Available Now: Oppression by Dianne Noble

OPPRESSION
Dianne Noble

$4.99

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(99c/99p through 18 June)

When she tries preventing the abduction and forced marriage of 16-year-old Layla, Beth defies her controlling husband, Duncan, and travels to Cairo where she finds the girl now lives in the vast necropolis known as The City of the Dead. She’s hiding from her abusive husband, and incites fellow Muslim women to rebel against the oppression under which they live. Beth identifies with this and begins helping her.

Cairo is in a state of political unrest, and Beth gets caught up in one of the many protests. She’s rescued by Harry, who splits his working life between Egypt and England, and they eventually fall in love. When Harry returns home and Layla vanishes, Beth begins being stalked and threatened with violence. And then Duncan turns up...

Can Beth ever find peace, or will her hopes of happiness remain shattered?

Will Layla's ideals of freedom ever be fulfilled?

• • •

A solitary egg boiled furiously in the pan, billows of steam filling the kitchen. Duncan didn’t acknowledge her, just stared out of the window which ran with condensation, small pools gathering on the sill. Beth’s stomach clenched. The world had turned monochrome, the early morning optimism that today might be better, leeched away. What had she done – or not done – this time? Pointless asking. He wouldn’t answer. Yet another day of silence loomed, a day of sitting in separate rooms, eating at different times. Her gaze shifted from his rigid body to her dog, Jake, slumped in the furthest corner of the kitchen. His tail gave a half-hearted thump on the floor. He didn’t move, watched her with solemn eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself as the hall clock chimed the half hour and wondered how many days it would be this time.

Once she’d been able to focus on Duncan’s great sense of humour, his sensitivity, but now the good days were few. She couldn’t cope any longer with his suspicion if she left the house, the way he criticised, put her down. Was it her fault? Would things be different if she was different? Lost weight? Became a better cook? Went on top more often? She shook her head. When had they last made love? Her fault again, but desire wasn’t something that could be suddenly dredged up just because the other person’s mood had improved. It needed to be a slow build up and there was never enough time between his…episodes. Sex had come to resemble a fading newsreel.

She started as he got to his feet, the chair scraping on the tiled floor. He fished the egg out of the pan onto a plate and sat down again, his back to her. The sound of rasping filled the air as he buttered his toast before he cut it into quarters, the way he always did. He wore the navy blue bathrobe. She should have noticed the white one, the good mood one, had stayed on its hook on the back of the bathroom door. He hadn’t turned off the cooker. She watched the blue flower of gas, heard it hiss, listened to him tap the top of his egg with a spoon, then went into the hall and climbed the mahogany staircase, her feet soundless in the deep pile of the Axminster. Sitting on the edge of the bed, like a guest who has risen too early, she waited until she heard him go up to his studio on the third floor.

Jake rushed towards her, claws skittering on the tiles, when she came back down and opened the kitchen door. He pushed his head under her hand and tears stung her eyes. She dropped to the floor and hugged him, comforted by his warmth, the silkiness of his coat. It had been her sister’s suggestion to buy a Golden Retriever; she’d said they were loving and friendly dogs. Beth had never regretted her decision—she loved Jake to bits.

On the side stood the cast iron casserole dish containing last night’s lamb shanks, coldly congealed. She slid the dish into the fridge and took out a bottle of milk. Then she reached into the cupboard for the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, wrinkling her nose at the neat columns of Duncan’s vitamins, his bowel-opening fibre bars next to her Kit-Kats. A nutritional Nazi, her sister Maggie called him, said he despised anything pleasurable. The red polka-dot cereal bowl seemed too frivolous for the gloomy house so she put it back and took down a dark green one, tipped out a handful of cereal and poured milk over it. Her throat closed and she couldn’t swallow it. All the silent hours, all his rages, settled in her stomach in a single burning spot. She couldn’t do this anymore.

Beth’s spoon clattered into the bowl, splashing milk across the table as she jumped up. Out. She had to get out. A sliver of sunlight angled through the stained glass of the fanlight above the front door, sprinkling a waiting Jake with lozenges of red and gold light.

