Category: Letters from Elsewhere

Letters sent by fictional characters.

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Melissa

Letters from Elsewhere

Book Cover.

..

I’m delighted to be visited today by Melissa. I loved reading her story in Stella Hervey Birrell‘s novel, How Many Wrongs make a Mr Right? published by Crooked Cat.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dear Bella,

Letters from Elsewhere picture 1The wee one is napping on me and all I can reach is this piece of paper and a pen, so I thought I’d write and say hi. How are you? What’s new in Edinburgh? I miss it – I miss you!

I’ve been really tired: he keeps waking me up in the middle of the night, bad dreams. About his Daddy mostly. I don’t know what to say to him, but I can’t sleep with him in my bed either.

Then in the day time he’s into everything, every minute has to be filled with something: by the end of the day there’s playdough out and drying, pens scattered in a jumbled rainbow, cereal crunching under my feet. Sometimes I just shut the kitchen and the living room doors, and go straight to bed.

Letters from Elsewhere picture 2How’s the new flat? And what’s it like, finally living with Darren? You looked so happy together at the christening, thank you for coming and for the gift. Ornaments are all very well, but your Boots voucher will be much more useful and I’ll never have to dust it.

I’m sure I’m meant to be a grown-up now. I feel I’m just pretending to know what I’m doing, parenting this wee thing. I miss just hanging out at the pub. And going dancing, although I can’t imagine staying awake for long enough. You want to see him sleeping on my shoulder, you would never think he gets up to any mischief. I’ve got a dead arm now, where he’s sparked out on it. I don’t know whether I should let him sleep just now either: will he be awake at night again? I’m just making it up as I go along.

Letters from Elsewhere picture 3But maybe that’s all any of us does. And maybe it’s better to wing it; if I don’t have a plan, it doesn’t matter when it all goes wrong. Like yesterday, when we ‘had’ to do potato printing (his words), and there were no potatoes, no paint, we’d even run out of paper. Lots of wrongs. So we went to the shops, and I looked up how to make them, and we did it together, after arguing about whether I was going to let him use the sharp knife. Maybe I am getting it right, some of the time.

Letters from Elsewhere picture 4I hope potato prints and cereal and rainbows are enough. I love him and all that, but sometimes I’m just too tired to show it!

Come and visit soon?

Love,

MelissaSignature

.

.

.

Stella Says

17.11.2015. Stella Hervey Birrell.
Stella writing at home.

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to find out what happened to Melissa, all is revealed in How Many Wrongs make a Mr Right? which is available from UK Amazon US Amazon Kobo Nook and iBooks.

How to find me: please come and say ‘hi’ in one or more of these places.

 

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Sloane Harper

Letters from Elsewhere

Ten years on, today’s visitor, Sloane Harper, shares a letter to her daughter. Sloane is brought by Crooked Cat author, Astrid Arditi.

My darling Rose,

18 ! Such an important birthday…

You are now considered an adult even though to me, you’ll always be my sweet little girl with a maturity beyond her years. I can still feel your tiny arms wrapped around my neck, your baby smell in the morning when you slept in my bed.

And we did have many sleepovers, didn’t we? Sometimes I felt that you and your sister, sleeping peacefully close to me, were a life raft in the vast ocean that had become my bed when your dad left. You kept me anchored, saved me from drowning in despair.

I remember the smile you put bravely on when he left. For me. Pretending you were ok, shielding your little sister from what happened at home, always coming up with new games to amuse her. Your were so young and you must have felt it was so unfair.

I need you to believe me when I say I tried to keep our family whole for you, for Poppy. But sometimes things don’t turn out as we planned, another difficult lesson from adulthood you had to learn too early. Please remember though, sometimes the twists and turns of Fate happen for a good reason. Even when life looks bleak, there is sunshine beyond the clouds and holding onto hope will get you through the storm. I learned so many invaluable lessons after your father left me. About myself mostly. And I met Ethan, the love of my life. Never saw this one coming…

 

But I diverge, I’m not writing this letter to talk about my love story but instead yours. Or those that await you. You’re a woman now. Something else that took me by surprise. It was long coming but it still feels too soon.

As you step into womanhood, I can’t shield you from everything, no matter how much I wish I could. There will be heartbreaks, disillusions, lessons learned the hard way. These are all part of life and you shouldn’t shy away from them. If they happen, that means you’re trying, you’re trusting, you’re living your life to the fullest and I desire nothing else for you.

One thing you should remember always. Something I’d loved my mother had taught me.

You are wonderful. Qualities and flaws, you should embrace them all because they make you, YOU, and YOU are exceptional. I’m not saying you shouldn’t strive to better yourself, this is a life work, but never ever change for someone else, no matter how worthy you might find them. You are deserving of love, exactly as you are, and the men that will love you will be the luckiest. Don’t let anyone take you down or make you feel anything less than precious. Everyone woman is unique, extraordinary, strong.

