Tag: Books

Redemption

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excerpt

It seemed that the dean had learned this
speech by heart and repeated it like a parrot, irrelevant what was the
country’s current situation.
Hermes sat next to Eleni, feeling bored and angry: under the
junta, things were not good at all, and they wouldn’t get any better
any time soon; and the graduates were not going to do better than
the previous ones. If nothing was done, things were only going to
get worse. Hermes tried very hard to be attentive, and when his name
was called, he got up and walked slowly to the dean, who smiled and
shook his hand before handing him the “holy” paper.
Hermes nodded his head and smiled politely at the dean and
the rest of the officials, as well as his professors. Deep inside him,
Hermes felt the urge to stand up in front of them and give them a
real piece of his mind, but he knew it was not his time yet, so he went
back to his seat. His head throbbed from the tension, which Eleni
sensed as she also sensed that he was absorbed in his own world, so
she asked,
“Are you okay? You look like you don’t like being here.”
“I have this bad headache. My head is really hurting.”
“This thing is just about over. We’ll go soon.”
He nodded, and indeed the ceremony was quickly over, and
the people started to disperse. He and Eleni rose from their seats and
walked toward the exit.
At the door, George, a clerk from the secretary’s office, stopped
them.
“Again, congratulations, young man,” he said to Hermes.
“Oh, thank you, George.”
“The dean would like to see you before you go.”
Surprised, Hermes left Eleni and followed the secretary in the
long hallway to the dean’s office. He knocked at the door and entered.
The head of the university welcomed him and praised him for all the
good work he had done. After all, Hermes was the student with the
highest marks in his class.
Hermes waited for the dean to get to the point.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4172538#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763858

The Circle

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excerpt

The next morning they wake to a knock on their door around nine. It is another
very bright, warm morning with the sun up on the horizon, setting the sky on
fire, like the fire they shared last night. Birds of various sizes and colors fly over
the area chirping and speaking erotic words and sighs as if suddenly an abundant
peace has spread over the world, as if everyone has forgotten about the war
games and their aftermath.
Emily puts on a pair of shorts and t-shirt; she’s still under the spell of the
previous night’s excitement with the pleasure of being on top or on her side or
under Talal, and all that rocking of the boat all night long every time another
boat went by. But it’s this brightness that mostly amazes her, and she cannot
believe her eyes which are shielded behind sunglasses, not only to protect them
from the sunshine but so that they won’t reveal the secrets of what happened the
previous night beneath the spell of the waves. Could anyone live here for a long
time? She wonders when she remembers the exchange between Talal and
Ibrahim yesterday. Yes, she would love to live here for a long time, with Talal
going up and down the gulf seeing all this beauty and enjoying one another the
same way as last night. Then a new voice comes to her and encourages her with
the statement: you can be happy any place on the globe as long as you are happy
with yourself and with the man you love. The one who dreams of a paradise far
away in a dream location has never enjoyed lovemaking the way you did last
night. Yes, she could live here for a long time, as long as Talal would like, because
her life and happiness are close to this man with the sad eyes and the sweetest
voice.
Ibrahim and Mara are already at the small table at the stern. Talal and Emily
join them for coffee and toast.
“Good morning to you,” Ibrahim says, smiling.
“Good morning, good morning,” Emily and Talal say.
“How was your sleep, my dear?” Mara asks Emily.
“It was wonderful, thank you, Mara.”
Mohamed has started cruising along the smooth water of the Gulf, taking a
southerly direction. Rassan and Abdul sit back and relax while Surnia serves
them breakfast.
They travel for an hour until they come to a place where a couple of small
bays provide plenty of area with smooth, quiet water, away from the rush of
other passing yachts. Mohamed turns off the engine and releases the anchor.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562817