Beth buttoned her coat, pushed her feet into boots and jammed on a woolly hat. ‘Come on, boy.’

The sun struggled to rise above the elm trees as they set out across the frost-starched field. All around them the Yorkshire Dales rolled out like a gently rumpled bed, the querulous bleats of sheep filling the air. Cold scoured her lungs and she turned up her collar. Jake stretched himself into an excited run, turned and barked, tore back to her. She ran with him, on and on, her boots cracking the skin of icy puddles until the tension left her body.

‘Morning. Bit parky.’ A fellow dog walker, muffled into shapelessness, clutched a pink plastic bag as his spaniel squatted on quivering haunches, its expression embarrassed.

‘Certainly is. A white Christmas, maybe?’

‘Happen.’

Over an hour later when her fingers and toes had become numb, she knew she would have to return to the house. She dragged her feet while Jake ran backwards and forwards, barking furiously at crows pecking between the cart tracks. She hesitated outside the front door, then took off her gloves and felt in her pockets. Did she still have the car keys with her? Yes!

‘Let’s go and see Dad. You up for it, Jake?’

He’d pushed his way on to the back seat of the car almost before she had the door open. She held her breath as she reversed out of the garage - if she clipped Duncan’s Audi there’d be hell to pay – and edged out of the drive on to the B road which the council never gritted. The light had a raw, sharp edge and frost covered every branch like fur. She drove with caution, slowing right down on corners, only relaxing when she joined the traffic on the main Ripon road, which had been gritted. Now she didn’t have the constant worry of skidding, Duncan came into her mind. Why did she let him terrorise her like this? Had she always been so timid?

• • •

Dianne Noble was on a troopship sailing for Singapore at the age of seven and hasn’t stopped travelling since. Her last trip was to Moscow but her favourite place remains India. The atmospheric settings of her novels reflect her experiences.

Find Dianne Online:

Website - http://www.dianneanoble.site
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dianneanoble
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/dianneanoble1
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianne-noble-183a143a
Tirgearr Publishing - http://tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Noble_Dianne

Available Now: The Ash Heap of History by Chris Morgan

THE ASH HEAP OF HISTORY
Chris Morgan

$4.99

BUY HERE
(99c/99p through 28 May)

Jessica “Blondie” Yuskevich views her career as a private eye as an annoyance that keeps her from smoking pot and watching TV. It’s a pretty boring job, until one day she finds herself on a particularly convoluted missing persons case involving a couple of shady characters and a lot of misinformation.

Can she solve the case, find the missing woman and keeping her safe? More importantly, can she do it without missing an all-new Mork & Mindy?

• • •

Should I go to bed, or should I eat something? Both are pressing matters at the moment. I was up all night, but I didn’t really get a chance to eat anything. Duty called, you know? I wasn’t doing anything cool or sexy. I rarely do. Being a private investigator is not as romantic and glamorized as they make it seem. You know what I did last night? I sat in my car waiting for some guy to leave work to see if he was with his secretary. And when I say “with his secretary,” I mean that in the intimate sense. His wife figured he was cheating. That’s almost all I get. If you think your spouse is cheating, and 99 percent of the time it’s a wife worried about their spouse, you ring up Blondie Yuskevich.

That’s not the name I was born with, of course. Upon entering this world, I was named Jessica, but I quickly earned the nickname Blondie, because my hair is so radically blonde as to justify being called “Blondie.” It’s been a long time since anybody who wasn’t a substitute teacher called me Jessica. It’s Blondie, or it’s Miss Yuskevich. You know, in professional settings, or when a cop is hassling me. When you are a private investigator who also has made smoking marijuana a regular staple of her regimen, you tend to run afoul of the law more often than is comfortable. Not that it keeps me from doing my job. Or from smoking pot.

At this point, you are probably focused in on one specific thing I just mentioned there, and that’s the fact that my name is Jessica. Yeah, I’m a woman. A woman who works as a private investigator. No, you don’t see that very often. It’s some once-in-a-blue-moon type shit. I’ve met only one other woman in my line of work. She was in town from Riverside, following up on a missing teenager case. The girl turned out to be shacked up with some college guy she saw who happened to be next door. We ran into each other in the hall. I forget how our jobs came up. I think her name was Angela. She seemed nice.

