Category: book extract

blog tours, book extract

#BlogTour #Extract Zippy And Me by Ronnie Le Drew, Duncan Barrett, and Nuala Calvi. #ZippyAndMe @Punchand @unbounders #RandomThingsTours

if only I could read faster

Today it is my stop on the blog tour for Zippy And Me by Ronnie Le Drew, Duncan Barrett, and Nuala Calvi. I’m sure that most people around my age remember Zippy from the incredibly popular children’s tv programme, Rainbow. So I was excited about the book and I’m delighted to share an extract from the book. Thank you to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for having me as part of the tour.

To whet your appetite for this fabulous book I have an extract for you. Enjoy!

Extract:

Curtain Up

July 1961. Stockwell Gardens council estate, South London.
Crouched behind a cardboard box, I wait impatiently
for the audience to settle. I sneak a glance round the side
of my brand-new Pollock’s toy theatre. Rows of little girls
in knee-high socks sit cross-legged on the floor as their
brothers jostle for space at the back.
I have summoned them to a performance on the landing
of our block of flats, instructing them very clearly not to
cross the crack in the concrete that delineates the stage.
I clear my throat importantly, and the rabble quietens
down a little. ‘The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince
of Denmark, by William Shakespeare,’ I announce in
the lowest possible tones my thirteen-year-old voice box
can muster, prodding Bonnie, my twin sister, to start
the wind-up gramophone. I wince as the strains of ‘I’m
a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch’ begin, to the
accompaniment of sniggers. Hardly the grand orchestral
music I would have wished, but since it’s the only record
we own, it will have to do.

I take a last, lingering glance at the shiny photograph
of Laurence Olivier, resplendent as the Dane in the 1959
film of Hamlet, in the book that Benjamin Pollock’s toy
shop has helpfully provided as part of its Regency Theatre
kit. It has taken me eight weeks to save the money to buy it
from the Pollock’s shop on Monmouth Street, and it is my
pride and joy. The wooden stage is exquisitely made, with
a little round pit containing a painted orchestra, a battery-
operated spotlight, and cardboard scenery and characters
lovingly cut out and coloured in by Bonnie and me.
With a nod from me, she now lifts the little wooden
curtain and the lights come up; down goes the ghost of
Hamlet’s father on a piece of cotton thread, uttering the
immortal line: ‘O horrible! O horrible! Most horrible!’
I’m soon well into my stride, moving Hamlet and Horatio
around the ramparts and concentrating hard to make
sure I get every word right. The audience is completely
silent, apparently transfixed by the drama onstage.
After a couple of scenes it’s too much – the desire for
applause overwhelms me and I pull the curtain down with
a flourish, announcing, ‘You may clap now!’
As dead silence greets us, Bonnie and I stand up and
look over the top of the theatre.
There is no one there. Each and every child has quietly
crept away and we have been performing to ourselves.
It is the best lesson I will ever learn as a puppeteer.

Blurb:

Over the course of almost half a century, puppeteer Ronnie Le Drew has worked with the greats – from David Bowie in Labyrinth to Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol. But the role that defined his career was Rainbow’s Zippy, who he operated for more than twenty years.

Zippy and Me is the first time a Rainbow insider has told the true story of what went on under the counter and inside the suits: the petty squabbles between performers, wrangling with TV executives, and scandals such as the ‘love triangle’ between musicians Rod, Jane and Freddy. Not to mention the now infamous X-rated episode shot for an ITV Christmas party, which subsequently found its way to the Sun.

Interweaved with the dirt on what really went on behind the scenes is the story of Rainbow’s heyday in the 1970s and 80s, when its stars found themselves catapulted into an exciting showbiz world – scooping a BAFTA award and even performing for the queen – and the story of a young lad from a south London council estate who defied his parents’ protests to became one of the most respected puppeteers of all time.

About the Author:

Ronnie Le Drew is one of the UK’s most respected puppeteers, and recipient of the prestigious Harlequin Award.
He has operated many of the most iconic children’s puppets of the twentieth century – Zippy, Sweep, Muffin the
Mule, Bill and Ben, Brains from Thunderbirds – as well as working on classic puppet films such as Labyrinth,
Little Shop of Horrors and The Muppet Christmas Carol. He continues to work regularly as a puppeteer in TV,
theatre and advertising and also teaches at the London School of Puppetry, which he founded in 1987.

Zippy and Me by Ronnie Le Drew, Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi is out now and is available from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

book extract, extract

#Extract Turbulent Wake by Paul E Hardisty. @OrendaBooks @Hardisty_Paul #RandomThingsTours #BookBlogger

if only I could read faster

Today I’ve got an extract from Turbulent Wake by Paul E Hardisty. I haven’t managed to get this book to the top of my overflowing tbr pile, but it sounds brilliant and I must read it soon. I hope that the extract will tempt you to read it too!

Blurb:

A bewitching, powerful and deeply moving story of love, loss and
grief. This extraordinary departure from the critically acclaimed
thriller writer Paul E Hardisty explores the indelible damage we
can do to those closest to us, the tragedy of history repeating
itself and ultimately, the power of redemption in a time of
change. Paul drew on his own experiences of travelling around
the world as an engineer, from the dangerous deserts of Yemen,
the oil rigs of Texas, the wild rivers of Africa, to the stunning
coral cays of the Caribbean.
Ethan Scofield returns to the place of his birth to bury his father,
with whom he had a difficult relationship. Whilst clearing out the
old man’s house, he finds a strange manuscript, a collection of
vignettes and stories that cover the whole of his father ’s turbulent
and restless life.

Extract:

March 5th. On the plane, flying to London

You never really know anyone. Especially the ones you love.
I push the stack of papers into the seatback pocket and take a deep breath of pressurised air. Seven miles below, the checkerboard prairie stretches away like a looping dream, one where you’re stuck in a place and you can’t get out, even though you know it’s a dream and if you could just wake up it would be over. Except, of course, it’s not. It’s my life, laid out before me in endless miles of iced-over prairie, a recurring pattern of abandoned hope and gutted wilderness that unspools at the terminal edge of a horizon that once held so much promise. The brother I didn’t get a chance to know. The mother who disappeared. The father who pushed me away. The wife who got sick of me and found someone else. And now, apparently, the uncle I never even knew I had.
If family defines you, then I am perilously fucking close to indeterminate.
And this is how he decides to tell me.
I went my whole life thinking that I had my old man pegged. Sure, he’d travelled some, even taken me with him a few times when I was younger, when my mother was still around. But my strongest memo- ries are of him arriving and leaving, going away for hours at a time, returning red-faced and covered in sweat, and then for days and weeks for work, always on his way to the airport or coming back from it. Occasionally, he’d bring me something home: a stuffed baby alligator the time he went to Louisiana; a tiny woven prayer mat from Jordan (for a six-year old?); a Calgary Flames hockey jersey from Canada (now, that was cool). Most of the time, though, he was just absent, even when he was home. Usually, it was me and Mum and my brother, and then later just me and Mum, in whatever place he’d dragged us all to at the time. Now, it’s just me.

Everything about my old man was from another time. The clothes he wore. The way he spoke and acted around other people. The stories he told. I mean, what kid who has grown up with access to the internet wants to hear stories about steam trains and writing love letters (the old-fashioned kind with paper and pen and envelopes and stamps) and getting places by ship, making calls from phone boxes and using fax machines and typewriters and all that old museum stuff. I can remember now, looking back, just tuning out when he started one of his stories. Not that he did it that often; just every once in a while. Usually when he’d had a couple of whiskies after dinner – when we still sat down, the four of us, and ate dinner as a family – he’d start into one. And then, well, I’d just sit there watching his mouth move and the way his neck would tense up as he spoke and that stupid way he’d furl his brow for emphasis, and I never heard a word. Now, I wish I’d listened.

No wonder he left all this shit behind.

