Excerpt
From Chapter 5: Aventurine and her nephew have just checked into the B & B in York
“Give me a couple of minutes.”
I went to my own room to scrub my face; for
some reason, train journeys made me feel grubby, as though I’d spent the miles
in a coal tender, or stoking a steam engine. I changed my clothes, then
wandered, shoe in hand, to peel aside the curtain at the window. Below here, on
this side of the house, the street was as lazy as it had been when we’d arrived
from the station in the taxi. An elderly man in a cap and blue cardigan
shuffled along the pavement, and I watched him until he disappeared at the
corner, wondering what his story was. How old? I estimated his age in the
seventies, though I could have been either really high or really low. So many
things aged a person: tragedy, disease. My thoughts flitted to Shep and away
again.
Genevieve Smithson. She had been a teenager
during World War II, and here she was, in her 90s, finally agreeing to tell her
story. Finally agreeing to tell it to me. I felt the familiar flutter of
excitement beneath my breastbone, the one that told me I might be onto
something fantastic. When she’d first reached out to me after the publication
of Night Watch, suggesting we talk, I had immediately pitched the story to the
big glossies. My number one choice had jumped at it, as I knew they would;
they’d offered a pretty chunk of change as well, and a fairly flexible
deadline. Still, I had my eyes on a bigger prize: what if Genevieve Smithson’s
story could be the genesis of my next book?
She had been a spy. At sixteen, lying about
her age, dropped behind the lines in France. Now, almost eighty years later.
woman who had remained reclusive and secretive for her entire adult
life. I thought back over my notes, the skeletal material I had been able to
glean from research before setting out. It’s time to tell the story, she’d said
when we’d first spoken on the telephone. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.
You’re the one to do it.
I smirked to myself. Deprecatingly. She would
have heard a lot more about me, and possibly a lot earlier, had my
burgeoning career in investigative journalism not veered so crazily,
almost into oblivion, at the get-go. Nevertheless—and I drew myself up,
straightened my spine—I had persevered. The most recent three books had not
only established my ability to tell a well-researched story over several
hundred pages, but had cemented my earnings. I was the one to tell this story.
I took a deep breath, trying to regulate my excitement, but it was no use. This
was going to be big.
I put a hand out to the windowsill to steady
myself as I pulled on my shoe. A movement below caught my eye. Just another
pedestrian, this one a man in a dark jacket, walking briskly along the pavement
on the other side of the street. Just another pedestrian. Then I looked
again. Foreshortened, back to. Shoulders thrown back as though he owned the
world. Dark hair maybe just a little too long, as though the conventions didn’t
apply to him.
I knew the walk. I knew the shoulders.
It was the man from Westminster Bridge.
And he still looked familiar. Because he was.
What the hell? Except it couldn’t be. And he couldn’t be.
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About the Author
Anne Britting Oleson lives and writes on the side of a mountain in central Maine. She has three children, five grandchildren, two cats, and seven books--three poetry chapbooks, and four novels--with a fifth novel due out in January 2022. She is a founding member of Simply Not Done, a women's reading, writing, and teaching collaborative. When she grows up, she wants to marry all the words.
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Giveaway
A digital copy of Aventurine and the Reckoning
Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteSounds fabulous! Congratulations on this new release.
ReplyDeletewas interesting
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds very good.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very interesting!! I'll be adding to my tbr
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading the excerpt, thanks for sharing
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