When I tell people I’m a private investigator, and I don’t tell them often because I don’t think it’s a very interesting topic, their initial reaction seems to be one of alarm. Private investigating is, in their eyes, a dirty, dangerous business. It’s for low lives, and in particular for low life men. Men who can take a punch and use a gun and what have you. In truth, this stereotype doesn’t bother me, because it makes my job easier. Nobody expects me to be a private eye. They let their guard down around me. Some dude who I’m following sees me sitting in a car and fear is not his initial instinct. I’m just some blonde chick who dresses like a surfer. What harm could I do?

Also, yeah I dress like a surfer even though I don’t surf. They don’t get to own that look, you know? Anyway, the funny thing is that the drive to get women to be seen as equal to men, the notion that women can do anything a man can do, is actually something that’s gonna make my job tougher to do. Gloria Steinem really fucked shit up for me. I mean, she seems cool and all, but . . .

I feel like I’ve lost my train of thought. I believe I was making a point, but what that point was is now lost to me. As I spin the wheels of my mind, I watch a man throw a stick to his dog on the beach. At least, it looks like a stick, but I’m pretty far away. Did he bring the stick with him? I don’t feel like there are a lot of sticks on the beach.

Oh, that’s right, I was explaining why I didn’t sleep last night.

• • •

Chris Morgan is a pop culture writer and the author of The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000: Twelve Classic Episodes and the Movies They Lampoon, published by McFarland Books.

Find Chris online:

Website - http://supertotallyawesome.com/existentialparachutepants
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010102717212
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ChrisXMorgan
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Morgan_Chris

Available Now: Redemption Lake by Susan Clayton-Goldner

REDEMPTION LAKE
Winston Radhauser Series, #1
Susan Clayton-Goldner

$5.99

BUY HERE
(99c/99p through21 May)

Tucson, Arizona – Eighteen-year-old Matt Garrison is harboring two terrible secrets: his involvement in the drowning death of his 12-year-old cousin, and a night of drunken sex with his best friend’s mother, Crystal, whom he finds dead in a bathtub of blood. Guilt forces Matt to act on impulse and hide his involvement with Crystal.

Detective Winston Radhauser knows Matt is hiding something. But as the investigation progresses, Radhauser’s attention is focused on Matt’s father. Matt’s world closes in when his father is arrested for Crystal’s murder, and Travis breaks off their friendship.

Despite his father’s guilty plea, Matt knows his dad is innocent and only trying to protect his son. Devastated and bent on self-destruction, Matt heads for the lake where his cousin died—the only place he believes can truly free him. Are some secrets better left buried?

• • •

For the next hour and a half, he drifted in and out of sleep. Cradled by the night sounds of the desert outside the open window, each time a memory emerged, his thoughts thickened and folded back into sleep. At one point, he heard water running for a bath. A little later, he heard a car outside. Oh God, please don’t let it be Travis. He stumbled to the window and opened the curtains. In the street, two long rectangular taillights moved away, turning south onto Oracle Road.

Matt leaned against the wall, staring at the sunflower sheets on Crystal’s bed. The same bed he and Travis had jumped up and down on when they were eight. The digital clock read 10:38pm. His head throbbed. He needed to close his eyes. Crystal would wake him in time to leave before Travis got home. He fell back onto the bed.

When he woke up again, the room was very dark. He wore only his boxers and a white T-shirt his mother had insisted upon—claiming his usual dark one would show through his tuxedo shirt. As if the color of his T-shirt could ruin her perfect wedding. But he’d been ingenious and found another way to ruin things for his mother. He turned toward the empty space beside him. It took a few moments for him to realize where he was. He closed his eyes, shook his aching head to clear it. Crystal was his best friend’s mother. What the hell was he doing in her bed?