The funeral was a pretty lame affair. Not many people showed up. A couple of his old friends came, guys with old names like Robert and Paul and Tobias, looking like they were planning to follow him in the not-too-distant future, with their thinning grey hair and grey beards and those watery, faraway eyes that weep regret. Makes you wonder. A whole life lived, and I bet not even those old guys with their burst-blood-vessel faces and dodgy, shuffling gaits had the slightest idea who he really was, what was really going on inside that head. I mean, I as sure as shit never did. And I know my mother never did either.

The funeral home did a crap job. I regret doing it that way, now. The pastor or whatever he was started out calling him Walter. Did it three times, Walter this and Walter survived by such and such. The prick didn’t see me waving at him till he’d blown it three times, me sitting there in the front row, mouthing Warren. Warren, for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t how he would have wanted it, I know. Mostly because he wouldn’t have wanted anything. ‘Just throw me over the side so the sharks can get me’, I remember him saying once, somewhere – was it on that last sailing trip we all took together, me, my brother Rhys, Mum and Dad, in the Greek Islands? I must have been eight, seven maybe. I still have vivid memories of some of it: the dolphins riding our bow wave that time, the way they looked up at me with those dark, knowing eyes; the view from the highest point on one of the islands – I can’t remember the name of the place now – looking out across the sea and all those pretty white buildings along the shore; rowing back to the boat one night in the dinghy, Dad at the oars, Mum in the bow laughing at something he’d said, the lights from the village dancing on the dark water all around us like stars.

She was beautiful, my mother. Everyone said so. I don’t have many photographs of her, or of him for that matter. In one of the few that have somehow survived, they are sitting under an old stone archway. The sea is faded blue behind them. Mum is in a short skirt. Her long legs are folded elegantly to one side, her honey and rosewood hair blows around her face. She is smiling. She had great teeth, a big mouth, high cheekbones, a ski- jump nose that was a little too big for anyone to call her looks perfect, but she was beautiful in a strong-looking kind of way – robust and healthy and symmetrical with lovely blue eyes. In contrast, he looks flawed. A nose broken one too many times. An inverted arch of teeth that left dark gaps on each flank of his rarely seen smile (other than his two front slabs and molars, his top adult teeth never came in, so the small baby teeth were still there). He is unshaven, his hair longish, sea-and-sun waved, unruly. Dad is holding Mum’s hand. In that moment, they look happy. He was never in her league, and I know for a fact that he knew it, too. He told me once, I can’t remember when or where. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘always marry up in the gene pool. I sure did.’

He would have hated it, today, the funeral. I don’t know why I did it. Seemed right at the time – to mark his passing somehow. I’ve always hated that use of the word: passing. Just call it what it is. Death. The End. And we never talked about it, of course, at the end. Not like we didn’t have the time. I went to see him, of course – more than once – but he didn’t want me there, made that very plain. ‘Don’t you have some- thing better to do?’ he said to me. I mean, what does a guy say to that? Fact was, I did have better things to do. So in the end you get what you get, Dad. Not like it makes any difference. Not one bit.

And I suppose it makes finding all this stuff that much more of a mystery. I hadn’t been inside the place for ages, not since the year I moved to London, the year I met Maria and everything was so great – before it all started to go to shit. But that’s another story. From the outside, my dad’s place looked much the same, the caragana hedge out front that much taller, the paint on the shiplap siding peeling, the blue spruce we planted that spring when I was a kid, huge now, towering. I’d only gone to have a quick look, figure out what it would take to have someone come in and clean the place out, so I could put it on the market. I was only in town for a couple of days. I had to organise the funeral, sort out stuff with the lawyers, and then get back to London for an important work meeting. I knew the place would be a mess, but I was totally unprepared for what I found.

About The Author:

Canadian Paul E Hardisty has spent 25 years working all over the world as an engineer, hydrologist and environmental scientist. He has roughnecked on oil rigs in Texas, explored for gold in the Arctic, mapped geology in Eastern Turkey (where he was befriended by PKK rebels), and rehabilitated water wells in the wilds of Africa. He was in Ethiopia in 1991 as the Mengistu regime fell, and was bumped from one of the last flights out of Addis Ababa by bureaucrats and their families fleeing the rebels. In 1993 he survived a bomb blast in a café in Sana’a, and was one of the last Westerners of out Yemen before the outbreak of the 1994 civil war. Paul is a university professor and CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science AIMS). The first four novels in his Claymore Straker series, The Abrupt Physics of Dying, The Evolution of Fear, Reconciliation for the Dead and Absolution all received great critical acclaim and The Abrupt Physics of Dying was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and was a Daily Telegraph Thriller of the Year. Paul is a sailor, a private pilot,
keen outdoorsman, conservation volunteer, and lives in Western Australia.

Turbulent Wake by Paul E Hardisty is out now and is available from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

blog tours, book extract, debut author, extract

#BlogTour #Extract Song by Michelle Jana Chan @michellejchan @unbounders #song #blogtour #RandomThingsTour

if only I could read faster

songblogtour

How amazing is this cover?!! I couldn’t resist it so I’m happy to close the blog tour for Song by  Michelle Jana Chan with an extract.

Blurb:

Song Cover ImageOpening in the mid-nineteenth-century, this dazzling debut novel traces the voyage of Song, a boy who leaves his impoverished family in rural China to seek his fortune. Song may have survived the perilous journey to the colony of British Guiana in the Caribbean, but once there he discovers riches are hard to come by, as he finds himself working as an indentured plantation worker.

Between places, between peoples, and increasingly aware that circumstances of birth carry more weight than accomplishments or good deeds, Song fears he may live as an outsider forever. This is a far-reaching and atmospheric story spanning nearly half a century and half the globe, and though it is set in the past, Song’s story of emigration and the quest for opportunity is, in many ways, a very contemporary tale.

Extract:

Lishui Village, China, 1878At first they were glad the rains came early. They had already finished their planting and the seedlings were beginning to push through. The men and women of Lishui straightened their backs, buckled from years of labouring, led the buffalo away and waited for the fields to turn green. With such early rains there might be three rice harvests if the weather continued to be clement. But they quickly lost hope of that the sun did not emerge to bronze the crop. Instead the clouds hung heavy. More rain beat down upon an already sodden earth and lakes were born where even the old people said they could not remember seeing standing water. The Li rose higher and higher. Every morning the men of the village walked to the river to watch the water lap at its banks like flames. Sometimes they stood there for hours, their faces as grey as the at slate light. Still the rain fell, yet no one cared about their clothes becoming wet or the nagging coughs the chill brought on. Occasionally a man lifted his arm to wipe his face. But mostly they stood still like figures in a painting, staring upstream, watching the water barrel down, bulging under its own mass.

Before the end of the week the Li had spilled over its banks. A few days later the water had covered the footpaths and cart tracks, spreading like a tide across the land and sweeping away all the new shoots of newly planted rice. Further upstream the river broke up carts, bamboo bridges and outbuildings; it knocked over vats of clean water and seeped beneath the doors of homes. Carried on its swirling currents were splintered planks of wood, rotting food, and shreds of sacking and rattan. Song awoke to feel the straw mat wet beneath him. He reached out his hand. e water was gently rising and ebbing as if it was breathing. His brother Xiao Bo was crying in his sleep. The little boy had rolled off his mat and was lying curled up in the water. He was hugging his knees as if to stop himself from floating away.

Song’s father was not home yet. He and the other men had been working through the night trying to raise walls of mud and rein back the river’s strength. But the earthen barriers washed away even as they built them; they could only watch, hunched over their shovels. The men did not return that day. As the hours passed the women grew anxious. They stopped by each other’s homes, asking for news, but nobody had anything to say. Song’s mother Zhang Je was short with the children. The little ones whimpered, sensing something was wrong.

