Here is a link to a new magazine by a good friend of mine, Richard Merli. I hope you enjoy it.

http://files.octoberhillmagazine.com/October%20Hill%20Spring%202017.pdf?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_messaging%3BVEGukgaXS%2Bq2u11x14P0kw%3D%3D


Happy reading!

Edit. Cut, spice and dice!

Someone asked me recently if my own experiences filter into my books.

Well here is the bit I'm currently editing. I'll let you make your own decision.

I wake up in darkness. The bedside clock says 4am. It’s too early to get up and possibly too close to morning to be able to get easily back to sleep. I lie on my back and look at the ceiling.

It’s completely flat, unlike the ceiling of the bedroom I had before, which was actually a loft conversion. Our old house had five bedrooms, four on the first floor and mine in the loft.

Dad used to call it my Penthouse Suite. I loved that room. The bedroom I’d had before the loft was converted was nice enough, but nothing compared to the space and views over the neighborhood offered by the newest room at the top of the house.

The room had originally been intended as a study for Dad but it was far too big for that. Then it was suggested that it could be a family room, but the narrow staircase and the fact that it was two full flights of stairs from the kitchen, made that idea rather an impracticality. Besides, once I’d seen it, I’d set my heart on having it as a bedroom.

I miss the contours of that ceiling, the way the shadows would collect in some corners, changing the play of the sunlight through the windows, making the walls look lighter or darker in some places than others…

Shadow – the word brings with it a physical pain. Shadow is missing from my life now and always will be. I wish now that he’d had any other name than that – wish that he hadn’t had a name that will crop up in innocent conversations and inner ramblings and take me unawares all over again. Time and time again.

It’s the hurt that keeps on giving.

For a list [and view ] of books currently available, click on the links to Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc., on the right.

Editing today

Today I am editing my latest book. Here's where I am currently at.

“Eat your dinner, Charlie,” Mum says tightly and I look up to find my little brother looking at me strangely.

“You’re different Scarley.” He hasn’t called me that in years. It’s a cast off from his younger days and I wonder if he actually chose to use it now for some reason, or if it came out unbidden.

“No, I’m not,” I say. But he’s right, I am. How can I not be? Aren’t all of us changed in some way by what we’ve been through? And isn’t it just and right that I should be changed the most? After what I did?

“Yes, you are,” he insists.

“Charlie that’s enough,” Mum warns and he goes back to eating his dinner but keeping his eyes on me.

I feel bad that he got told off. “You wanna match on the Playstation later?” I ask.

“We don’t have one anymore…” he says.

“Oh… I forgot.” And I genuinely had for a moment.  “Well we could watch TV together, what do you think?”

“I guess.” He’s unenthusiastic.

 I try to make it up to him, everything that he’s lost. “I’ll let you chose what to watch.”

“Okay.” But his face hasn’t changed. There’s no excitement there. I berate myself for thinking that the situation could be so easily fixed. Just because Charlie’s only nine doesn’t make his pain any less than mine, his grief any less infinite.

Happy holiday reading!