He thought he heard the sound of the front door open, then close again. Oh God, please don’t let it be Travis. His eyes adjusted to the darkness. One event at a time, he remembered everything.

Fully awake now, he shot from the bed, rocking for a few seconds before he achieved balance, then hurried to the window. The moon hung over the mountaintop, its light silver and unforgiving. Crystal’s driveway was empty. Whoever he’d heard, it wasn’t Travis. On the other side of the street, an engine started. This time the taillights were round. Definitely not Crystal’s Escort. The car turned north on Oracle Road.

Matt let out the breath he’d been holding and glanced at the digital clock—its red letters told him it was 11:20pm. He needed to get dressed and leave. The dance ended in forty minutes and Travis would head home. He grabbed his tuxedo pants and shirt from the chair. His hands shook so hard he could barely work the fly and the button on his trousers. He slipped into his shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed. As if he had the flu, his head throbbed and his stomach felt queasy.

He rushed down the hallway toward the bathroom. And when he did, he saw the puddle of blood on the floor beside the bathtub.

He hurried across the room, jerked open the pale green shower curtain.

Crystal lay naked in a bathtub filled with blood-colored water. Her hair, her beautiful blonde curls, had been chopped off, shorter in some places than others, as if a small child had done it. Some of the curls were floating on top of the water.

For a strange moment, everything remained calm and slow.

Her head was propped against one of those blow-up pillows attached to the back of the tub with suction cups. The tint of her skin was pale and slightly blue. Crystal’s eyes were open and staring straight ahead—looking at something he couldn’t see. Blood splattered the white tiles that surrounded the tub. It dripped down them like wet paint. One of her hands flopped over the side of the tub. A single thick drop fell from her index finger into the crimson pond congealing on the linoleum floor. It covered her neck and shoulders. Tiny bubbles of frothy blood still oozed from the gash in her neck.

An empty Smirnoff bottle sat in a puddle of blood on the tub’s rim, beside a straight-edged razor blade.

The bathroom was so quiet. Nothing but the sound of his own breathing. He clenched and unclenched his hands. His body grew numb. “Oh no. Oh God, no,” he said, the words thickening in the air in front of him. His head filled with strange sounds—the drone of insects humming, violinists tuning their strings. “What have I done?”

• • •

Susan Clayton-Goldner was born in New Castle, Delaware and grew up with four brothers along the banks of the Delaware River. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Creative Writing Program and has been writing most of her life. Her novels have been finalists for The Hemingway Award, the Heeken Foundation Fellowship, the Writers Foundation and the Publishing On-line Contest. Susan won the National Writers' Association Novel Award twice for unpublished novels and her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Animals as Teachers and Healers, published by Ballantine Books, Our Mothers/Ourselves, by the Greenwood Publishing Group, The Hawaii Pacific Review-Best of a Decade, and New Millennium Writings. A collection of her poems, A Question of Mortality was released in 2014 by Wellstone Press. Prior to writing full time, Susan worked as the Director of Corporate Relations for University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona.

Susan shares a life in Grants Pass, Oregon with her husband, Andreas, her fictional characters, and more books than one person could count.

Find Susan Online

Website - http://susanclaytongoldner.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/susan.claytongoldner
Twitter - https://twitter.com/SusanCGoldner
Blog - http://susanclaytongoldner.com/my-blog---writing-the-life.html
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/ClaytonGoldner_Susan

Available Now: A Bend in the Willow by Susan Clayton-Goldner

A BEND IN THE WILLOW
Susan Clayton-Goldner

Price: $4.99
(99c/99p through Sunday 22 January)

BUY HERE

Willowood, Kentucky 1965 - Robin Lee Carter sets a fire that kills her rapist, then disappears. She reinvents herself and is living a respectable life as Catherine Henry, married to a medical school dean in Tucson, Arizona.

In 1985, when their 5-year-old son, Michael, is diagnosed with a chemotherapy-resistant leukemia, Catherine must return to Willowood, face her family and the 19-year-old son, a product of her rape, she gave up for adoption.

She knows her return will lead to a murder charge, but Michael needs a bone marrow transplant. Will she find forgiveness, and is she willing to lose everything, including her life, to save her dying son?