Song huddled low with his sisters and brothers around the smoking re which sizzled and spat but gave o no heat. They had wedged among the rewood an iron bowl but the rice inside was not warming. at was all they had le to eat now. Xiao Wan curled up closer to Song. His little brother followed him every- where nowadays. His sisters Xiao Mei and San San sat opposite him, adding wet wood to the re and poking at the ash with a stick. His mother stood in the doorway, the silhouette of Xiao Bo strapped to her back and her large rounded stomach tight with child.

The children dipped their hands into the bowl, squeezing grains of rice together, careful not to take more than their share. Song was trying to feed Xiao Wan but he was too weak even to swallow. e little boy closed his eyes and rested his head in Song’s lap, wheezing with each breath. Their mother continued to look out towards the fields, waiting, with Xiao Bo’s head slumped unnaturally to the side as he slept.

‘I don’t think they’re coming back.’

Song could barely hear what his mother was saying.

‘They’re too late,’ she muttered.

Song wasn’t sure if she was talking to him. ‘

Mama?’

Her voice was more brisk. ‘They’re not coming back, I said.’

Song didn’t reply. He looked across at his sisters, who were continuing to push squashed grains of cold rice into their mouths. Song’s breathing quickened, losing its rhythm. He felt his body tighten. Lying across Song’s lap, Xiao Wan woke up and started to cry.

That night Song slept on the wet woven matting between his sisters and brothers, and dreamed of a place far away which resembled land but in fact was a gigantic lake whose surface was covered in broken rice shoots. At first it seemed beautiful. But then in Song’s mind he saw the bloated bodies floating face up and staring wide- eyed at something beyond the cloudless blue sky.

Song woke with a jolt and tried to shut out the image. He pressed himself closer against the bodies of Xiao Wan and San San. their skin was cold. Song reached his arm across San San’s waist and realised how thin she had become. He could hear Xiao Bo moaning in his sleep. Song stared up at the underside of the roof above him. In the darkness he could just make out the curves and ridges of the pottery tiles. Another land began to appear in his mind, this time protected by giant roof tiles ten times as big as the ones above him, keeping everyone dry, allowing them all to scramble up to safety.

Song sat upright and shook himself. e night was quiet except for the heavy breathing of his family.

Xiao Mei had a raw cough, but it didn’t wake her. Xiao Bo continued to moan rhythmically in his sleep. He was too small to pretend he wasn’t hungry. Song had been pretending ever since he could remember. Taking less than his share. Knowing that he, the eldest, at the age of nine, was stronger than his sisters and brothers.

‘Song’ll make it,’ he had once overheard his mother tell his father. ‘He came to us in a good year. Not like his sisters and brothers. They were born at the wrong time.’

Song shivered in the cold damp room. It was then that he remembered the words of Zhu Wei, the medicine man who travelled between villages, carrying his chinking bottles of tinctures and pots of sweet-smelling balsam, all the while telling stories of places he had seen.

‘This world is sweet, my friend. Go. Take yourself away.’ Song tried to piece together what he had heard.

‘Malaya. Heady with spices. India. With its regal princes, elephants dressed up in finery, and the vivid colours. Ah, and then there’s Guiana. The sugarcane whispers in a sea breeze so salty you can lick it. Mangoes. Mangoes so full of juice they split on the tree and seep nectar. Like sunshine might taste. Rubber trees bleed without so much as a tap and a full bucket fetches a price so high that you don’t have to work for the rest of the month. There’s nothing to spend money on anyway, with fruit hanging off every tree: papaya, guava, carambola, sapodilla. No one is ever wanting. And don’t start me on the gold. Even babies of the poorest families wear solid gold bangles around their wrists and ankles. Diamonds too.

They say there are whole cities built of gold and precious stones.’ Song screwed up his eyes and tried to believe in the place Zhu Wei had described.

‘The Englishmen take you there for nothing – not a penny – on huge wooden boats which use the wind and the stars and their magic to reach these new lands. Hundreds are going every day, boy. You don’t want to be le behind. Hail down one of the carts. They’re sweeping through the villages collecting up young men with dreams and courage, the ones looking for adventure and who are willing to work. You want to get on your way before these places are full.

‘The boats leave from Guangzhou. A terrible place. Don’t get waylaid, I warn you, or you won’t make it to the end of the month. Keep moving. There’s a world beyond what you know. Every boy should travel. Go and see new places. Find work. Get rich. Come back if you want to. But see the world first. Don’t die here, boy. You’re too young to die here.’

Song pictured himself boarding one of the wooden English boats and arriving among lush plantations of sweet sugarcane bordered by trees bearing plump fruit on bowed branches. He licked his lips around the taste of a mango and felt burning cramps in his stomach. Then he imagined himself returning home laden with sugar and gold and diamonds, and the wide disbelieving shining eyes of his sisters and brothers.

Song shivered again. His mother had propped open the front door and the room was cool. He looked up, trying to imagine his father’s silhouette in the doorway, but nobody was there. Not that Song ever particularly noticed his father coming home. He was a man who spoke quietly and was so of foot. But in his head Song could hear his father’s voice telling him how to move through life:

‘strangers don’t like strangers’; ‘trouble only comes to those who stand out’; ‘keep your head down’. The memory of his words triggered something inside Song. He felt the sudden weight of his family; now he must not only take care of himself but everyone else, too. Song felt himself fold, sobbing, covering his face with his hands.

The village of Lishui felt their way through the days and weeks ahead in a daze. For the women and children le behind there was too much to do to think about mourning men. They could no longer drink clean water from the wells. ere was no dry re- wood. e babies lay listless, too emaciated to cry. e old people had stopped eating. e rest of the village sifted through the debris carried by the floodwater trying to salvage anything useful: a sack of wet seed, odd rice shoots, rotten wood, a sodden shred of cloth.

Every morning they hoped to wake to see the land steaming dry and to feel the heat of the sun, but instead clouds brooded heavy and low in the sky before bursting like blisters. Rain fell so hard it bounced from the ground, raining up as well as down. e grey air and reflecting water drained the land of colour. Song knew what he had to do. He thought of the sugar, the gold, the diamonds in far-off lands. But he also remembered the dark stories about the city called Guangzhou and how some men returned broken. ‘Stay away from them men,’ the women told the children, even when it was their own husbands. And the children listened and stayed away, frightened by the way the men sat all day staring out, as if they were asleep with their eyes open. Song shuddered, but he had made up his mind.

He went to find his mother. She was at the back of the house keeping the re alight. He watched her as she shifted around a pot of water, trying to catch the heat of a flickering flame before it extinguished with a fizz.

‘Mama.’

Zhang Je looked up. There were dark shadows under her glazed eyes, red and streaming from the smoke. Her face was drawn. She did not seem to see Song. He crouched down and took the pot from his mother. ‘Let me.’ She let the stick fall from her hands. Song used it to poke at the charred embers and blew into the refi. A cloud of ash billowed up.

‘I’m going to Guangzhou to look for work, Mama.’They both watched a small flame momentarily light up.‘I’ll go with the next cart,’ Song said. ‘They’re looking for boys like me. It doesn’t cost anything to go, they say. There’s lots of work. I’ll bring back money and food for everyone.’

About The Author:

Michelle Chan Author PictureI am the Editor of Vanity Fair On Travel.
My debut novel, Song is being published by Unbound in July 2018.

I’m a BBC presenter and video journalist on The Travel Show, and Contributing Editor at Condé Nast Traveller where I had a weekly column for a year Where I want to be right now.
I was formerly Deputy Editor of The Telegraph’s Ultratravel magazine and am the Destination Expert on China, Cambodia, Nepal and the Himalayas for The Telegraph newspaper.
I also write for The Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure and Tatler.