To me you’re all this and more, because you’re my daughter, and the love I have for you is limitless.

I’ll be here to pick you up, kiss your tears, but will always send you back on your way. You needn’t be so serious anymore, your sister and I are ok. 

 

Live and bloom my sweet Rose, and a very happy birthday.

Love, always

Mom xx

About A Cunning Plan

Astrid Arditi - A Cunning PlanDetermined to put her family back together, Sloane Harper stalks her ex husband and his annoyingly stunning mistress, Kate. But she’s not the only one. Handsome IRS agent Ethan Cunning is surveying them too, but not for the same reasons. He is attempting to nail Kate’s playboy boss.

Ethan and Sloane decide to help each other, which sends Sloane’s wobbly life spinning out of control. She’ll have to face danger, humiliation, and scariest of all, the dating scene, to lure her daughters’ father home.

Losing control was the best thing to happen to Sloane… until it turned lethal.

Buy links:

About Astrid Arditi

Astrid ArditiAstrid Arditi was born from a French father and Swedish mother. She lived in Paris and Rome before moving to London with her husband and daughter back in 2013.

After dabbling in journalism, interning at Glamour magazine, and teaching kindergarten, Arditi returned to her first love: writing.

She now splits her time between raising her kids (a brand new baby boy just joined the family) and making up stories.

A Cunning Plan is Arditi’s first published work.

Contact Info:

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: David Klein

Letters from Elsewhere

Hindsight leads me to think that today’s guest is either exceptionally brave or plain stupid. But it’s only 1940. David Klein doesn’t know what we know today.

Letter from David Klein – war journalist – to Adolf Hitler 1940
(translated from the original German to English)

Lieber Herr Hitler!

I understand that the racial policy of Nazi Germany is based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, based on scientific legitimacy.

I am very keen to know, Herr Hitler:  did you ever study Genealogy?

Having recently returned from Germany, I am very interested in your family background.  I understand that your father, Alois, was born in 1837 but was registered as an illegitimate child with no father’s name listed. I know that your grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber (‘sump digger’ in English), worked in the home of a wealthy Jewish family, so could it be that a son in that household got your grandmother pregnant?

In case you didn’t see it in 1933, the London Daily Mirror published a picture of a gravestone in a Jewish cemetery in Bucharest inscribed with some Hebrew characters and the name Hitler. Now I come to think of it, you must have heard this story because clearly you were worried enough to change the Nazi law defining Jewishness to exclude Jesus Christ and yourself! Re the former: you obviously didn’t want to alienate the good Christian society by even suggesting that their Lord could have been ‘tainted’ in any way by not being of Aryan descent. Was Jesus Christ then not born Jewish? What of Joseph and Mary, his parents? 

This leads me to ask: if Christ’s birth-religion is denied in Nazi law, what of your own? Since returning to England, I have attempted to study your Nazi law on this very topic but am confused. According to your rules, who exactly is defined as a Jew? Just the other day I read in a Nazi paper that anything from full Jewish background to 1⁄8 Jewish blood defines a Jew;  other German papers, apparently in total panic, urged 1⁄16 Jewish blood. Finally, I read that the decision was made for three or four Jewish grandparents to define Jewishness; two or one rendered a person a Mischlinge (someone with both Aryan and Jewish blood.)  Can I repeat that Herr Hitler?  One Jewish grandparent renders a person a Mischlinge.  When will you, yourself, then, be reporting for the next train to the nearest ghetto or concentration camp?

Yours most sincerely,

David Klein

LamplightNote from Olga Swan, May 2016

In 2010, the British paper The Daily Telegraph reported that a study had been conducted in which saliva samples were collected from 39 of Hitler’s known relatives to test their DNA origins and found that Hitler may have had Jewish origins. The paper reported: “A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b1b1 which showed up in [the Hitler] samples is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews … Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 per cent to 30 per cent of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.

About Olga Swan’s books

VichyssoiseVichyssoise – Book 2 in the David Klein war-reporter series, set in Vichy France, now available to buy from wherever you live: http://www.authl.it/52l

Lamplight – Book 1 in the David Klein war-reporter series – now available to buy from wherever you live: www.authl.it/4q0

3rd Degree Murder available to buy: http://authl.it/4ia

Or check out Olga’s amazon page: www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B013IBD4PU

Also, check out Gillian’s amazon page for her children’s literature. A great gift for them: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B013IDLQ4O

Read her weekly Sunday blog about life in France, and her occasional Wednesday blog about international writing: olgaswan.blogspot.com

 

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Leon Cazador

Letters from Elsewhere

Nik Morton introduces my guest today – another fascinating individual.

In the middle of 2005, I received a communication from a Spanish man, Leon Cazador. He wrote in English and this is it.

Dear Mr Morton

Forgive me for approaching you like this, but I was intrigued by your book Pain Wears No Mask, which is purportedly a novel. Yet the first person narrative suggests otherwise. I thought you captured the voice of Sister Rose perfectly. I feel you could do the same for me, too.