• • •

Willowood, Kentucky—1954

I was seven years old the first time I wished him dead. I remember everything about that cloudless February day. The sky had a dazzling light to it, the kind that bounced off snowdrifts and caught the sparkle in the spider web frost on the school bus windows. It was the kind of light that made dreams seem possible. Even for me. The bus smelled like tangerines, wet wool, and half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches left in lunchboxes.

I scooted closer to the window so Nancy couldn’t see me slip my hand inside my book bag to finger the pink envelope where Wayne Stafford had printed my full name with a heart drawn around it. Robin Lee Carter. As soon as I finished my chores I planned to paint a snowman card with a heart, instead of a carrot, for a nose.

Nancy poked me in the shoulder. “You got a secret in there?”

I shook my head. Nancy Preston and I swore we’d never keep secrets from each other. But this was a new feeling and I didn’t have the words to explain it yet, even to my best friend.

When the doors swung open on Bear Hollow Road, a string of yelping kids hopped from the bottom step and raced toward the sleds they’d left at the crest of the hill. I caught up with Wayne and touched his sleeve. “May I ride your sled?” I was careful to use the proper verb.

Wayne grinned, but before he could say yes, Peggy Thompson, in her red coat with black fur cuffs, stuck her prissy face close to my ear and whispered, loud enough for him to hear, “Robin Lee is nothing but dirty junkyard trash.”

Wayne’s gaze settled on his galoshes before he turned and ran toward the hill.

I stood up real straight, lifted my chin like Momma always said, and pretended it didn’t matter. Although my clothes weren’t as new and fancy as Peggy’s, they were always clean and well-mended.

I wanted to brag about the card Wayne had given me, but instead I held my nose and glared at Peggy. “You have cooties and your breath smells like dog poop.”

She gasped, stuffed her hands into a fur muff that hung from a braided cord around her neck, and marched away, her finger curls bobbing with each step.

Nancy slapped her palm over her mouth to hold in the giggles, but she couldn’t hide the sparkle in her blue eyes. Her mom worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays and paid my momma to babysit after school. I loved those two days better than any other. Even my daddy seemed happier. But today was Wednesday. I waved to Nancy, then ran toward my house, anxious to get the laundry hung so I could paint the snowman card.

Halfway up the drive, I spotted Daddy’s pickup truck parked at a funny slant, its front tires in the flowerbed Momma had covered with pine needles for the winter. Right away, I figured he’d been drinking. My heart thumped, but not in the good way it had when I found Wayne’s valentine. Daddy’s drinking moods were dangerous, like someone sprayed poison into the air. I knew my life was different, and sometimes knowing that was like skin pinched inside the teeth of a zipper.

• • •

Susan Clayton-Goldner was born in New Castle, Delaware and grew up with four brothers along the banks of the Delaware River. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Creative Writing Program and has been writing most of her life. Her novels have been finalists for The Hemingway Award, the Heeken Foundation Fellowship, the Writers Foundation and the Publishing On-line Contest. Susan won the National Writers' Association Novel Award twice for unpublished novels and her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Animals as Teachers and Healers, published by Ballantine Books, Our Mothers/Ourselves, by the Greenwood Publishing Group, The Hawaii Pacific Review-Best of a Decade, and New Millennium Writings. A collection of her poems, A Question of Mortality was released in 2014 by Wellstone Press. Prior to writing full time, Susan worked as the Director of Corporate Relations for University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona.

Susan shares a life in Grants Pass, Oregon with her husband, Andreas, her fictional characters, and more books than one person could count.

Find Susan Online

Website - http://susanclaytongoldner.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/susan.claytongoldner
Twitter - https://twitter.com/SusanCGoldner
Blog - http://susanclaytongoldner.com/my-blog---writing-the-life.html
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/ClaytonGoldner_Susan

Available Now: A Hundred Hands by Dianne Noble

A HUNDRED HANDS
Dianne Noble

Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Price: $4.99 (99c/99p through 4 November)

BUY HERE

When Polly’s husband is jailed for paedophilia, she flees the village where her grandmother raised her and travels to India where she stays with her friend, Amanda.

