Echoes from the Past

What happens when your past finally catches up with you?

Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.

Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.

This time, however, there is more at stake.

Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.

With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally make a stand.

But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-EchoesFromThePast

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Sunday in New York

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

Sunday In New York

Monday, Monday …

It was a song, sung by the Mommas and Papas I think. I suspect that will show my age.

I don’t like Mondays – another song, not sure who sung it.

Well, it’s official, I don’t like Mondays.

I’ve been procrastinating since last Thursday, telling myself I have to get the next part of one of my stories written, but I keep putting it off. I have to go to Africa, the Niger Delta to be exact. It can wait, I’m not ready for the steaming jungle and hostile villagers yet.

I didn’t do anything on Sunday, and, as a writer, I guess that’s not very good. I’m supposed to be writing a page, or a hundred or thousand words a day, just to keep the juices flowing.

I’m not in the mood. I sit and stare at the computer screen, and nothing is coming. Is this the first sign of writer’s block?

I dig out several articles on how to overcome it, and start putting their suggestions into action. No. No. Maybe. No. I don’t think it’s writer’s block.

Perhaps I need some inspiration so I go to my tablet playlist, spend 10 minutes trying to find the headphones carelessly discarded by one of my grandchildren the last time they were here.

And, yes, the tablet was left in the middle of playing a minecraft video which has drained the battery. Now I can’t find the charger!

Back at the computer, holding a dead tablet, and a pair of headphones, inspiration is as far away as the mythical light at the end of the tunnel. Today it is an oncoming express train.

Perhaps pen and paper will work.

An idea pops into my head ….

Is it possible the passing of a weekend could change the course of your life? An interesting question, one to ponder as I sat on the floor of a concrete cell, with only the sound of my breathing, and the incessant screams coming from a room at the end of the corridor.

It was my turn next. That was what the grinning ape of a guard said in broken English. He looked like a man who relished his job.

What goes through your mind at a time like this, waiting, waiting for the inevitable? Will I survive, what will they do to me, will it hurt?

The screaming stops abruptly, and a terrible silence falls over the facility.

Then, looking in the direction of where the screams had come from, I hear the clunk of the door latch being opened, and then the slow nerve tingling screech of rusty metal as the door opens slowly.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, no.

No writer’s block. But I have to stop watching late night television.

The Cases of PI Walthenson

How thrilled Harry Walthenson, Private Detective, had been to see his name painted on the translucent glass window in the door to his office. Located in Gramercy Park, in an old building full of atmosphere, he had a space renovated to resemble that of Spade and Archer in a scene right out of the Maltese Falcon. His desk had an antique phone like those used in the 1930’s, and a lamp that cast eerie shadows at night. Along one wall was a couch, his bed for more nights than he wanted to remember, and on the other a filing cabinet, waiting for the big case files.

Up till now it had been missing cats and dogs. Then, everything changed…

Starts at episode 1 – The Wrong Place, The Wrong Time

http://tinyurl.com/PIWalthenson01

To read the latest episode:

http://tinyurl.com/PIWalthenson40

My Website:

http://charles-heath.com

My latest blog entry:

https://aloysius5.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/slowing-slowing/

My latest travel blog entry:

http://tinyurl.com/Tvl-Venice2

Enjoy

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I think I’ve been watching too much TV

It’s never a good idea to look at the news. I don’t know about you, but it always seems to be bad news, not good news. I suppose if all they showed was good news, no one would watch it.

However, despite the negative aspects of it, sometimes it’s a source of plotlines, even a new book. IT’s usually a paragraph on page 17 that no one is supposed to notice but tonight it’s something different.

Well, two things really.

I’ve been on roller coasters, and they actually scare the hell out of me. It was not always that way, but watching the news and seeing how they can come adrift and leave you literally hanging quite a distance up in the air, well, that has had some effect.

It started me thinking, and that’s not a good thing sometimes.

My fear, now, is that the car is going to come off the rails.

A bit like my life really. Amazing sometimes how the mind works and makes parallels with something else that’s entirely unrelated.

I’m in the abyss and free falling. The first thousand yards feels exhilarating.

I’m not sure if everyone has done skydiving, but it’s like that time before you pull the ripcord.

Absolute adrenaline rush.

Followed by a single thought. Will the parachute open. Again, I’ve seen too many TV shows where ripcords don’t work.

Ok, I get it, if you don’t like the heat in the kitchen …

But, I digress

Now I’m at a point where I’m starting to think about the landing.

You dash headlong into a job, thinking yep, you’ve got it covered, but, what if you haven’t. What if there are variables you never thought of, what if the people around you, so happy to cheer you on at the start, are now starting to change their tune.

Abyss, job, choice of vocation, lifestyle, following a dream, there’s very little difference.

Writing is an individual thing.

Are we writing for ourselves first, or are we writing simply to make money? If it’s the latter, it ain’t going to work, at least not until you are established. If ever.

So, yes, it’s back to the day job.

Sigh!

Still in the abyss, or hanging upside down 300 feet in the air waiting to be rescued

Maybe tomorrow there will be good news!