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Conundrum

“It’s a strange thing being accused of something I didn’t witness or have any involvement. Stranger still that my accusers absolutely believe I am responsible despite my honest explanation of the little I know.”

The young man looked upset, mystified and unusually withdrawn.

“Have they accused you of taking something valuable my friend?”

Laughter without mirth.

“Three or four small pieces of metal with sharp spikes to deter my daughter’s kittens and our old family cat from walking across his balcony wall.”

“He would harm another living creature?”

“Oh, I doubt he would see it like that, but yes, I believe he would.”

“Did you know these offensive pieces of metal were on that wall?”

“Yes, I did. As did several other people who care for cats.  We live in a small village, news travels.”

“So, tell me my young friend. What part have you played in this incident?”

The young man wandered to the edge of the precipice and looked across mountains and valleys. The silver reflection of a river snaked along the valleys, fading to a thin grey line until the eye could no longer discern river from land. He turned back to face his friend.

“Although I know the truth of what happened to the spikes, I had no involvement. Sharing what I know may have brought wrath upon another and I didn’t wish to handle that. My instinct was to protect.”

This may sound strange, but when the young man looked at the wise old man he always saw a young image. There was no telling how old he was but no matter what, he always seemed young and full of love, life and vitality. Age in our regular, mundane sense, is of no consequence and when he talks; the younger man hears and understands every word. There is never any doubt but sometimes his words bring long periods of thought and reflection.

“You sense something deeper at work?”

The young man laughed, this time with humour.

“For a change I have an instant response. The man with the spikes and his wife have something far deeper going on. Something they have carried for a great length of time which they have tried to bury and ignore. This something isn’t shared, it’s different for each. It’s as though a darkness cloaks their true being but, they are so used to it that the truth is far away like the source of that river. They need to ask for a sword of light to cleanse their pain.”

“How will they do that?”

“I’ve sent compassion, love and light but I don’t think it will be enough. They need a physical helping hand.”

“This may be a great opportunity to make new friends, but I see your problem. You are the bad guy, they believe you took their spikes. To share the truth may harm another. A difficult conundrum.”

Friday Teaser

Recent health issues have caused chaos with my work but I am happy to report that editing my current novel is back on track and plans for the one to follow that are well underway. I’ve not worked on two novels simultaneously before but something tells me that this is currently the way to go.

I hope you enjoy this short peek at a possible opening to ‘Supper in Jerusalem.’

Stood on a Mediterranean beach at dawn, watching the sunrise and fading silhouette of a small fishing boat that just left him. Simon couldn’t think of a better postcard view.

Turning inland, the desolation of a once thriving fishing port burned the positive images to ash. Evidence of domesticity smashed and broken still smouldered after another attack. The rumble of a solitary aircraft returning from its silent hours sortie over desolate cities. Bombs dispatched to the rebels, and innocents.

Simon heard the call and placed himself on the fringes of the most complicated civil war of his lifetime and he didn’t care for his safety. He cared only for those who wanted to reclaim their lives. He didn’t know who they were where to look or how to approach them. Trust would be an issue. They had been deserted while others around them joined factions with dangerous agendas that excluded their well-being and ignored their futures.

Over eleven million people fleeing the violence. Five million fled to neighbouring countries that don’t have the infrastructure to care for them. He looked at the crumpled leaflet in his hand and recited from memory.

“Nearly eight years since it began, the war has killed more than 480,000 people. Crowded cities have been destroyed and horrific human rights violations are widespread. Basic necessities like food and medical care are sparse.”

Clearing his throat and pulling back the tears, he continued.

“The U.N. estimates that 6.3 million people are internally displaced. When you also consider refugees, well over half of the country’s pre-war population of 22 million is in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, whether they still remain in the country or have escaped across the borders.”

It started with protests about the government, people wanted change, not the destruction that came their way. The situation became worse after outside parties intent on gratifying their own interests got involved; Russia, The USA, China, the list goes on. The number of civilian casualties and families forced to leave their homes in search of safety exploded when the major powers threw in their weight.

He opened out the leaflet and looked at a picture of a smiling young man standing on the rubble that had been his school. Years of his life lost to the war.  No family. No education. No basic human rights. The headline read, “Resolved to do something about his future.”

Simon had to find this young man before it was too late.

#SynopsisThursday

Kirsten Nairn offered the latest in the #SynopsisThursday series,
scroll down and read her synopsis for A Sorry Affair.