         Let me begin by saying that my allegiance is split because I’m half-English and half-Spanish. Mother had a whirlwind romance with a Spanish waiter but happily it didn’t end when the holiday was over. The waiter pursued her to England and they were married.

         I was born in Spain and I have a married sister, Pilar, and an older brother, Juan, who is an officer in the Guardia Civil. You may wonder why I am contacting you. Well, I am a private investigator and sometimes I operate in disguise under several aliases, among them Carlos Ortiz Santos, my little tribute to the fabled fictional character, Simon Templar.

         As a consequence of dealing with the authorities and criminals, I have observed in my two home countries the gradual deterioration of effective law enforcement and the disintegration of respect. My name translated into English is ‘Lion Hunter’. The Spanish sounds less pretentious, I think.

         When I was growing up in England, I never imagined there would be no-go areas in those great cities, places where the shadow of light falls on streets and minds. At weekends, some sections of many towns seem to be under siege.

         Now that I have returned to live in Spain, I find that it is not so bad here, though I must admits that there have been many changes over the last thirty years, most of them good, yet some to be deplored. It is heartening to see that family cohesion is still strong in most areas, but even that age-old stability is under threat. Yet, some urbanizaciones more resemble towns on the frontier of the Old West, where mayors can be bought, where lawlessness is endemic and civilised behaviour has barely a foothold. Even so, most nights you can walk the streets and feel safe here in Spain.

         As Spain’s conscription didn’t cease until 2001, I decided to jump rather than be pushed and joined the Army, graduating as an Artillery Lieutenant. About a year later, I joined the Spanish Foreign Legion’s Special Operations Company (Bandera de operaciones especiales de la legión) and was trained in the United States at Fort Bragg, where I built up my knowledge about clandestine activities and weapons. Some months afterwards, I was recruited into the CESID (Centro Superior de Informacion de la Defensa), which later became the CNI (Centro Nacional de Inteligencia). Unlike most Western democracies, Spain runs a single intelligence organisation to handle both domestic and foreign risks.

         I am one of those fortunate individuals capable of learning a foreign language with ease: I grew up bilingual, speaking English and Spanish, and soon learned Portuguese, French, German, Arabic, Chinese, and basic Japanese. Part of my intelligence gathering entailed my transfer to the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. There, I met several useful contacts in the intelligence community, and at the close of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan I embarked on a number of secret missions to that blighted land with CIA operatives. By the time the Soviet withdrawal was a reality, I was transferred to the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo, liaising with both intelligence and police organisations. Secret work followed in China, the Gulf and Yugoslavia.

         A year after witnessing the atrocity of the Twin Towers while stationed with the United Nations, I returned to civilian life and set up a private investigation firm. During periods of leave and while stationed in Spain, I established a useful network of contacts in law enforcement, notably the Guardia Civil. One of my early cases resulted in me becoming financially set for life, so now I conduct my crusade against villains of all shades, and in the process attempt to save the unwary from the clutches of conmen, rogues and crooks.

         To begin with, I would like to relate to you several of my private eye cases, changing names as appropriate, of course. Perhaps at a later date I might be able to go into some detail about certain clandestine operations. Would you be interested in meeting me with a view to writing about these cases as fiction ‘in my own words’?

         I remain,

         Yours truly

         Leon Cazador

Sadly, Pain Wears No Mask is out of print now. Needless to say, I couldn’t miss the meeting. Señor Cazador is a remarkable individual and I have since transcribed 22 of his cases in the collection Spanish Eye. He also appears in the ‘Avenging Cat’ novels, Catalyst and Catacomb. He continues to supply me with information that I am gathering for additional short stories and at least one novel.

Bio

NikMortonNik Morton has been writing for over 50 years. He has sold over 120 short stories, even more articles, and had 21 books published in several genres. His latest publications are the second and third novels in the ‘Avenging Cat’ series, Catacomb and Cataclysm from Crooked Cat.

 

Spanish Eye

Spanish Eye.

…These stories are humorous, insightful and sometimes tragic. Leon Cazador is not afraid to bring the bad men to justice, and so help to restore the balance in this world. Beautifully written with a simple and uncluttered style which draws you in to the heart of the story. Highly recommended!

– Laura Graham, actress, author of Down a Tuscan Alley

 …While reading these exciting stories I experienced a myriad of emotions. I laughed, cried, and became incensed. I cheered and clapped, but most of all I felt a confirmation of universal values.

– E.B. Sullivan, author of Different Hearts

Nik’s LinksCATACLYSM COVER

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Michael and Rose

Letters from ElsewhereSorry this post is late. To make up for it, I have two guests today, writing to each other.

February 1916

Dear Rose,

How ignorant we were. We thought we were so clever. We’ve been on the move such a lot but we marched in to this village to join the hardened troops at last. So full of optimism were we. Despite minor incidents and losing one or two brave fellows we are, at last, nearing the thick of it.