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Fury of the Wind

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excerpt

Sarah smiled. “Oh surely, Ben, they wouldn’t ban movies in Nimkus
because they thought they were sinful. I think you’re exaggerating.”
“Yeah? Well, you don’t know them yet, do you?”
She shrugged and got up to clear the table. “Can we go to a movie
in Bradshaw sometime, Ben?”
“Maybe. We’ll see.” He got up to fill his pipe.
She could hardly wait until he went back to work. Finishing up
the dishes quickly, she shoved her feet into a pair of old runners and
went to find him.
In the yard, almost bare of vegetation between the house and the
horse stable, the dust swirled and danced in the incessant wind.
What few patches of grass remained were being uprooted by the
chickens that scratched happily in the earth all day long. She paused
for a moment when she passed the chicken house, a building as
dilapidated as the others around it. There had once been some sort
of wire mesh fence to contain the fowl, but it had long since rusted
and fallen apart. Now the chickens had free range of the yard. No
wonder the coyotes came so close to the house, especially with no
dog to run them off.
A grey tabby cat, sunning itself in front of the cow stable, looked
up at Sarah’s approach then skittered through the door which hung
on one hinge. Inside the stable a calf bawled, but she resisted the
urge to go in to see it. She wanted to find Ben before he got too far
away.
She found him behind the buildings, hitching an old tractor to
a sickle mower. She stood and watched for a few minutes before he
glanced up and saw her.
Sarah shouted above the roar of the motor, “I’d like to see Flicka.
Can you tell me where she is?”
“I haven’t time to be bothered now. I want to start cutting hay
over yonder.” He nodded towards what Dave McNeill had called
the north pasture.
“I don’t want to take you from your work, Ben. If you’ll tell me
where she is, I’ll find her.”
“Over there in the field.”
She followed his gaze to where three horses were standing near a
small dry slough bed in the shade of a stand of poplar trees.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

“In what way is he different?” Padraig’s knees, as he sat on the wooden chair, touched Caitlin’s momentarily. He turned to one side and crossed his legs. “I can’t imagine Finn ever changing.”
He said this to reassure Caitlin, but his voice held little conviction. He recalled the wrinkles and the grizzled hair, the tired eyes and the wasted face. He remembered the bitterness that Finn could not hide on the night of the homecoming party and the violent anger on the day he ordered Padraig out of the house. And Padraig heard, as he had a thousand times, Finn’s deep voice saying, “I’m not only ailing, Padraig. The truth is, I’m dying.” He had lived more than a full year since then.
“Finn should have died a long time ago,” Dr Starkey told Padraig. “But that old warrior doesn’t know how to quit.” Sadly the doctor shook his head. “He won’t be fighting death much longer though. Not now. He’s taken too much punishment, Padraig. The referee’s about to stop the contest.”
“How much longer?” Padraig asked, instantly apprehensive.
“I am not the referee,” Dr Starkey replied. “By my watch the fight should already have ended. Personally I’d have stopped it long ago. As it is, I’d give Finn days now, rather than weeks. Certainly not another month. Even with treatment, if he’d ever agree to it. Which he won’t, of course.”
God won’t let him die yet, Padraig thought to himself, his apprehension mounting to panic. He can’t. I have to complete my mission first. I have to save Finn’s soul before God destroys his corrupt old body.
“My father is a sick man.” Caitlin’s voice brought Padraig back to the present. “I can sense it now. Perhaps it is something that has been going on for years, like the erosion of land by the sea. But lately it’s begun to show. And his personality is changing.”
“In what way is it changing, Caitlin?”
“I… I don’t rightly know, Padraig. I don’t know. Perhaps age has at last caught up with him. Perhaps he sees death coming and he’s frightened.”
“Do you really think so?”
Caitlin thought of the painting on the wall for a moment, her concentration fixed on the tallest of the three black crosses. “No,” she said slowly. “It’s something else.”
“Do you know what it is?”
Caitlin thought she did. “It’s as if he is being threatened and doesn’t know how to react.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Savages and Beasts