My career in journalism began with Newsweek magazine in New York in 1994, and I continued to report for them from Xi’an, Beijing and Taipei. I then took the position of Asia-Pacific Editor for Deutsche Welle Radio in Cologne, transitioning into television as a news producer for CNN International in London.
I am the winner of the Travel Writer of the Year 2016; winner of the AITO Travel Writer of the Year 2016, and winner of the Consumer Magazine Feature of the Year Award at the Ecoventura LATA Media Awards 2016.
I am a regular speaker and moderator on travel and adventure; judge writing and photography awards; teach travel writing courses; am a qualified performance coach (focusing on creative writing) and conduct media training.

Song by Michelle Jana Chan is out now and available from Amazon UK.

blog tours, book extract

#BlogTour #extract Guilt by Amanda Robson @Amandarauthor @AvonBooksUK @Sabah_k #book

if only I could read faster

Banner Guilt.png

How stunning is the cover for Guilt by Amanda Robson?!!! You certainly wouldn’t miss it in a bookshop. I love it and it immediately appealed to me, and then I saw that the book is about twins and as a mother of twins I like reading books with twins in it, so I jumped at the chance to be part of the blog tour. I just didn’t have time to read the book before today to do a review, but it is definitely on my tbr pile. In the meantime here’s an extract to help whet your appetite before you read the book yourself!

Extract:

Driving up the motorway, escaping from Bristol, back to Tidebury for the weekend. Maybe seeing Mother will help.

  I hate Anastasia Sudbury.

  Second written warning indeed.

One more written warning and I am out. How dare she. Patronising, sycophantic bitch. The memory of her voice, with its overemphasised vowels and artificial resonance as she ‘mediated’ between me and Sebastian makes me feel sick. Second written warning for not working efficiently with him. I clutch the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ache.

I turn the car radio up in an attempt to drown my thoughts in classical music. But my mind is pumping. Plaintive violins and resonant cellos don’t help. I cannot stop thinking about Sebastian and what he did to me. I feel his hands all over me. I feel him entering me again. I hear his grunting climax. I feel a knife grating the walls of my vaginal passage. As I drive I breathe through the pain.

I stop at a service station and sit in the car, head in hands.

Back on the motorway, I know I need to pull myself together. It isn’t safe, even in the slow lane, wedged between heavy lorries, driving when my mind is a kaleidoscope of hate, guilt and pain.

Classical music. Perhaps that will help. Four hours of listening to Classic FM later, at half past midnight I finally arrive home.

Mother opens the door. She hugs and kisses me. I step into the hallway. I see our patterned rug, the parquet flooring, the limited edition print that you chose when we were on holiday in the Lake District, so many years ago.

Blurb:

guiltbookThe shocking new thriller from the #1 bestseller

‘Thrilling, unputdownable, a fabulous rollercoaster of a read’ B A PARIS, bestselling author of BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The number 1 bestseller is back!

Your sister. Her secret. The betrayal.

 There is no bond greater than blood . . .

When the body of a woman is found stabbed to death, the blame falls to her twin sister. But who killed who? And which one is now the woman behind bars?

Zara and Miranda have always supported each other. But then Zara meets Seb, and everything changes. Handsome, charismatic and dangerous, Seb threatens to tear the sisters’ lives apart – but is he really the one to blame? Or are deeper resentments simmering beneath the surface that the sisters must face up to?

As the sisters’ relationship is stretched to the brink, a traumatic incident in Seb’s past begins to rear its head and soon all three are locked in a psychological battle that will leave someone dead. The question is, who?

Claustrophobic and compelling, Amanda Robson is back in a knock-out thriller perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Paula Hawkins.

About The Author:

amanda-robson-profile

After graduating, Amanda Robson worked in medical research at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine, and at the Poison’s Unit at Guy’s hospital where she became a co-author of a book on cyanide poisoning.

This has set her in good stead for writing her debut novel, Obsession, a dark and twisted tale about love affairs gone wrong.

Amanda attended the Faber Academy writing course in 2011, and now writes from home full time. She lives in London and Wales, with her lawyer husband, one–eyed dog and unfriendly cat. Her two sons, also lawyers, have more or less, fled the nest.

Guilt by Amanda Robson is out now and available from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

book extract, book review, cover reveal

#CoverReveal Broken Bones by Angela Marsons @WriteAngie @Bookouture

if only I could read faster

Eeeeek!!!!!!!!! Regular readers of my little blog will know that I love Angela Marsons Kim Stone books. They are all brilliant and the next instalment is always eagerly awaited by many, many readers. Marsons has deservedly sold millions of copies of her Kim Stone books which is pretty impressive!! So, without further ado….here is the cover to her latest book, Broken Bones. BUT that is not all that I am sharing with you lovely lot. Not at all, possibly just as exciting as the cover is the prologue to Broken Bones that you can read right here! How exciting is that?!!! Enjoy folks.

 

Broken-Bones-Kindle
Broken Bones by Angela Marsons.

 

  • BROKEN BONES PROLOGUE

    By Angela Marsons
    Black Country
    Christmas Day
    Elaine Goddard sat on the roof of the thirteen storey block of flats. The winter sun
    shone a grid on to her bare feet dangling over the edge.
    The protective grate had been erected some years ago after a father of seven had
    thrown himself over.
    By the time she was eleven she had stolen a pair of wire cutters and fashioned
    herself an access point to the narrow ledge that was her place of reflection.
    From this vantage point she could look to the beauty of the Clent Hills in the
    distance, block out the dank, grubby reality of below.
    Hollytree was the place you were sent if Hell was having a spring clean.
    Problem families from the entire West Midlands were evicted from other estates
    and placed in Hollytree. It was displacement capital. Communities around the
    borough breathed sighs of relief as families were evicted. No-one cared where they
    went. It was enough that they were gone and one more ingredient was added to the
    melting pot.
    There was a clear perimeter around the estate over which the police rarely crossed.
    It was a place where the rapists, child molesters, thieves and ASBO families were put together in one major arena. And then guarded by police from the outside.
    But today a peace settled around the estate giving the illusion that the normal
    activities of robbing, raping and molesting were on pause because it was Christmas
    Day. That was bollocks. It was all still going on but to the backdrop of the Queens
    speech.
    Her mother was still slurring her way around the cheerless flat with a bottle of Gin
    in her hand.
    But at least Elaine had this. Her one piece of heaven. Always her safe place. Her
    escape.
    She had disappeared unnoticed up here when she was seven years old and her
    mother had been falling all over the flat pissed as a fart.
    How lucky was she to have been the only one of the four kids her mother had been
    allowed to keep?
    She had escaped up here when her mother’s drinking partner, Roddy, had started
    pawing at her groin and slobbering into her hair. Her mother had pulled him off,
    angrily, shouting something about ruining her retirement plan. She hadn’t understood it when she was nine years old but she had come to understand it now.
    She had cried up here on her sixteenth birthday when her mother had introduced
    her to the family business and to their pimp, Kai Lord.
    She’d been up here two months earlier when he had finally found her.
    And she’d been up here when she’d told him to fuck right off.
    She didn’t want to be saved. It was too late.
    Sixteen years of age and already it was too damn late.
    Many times she had fantasised about how it would feel to lurch forward onto the
    wind. She had envisioned herself floating to and fro gently making the journey like a stray pigeon feather all the way to the ground. Had imagined the feeling of
    weightlessness of both her body and her mind.
    Elaine took a deep breath and exhaled.
    In just a few minutes it would be time to go to work. Heavy rain, sleet, snow,
    Christmas – nothing kept the punters away. Trade might be slow but it would still be
    there. It always was.
    She didn’t hear the roof door open or the footsteps that slowly strode towards her.
    She didn’t see the hand that pushed her forward.
    She only saw the ground as it hurtled towards her.