Stupidly we marched in broad day light with bands playing and officers astride horses. Jerry let us have it and one Captain was thrown clean across the road. I won’t go into too much detail, Rose, but suffice it to say that we were lucky so many of the shells were duds. There could have been carnage. We are still amateurs at this but learning fast.

One youngster is doing a field punishment No.1 for falling out of the march in without permission. Now he is tied by his wrists to the wheel of a travelling field kitchen with his arms out-stretched. He is crying and his nose is running. Rose it is like a crucifixion. It’s so horrible. He argued with the CO which didn’t help his cause. I said I needed to discipline my men but I can’t accept this is a positive image for them. It generates fear not respect.

Perhaps I should not be telling you these things. If you would rather I didn’t, please say. It helps me to unburden my thoughts and I sense you have the strength to understand, Rose. I cannot write thus to my mother. In the main I am doing my brave duty for King and Country and other times are quiet and dull.

When next you write, tell me of the countryside around our home with your artist’s eye. Describe the scents and sounds in the lane. Let me know of your work at Lady Margaret’s and tell me what interests you, dear Rose. Everything is brown and grey here. Your letters cheer me and let me know all is well in the world somewhere.

Your friend,

Michael

March 1916

Dear Michael,

I was so pleased to receive your letter but I hope sincerely that you take no unnecessary risk whilst doing your duty, of which you can be very proud. Please tell me the truth of what you are doing, though and how you feel. I am not your mother who needs protecting from truths, nor your sweetheart for whom you need to sound brave and courageous. I am your good friend and I have strength to help you shoulder whatever this war sends you.

I have included this tiny talisman. He is a ‘Fumsup Touch Wud’. As you see his little arms raise to touch his wooden head. If you look closely he has a four-leaved clover on his forehead and the words ‘Touch Wud’ on the back of his head. The wings on his ankles are to speed you home with safety. He is yours for the duration.

The weather here is cold and grey but I wrapped up and walked along the lane to the little shop for Mama. The fields are many shades of brown with just one here and there full of tiny green shoots of promise. I imagine it is winter wheat or barley but it heralds the spring which surely will come.

I heard and owl last night. It was a female calling as it seemed to say t-wit and not t-woo. It kept me awake for a while and I lay wondering about you and what you are doing. Do you ever hear a bird sing in your grey landscape?

I am sure you want to know that Delphi is well and so is Izzy. Our life has not changed significantly. We sew and knit for our boys abroad. Delphi is involved in a local group who bake each week and the proceeds of their labours are sent to France, to our own Manchester lads. Perhaps you will receive a box from them soon.

Keep safe, Michael. God bless you and your chums.

Your good friend,

Rose

About Flowers of Flanders

Flowers of Flanders Cover SMALL AVATARThis drama is set before and during the First World War.

Rose rivals her beautiful, mercurial sister for Michael’s love but calculated lies and misunderstandings alter the young peoples’ course. War breaks out and Michael is as eager as the others to go. Maybe Rose will settle for second best with Thom even though she cannot get Michael out of her soul. Does a man need the grace of serenity to rediscover his own or is it frivolity and seduction he craves when he has been through the darkest places of war? Michael’s experiences in the trenches gradually alter his perceptions.

This is a story about deceit and loyalties, complex relationships and loves developing from youth to adulthood during a cataclysmic time in history.

Flowers of Flanders on Amazon.

About Ros Rendle

RosHaving worked as a head teacher, Ros has been used to writing policy documents, essays and stories to which young children enjoyed listening. Now she has taken up the much greater challenge of writing fiction for adults. She writes both historical sagas and contemporary romance; perfect for lying by a warm summer pool or curling up with on a cosy sofa. Her books are thoroughly and accurately researched. Flowers of Flanders is her third book.

Ros is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Historical Novelists’ Society.

She has lived in France for ten years but has recently moved back to the UK with her husband and dogs. Ros has two daughters and four grand-daughters, with whom she shares many heartwarming activities.

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Lillian

Letters from Elsewhere

My guest today, Lillian, has spent long years trying to come to terms with her childhood. By doing so, she has learned something about herself.

I loved you, Mother. I tried for my entire adult life to deny that fact. In the end, I had to admit it.

Forgiving you was different. That was impossible.

You denied me the security and refuge every child should have from a mother. You denied me a sense of safety for all of my childhood and teenaged years. I was so afraid of you I couldn’t breathe in your presence. One day you were soft, warm and loving; the next heartless and cruel. You would tell me lies that you insisted I accept as truth…until I believed they were the truth.

Bipolar, psychotic madness. How does a child understand that? She doesn’t. She grows up believing that it is her fault…that she is the cause of her mother’s unhappiness.