Polly is appalled by the poverty, and what her husband had done, and her guilt drives her to help the street children of Kolkata. It’s while working she meets other volunteers, Liam and Finlay. Her days are divided between teaching the children and helping with their health needs. But when Liam’s successor refuses to let Polly continue working, she’s devastated to think the children will feel she’s abandoned them.

After a health scare of her own, she discovers her friend, Amanda, is pregnant. Amanda leaves India to have her child. At this time Polly and Finlay fall in love and work together helping the children. Tragedy strikes when one child is found beaten and another dead. Polly feels history repeating itself when Finlay becomes emotionally attached to a young girl.

Can Polly recover from her broken heart and continue to help the children, or will she give up and return home?

• • •

Bhubaneswar, India

Polly noticed the smell first. Naked apart from a loincloth, his tiny body caked in dirt, a boy danced and keened a song in a reedy falsetto. His mother stood beside him, eyes pleading, clutching a baby and a tin begging bowl.

‘The poor little soul, just look at him!’

‘Come away. There’s nothing you can do.’

Distressed, Polly watched the child. His voice became ever more shrill as he sensed a few rupees. ‘But he’s so thin, he—’

Amanda grasped her wrist, pulled her away. ‘This is India. They’re everywhere. Get used to it.’

The child’s mother followed them, touching Polly’s arm, pulling at her shirt, only dropping back when they reached the platform.

A wall of sound and motion, a roaring cavern with smells of stale clothes, tobacco, diesel. On every side were heads—heads and hands and bundles.
Amanda hugged her. ‘Come back. Please come back. It’s been so good to see someone from home.’

Polly fought against the crush of passengers surging off the train, her last glimpse of her friend a small, white face in the crowd, looking sad. She hauled herself up into the carriage, handicapped by her backpack. With a jerk, the train pulled away. She peered around her with no clue as to coach numbers.

She showed her reservation docket to a guard whose body didn’t fill his uniform. He gestured, unsmiling, in the direction she should go. Clambering over parcels and baskets, battling her way past a hundred people and their curious eyes, she finally reached her seat out of breath. With a last spurt of energy, she lifted her backpack over her head and hefted it onto the luggage rack.

In the time it had taken Polly to find her place, the train and its passengers had left the town behind. She rubbed her shins, sore where she’d banged into sharp-edged boxes and watched the countryside unfolding outside the window. Vivid, green rice fields alternated with villages of dirt roads and brick shacks. An old man in a red turban and a long, white shirt leaned on a stick as he watched them pass. Behind him, the horizon wobbled in the heat, and laundry lay drying on the corrugated-iron roofs of shacks. They were no more than hovels, and her thoughts flew to the budget hotel she had booked on the internet. Please let it be okay. On her own now, the luxury of Amanda’s home left behind, excitement and fright battled for position.

Amanda. How sad she’d looked standing on the platform. Had she made a mistake all those years ago when she’d been bowled over by Salman’s obvious wealth and good looks?

Polly’s gran—who’d always been fond of Amanda—had tried to talk her out of it. ‘They have different ways in India, cariad,’ she’d said.

But Amanda had fallen in love, and that was all that mattered.

Polly shivered in the fierce air-conditioning. The carriage had large, reclining seats, three on one side, two on the other, all occupied and not another European in sight. Mosquito-like buzzing came from the earphones of the woman sitting next to her, loud snores from behind. She stiffened as another blast of frigid air hit the back of her neck. Her journey to Heathrow had been equally cold, with freezing fog hovering over the white fields. She rummaged in her bag for the shawl Gran had pressed on her, the faint smell of lavender and home making her throat ache. The bag had seen better days. It was the one she took swimming because of its waterproof interior. Its battered appearance shamed her, but she’d been too afraid of leaving the house to go shopping for anything better. After a while, lulled by the train’s motion, she slept.

‘Chai, chai.’

Polly woke with a start, heart racing. Where am I?