You can follow #SynopsisThursday on Twitter through @SteveCostello8 .

Thanks to the authors who have offered their work, ‘as soon as it’s ready.’

Your support is much appreciated. Namasté

Send in your own synopsis by Wednesday to be included on Thursday. The first received each week will be given top place priority and additional Twitter, Facebook and other SM exposure, no strings attached.

14/09/2015

A Sorry Affair is a romantic novel by Kirsten Nairn which examines the complexities of relationships and the heartache which can often accompany love. The story is told from the perspective of the three main characters, Mack and Jen, the archetypical golden couple, together since they were students and Abbi, who Mack finds himself drawn to, and eventually falling in love with. He ends up unintentionally in love with two women.

The idea for the story began as a simple question. What does it feel like to be the adulteress? To be the other woman? The sympathy, understandably, is always directed at the innocent party but what if there are two innocent parties? What if you are the ‘other woman’ and are completely unaware that you’re involved in an affair?

The story is considered initially from the view point of Abbi, the ‘other woman’ and focuses on how she feels. She meets Mack by chance and is immediately drawn to him. There is an innocence and naivety to her and the possibility that Mack is in a serious, long term relationship would never have occurred to her. Abbi would never consider having an affair with anyone, married or otherwise and because of this she feels utterly wronged. Everyone, including her own family and friends blame her and they can’t understand or believe that she had no idea that Mack has another girlfriend, another life. The most difficult thing for Abbi though is that she’s in love with Mack. She saw a future for them which has now been destroyed. She’s heartbroken and suffering the pain and loss of a failed relationship, but has no one to speak to, no one to support her.

Mack’s side of the story is perhaps more difficult to understand and to empathise with. He’s in love with Jen. She’s perfect. They’re engaged, they’re happy and it has never occurred to him that they wouldn’t be together for the rest of their lives, and yet for no reason he can fathom, he enters into an affair with Abbi. He realises, too late, that he has risked everything.

Mack’s immediate loss and helplessness are apparent, but ultimately the story examines the long term and wider reaching consequences of his actions. The impact on Abbi and Jen, on Jen’s family and his own family and the loss they all experience.

Later, as the story concludes with a twist, it becomes apparent how much hurt he has caused and the monumental mess he’s made of everyone’s lives. Not only has the future life they all imagined for themselves been changed forever, but he has a child, who may never be a part of his life unless he can prove he will never make the same mistake again.

My hope is that the reader will connect with all the characters and in doing so, be faced with the dilemma as to where their sympathies lie and to ask themselves what they would do in a similar situation.

Kirsten lives in Scotland with her husband, two young children and the usual array of pets that seem to accompany small children. She studied science at Edinburgh University when dungarees were in fashion and Dexy’s Midnight Runners could still cut it with the young ones. She should have studied Art and English and blames her guidance teacher whose words ‘what career would you have?’ still wring in her ears.

http://www.austinmacauley.com/book/sorry-affair

#SynopsisThursday – 31 August 2017

This week MJ Goodman shares her work with The BTP community. Click on the Amazon link when you reach it and read the wonderful reviews.
Messages From The Soul is a diverse collection of eclectic heartfelt poems that explore the very stuff of our dreams and fantasies. It touches on our hopes, longings, losses and at its heart explores the universal truths of the human condition that is totally relatable to any reader.
I started writing poems about 15 years ago after a (now friend) therapist suggested I express my emotions through the written word.
Messages From The Soul was released on 31st July 2017 and has already received five star reviews on both Amazon in U.K. the USA and on the publishers website.
I love writing and that is something that will never leave me.

Bloodlust, The Shifting Sands of Home and These Foreign Fields are just a few of the poems included in the book and they are written just as the title indicates – Messages From The Soul.

Born in Stamford, Lincolnshire in the 70s, M.J Goodman has moved around in the UK and lived abroad with her service family. Finally in her twenties, she put down roots in Gloucestershire where she started her writing career as an absorbing hobby. She lives in Gloucester with her husband Peter.
Find MJ Goodman

24 August 2017 from Austin Macauley authors Deborah L Pearson and George Roberts

From Ten Down To Three

by George Roberts

In 1986, James collapses after a game of football at school. The cause is diagnosed as a tumour on the brain. Although treatment is successful, James will never be the footballer he was. The story of James continues on into his thirties as he falls in love, starts a family and becomes, in a modest way, a hero.