Blurb:

They thought they were safe. They were wrong.
The murder of a young prostitute and a baby found abandoned on the
same winter night signals the start of a disturbing investigation
for Detective Kim Stone – one which brings her face to face with
someone from her own horrific childhood.
As three more sex workers are murdered in quick succession, each
death more violent than the last, Kim and her team realise that the
initial killing was no one–off frenzied attack, but a twisted serial killer
preying on the vulnerable.
At the same time, the search begins for the desperate woman who
left her newborn baby at the station – but what looks like a tragic
abandonment turns even more sinister when a case of modern
slavery is uncovered.
The two investigations bring the team into a terrifying world of human
exploitation and cruelty – and a showdown that puts Kim’s life at risk
as shocking secrets from her own past come to light.
A gripping new crime thriller from the Number One bestseller –
you will be hooked until the final jaw-dropping twist.

About the author:

Angie - updated author photo - no credit needed
Author Angela Marsons

Angela Marsons is the author of the Amazon Bestselling DI Kim
Stone series – Silent Scream, Evil Games, Lost Girls, Play Dead,
Blood Lines, Dead Souls and now Broken Bones. Her books have
sold more than 2 million in 2 years.
She lives in the Black Country with her partner, their cheeky Golden
Retriever and a swearing parrot.
She first discovered her love of writing at Junior School when actual
lessons came second to watching other people and quietly making up
her own stories about them. Her report card invariably read “Angela
would do well if she minded her own business as well as she minds
other people’s”.
After years of writing relationship based stories (The Forgotten
Woman and Dear Mother) Angela turned to Crime, fictionally
speaking of course, and developed a character that refused to go
away.
She is signed to Bookouture.com for a total of 16 books in the Kim
Stone series and her books have been translated into more than 20
languages.
Her last two books – Blood Lines and Dead Souls – reached the #1
spot on Amazon on pre-orders alone.
Find Angela on:
Facebook
You can also read my previous posts about Angela Marsons.
You can pre-order Broken Bones NOW on Amazon UK
and Amazon US.
blog tours, book extract

Blog Tour: Games People Play by Owen Mullen.

if only I could read faster

gamespeopleplay

Today is the final stop on the blog tour for Games People Play by Owen Mullen. I have content from the book and my extract carries on from where Emma The Little Bookworm left off.

Extract:

‘The water was freezing. What the hell had Jen been thinking? This was Scotland, for Christ’s sake. He swam to where he’d last seen her and went under. Mark was a good swimmer but it was dark. His frantic fingers searched until the pressure in his chest forced him to the surface. He took in as much air as he could and went back. Something bumped against him. He grabbed hold and dragged it up. Two boys ran into the water to help: the footballers.

They hauled her body the last few yards and Mark fell to his knees. Jennifer wasn’t breathing. People appeared on the beach, silent witnesses to the nightmare the day had become. Where had they been when he needed them? He shouted, half in anger half in desperation. ‘Somebody call an ambulance!’ The crowd kept a respectful distance, they believed what he believed, that he’d lost her. Jennifer’s face was white. Mark covered her mouth with his and breathed into her. His hands pressed against her chest demanding she come back to him. One of the boys took over with no better luck. Mark tried again, refusing to let her go. He pumped her heart, whimpering like a child, sobbing for himself as well as his wife. Jennifer’s eyes fluttered; she retched and vomited water. Mark turned her on her side and rubbed her back, whispering reassurance, blinded by tears, aware his prayers had been answered. A siren sounded in the distance; it was going to be alright. She was safe. They would be together again. The three of them. He raised his head and saw ambulance-men racing towards him across the sand. Mark jumped to his feet. They must have drifted… except the boat was there. His voice rose from a cry to a scream. ‘Lily. Lily!’ He spoke to the group who had offered nothing. ‘I left a baby here, somebody must’ve seen her.’ They stared, no idea what he was talking about. A new terror seized him. He ran a few steps up and down the beach, lost and afraid. The bag lay where Jennifer dropped it. But no push-chair. No sign his daughter had ever been there. Lily was gone.’

Sounds good doesn’t it?!! Games People Play by Owen Mullen is out now and available from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Blurb:

A powerful new crime thriller:

Thirteen-month-old Lily Hamilton is abducted from Ayr beach in Scotland while her parents are just yards away.

Three days later the distraught father turns up at private investigator Charlie Cameron’s office. Mark Hamilton believes he knows who has stolen his daughter. And why.

Against his better judgment Charlie gets involved In the case and when more bodies are discovered the awful truth dawns: there is a serial killer whose work has gone undetected for decades.

Is baby Lily the latest victim of a madman?

For Charlie it’s too late, he can’t let go. His demons won’t let him.

 

4*, blog tours, book extract, book review, giveaway

Blog Tour: Review, Giveaway & Extract, Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes by Lindsey Paley.

if only I could read faster
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Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes by Lindsey Paley.

My 4* review:
I need to be honest, I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking when I decided that I would read Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes. I don’t ‘do’ chick lit. If I’m honest I’m probably a little bit snobbish about it.
So I started the book with rather low expectations. But I do not mind admitting that I was wrong, very wrong. I really, really enjoyed reading Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes, the characters were interesting and believable. I often thought that the outcome was very obvious, but it wasn’t! The author kept me on my toes just enough, while weaving a lovely story. It made a nice change from the crime and thriller books that I normally read, and probably quite a healthy change at that.
While Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes was a nice, easy read, I did not want it to finish. When I did I saw that there was a sequel. Yay, I was so going to read that. And then I saw that there are, in fact, six books in the series! I hope to make my way through all of them over time.
I really liked the Lake District setting, and although I’m typically very Bah Humbug until about a week before Christmas the Christmas setting didn’t put me off, it didn’t play a huge part in the story.
If you like chick lit then read this. If you don’t normally read chick lit but think that a change of genre would be good, then read this. It’s good!!
Chapter One.
“Have you checked in yet, Millie?”
“Yes, Nicole, I have! Don’t panic. I told you I’d make an extra special effort to arrive in
plenty of time, didn’t I? I’m relaxing in the Departure Lounge with a caffè latte and the latest
edition of Voici, soaking up the last rays of sunshine I’ll see for the next two weeks.”
She had no intention of admitting to her super-organised sister that Monique and Hélène
had insisted on collecting her from her bedsit above Brasserie Étienne, then driven her at
stomach-wrenching speed to Nice airport and marched her, still stuffing her passport into her
hand luggage, to the check-in desk. They’d even had the audacity to hang around whilst she
wound her way through security just to make absolutely sure she didn’t meet with some
diversion and miss her flight – not an unknown, or indeed infrequent, occurrence.
“Typical. Just this once I hoped you’d stuck to your usual schedule of taking every
deadline to the wire!”
Millie detected a note of anxiety rather than impatience in Nicole’s voice. “Why? What’s
wrong?”
“I’m so sorry, Millie. It’s Édouard’s father. He’s had a stroke – been rushed into hospital in
Paris. His mother’s frantic – not sure whether he’ll survive the night.” Millie heard her
younger sister gulp down her emotions. “We’re dashing across to France as we speak. As it’s
the last weekend before Christmas it’s an absolute nightmare. St Pancras is in the throes of a
pre-Christmas exodus. We just managed to grab the last five seats on the Eurostar.”
“Oh, Nicole, no. Poor Édouard. Is there anything I can do?”
“Well, that’s why I’m calling. Obviously it means you can’t spend Christmas with us in
Norfolk now. I’m so sorry, Millie. I had everything planned. The girls were more than excited
about spending some alone time with their Auntie Camille this weekend whilst I was in the
Lakes and then having you stay on for the holidays. You’re still welcome to stay at our house,
of course.”
“Thanks, Nic, but it won’t be the same without its riotous rabble of occupants.”
“You could always go back home to Lourmarin? Spend Christmas with François?”
“Ah, no I can’t. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get away. I wasn’t going to tell you, especially
now. I don’t want to add to your burden, but it’s over between me and François. He dumped
me. Scooted off to Paris. He’s even closed the restaurant for the duration of the holidays. First
time ever!”
A slice of pain scorched through her throat but Millie ignored it. Now that she’d broken
the news she needed to get the whole story out into the open. “Monique told me he’s gone
with Heidi. I’m sorry, Nic, you’ve got enough deal with. Look, don’t worry about me. Send
my love to Édouard’s parents. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to spend some time mooching
round the shops in London.”
“So, if you’re sure you still want to come over…”
“What? Is there something else you’re not telling me?”
“Well, you know how grateful I was when you agreed to look after the girls whilst I
tutored the Christmas cookery school for Anne?”
Millie softened her voice. She adored her three nieces. “Nic, really, it’s no hardship. I love
being cast in the role of beloved aunt. Never mind, I’ll just catch an earlier flight back to
Nice.”
“Could I ask a favour, then?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ve just spoken to Anne. She might be a seasoned expert in presenting summer culinary
courses at her manor house in the Lake District, but this weekend was to be her first venture
into corporate Christmas culinary schools. She was relying on me. Of course she’s
sympathetic and totally understands, but she’s over at her villa in St. Lucia for the holidays so
she can’t step into the breach. I feel dreadful about leaving her in the lurch at such short
notice. And I’m worried she’ll be reticent about trusting me again. It’s a fabulous opportunity
to be invited to deliver an Anne Grainger course – and at the luxurious Craiglea Manor House
to boot. You know how keen I am to get into tutoring. I really don’t want to go back to being
a full-time food tech teacher when Daisy starts school. But maybe it’s a solution?”