Poor, Daddy; he did try to protect me, especially that last night I lived in your house. But you broke his arm in as many pieces as you had broken his spirit. And you almost killed me.

You didn’t take my life, but you took much away from me. You took my confidence. You took my ability to feel. You took my home. You took my child…my son.

It was Ann who made me face your mental illness. My cousin told me how she had found her mother’s and our grandparents’ lack of protection inexcusable; and yet, she came to understand that they, too, were victims. Not so much of your abuse, but victims of loving you so much that they couldn’t fight you. I imagine that was true of my father, too. They told Ann that you loved me, that it would have been wrong for them to take me away from you, even though they knew they should have.

Am I supposed to accept that? Am I supposed to understand that it was easier for them to watch me be hurt by you than for them to hurt you? Yes or no, that is what I have done. I forgave them long ago. They loved the woman you were when you were well, the woman I had glimpsed from time to time.

My beautiful, dying cousin brought me home, to the house where you were born, and where all the women in our family were born before you, to the only place I ever felt kindness and comfort, and she helped me to see the life I could have, to accept if not understand, and to open my heart—a heart that had slammed shut that night you almost killed me. Whenever I look into the faces of her beloved children, I feel my heart opening…slowly, gently, but not completely. I am afraid.

I have been told that until I forgive you, I will never be able to love the way I should love, I will never have a sacred heart. I have been told that until I forgive myself, I will always have a wounded heart. I raged against that. I hated the man who said it. I see now he was right. All these years I have been as angry at myself as I have been at you, blaming myself for you…for your behavior…for you not loving me.

I want to love. I want a sacred heart. I have reasons to love now.

I stand perched on the edge of this canal, listening to the ghost-voices of the canal boat captains, the mule drivers, and the ancestors who lived, worked, loved…forgave…on this homestead. I listen to the women who also stood on this velvety berm for two hundred years, their stories told in their letters and journals in the attic—some ill, some unhappy, some needing forgiveness. Their stories—your story…Ann’s story…my story—giving me strength and hope.

I raise my wounded heart, bathed in the tears of an ancient willow tree, and I forgive you. I forgive myself.

I love you.

Lillian

Marie_Murphy_Duess_books

About Tears of the Willow

The guarded and wounded Lillian, who at first believes that she has no capacity for truly loving anyone, learns that she has a depth of love that knows no end. Through her new life at Willow Wood, her family’s ancestral home on the banks of the Delaware Canal in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, she is forced to address her past at the hands of a mother who abused her, a father who didn’t protect her, and the child she had been—the child she had convinced herself caused her mother’s illness.

About Marie Murphy Duess

Marie_Murphy_Duess_headshotMarie Murphy Duess is the author of the novels Holding Silk, Ashley Hall, Tears of the Willow, and two nonfiction history books, Colonial Inns and Taverns of Bucks County and The Delaware Canal, From Stone Coal Highway to Historic Landmark (The History Press). She also authored the true story titled Joshua’s Ring.

She conducts and develops creative writing workshops, motivational presentations, and lectures for colleges, historical societies, and writing organizations. She also served as a photojournalist covering a medical mission to refugee camps in Bosnia-Herzegovina for a humanitarian aid organization. She is a member of the International Women’s Writing Guild, Independent Book Publishers Association, History Novel Society, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.

Find Marie on:

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Káta

Letters from Elsewhere

Káta, my guest today – brought by Annie Whitehead, is the Lady of a small manor in 10th Century Mercia. Despite her name change, she is a real person, mentioned in the footnotes of history as the widow Eadflaed, who was deprived of her lands after Alvar (Aelfhere), Earl of Mercia, died. Here she writes a letter, voicing Woman’s lament.

My Love,

Whenever the men are away, it is left to us women to keep the households running. We weave, we milk, we cook, we store. We dye our cloth with colours drawn from plants like madder root and we grind the corn by hand by turning quernstones. And we labour; in the fields, and in childbirth. Reports only reached you many months later, of the terrible events that day. For a while, you believed me dead.

And so you came to me last night, and I’m sure I saw the relief on your face. You stopped on the path and you stared, as if wanting to make sure that I really was alive. You couldn’t stay long, I knew it. Your overlord was dead, you were to be his successor and there was work to be done before the next campaign. What could I do but introduce you to the boy, be grateful for the chance to see you, however briefly, before you left and took my heart away with you once more?

AlvarTheKingmakerYou talked to me about King Edgar, how he is married now to the beautiful widow whom he coveted even while she was wed to another. They consecrated her too, so she is a true Queen. She must be happy, and yet you say she is not. And whenever you speak of her sad beauty, my hands turn into envious balls. I cannot help it my love, but I sometimes wish I could knock her out of our lives, even though I have never met her.