A boy in a ragged shirt pushed a tea-urn on wheels, his gaze darting around the carriage in search of customers.

Amanda’s words echoed in her head. ‘Disgusting stuff, chai. Loose tea leaves boiled in a bucket. Stunning amounts of sugar. Industrial quantities of buffalo milk. Don’t go there.’

The tea-urn trundled past, followed by a procession of people trying to sell bottles of water, crisps, and sweets. Poor things, they didn’t seem to sell much.

With a squeal of brakes, they made a short stop at a station—neat with cream and terracotta paint. Small spirit stoves had been set up on the platform. The smell of frying eggs wafted through the carriage as omelettes were cooked then wrapped in palm leaves, secured with a twig.

A child, struggling with a bucket almost as big as he was, washed the outside of Polly’s window. He rubbed away, his expression solemn. He could only reach halfway up and moved on to the next one, leaving her view obscured by grey rivulets of soapy water.

After a lunch of biryani—the stringy chicken suggesting the bird had led an active life—Polly went in search of a toilet.

‘Use the Indian one,’ Amanda had urged. ‘Your bum won’t have to come into contact with anything then. Unless you fall over.’

• • •

Dianne Noble was on a troopship sailing for Singapore at the age of seven and hasn’t stopped travelling since. Her last trip was to Moscow but her favourite place remains India. The atmospheric settings of her novels reflect her experiences.

Find Dianne Online:

Website - http://www.dianneanoble.site
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dianneanoble
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/dianneanoble1
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianne-noble-183a143a
Tirgearr Publishing - http://tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Noble_Dianne

Available Now: The Better Part of Valour by Rex Burns

THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR
Rex Burns

Length: Novel
Genre: Thriller

Price: $4.99 (99c/99p special through Sunday the 10th)

BUY HERE

Caught up in a low budget revolution fought in the jungles of Colombia, Cornelius Mead faces the challenges of survival in the chaos and insanity of war while clinging to his dream of turning the Guyana massacre site of Jonestown into a theme park.

• • •

The Reception Room had not changed since I saw it that first time. Nor had Chief Resident Marlitt. The same plywood decking spread like an empty dance floor pinched under the Quonset’s curving metal. At one end, the Chief Resident’s desk surveyed the open space to judge those dances that took place on a floor worn shiny by sweating, tortured flesh. Above the desk, like a furry tail, hung the same curl of flypaper, black and soft with the captured wings of flies and moths. Beneath my spongy shoes, the plywood gave the same uneasy creak.

I waited in silence for the squat, thick-bodied man behind the desk to finish whatever he was writing. Probably the same thing he had been scratching on when I stood here six months ago, believing that things could get no worse.

Finally, he looked up, face as broad and unfeeling as a Mayan statue. And equally verbose. He reached into a small tray and without taking those flat, brown eyes off me, eyes that measured me with the cold appetite of an alligator, lifted out a stained and worn manila folder and flicked it to his desk like a dead moth.

“How much do you know about explosives, Guest Mead?”

“Explosives?”

“It says here,” he tapped a muscular finger on my file, “that you made bombs, and that one of your bombs was used by a member of the loyal opposition. If you made bombs and you are still alive, then you know something about explosives. It’s logical, Mead.”

“Bombs? What bombs? It’s your premise that’s wrong, Chief Resident! I’m a land broker—what in God’s holy name would I know about bombs?”

“The premise is not wrong,” he stated evenly. “It is in your official dossier, so it cannot be wrong. It says—in your official dossier—that you made bombs.”

“But I know nothing of bombs! I deal in real estate: choice plantation land only a short drive from all major services. I was negotiating with investors at the Crown Colony Tennis Club when the police …A major proposal for national greatness and jobs for the people …Look, these tennis shorts, that’s all I’ve had to wear for six months—and a jockey-strap that—”

He held up a strong hand, palm out. It was a hand, we had been told by admiring Camp Counselors, that all by itself had strangled a guest who had in some minor way irritated the Chief Resident. Now its mere motion strangled my explanation.