“What’s a solution? Oh no, hang on…”

Giveaway:

So if my review and the first Chapter have made you want to read Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes then you can enter the giveaway! But only if you live in the UK.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/bf633057101/?

Blurb:

When all-round buttercream princess, Millie Carter, becomes stranded at Craiglea Manor Cookery School, she believes her chance of enjoying a merry festive season is over.

The village of Aisford is Christmas-card perfect, but Millie hates it – she hates the snow, her freezing fingertips, and being forced to look like her Aunt Marjory in a mud-splattered wax jacket and wellies instead of her beloved shorts and sparkly sandals. 

She plots her escape but ends up locking spatulas with the estate manager, Fergus McKenzie, who is forced to rescue her before she succumbs to a severe dose of hypothermia. Things start to improve with the arrival of handsome Sam Morgan, fresh from the beaches and rum shacks of the Caribbean. 

Can Millie accept her fate? And will Aisford sprinkle some of its seasonal magic on her troubles? 

Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes is a festive story of love and friendship and reaching for the buttercream icing and edible glitter when life gets tough. 

Buy Links:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Author Bio

Lindsey Paley is a Yorkshire girl and author of contemporary romance novels with page-turning plotlines and satisfying endings. When not scribbling away in her peppermint and cream writer’s retreat (shed) she loves baking cakes, enjoying a spot of afternoon tea with friends and taking long walks in the countryside. Snowflakes and Christmas Cakes is the first book in the Camille Carter series set in the beautiful Lake District and the Caribbean. The latest in the series is April Showers and Wedding Flowers and is out now.

Author Links:

Facebook and Twitter.

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book extract

Book Extract: Dark Water by Robert Bryndza.

if only I could read faster

 

dark-water-kindle
Dark Water by Robert Bryndza

 

To mark the publication day of the third book in Rober Bryndza’s Detective Erika Foster series, Dark Water, I am giving you a treat of the prologue for the book. Have a read and hopefully you will like what you read and want to read the rest of the book! Enjoy.

Dark Water

by Robert Bryndza

Autumn 1990

It was a cold night in late autumn when they dumped the body in the disused quarry. They knew it was an isolated spot, and the water was very deep. What they didn’t know was that they were being watched.

They arrived under the cover of darkness, just after three o’clock in the morning – driving from the houses at the edge of the village, over the empty patch of gravel where the walkers parked their cars, and onto the vast common. With the headlights off, the car bumped and lurched across the rough ground, joining a footpath, which was soon shrouded on either side by dense woodland. The darkness was thick and clammy, and the only light came over the tops of the trees.

Nothing about the journey felt stealthy. The car engine seemed to roar; the suspension groaned as it lurched from side to side. They slowed to a stop as the trees parted and the water-filled quarry came into view.

What they didn’t know was that a reclusive old man lived by the quarry, squatting in an old abandoned cottage which had almost been reclaimed by the undergrowth. He was outside, staring up at the sky and marvelling at its beauty, when the car appeared over the ridge and came to a halt. Wary, he moved behind a bank of shrubbery and watched. Local kids, junkies, and couples looking for thrills often appeared at night, and he had managed to scare them away.

The moon briefly broke through the clouds as the two figures emerged from the car, and they took something large from the back and carried it towards the rowing boat by the water. The first climbed in, and as the second passed the long package into the boat there was something about the way it bent and flopped that made him realise with horror that it was a body.

The soft splashes of the oars carried across the water. He put a hand to his mouth. He knew he should turn away, but he couldn’t. The splashing oars ceased when the boat reached the middle. A sliver of moon appeared again through a gap in the clouds, illuminating the ripples spreading out from the boat.

He held his breath as he watched the two figures deep in conversation, their voices a low rhythmic murmur. Then there was silence. The boat lurched as they stood, and one of them nearly fell over the edge. When they were steady, they lifted the package and, with a splash and a rattle of chains, they dropped it into the water. The moon sailed out from behind its cloud, shining a bright light on the boat and the spot where the package had been dumped, the ripples spreading violently outwards.

He could now see the two people in the boat, and had a clear view of their faces.

The man exhaled. He’d been holding his breath. His hands shook. He didn’t want trouble; he’d spent his whole life trying to avoid trouble, but it always seemed to find him. A chill breeze stirred up some dry leaves at his feet, and he felt a sharp itching in his nostrils. Before he could stop it a sneeze erupted from his nose; it echoed across the water. In the boat, the heads snapped up, and began to twist and search the banks. And then they saw him. He turned to run, tripped on the root of a tree and fell to the ground, knocking the wind out of his chest.

Beneath the water in the disused quarry it was still, cold, and very dark. The body sank rapidly, pulled by the weights, down, down, down, finally coming to rest with a nudge in the soft freezing mud.

She would lie still and undisturbed for many years, almost at peace. But above her, on dry land, the nightmare was only just beginning.

DARK WATER (Detective Erika Foster Book 3) 

UK: http://amzn.to/2baBO8N

US: http://amzn.to/2bkuwRk

Beneath the water the body sank rapidly. Above her on dry land, the nightmare was just beginning.

When Detective Erika Foster receives a tip-off that key evidence for a major narcotics case was stashed in a disused quarry on the outskirts of London, she orders for it to be searched. From the thick sludge the drugs are recovered, but so is the skeleton of a young child. 

The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. The missing girl who made headline news twenty-six years ago. 

As Erika tries to piece together new evidence with the old, she must dig deeper and find out more about the fractured Collins family and the original detective, Amanda Baker. A woman plagued by her failure to find Jessica. Erika soon realises this is going to be one of the most complex and demanding cases she has ever taken on. 

Is the suspect someone close to home? Someone is keeping secrets. Someone who doesn’t want this case solved. And they’ll do anything to stop Erika from finding the truth.

From the million-copy bestselling author of The Girl in the Ice and The Night Stalker, comes the third heart-stopping book in the Detective Erika Foster series.

Watch out for more from DCI Erika Foster.

She’s fearless. Respected. Unstoppable. Detective Erika Foster will catch a killer, whatever it takes. 

1. THE GIRL IN THE ICE
2. THE NIGHT STALKER
3. DARK WATER

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book extract

Book Extract: One Christmas in Paris by Mandy Baggot.

if only I could read faster

one-christmas-in-paris-kindle
One Christmas in Paris by Mandy Baggot.