Were you unsure, when you arrived back at the house last night? Did you wonder what I was thinking? I shall tell you. I had not seen you since I became a mother and my life became complete. When I told you I was pregnant, I recall being angry that you seemed not to care. But it should not have mattered to me whether you held any opinion, because the happy tidings made my life with my husband all the more rewarding. Yet, by telling you, I closed a door without ever knowing if you wished to step through it. Why should I ever have wished to leave that door open? I have been a married woman since before you burst into my life, so why, last night, did I, a happily married mother, find my stomach turning circles much as it did when the early flutters of pregnancy had first stirred in there?

Now you have gone away again. There can never be anything between us; we both know it. I love my husband, for we Anglo-Saxon women are free to choose when and whom we wed. Even had I not been devoted to him, we both know that you and he are hearth-companions, you fight side by side. You would no more betray him and break that bond than I would.

Am I a woman of my time? Or do all women keep such secrets in their hearts? All I know is that I must work, and wait, and hope that all whom I love come home safe from the wars.

BIO

AnnieWhiteheadAnnie Whitehead is a history graduate who now works as an Early Years music teacher. Her first novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016. Her new release, Alvar the Kingmaker, which tells the story of Aelfhere of Mercia, is available now. She is currently working on the novel which was a prize-winning entry in the Mail on Sunday Novel Writing competition and which she was encouraged by judge Fay Weldon to complete.

Book Links

Author Links

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Ally

Letters from Elsewhere

My visitor today is… well… I think I’ll leave it to Jennifer Young to introduce him.

Dear Reader

How strange it is to be writing a letter. We don’t do that any more.

We do all sorts of things instead. We use texts and we use Facebook messenger. If we’re feeling particularly in-your-face we might go public with our communications. (Twitter works particularly effectively in getting a prompt response from customer service, and even government, departments, or so I’ve learned.) But for all that buzz of digital information, digital communication and digital tracking, there’s still a place for letters.

You’ll be thinking love letters, or I imagine you will. And indeed, there’s little more moving than a thoughtfully-written note to cry out that it’s for your eyes only (perhaps with a few judicious crossings-out, with like changed to love). After all, nobody ties up their texts with ribbon and keeps them in a shoebox with a pressed flower for future generations to discover.

But there’s another type of communication that only really resonates by letter. My book, Looking For Charlotte, begins with one such — and ends with one, too. It’s the antithesis of a love letter. It’s a suicide note — and a confession.

Dear Suzanne

I’m sorry.  I couldn’t help it. I know why I did it though – I did it because of all the things you did to me and the way you ruined my life. I did it because you never trusted me and you never tried to understand, because everything was black and I couldn’t see anything – light, hope, luck. 

I don’t hate you now.

She didn’t suffer. She was asleep and she never knew. I took her out into the sunshine and I buried her where she can be in peace, with the birds and the moors and the wide wide sky. She’s at home in Scotland.  And if she’s lonely she can see people, there are a couple of houses. There’s a big glass house and one with a rusty old car and there’s lots and lots of blue. She loved blue. You do too, don’t you?

I never realised that revenge makes you cold and dead inside.

Suzanne, I’m sorry. I know it’s too late now.  Poor little Charlie.  But I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.

Ally

Looking For Charlotte is a mystery-cum-romance based upon a true story. It combines love and loss and redemption as my heroine, Flora, sets out to find the body of little Charlotte Anderson so that Charlotte’s mother, Suzanne, can begin to pick up her life and start again. She has no connection with Charlotte or her family — she’s motivated by a desire to do good. And it begins with a letter.

It ends with a letter, too — a note from Suzanne to her late husband. Because there are some things that can only be communicated via pen and paper, even when we’re talking to the dead.

I love letters. Long may they drop through your letterbox

Jennifer

About Looking For Charlotte

Looking_For_Charlotte_by_Jennifer_Young_500Divorced and lonely, Flora Wilson is distraught when she hears news of the death of little Charlotte Anderson.

Charlotte’s father killed her and then himself, and although he left a letter with clues to the whereabouts of her grave, his two-year-old daughter still hasn’t been found.

Flora embarks on a quest to find Charlotte’s body to give the child’s mother closure, believing that by doing so she can somehow atone for her own failings as a mother.

As she hunts in winter through the remote moors of the Scottish Highlands, her obsession comes to threaten everything that’s important to her — her job, her friendship with her colleague Philip Metcalfe and her relationships with her three grown up children.

Looking For Charlotte is available from Tirgearr Publishing.

About Jennifer Young

With my morning cuppaJennifer Young is an Edinburgh-based writer and copywriter. She is interested in a wide range of subjects and writing media, perhaps reflecting the fact that she has both arts and science degrees. Jennifer has been writing fiction, including romantic fiction, for a number of years with several short stories already published. Looking For Charlotte, her third published novel, is inspired by a true story of loss and goodness, and is set in the beautiful but bleak Scottish highlands.

You can find Jennifer on:

***

So now you know: my visitor, Ally, is dead.