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excerpt

and people had already found their shelter and the forgetful
ones or late sauntering souls were drenched in a matter of minutes
when exposed to the elements. Rain fell in wide bands
occasionally very strong as if wanting to cleanse all sins from
the souls of sinful men or as if to purify all guilt some people
carried in their hearts such was the duty of rain this November
evening.
While the tempest raged outside the walls of the mausoleum,
the children had had their evening meals; George the
Cretan cook had prepared bean soup for them merely enough
to fill their small stomachs. Marcus as always made sure he was
put on kitchen duty, his teachers hadn’t yet smelled his scheme,
and soon after all other children left for their sleeping quarters
Marcus went to the kitchen where his evening boss, George,
allotted to him tonight’s duty: to scape clean two big cauldrons
which were used for the soup.
The youth, having a perpetual smile on his face, one would
say he had planned this kitchen duty, stood by the sink and leaning
over the huge vessel he started to scrape and clean which he
did bit by bit and stroke after stroke while George supervised
making sure the vessel would be spotless for next day’s use. And
it came to be, spotless as the supervisor would want it and as
Marcus the Indian youth who had a good sense of commitment
knew which resulted in him being worthy of his reward: an extra
bowlful of bean soup, a slice of bread and a small piece of apple
pie. The youth was sitting at his regular kitchen table meant for
the cooks and their helpers and relished his reward up to the
last morsel; George was observing the youth who was enjoying
his pie. Yet he sensed the heaviness weighing on his heart and
reflecting in his eyes.
“What is it, Marcus? What’s bothering you?”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

In Turbulent Times

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excerpt

Nora never let Joe know that they had been espied that night. She continued to write her long letters every week, letters in which she tried to hide her sadness and her melancholy and her bitter disappointment. Three months after Joe’s departure she was pregnant again, and that added to her bitterness. But she hid her gall from Joe. She did not want him to think she was accusing him of failing her. Joe wrote sad, serious letters with only an occasional light or amusing remark. But they were letters full of tenderness and love, like those he used to write before he learned of Nora’s marriage. It was almost as if the marriage had never happened, as if Joe and Nora were the lovers they had been before, with their own marriage to look forward to when the war was over. Nora realised that this was a fantasy to which Joe clung to help him through the bloody butcher days of war, the black, tense nights of watch and wait and pray. She gave him what he needed. She wrote what he wanted to read. She almost came to believe in it herself. Nor was it difficult. That they were both as deeply in love as ever was true and needed no deception. That they could ever enjoy that love outside of their passionate letters was where they lived in a soothing fantasy.
As time passed Joe’s letters became more morbid. He was losing his friends one by one but kept referring to a very old companion who was with him still, who never left his side. This old companion was never named, and it was some time before Nora realised who the companion was. In one of his letters Joe wrote:
He’s been with me since that day your father pulled me out of the harbour. He fought over me with Dr Starkey when I had pneumonia and he lost that time. He wants me to go with him somewhere, but I just turn to him and say, “I’m sorry, friend; but I have this girl back in Ireland and I’m going to her first. We have a lot to do, this girl and I. I hope you can wait a bit longer.” He’s waiting, my darling, but he’s becoming impatient. How long can this war last?’
Joe was excited about a posting to a Buckley-class frigate, the HMS Bullen. On 6 December 1944, the Bullen was torpedoed by U-Boat U-775, in the frigid waters of Pentland Firth, northwest of Scotland. The Bullen broke in two and sank in two hours. Of the one hundred and sixty-eight crew members on board, seventy-one went down with the ship. One of those lost was Chief Petty Officer Joseph Ignatius Carney. His turn had come. And this time there was no Michael Carrick to pull him out of the icy water.
A few weeks later Nora gave birth to a daughter whom she christened Josephine Siobhan.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