 

One Christmas in Paris

By Mandy Baggot

One

Up-Do Hair, Kensington, London

 Leo:[EMAIL] I’m sorry. Can we talk?[END EMAIL]

Ava Devlin swiped the email hard to the left and watched it disappear from the screen of her iPhone. That’s what you did with messages from liars and fakes who had whispered one thing into your ear, as they wrapped their arms around you, and did the complete opposite when your back was turned. She swallowed back a bitter feeling. She had always worried that Leo – successful, rich, good-looking in a Joey Essex kind of way – was maybe a little bit out of her league.

‘Boss or boyfriend?’

The question came from Sissy, the hairdresser who was currently coating Ava’s head in foils and a paste that felt as if it was doing nuclear things to Ava’s scalp.

‘Neither,’ she answered, putting the phone on the counter under the mirror in front of her. A sigh left her. ‘Not any more.’ She needed to shake this off like Taylor Swift.

Giving her reflection a defiant look, she enlarged her green eyes, flared the nostrils of her button nose and set her lips into a deliberate pout she felt she had never quite been able to pull off. With her face positioned like she was a Z-list celeb doing a provocative selfie on Twitter, she knew she was done. With men. With love. With everything. Her ears picked up the dulcet tones of Cliff Richard suggesting mistletoe and wine, floating from the salon sound system. Her eyes then moved from her reflection to the string of tinsel and fir cones that surrounded the mirror. This rinky-dink Christmas crap could do one as well. Coming right up was a nation getting obsessed with food they never ate in the other eleven months – dates, walnuts, an entire board of European cheeses – and a whole two weeks of alterations to the television schedule – less The Wright Stuff and more World’s Strongest Man. And now she was on her own with it.

‘Well,’ Sissy said, dabbing more goo on Ava’s head, ‘I always think Christmas is a good time to be young, free and single.’ She giggled, drawing Ava’s attention back to the effort Sissy was putting into her hair. ‘All those parties… people loosening up with goodwill and…’

‘Stella Artois?’ Ava offered.

‘You don’t drink that, do you?’ Sissy exclaimed as if Ava had announced she was partial to Polonium 210. ‘I had a boyfriend once who was allergic to that. If he had more than four it made him really ill.’

‘Sissy, that isn’t an allergy, that’s just getting drunk.’

‘On lager?’ Sissy quizzed. ‘Doesn’t it mix well with shots?’

Ava was caught between a laugh and a cry. She swallowed it down and focussed again on the mirror. Why was she here having these highlights put in? She’d booked the appointment when she’d had the work do to go to. Now, having caught Leo out with Cassandra, she wouldn’t need perfect roots to go with the perfect dress he’d bought her. She didn’t even like the dress. It was all red crushed velvet like something a magician’s assistant might wear. Like something her mother might wear. But Leo had said she looked beautiful and she remembered how that had made her feel at the time. All lies.

‘Stop,’ Ava stated abruptly, sitting forward in her seat.

‘Stop?’ Sissy clarified. ‘Stop what? Talking? Putting the colour on?’

‘All of it,’ Ava said. She put her fingers to the silver strips on her head and tugged.

‘What are you doing? Don’t touch them!’ Sissy said, as if one wrong move was going to detonate an explosive device.

‘I want them off… out…not in my hair!’ Ava gripped one foil between her fingers, pulling.

‘OK, OK, but not like that, you’ll pull your hair out.’

‘I want a new look.’ Ava scooped up her hair in her palms, pulling it away from her face and angling her head to check out the look. Nothing would make her jawline less angular or her lips thinner. She sighed. ‘Cut it off.’ She wanted it to come out strong, decisive, but her voice broke a little at the end and when she looked back at Sissy, she saw pity growing in her hairdresser’s eyes.

‘Well… I have to finish the tinting first.’ Sissy bit her lip.

Ava didn’t want pity. ‘Well, finish the tinting and then cut it off,’ she repeated.

‘Trim it, you mean,’ Sissy said, her eyes in the mirror, looking back at Ava.

Ava shook her remaining silver-wrapped hair, making it rustle. ‘No, Sissy, I don’t want it trimmed. I want it cut off.’ She pulled in a long, steady breath. ‘I’m thinking short… but definitely more Bowie in his heyday than Jedward.’

‘That short.’ Sissy was almost choking on the words.

‘You did say a change was good,’ Ava answered. ‘Change me.’ She sat back until she could feel the pleather at her back. ‘Make me completely unrecognisable even to my mother.’ She closed her eyes. ‘In fact, especially to my mother.’

With her eyes shut, she blocked out everything – Cliff Richard, the tinsel and fir cones, Leo. A different style was just what she needed. Something that was going to go with her new outlook on life. A haircut that was going to say, You can look, but if you set one eyelash into my personal space, suggesting joy to the world, you will be taken down. Nothing or nobody was going to touch her.

Ava’s phone let out a bleep and she opened one eye, squinting at the screen. Why didn’t Leo just give up? Why wasn’t he suctioned to Cassandra like he had been for God knows how long? She was betting Cassandra had never had to use Clearasil.

Sissy leant forward, regarding the phone screen. ‘It says it’s from Debs.’

Cheered considerably, Ava reached for the phone, picking it up and reading the message.

[TEXT STARTS]I know I said not to bring anything, but I totes forgot to get something Christmassy. Can you get something Christmassy? To eat… like those crisps that are meant to taste like turkey and stuffing or roasted nuts and cranberry. And bring red wine, not white, because I got three bottles of white today. And if you’ve completely forgotten all about coming to mine tonight for neighbourly nibbles before I leave for Paris then this is your reminder. Debs xx[TEXT ENDS]

 Debs texted like she was writing a dissertation. There was no OMG, FFS or TMI with Ava’s best friend. And Ava had forgotten about the ‘neighbourly nibbles’. That was what having a break-up on your plate did to you – addled your brain and fried the important relationship circuits. Well, she was taking control now – elusive and aloof to anyone but her best friend – and the only frazzled motherboard was going to be the one with wires connected to men.

Ava looked into the mirror at Sissy. ‘After you’ve cut it, Sissy, I want you to make me blonder,’ she stated. ‘And not the honey kind.’ She smiled. ‘The Miley Cyrus meltdown kind.’

ONE CHRISTMAS IN PARIS

UK: http://amzn.to/2bTThnR

US:http://amzn.to/2bUedJY

They say Paris is the City of Love, so bring your je ne sais quoi and don’t forget the mistletoe!
Ava and her best friend Debs arrive in Paris just as the snow starts to fall. The Eiffel Tower glitters gold and the scent of spiced wine is all around, but all Ava can think about is Leo, her no-good, cheating ex.

Debs is on a mission to make Ava smile again, and as they tour the Christmas markets, watch lamplight glittering on the river Seine, and eat their body weight inpain-au-chocolat, Ava remembers there’s more to life than men … Until they cross paths with handsome, mysterious photographer Julien with his French accent and hazelnut eyes that seem to see right inside her.

Ava can’t ignore the intense chemistry between them, but her fingers have been burned before and she can’t forget it, especially when her ex, Leo, starts texting again. Can Ava really trust Julien – and what exactly is his secret?

Will Ava go home with a broken heart, or will she find true love amongst the cobbled streets of Paris?

Join Ava and Julien in the most romantic city in the world this Christmas, as they discover the importance of being true to themselves, and learn how to follow their hearts.

One Christmas in Paris is a gorgeous, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy – perfect for fans of Jane Costello, Miranda Dickinson and Lucy Diamond.

 

About the author:

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Mandy Baggot is an award-winning author of romantic women’s fiction and a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. In Feb 2016, her Bookouture novel, One Wish in Manhattan was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year award. A contributor to writing blogs and short story anthologies, she is also a regular speaker at literary festivals, events and women’s networking groups.