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Andy Davies

Letters from Elsewhere

Today’s visitor doesn’t even have a name in the novel he comes from: Free to be Tegan by Mary Grand. I’m so glad he has one now and delighted that he’s agreed to share such a beautiful letter, written to Tegan by a stranger on a train.

Dear “woman on the train”,

My name is Andy Davies. I am an art teacher and I am the man who sat next to you on the Birmingham train last March 1st. You might remember me as the man who embarrassed you by buying you a cup of coffee!

This letter is a confession. As I mentioned, I am an artist. What you have never known is that as soon as you left the train I drew a picture of you. You see your appearance was so extraordinary, not just your clothes but your whole demeanour. I had to capture you on paper. You were sat stiffly next to me trying not to let our arms touch.  Your body was tightly bound; legs squeezed together, arms jammed against your body. One red sore hand was clutching a horrible fake leather handbag and you were gnawing the thumb of the other. Your face was make-up-less, tiny, and lost behind old fashioned tortoiseshell glasses. Most notable was the large plain headscarf which covered most of your head; only a fringe of black hair dared peeked out underneath. You were so fragile and thin. I drew you wearing that extraordinary silver locket I’d seen you take from an envelope. It was very unusual, quite heavy, in the shape of a wheel, decorated with continuous Celtic knots that wrapped all around its circumference. You wore no other jewellery and I was aware that you struggled putting it on but instinctively knew you’d have hated me helping.

It was a good drawing, special even; I had caught you at a very vulnerable moment in your life.  Now the thing is, most people love having their picture drawn or painted. However even as I was drawing I felt guilty because I am sure you are not one of those people. In my head I promised that when I got back to the studio I would destroy the picture .

Now for my real confession. You see, I didn’t destroy the picture straight away. I took it back to the studio and worked on it.  It was good, really good; everyone who came into the studio seemed to be drawn to it.

Well last week I finished the picture and I was asked to exhibit it. Now this sounds crazy but I sat on my own with your portrait and asked you what I should do. Something terrible happened. You didn’t speak but you just cried. You didn’t tell me how, but I am sure you have been badly abused in some way. I have no right to exploit that.

This letter, with the picture, is about to be burnt.  I do hope from the bottom of my heart that one day you heal, find love and then you will be happy for an artist to paint the beautiful, lovely woman you are.

From the embarrassing man on the train, Andy.

Isn’t that beautiful? I reviewed the novel here. I loved reading it and hope you will, too.

About Free to Be Tegan

FreeToBeTegan-MaryGrand-Resized‘You are dead to us.’

Tegan, aged twenty seven, is cast out of the cult, rejected by her family and the only life she has known. She is vulnerable and naïve but she also has courage and the will to survive. She travels to Wales, to previously unknown relations in the wild Cambrian Mountains.

This is the uplifting story of her journey to find herself and flourish in a world she has been taught to fear and abhor.

Guilt and shadows from her past haunt her in flashbacks, panic attacks and a fear of the dark. However she also finds a world full of colour, love and happiness she has never known before. The wild beauty of the hills, the people she meets and the secrets slowly revealed by the cottage all provide an intriguing backdrop to Tegan’s drama.

The novel is set in spring, a story of hope, new growth, of the discovery of self and the joy of living.

Free to Be Tegan is available on:

About Mary Grand

Mary GrandMary Grand was born in Cardiff and has retained a deep love for her Welsh roots. She worked as a nursery teacher in London and later taught deaf children in Croydon and Hastings. She now lives with her husband on the beautiful Isle of Wight, where she walks her cocker spaniel Pepper and writes. She has two grown up children.
Free to Be Tegan was her debut novel. It is to be the first of a series of novels set in Wales. The second will be set on the spectacular Gower Peninsula. She has also published a short book of short stories: Catching the Light.

Mary adds: “Do send feedback to me at marygrand90@yahoo.co.uk”

Categories
Books Letters from Elsewhere

Letters from Elsewhere: Maria

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Letters from Elsewhere

Today I welcome Maria, who has stepped out of the pages of The Infinity Pool by Jessica Norrie to share her letter to Anna. MARIA is a young girl living in a traditional village on a beautiful European island, where her parents run a café located near the site of a rather unconventional holiday settlement.  Anna is an older, more sophisticated distant relation who lives in the city.

Dear Anna

I’m writing to ask if I can come and stay with you if things go wrong. I’m actually incredibly happy! But I can’t tell my family about it, and my friends here wouldn’t understand, so it feels fragile, and my instinct is to set up an escape route. I’m a bit sick of working in the café, as well.