The bottle had been opened but little drunk from it. “As you can see, I haven’t been overindulging.” He pulled the cork out of the neck, poured two glasses and handed one to Caitlin.
“Thank you, Padraig.” As Caitlin placed the glass of wine on the table beside her, she noticed an old, soiled envelope. “This is addressed to my father,” she said, turning to look at Padraig.
“Yes, your father gave it to me when I left Corrymore to go to university.”
“You’ve kept it all this time?” Caitlin idly picked up the envelope.
“Yes. Seven years I’ve had it. You can read the letter if you wish.”
“No, not if it’s personal.”
“No, it is nothing private or secret that you have no right to read. It is addressed to your father after all, not to me.” Padraig took the envelope from Caitlin, removed the letter from inside and unfolded it. “It makes for rather disturbing reading though.”
Intrigued, Caitlin accepted the letter from Padraig and started to read with difficulty the untidy scrawl in which the letter was written. It was dated “Kyle of Lochalsh, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, 11th March, 1902.” Caitlin turned to the last of the letter’s several pages; it was signed by Dr. Hamish Graham.
Dear Mr MacLir,
Thank you for your letter of 2nd ult. I apologise for my tardy reply but my practice has been busy of late, as is not unusual at this time of year. You requested any information I might have concerning the boy Padraig, over and above what little I was able to communicate to you during our brief meeting in November. You tell me that you have formally adopted Padraig as your son, so I can appreciate your desire to learn more about the laddie. However, until the month of July, 1899, we knew very little, not even his surname which he refused to divulge for fear, I believe, of being returned to the care of his uncle from which he and his mother had been so cruelly expelled. That part of Padraig’s unhappy history you are already familiar with.
What transpired in the month of July following Padraig’s arrival in Kyle was a disturbing court case in which a farm labourer from a community twelve statute miles from Plockton, a man of well-established bad character, was tried and convicted to hang for the brutal rape and strangulation of a vagrant woman who had been given permission to sleep in the hay in a barn belonging to this man’s employer. At the rapist’s trial, about which I read in several newspapers, both local and national, it was revealed that the woman’s father, the Rev. Magnus MacArtan,

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Jazz with Ella

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excerpt

The galley kitchen was utilitarian and old-fashioned with a two-burner gas stove, a scarred countertop and a tiny porcelain sink. Marta peeled cucumber and kept her back to Jennifer, her posture erect.
“May I help you?” Jennifer asked. There was no answer. Suddenly Jennifer knew exactly what to say. “Is that cabbage rolls I smell?” she asked. “Mom used to make those—were they ever good.” The shoulders relaxed slightly and Marta turned, wiped her hands on a dishcloth and said with a wan smile, “Yes, they are Misha’s favourite, too.”
The conversation was polite but not warm over the dinner table although Nadya recovered some of her childish energy and rattled on to Jennifer about her school work and her friends. As soon as the dishes were cleared away, Marta directed Volodya and Jennifer to Nadya’s room, hastily vacated for the night in order to accommodate the travellers. The single bed had been made up with clean sheets for one person and a series of cushions had been placed on the floor with a quilt on top.
“I’m sorry we don’t have more beds and another room for you,” Marta said coolly. “But I think you will be comfortable in here.” Marta closed the door behind her, leaving Jennifer and Volodya staring at each other wordlessly. She turned away, wanting only to sleep and too exhausted to challenge his behaviour. He began undressing with no further comment. But as they prepared for bed, a knock on the door startled them. Misha’s head appeared around the door.
“Can I see you, Zhen? I’ll be in the living room.” Wrapping her robe around her, she glanced at Volodya and left the room.
Misha was sitting on the uncomfortable sofa. “This is where we should have started—right when you arrived, Zhen.” He patted a worn, leather-bound album. “Forgive me that I did not show you this sooner.”
Family photos, thought Jennifer. How will this help? Misha opened the album lovingly, smoothing the pages. She sat beside him. Most of the pictures had been taken in the last few years and they showed the couple at their wedding, traditional photos posed in front of the war memorial, some scenes from their trip to Sochi and many of Nadya’s childhood. Flipping through the book quickly, Misha opened it at a page of older, grainier photos. He pointed at one dog-eared print. Jennifer gasped. The picture depicted two teenagers standing together solemnly, kerchiefs around their heads, their faces forming weak smiles, their arms linked.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Fury of the Wind

