="text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><br /></span></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranded-Seychelles-teachers-paradise-adventure-ebook/dp/B00IPJ9BIK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411895832&sr=8-1&keywords=stranded+in+the+seychelles">Go to Stranded in the Seychelles (kindle version - £2.99)</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranded-Seychelles-teachers-paradise-Carol/dp/1500733520/ref=tmm_pap_title_0" target="_blank">Go to Stranded in the Seychelles (paperback version - £7.99)</a></div>
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So, that's it for my humorous books. If you would like to look at my
other books, please go back to my home page and select <b>Novels by B A Spicer.
</b><br />
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Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-73720654919948531152018-10-30T02:31:00.000-07:002018-10-30T02:31:29.515-07:00Free on 30th October - One Day Promotion<br />
<br />
What would you do if you woke up in a dark cellar, tied and silenced, with no memory of how you got there and no clue why?<br />
<br />
...and, after your mind had calmed, you became aware that, on the other side of the door, someone was watching you?<br />
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<h3>
<b>What readers say:</b></h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif;">"LOCKED AWAY provides an engrossing reading experience." </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif;">"Absolute must read. Loved how the chapters were short and full of twists and turns."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif;">"For anyone wanting a quick, tense read about abduction and mind games, then I strongly recommend Locked Away."</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Locked-Away-Alice-Candy-case-ebook/dp/B01M02MW85/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">Click here to view on Amazon</a></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "Amazon Ember", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><b>(Also available in paperback.)</b></span></div>
Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-78837680258709692842018-10-25T02:49:00.000-07:002018-10-25T02:49:44.678-07:00I Get It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Reading through some of the one-star reviews of this book I was interested to note that a lot of people, twelve percent in fact, left comments like: 'ramblings of a teenage drunk', 'pile of rubbish', and my personal favourite: ' a blasphemy to the beauty of the English language'. It was variously described as dull, tedious, repetitive, and lacking any kind of plot. But the most frequent complaint was that it was disappointing.<br />
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When a book is described as a classic it's difficult not to expect something great. Something that will perhaps change your perspective on the world. If you read it, looking for this something and fail to find it, then, yes, it will surely disappoint.<br />
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It's happened to me and it's happened to you (I'm assuming). We've all been disappointed by classic reads at some time or other.<br />
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The Catcher in the Rye is just one of those books. You love it or hate it. You find treasure or you don't. You get it, or you don't get it.<br />
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This one, I got.<br />
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Now I have to say what it is that I 'got'. To the best of my ability. Which, I can tell you, is a daunting prospect. It really is.<br />
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If you've read J D's classic, you'll notice the style of the last paragraph - a poor mimic, I'll admit. But the style of writing is what first strikes the reader. Here we have a seventeen-year-old boy telling us in 1950s teenage language, about his situation - he's at a prestigious boarding school, about to be kicked out after 'flunking' his exams. And he's talking directly to us, first person, up close and personal.<br />
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I could describe the plot, but if you want an excellent summary you can visit Wikipedia. I'd recommend it, especially after you've read the book, for all the snippets of peripheral information about the author.<br />
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What I want to say, to try to say, is why this book is one of my all-time best reads.<br />
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It's true that Holden Cauldfield (I love the strangeness of his name) is lazy, reactive, immature...but he is also hanging on to what he sees as 'real', what is not 'phony'. His thoughts and interactions with other people are often superficial, his conversations repetitive, but mixed in amongst the simmering chaos of his life there are moments of astounding beauty. It's like walking through a field of mud and finding something precious. I don't mean something like a diamond or a wallet. Rather consider coming across a baby bird, injured and near death. Holden would pick it up, carry it away, make it well, if he could. <br />
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Now, I've made the book sound soppy, but it's not. True, it's nostalgic. It takes you back. Makes you remember feelings you had as a child growing up. Holden Cauldfield reminds you that in a world of fixed pathways through education, to a career and happiness, there are stop-offs along the way that blow any plan out of the water. For him, it's where the duck go when the pond freezes over, the essay he wrote about his dead brother's baseball glove, the record he bought (and accidentally broke) for his sister Phoebe, or the trips to the Museum of Natural History when he was younger (he notices small changes and wishes things had stayed exactly the same). These moments stand out amongst the mud and daily grind to nowhere like a beating heart.<br />
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As he gravitates towards home and his beloved younger sister, Phoebe, he follows a young boy walking carelessly in the gutter along a busy street. He feels the boy's parents are unaware of the danger he is in. Then, the boy begins to sing:<br />
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"If a body catch a body coming through the rye,"<br />
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which strikes Holden with its simple joy. It also leads him to formulate a plan - a plan based on his understanding of the above line, which is a misquote from Burn's poem. Holden sees himself standing at the edge of a field of rye where children are playing and shouting near a cliff edge. As they run and play, unaware of the danger, Holden will stand guard and catch them when they fall.<br />
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I must admit, as I came to the final pages I wondered how on earth there could be a satisfying ending to a book that covers a three-day period in the life of a moody teenager. The final paragraph, for me, is genius. See what you think.<br />
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Whether or not you get the punch to the stomach and the shock to brain from these moments of insight, of clarity and simplicity, is probably down to how you are wired. I don't want to sound smug or superior - there's plenty I don't get about a whole plethora of things. I just can't help being amazed by this particular book and grateful to J D for writing it.<br />
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Here's the link if you want to give it a try: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0241950430/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">Catcher in the Rye</a><br />
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<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5626888765918214416.post-42535986616856478482018-08-02T04:23:00.000-07:002018-08-02T04:23:11.056-07:00Review: The Legacy of Beauregarde by Rosa Fedele<br />
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<span style="background: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: red;">Five stars from me!</span></span></h2>
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<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">If you like authors such as Daphne du Maurier...you'll love
The Legend of Beauregarde<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">I read The Red Door before
being gifted an ARC copy of Rosa Fedele’s new novel, which, I must say, is well
worth a read if you enjoy strong characters and an intriguing plot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The style is on the literary side – which I
love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Skilled and imaginative use of
language add an extra layer of delight in my opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">The Legacy of Beauregarde is moody and, at times,
sinister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are touches of the
paranormal and shades of horror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you
read, you feel as though you are sinking into the history of the place, its
houses, and its characters (some of whom are not at all what they seem at
first), wrap themselves around you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">It’s true that there is a lot to take in, and that you need a
sharp mind to keep up, but some of my favourite books make me work hard in
order to repay my efforts tenfold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
why not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That's the way a good book
draws you in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">I must say also that the artwork scattered throughout the
book, even in the ebook version, is captivating, and certainly helps to enhance
the reader’s experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #111111; font-family: Arial;">Would I read it again?
This is one of my personal yardsticks in judging the quality of a
novel. And the answer is yes! In fact, I’m looking forward to it.</span></div>
<br />Bev Spicerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05035892477756704972noreply@blogger.com0