I am excited to share an extract today ~ thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for organizing.
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Genre: Domestic Thriller
Estimated Page Count: 300
Standalone Novel
Author Content Warning: Suicide, miscarriage.
Context:
This is set in the present day. Three years on from the tragic death of his wife, Seamus Monaghan is trying to move on with his life. He has a new fiancée, Andrea who is expecting their twins, and his brother Dominic is hosting an expensive dinner party at a local restaurant to celebrate Seamus’ thirtieth birthday.
Unfortunately, nature has other ideas and a dreadful storm has hit the area, knocking out the electricity, causing the meal to be abandoned.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the valley…
Extract:
Maurice Seacombe peered through the windscreen of his elderly Subaru, the headlights barely cutting through the pounding rain. Another flash of lightning left coloured spots dancing in his vision. Beside him, his wife shifted in her seat.
“Slow down, Maurice,” she said. He ignored her, concentrating on the road ahead. His daughter had offered them her spare room for the night, but Winnie was hosting tomorrow’s Macmillan coffee morning and she wanted to get up early to do some more baking. He should have put his foot down and insisted they stay. But after forty years of marriage, he’d learned to pick his battles.
“You’re going too fast,” she said, as if a lifetime of knitting in the passenger seat had somehow made her an authority.
“Do you want to drive?” he asked, glaring at her.
“Look out!”
Snapping his attention back to the road, he hit the brakes, feeling the wheels lock and the car start to slide.
He caught a brief glimpse of the woman’s face as she tumbled down the embankment, and then she was gone.
Wrestling with the wheel, he felt the drumming through the brake pedal as the car’s ABS fought for grip on the slick tarmac, before they finally came to a scraping, juddering halt, resting against the crash barrier.
He let out a deep breath.
“Are you OK?” he asked, turning to his wife.
She pointed at the huge crack in the windscreen, her voice a whisper. “I think you hit someone.”
Book blurb:
The Fire. The Fallout. The Aftermath.
Seamus Monaghan is still haunted by the unexplained fire that killed his vibrant but troubled wife, Carole, three years ago. Why was she taken from him in such a horrific way?
Dominic has protected his brother, Seamus, since they were orphaned as young boys. But is that bond strong enough to survive the fallout from the fire?
Andrea loves her fiancé Seamus, but will the fire’s aftermath destroy their future together?
Time moves on, but can the embers of the past ever be truly extinguished?
Purchase Link – https://amzn.to/3y5HcJZ
Author Bio –
Paul Gitsham started his career as a biologist, working in such exotic locales as Manchester and Toronto. After stints as the world’s most over-qualified receptionist and a spell making sure that international terrorists and other ne’er do wells hadn’t opened a Junior Savings Account at a major UK bank (a job even less exciting than being a receptionist) he retrained as a Science Teacher. He now spends his time passing on his bad habits and sloppy lab-skills to the next generation of enquiring minds.
Paul has always wanted to be a writer and his final report on leaving primary school predicted he’d be the next Roald Dahl! For the sake of balance it should be pointed out that it also said “he’ll never get anywhere in life if his handwriting doesn’t improve”. Twenty five years later and his handwriting is worse than ever but millions of children around the world love him.*
*This is a lie, just ask any of the pupils he has taught.
Social Media Links –
Facebook www.facebook.com/dcijones
Twitter/X @dcijoneswriter
Instagram @paulgitsham
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