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Covert Affair, Totally Bound are giving away a bundle of ebooks by Geraldine
O’Hara. Enter here for your chance to win: https://www.totallybound.com/index.php?route=information/competition&competition_id=23&utm_source=loveromancesandmore&utm_medium=booktour&utm_campaign=covertaffair
At times, I have a bit of a
moan about how the actions of others affects me. These days, I keep my nose out
of people’s business and prefer to mind my own. I’m concerned with what goes on
in my house and life. So when something happens, where a person’s decision has
a knock-on effect, creating ripples in my life that I don’t want, I tend to be
a little grouchy. You know the kind of ripples—those where you feel you have no
choice but tread water as they flounce around you.
Mandy, in Covert Affair, has the same issue. Quite a few times. She just
wants a life with Leon, a happy life where they can
be themselves. However, fate has other ideas and creates ripples the couple
have no choice but to endure. And it’s those ripples I’m talking about, where
choice and control is swept away. Many people might say you still have a choice
to walk off, to not be involved, but there are
instances where that just isn’t possible.
Imagine you’ve gone away on
holiday, like Mandy and Leon. Imagine a gang of men have
been committing crimes and you’ve seen them do it or heard them talk about it.
Could you just ignore that? Yes, you could, but when it’s clear the gang won’t
leave you be, you have to accept that for now, at least, someone’s choices will
be disturbing your life for a little while. Imagine having to hide away in a
house that isn’t yours in order to remove yourself from the equation. What must
that be like, to know that one minute your life is in your control and now it
isn’t? That you have to rely on someone else to direct where the next few days,
months or years will go?
What must it be like to have
the ground ripped from beneath your feet, changing you forever? Mandy has no
choice but to deal with such an instance, but at least she has Leon by her side to go through it
with her. But not only did she have the situation to deal with, she had to do
it somewhere that was alien to her. The comfort of home was missing, and I
imagine that’s quite an unnerving thing.
Excerpt:
Two more days passed, as did
four more phone calls from Detective Broadley. I was experiencing a huge bout
of cabin fever that whispered of sending me insane. I was used to going out
when I wanted to and not being restrained. The fact that I couldn’t go out seemed to make it worse. The choice had been taken
away and that’s what bugged me the most. Because of Cauli, other people were
directing my life and I hated it.
I paced the bedroom, looking
around at the bare walls where pictures, a mirror or wallpaper should have
hung, anything to break up the monotony of white, white, white. And grubby
white at that. I supposed they had a cleaner who came in to give the place a
once-over when people left, but they either weren’t paying her enough or she
was a lazy mare. I wondered if she even knew what this house was or whether she
assumed that it was let out on a nightly basis. Did she even care? Would I in
her shoes? Yes, I would have entertained all sorts of scenarios. My imagination
wouldn’t have had it any other way.
A light film of dust coated the
off-white paint on the skirting boards, like the vacuum cleaner was ancient and
it spat out more dust than it sucked up. The dressing table had a chipped
corner where compressed wood chippings peeked out from the surrounding plastic
coating. Very shabby, but really, what did I expect? This wasn’t meant to be
The Ritz. The stool in front of the dresser was like one inside a pub, the
brown material-covered foam on top flattened from so many arses sitting on it.
It brought The Rusty Nail to mind and I smiled.
The smile soon faded. How many
women had sat there, frightened out of their wits? How many women had stared
into the mirror, seeing someone they hadn’t seen before, a face that was theirs
yet wasn’t?
So what someone does can change
you when you didn’t even want to be changed—right down to the fact you look in
the mirror and don’t recognise yourself. I’m lucky that I can explore these
scenarios in my books, albeit on a greater scale than the goings-on in my life
nowadays, but years ago I had one thing after another to deal with, control
taken away constantly. I learned to cope with it, to say no and walk away when
I could, but in Covert Affair I
wanted to dig into a situation where walking away simply couldn’t happen. We
all cope with things differently. Leon is able to sleep despite what’s
happened, but Mandy finds herself awake, unable to switch off. In the following
excerpt, I hopefully show how even the most mundane thing—like the view
outside—becomes so much more when troubles plague you.
Excerpt:
I envied him his oblivion. I
hadn’t slept well at all here, which wasn’t surprising, considering what had
been going on and what still went on in my head. The latest from Detective
Broadley, which had come last night, was that they were closing in on the
suspect. Their net was all around him. All that remained to be done was them
dragging it closer to shore, him caught up in it so tightly there would be no
means of escape.
Naughty people were tricky to
catch, though, weren’t they? They knew all about nets and how to get out of them.
All about hiding below radars. Slippery fish, the lot of them.
I shuddered and went to the
window, parting the curtains a little bit, making sure to stand so the shaft of
sunlight didn’t sprawl itself on Leon’s face and wake him. Netting was up,
again something that could do with a good wash, and I narrowed my eyes to peer
through the greyness of it. There was a slight tear in the fabric, giving me a
thin slit to look through.
Despite the coldness of the
season, the sky was blue and cloudless, giving off the lie that it was nice and
warm out there. Frost on the grass told a different story. A tiny icicle or two
hung from the branches of a large, naked oak tree in the front garden. Those
branches seemed to stretch out, twiggy fingers intent on stroking the glass, at
getting hold of me and not letting go. Someone walked over my grave, and I
turned my attention away from the tree before my imagination went into major
overdrive.
And finally, a snippet of how
fear can warp your view. Life had been fine, so wonderful, then you’re thrown
into fear and confusion. The mind plays tricks on you, and I thoroughly enjoyed
writing these scenes, imagining—or not—how it felt to be Mandy. How the gnawing
teeth of doubt take hold and have you imagining so much more than what’s really
there…
Excerpt:
He strode up the path then
disappeared beneath the porch roof.
I held my breath.
The doorbell sang its gaudy
tune, one that went on for far too long and got on my nerves. I rushed to the
bed, jostling Leon awake.
“The policeman from the car’s at
the door,” I said. “Quickly, get up!”
I raced downstairs, almost
tripping on the last step in my haste to let him in. He had to have news—good
or bad, it didn’t much matter at this point. Anything he said would break this
monotony of being trapped inside, giving me something else to either shit the
life out of me or make me feel better.
I turned the three keys in the
locks then jabbed the code into the alarm pad beside the door. It beeped and
another internal lock snapped open. I hunkered down to peer through the
letterbox. I couldn’t get those damn movies out of my head. Anyone could have
grabbed him off the porch and be standing there instead of him. I was greeted
with the sight of his groin area, the weave of his suit trousers fine with a
silky appearance. I blinked, sure that it was him, and stood upright to open
the door a couple of inches, the security chain preventing it from gaping
fully.
It was him.
He smiled as I sighed,
unthreaded the chain then let him in.
Seeming to fill the narrow
hallway, he closed the door and leaned on it.
I stared at him, waiting for
whatever it was he had to say.
I hope your life is your own
and that you don’t get outside influences governing your next steps. And if you
do have to face adversity when it isn’t welcome, I hope you manage to get
through it safely and with your sanity intact! Poor Mandy…will she get through?
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