In From Ten Down to Three George Roberts examines fate as events happen in James’s life that leave him questioning whether things are meant to be or are simply coincidence. A phone call made in error lead to him finding love. A bang on the head reveals the presence of the tumour. Saving a young woman’s life leads to an unexpected encounter.

From Ten Down to Three is a delightful read full of wit and a dash of tragedy

Passage of Destiny

by Deborah L Pearson

Deborah_L_pearson@hotmail.co.uk

Two young people, will be inseparably linked through an amazing chain of events that will take them on an incredible journey of discovery, laced with intrigue, secrets and love plus an overflowing amount of adventure, visiting unimaginable places, encountering extraordinary creatures and terrifying horrors.

The book starts with both the birth of Melanie and the death of her parents James and Selemie; Melanie is left in the care of her adopted parents along with a bad tempered, black and white tom cat called Austin, who is no ordinary cat, but is in fact Melanie’s guardian, known as a watcher and turns out to be a shape shifting alien. She is eventually told the truth about her real parents and the special gifts she’d inherited from her mother, after a supposed chance meeting with a man called Vian and his two cousins Tarak and Raan. Eventually a romance blossoms between Melanie and Vian.

Vian and his cousins are here to escort Melanie back into the fold, with Austin’s help but to their surprise and utter disbelief they are introduced to Max, and sense almost immediately that Max was no ordinary friend. Max having been brought up in foster homes throughout his entire life trusts no one except Edna, his adopted grandmother who runs a boarding house. He had always sensed a deep rooted connection to Melanie after meeting her at Edna’s but he could never understand why, until it was much too late, from that moment on, his fate was sealed, and both they’re lives would never be the same again.

Max eventually makes an unlikely friend and ally in Raan the youngest and more powerful of the three visiting aliens, who loves everything earth has to offer, as all at once, Max and Melanie are their gradually drawn into friends’ world, but they do not go alone, as a host of friends go with them on this unforgettable journey: Lynnette, is a French born interpreter / translator, Sarah who has a degree in Theology but works as a model, and finally Edna, Max’s highly eccentric and downright unpredictable grandmother, who on a good day is described as the antichrists version of Miss Marple. Both Melanie and Max are eventually introduced to Taban, Melanie’s deceptively illusive and highly secretive uncle, who like Vian, Tarak and Raan are a race known as the Escenii, and it is from this moment that the story takes an unexpected journey, taking them to a serene picturesque alien world known as Munastas, where various shocking and upsetting secrets are revealed.

This is a modern day Science Fiction novel filled with everything you could wish for: Romance, intrigue, humour and kidnapping, and with it, a group of mad cap humans and aliens enjoy!

 

Thoughts of Time‘ An Anthology collection to absorb, revisit and enjoy. by Jenny Dunbar

In Summer Linen, Jenny Dunbar contrasts “The citrus hay days, apple dawn and wood warm,” against “the glass edged ice horn of the winter visitor who made old, hunched creatures of us all.’’

The poem highlights the main themes of the collection; the passing of time, and the sublime power and beauty of nature. With time comes memories; love, laughter, and contemplation echo through the poems. In, Last, Dunbar questions, “Where were you as the world tipped?

The city spewed. The last tree split.”…

Check out Jenny’s YouTube Trailer

Graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Jenny followed a career in the performing arts. Writing has always been part of her life and she now divides her time between the landscapes of Languedoc and Northamptonshire, both of which she finds conducive to her writing. This is her first poetry anthology. She has written three novels and is currently working on a trilogy of short stories.

Thoughts of Time is available on Amazon, Smashwords . . .

#SynopsisThursday is an opportunity for authors to tell the world about their books.

Here’s how it works.

You send a synopsis and link to your current or forthcoming book in 500 words (or less if you prefer), and I will present it here. In addition, I will promote the first one I receive each week (for seven days) on my social media accounts which are steadily growing.

No catches, that’s it, send a synopsis today.

Women Power

Somebody asked me who the strong characters in Beyond The Pyre are. Thoughts of the blacksmith Maréchal zipped through my mind but didn’t stay long because six women are undoubtably the strongest characters in the story.

Simply put, each of them knows how to manage and never runs for cover when the going gets tough and very difficult for some of them it does become.

Early in the story, Catharine’s Wicca interests and some of her knowledge is declared. Others too would be happy to be called wiccan but unfortunately in their own day, they had to be content keeping their interests quiet. There was more than enough ‘witch-hunting’ going on in their worlds without risking being called a witch on top of everything else.

To be continued . . .

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