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excerpt

Back in the Saddle
Two weeks after her marriage Sarah Fielding had a visitor. She
was cleaning and rearranging cupboards in the pantry when she
heard the thud of a horse’s hooves in the backyard. Through the
window she could see that it was not Ben as she had expected, but a
stranger dismounting from his horse.
He stood for a moment and looked towards the stables before
walking to the back door. When Sarah opened it, the young man
removed his hat to reveal a head of curly auburn hair. His smile
reached to his eyes and lit up his face.
“How do you do, Mrs. Fielding? I’m Dave McNeill. Live over there
about a mile.” He jerked his thumb in a south-westerly direction.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. McNeill,” Sarah said cheerfully,
“you’re the first neighbour I’ve had the privilege of meeting.”
“It’s Dave, please. Is Ben around?”
“Yes, I believe he’s gone over to that field behind the stable.” She,
too, pointed.
“Oh, the north pasture. Thanks, Mrs. Fielding, I’ll see if I can find
him.”
He replaced his hat, and was turning away when Sarah, surprising
even herself, said quickly, “But won’t you come in? I was just
going to make a cup of coffee. Would you like one? And,” she added
stepping aside to let him enter the kitchen, “I’d be pleased if you’d
call me Sarah. I’m not used to Mrs. Fielding yet.”
“Right, Sarah it is then. We’ve been anxious to meet you, Penny
and me.” At Sarah’s questioning look, he added, “Penny’s my wife.”
Sarah bustled from the pantry to the kitchen and back again,
anxious to get the coffee started before her visitor should become
impatient and decide he had to go. But he seemed in no hurry.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530

He Rode Tall

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excerpt

They knew that what was in the pen was
really just a baby. Even Roy seemed to calm down his calling as
much as was possible. The bid, and there was four people still in
the chase, was at 15,000 dollars before Roy even handed the
microphone to Dr. Morgan. The good doctor was running out of
new words to offer on the horses, but as he told the crowd, “If you
don’t see the future in this one, if you don’t know what it means
to own a grandson of Topsail Cody on the top side and a grandson
of Doc Bar on the bottom side, then you should just get in
your truck and leave right now.” Nobody left.
When the microphone went back to Roy, he quickly took the
bidders to 25,000 dollars. For a weanling! Now, there were only
two bidders. Joel had heard someone behind him say that they
were both trainers and top-notch reiners; one from Texas and the
other from Colorado. Finally, at 32,000 dollars, the Texan waved
his hand and walked away from the ring. Joel was in heaven.
In quick succession, the remainder of the horses sold for
15,000, 12,000, 19,000, 17,000, and 21,000 dollars. In addition
to the 100,000 dollars he had picked up from the ten
three-year-olds, he also just sold six unbroken horses for another
100,000, plus change. It was a 200,000-dollar day. Not bad for a
sale with only sixteen horses. He tried to figure out the average
selling price of a horse, but with all of the excitement it was
beyond his mental comprehension, and besides, who cared!
As Roy thanked the crowd for attending, Cindy, with little Lila
in tow, appeared from the crowd and gave Joel a big hug. “Say
something,” she urged him “It’s your sale.”
Joel proudly strode across the pen to where Roy stood and took
the microphone. “Well,” he said, “I don’t really know what to
say. I would just like to thank everyone for traveling way out here
for our sale. I sure do appreciate the investment that you have
made in our horses. If you need any help, if you didn’t plan on
buying, or didn’t bring a trailer, we sure wouldn’t mind keeping
an eye on them for another day or two ’til you get home and get a
chance to return with your own trailer.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562862

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955