Do you remember that odd place on the road going west from here? Where rich people come for those weird holidays? We may have driven past it when you were visiting, though we usually go the other way towards the port. They stay in little wooden huts and all eat together at huge tables and it looks so uncomfortable. We’ve always wondered why people want to holiday there, with no air con, no bathrooms or even windows. I wasn’t allowed near it when I was little, and never understood why until one day we saw a man and a woman in the woods together, with no clothes on. You know what I mean. I know what they were doing now, but I didn’t then. Since then I often see them sort of waving their arms about and chanting or just singing a very low note over and over again. Some are quite fit: they do head stands and turn cartwheels and sit for hours like those Indian gods we saw at the exhibition that time I stayed with you. The only time we see them in the village is when they get stung by sea urchins and come limping in to look for remedies. Stupid people – they should just use their eyes better in the first place. They always seem so sad too – you quite often hear them crying or sort of wailing and howling. So odd. They say they’re looking for wisdom but they can’t see the simple things. Anyway if they were wise, my father says they wouldn’t be forever lighting candles. It’s crazy: with no rain for two months, the forest is like a tinderbox.  We’re all on fire alert.

So why am I going on about them? Well, a few days ago the boss from there came in for a drink and we got chatting. He’s really nice! He talked about his work, and invited me for a proper look.  It didn’t seem nearly so peculiar when he explained it all and you know what? It was so different to have a conversation like that with a man. He was interested in what I said, took my opinions seriously, and made me see things in a different light, somehow. Gradually I began to understand what they’re trying to achieve – it’s a kind of inner peace and helping people develop. It must be a refreshing kind of job, not like my life of just staying on the island and never learning anything new. He has lovely eyes that smile when he talks. He must be much older, but he doesn’t dress or behave like the older men I know. He doesn’t boss me, or say I can’t do things. In fact we – well, it’s wonderful, that’s all. I feel alive, like my body and my feelings are singing. I thought I’d feel somehow dirty or guilty when that happened, but it was close and warm. Now I just want it to happen again and again! Maybe he’ll take me to London – that’s where he lives most of the year. It honestly doesn’t seem to matter that we’re such different ages, or that he can’t speak my language – and my English is improving all the time. We lie on the pine needles and he teaches me so many things. I never thought my life would take this turn. It’s a brilliant surprise!

But I do have to keep it secret. When I go there I have to pretend I’m asking about a job; the only island people there are cleaners, gardeners and cooks. Everything seems very relaxed but underneath it’s two separate cultures. If my family found out they’d be furious. I can’t imagine them liking Adrian (that’s his name). He teaches happiness! To all these groups of wrinkly women in swimsuits, and then, by ourselves, to me. I don’t think the old English women (they’re mostly English) like me much either. They’re always smirking at him, trying for his attention, and he’s more interested in me! Well of course he is. He must be as much in love with me as I am with him – look, I’ve said it. That’s why I may want your flat as an escape route, if we need to get away together. Maybe he’ll ask me to marry him! If he does I promise you can be my wedding attendant. Stuff what the family thinks!

Must stop as it’s time to open the bar. I think he might drop in tonight. Oh it’s so hard to hide how we feel about each other, though he’s much cleverer at it than I am… I’ll let you know what happens next.

Much love

Maria

About The Infinity Pool

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

In this thoughtful novel set on a sun-baked island, Adrian Hartman, the charismatic director of the Serendipity holiday community, is responsible for ensuring the perfect mindful break, with personal growth and inner peace guaranteed. People return year after year to bare their souls. For some, Adrian is Serendipity.

But Adrian disappears, and with him goes the serenity of his staff and guests, who are bewildered without their leader. The hostility of the local villagers is beginning to boil over. Is their anger justified or are the visitors, each in a different way, just paranoid?

As romance turns sour and conflict threatens the stability of both communities, everyone has to find their own way to survive. This evocative story explores the decisions of adults who still need to come of age, the effect of well-intentioned tourism on a traditional community, and the real meaning of getting away from it all.

Published on Kindle Direct Publishing July 15th 2015 and in POD paperback July 29th 2015. No 1 in Australian Literary Fiction and Hot New releases September 2015!

Links to The Infinity Pool:

About Jessica

Jessica Norrie author photoJessica Norrie was born in London and studied French Literature at the University of Sussex and Education at the University of Sheffield. She taught in Paris and Dijon, and in the UK has taught English, French and Spanish to age groups from 5 to 80 in almost every educational setting possible.

She took a break from teaching when her two children were small, to study for and work as a freelance translator. She has also published occasional journalism and collaborated on a Primary French textbook (Célébrons les Fêtes, with Jan Lewandowski, Scholastic 2009).

Jessica sings soprano with the Hackney Singers, and wherever else she gets the chance in the UK and abroad. Less publicly, she plays the piano – slow pieces suit her best as she needs lots of time to figure out the chords.

She is fascinated by languages and has worked hard to make language learning approachable and fun even for the most nervous students.  But having always read voraciously, she would now prefer to concentrate on writing. “The Infinity Pool” is her first novel, drawing on many years of travel and encounters, and she already has several ideas for another.

Find Jessica on:

Jessica adds

I do have several free promo codes for Audio book reviews on Audible.com and Audible.uk if anyone would be interested, and of course am always happy to receive reviews anywhere else.