Mandy loves mashed potato, white wine, country music, Corfu and handbags. She has appeared on ITV1’s Who Dares Sings and auditioned for The X-Factor and lives in Wiltshire, UK with her husband, two children and cats Kravitz and Springsteen.

www.mandybaggot.com

https://www.facebook.com/mandybaggotauthor

https://twitter.com/mandybaggot

book extract

Book Extract: All I Want For Christmas by Jenny Hale.

if only I could read faster

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All I Want For Christmas by Jenny Hale.

 

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

By Jenny Hale

Chapter One

Leah used the scissors from her Christmas wreath-making project to open the package from Nan, her hands trembling. She missed her grandmother so much that she held her breath from the moment her fingers touched the envelope. She set the scissors next to the pile of spruce needles that were still on the kitchen table and ran her fingers through her thick, blonde hair. She’d straightened it that morning, but after all day in the rain and sleet, it had started to curl back up.

Tipping the package upside down, Leah caught a lone key in the palm of her hand, recognizing it immediately. She pulled out a stack of documents with a note in Nan’s scratchy handwriting clipped to the top. The notepaper was pink and lacy, the edges rounded delicately with little holes punched out. She laid the documents on top of a few Christmas cards that had come in the mail and focused on the letter, aching to hear Nan’s soft, reassuring voice again.

“Mama,” Leah’s daughter, Sadie said, pulling her out of her thoughts. She was still wearing the red-and-blue leotard Leah had gotten her as a surprise for her birthday. Sadie had seen it in her gymnastics magazine and she’d kept the page open to it all the time. When Leah had asked her about it, she’d said that one day she’d like to have one of her own. Together, they’d made the matching bow clip in her white blonde hair. Every day after school she put it all on to practice her gymnastics. And she was quite the natural.

“The Girls are here,” Sadie said. She bent down, placing her hands on the tile floor, between the table and the kitchen counter, keeping her feet in place until she lifted a leg into the air. Slowly, from a perfect standing split, she put her other leg up, straightening out into a handstand. Sadie had learned to do this move slowly, as swift movements used to send Leah leaping across the kitchen, throwing her arms around Sadie’s legs while simultaneously grabbing dishes and knick-knacks to keep them safe. But when Sadie did it slowly, Leah was able to see the precision in her movements, her skill evident, and she didn’t worry at all. Leah grinned.

Sadie righted herself and opened the side door that led to the driveway, sending a wave of wintery air in past the new wreath Leah had made from evergreens she’d found in the woods. She’d just hung it today. Leah slid the contents and the letter back into the envelope and put the key in her pocket. Another gust sent a chill through her as The Girls came in chattering together, Roz short and Louise tall, both swaddled in their winter gear.

“The Girls” was the name Leah had given to herself and her two best friends when they’d first met. They’d started out as a single mothers’ group of around seven women, which Leah had joined after meeting Roz, her coworker at the florist’s. But over the years, The Girls had dwindled to three—Leah, Roz and Louise—and they’d become more than a support group. They’d become best friends. Tonight, Leah was having them over for a late dinner.

“You’re early,” Leah said with a grin as Roz, all bundled up in a dark burgundy, double-breasted peacoat and striped fingerless gloves, set a bottle of wine on the counter dramatically. It was some sort of cutesy specialty wine with a gold, swirling Christmas tree on the label.

“Louise was insistent that the snow was going to fall all at once and if we waited any longer we wouldn’t be able to drive here,” Roz said, pulling off her gloves and dumping them on the counter. She ran her hand around Sadie’s ponytail affectionately and gave her a wink. Then she shrugged off her coat. Roz walked over to the cupboards and started rummaging around for wine glasses. Leah smiled—she liked how Roz felt as comfortable as if she were in her own house. She was like family.

“At least I can say we’re safe,” Louise said, giving Leah a side hug as she was holding a bowl of salad and a tin of cookies in her other arm. She was covered from head to toe, with a hunter-green, wooly scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, covering her long, red hair. “And you’re sure we can camp out here if the snow does start to fall?”

“We hardly ever have that kind of snow this early in the season,” Roz said, busying herself at the sink. “But I brought my toothbrush just in case!”

Leah’s house was small—a brick rancher tucked away behind a thick strip of woods that separated it from the main street, a four-lane expanse of pavement which was teeming at this time of year with holiday shoppers as they crawled along in traffic to get from one shop to another. But the woods allowed some privacy, and at night, in the dark, it seemed almost secluded. She had rented the house for its proximity to work and the cozy feel of the living room. Although quite crowded when everyone got together, it had offered a comfortable space to make memories with Sadie.

Louise looked at Leah thoughtfully for a second, as if just noticing her. “How are you?” she asked, studying her face until the pop of the wine cork behind them pulled her attention away.

Her friend could always read her. Leah was dying to see what Nan’s letter said, but she didn’t want to bring everyone down tonight by bursting into tears. It was supposed to be a fun night with The Girls.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Leah smiled. “I was just going through the mail…”

“Well, ignore it!” Roz said, swinging a glass full of red wine her way. The purple color of it nearly matched Roz’s dark hair. It was bottle-black, her latest beauty experiment, and in the light, it had almost a reddish-purple tint to it. “We’re going to have an amazing night of…” As she pressed her bright red lips together in thought, she handed the other glass to Louise. “What are we doing tonight besides drinking wine and having dinner? Did anyone get a movie or anything?”

“I thought we could play cards,” Louise piped up, taking a dainty sip from her glass and looking back and forth between Roz and Leah. “I brought some. They’re Toy Story though.”

Roz snorted as Louise pulled her five-year-old’s cards from her handbag.
“I couldn’t find mine so I took some from Ethan’s room,” she said.

Sadie climbed up into a kitchen chair and reached for one of the silver, foil-wrapped chocolates that Leah had put out for tonight. The two of them had started their Christmas decorating today, and they’d been nibbling on those chocolates since early afternoon. Leah gave her daughter her best not-too-many face.

Roz poured one more glass of wine for herself and then filled a glass full of fruit punch for Sadie. Both Roz and Louise had the weekend free since their children were with their fathers, but Leah didn’t have anyone to help with Sadie, so Sadie always joined them. She was like an honorary member of The Girls.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS by Jenny Hale – out 6th October

UK: http://amzn.to/2bXPAPJ

US:http://amzn.to/2bQatcG

All I Want for Christmas is a big, cozy Christmas story about the importance of family, the strength of childhood friendships, and learning to trust your heart.
Fans of Carole Matthews, Susan Wiggs and Susan Mallery – and anyone who likes the glow of Christmas lights and the rustle of wrapping paper – will fall in love with this feel-good Christmas treat.

Christmas comes once a year . . . But true love comes once in a lifetime.

Snowflakes are falling, there’s carol singing on every corner, and Leah Evans is preparing for a family Christmas at her grandmother’s majestic plantation house in Virginia. It won’t be the same now that her beloved Nan is gone, but when Leah discovers she has inherited the mansion, she knows she can give her daughter Sadie the childhood of her dreams.

But there’s a catch. Leah must split the house with a man called David Forester. Leah hasn’t heard that name in a long time. Not since they were kids, when Davey was always there to catch her.

Now David is all grown up. He’s gorgeous, successful, and certain of one thing: Leah should sell him her half of the house.

They can’t agree, but as they share memories over wine by the log fire, Leah notices a fluttering in her stomach. And by the look in his eyes, he’s starting to feel it too.

Will it be Leah or David who must give up their dreams? Or, with a little bit of Christmas magic, will they finally understand Nan’s advice to them both about living life without regrets … and take a chance on true love?

 

About the author:

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When she graduated college, one of Jenny’s friends said “Look out for this one; she’s going to be an author one day”. Despite being an avid reader and a natural storyteller, it wasn’t until that very moment that the idea of writing novels occurred to her.

Sometimes our friends can see the things that we can’t. Whilst she didn’t start straight away, that comment sowed a seed and several years, two children and hundreds of thousands of words later, Jenny finished her first novel – Coming Home for Christmas – which became an instant bestseller.