“One of these documents is signed by Prime Minister Burnley himself. It says that you made the bomb that killed Mr. Rodney, senior member of our nation’s parliament and a personal friend of the Prime Minister.”

A thick finger tapped another limp sheet. “This second document is signed by General Tobias, commander of our National Police. It tells of another bomb you made—the one that caused a civil disturbance at the Governor’s Palace. Are you calling the Prime Minister of our great nation a liar?”

His voice dropped to an almost gentle whisper, “Are you calling my respected commander, General Tobias, a liar?”

“But I never met Rodney! And I never heard of either of those bombs! The police, they—the prime minister’s son, he—”

The whisper sharpened. “You are?”

“Are what?”

“You are calling the Prime Minister a liar? And General Tobias?”

“No! Sir, dear God, no! But—”

“Then you must be the liar, Guest Mead.”

• • •

Rex Burns is the author of numerous books, articles, reviews and stories. The first in his series of police procedurals, The Alvarez Journal, won an Edgar for Best First Mystery and introduced the hard-boiled Denver homicide detective, Gabriel Villanueva Wager. Another, The Avenging Angel, was made into a feature movie starring Charles Bronson (retitled Messenger of Death, 1988). With Suicide Season, Burns introduced the Devlin Kirk series, a Denver private detective specializing in industrial security. Novels featuring the Father/Daughter detective team of James Raiford and Julie Campbell are published by Mysterious Press/Open Road.

Burns’ books are published in hardback, paperback, and audio, and have been translated into a number of foreign languages. He is also co-editor, with Mary Rose Sullivan, of an anthology of detective stories entitled Crime Classics, and has published under the pen name “Tom Sehler.” He has published short stories in several periodicals and anthologies, and his “Leonard Smith” series of Aboriginal police stories currently appears in “Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.”

For several years Burns wrote a monthly mystery book review column for the Rocky Mountain News. Other of his reviews have appeared there and in the Denver Post, the Miami Herald, and the Washington Post. A number of his essays on craft have been published in The Writer and elsewhere. He was a contributor to Scribner’s Mystery and Suspense Writers, and an advisor and contributor to the Oxford Companion to Mystery.

He received his AB from Stanford University, and, after serving in the Marine Corps, his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He has published articles on American literature and culture, and a study of nineteenth century values entitled, Success in America: The Yeoman Dream and the Industrial Revolution. Retired from the University of Colorado, he lives and writes in Boulder, CO.

Find Rex Online:

Website - http://www.rexburns.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rexburns13
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Burns_Rex

Available Now: Outcast by Dianne Noble

OUTCAST
Dianne Noble

Length: Full Length
Genre: Contermporary Fiction

Digital Price: $4.99 (99c/99p through 20 March)

BUY HERE: Tirgearr Publishing

Rose leaves her Cornwall café to search for her daughter in the sweltering slums of Kolkata, India.

In the daily struggle for survival, she is often brought to her knees, but finds strength to overcome the poverty and disease, grows to love the Dalit community she helps.

But then there are deaths, and she fears for her own safety.

Her café at home is at risk of being torched, and finally, she has to make the terrible choice between her daughter and the Indian children.

• • •

Penzance, Cornwall

The minute she heard Tom’s voice Rose knew it meant trouble. In the three years since the divorce their only contact had been by email, infrequent and stiff.

The day had begun like any other. It was barely light when the alarm went off. Rose felt for her slippers with eyes still shut and groped her way to the bathroom. She dragged a brush through her hair, noting the roots needed attention, pulled on yesterday’s clothes and sped along the beach path to Newlyn, the wind blowing salt spray into her face. The fishing boats had already unloaded and the container lorries, heavily laden, were rumbling up the hill on their way to the restaurants of London.

Once she had collected the crab and started back, the town began to stir. Windows were opened, pavements swept, the awnings of the ice cream parlour released from their overnight restraints. The hum of a milk float, the clink of bottles. In doorways winos slumbered on, their dogs alert and watchful. The first claps of thunder rolled through the town as she reached home.

Full English breakfasts ran seamlessly into cottage pies and then the pace slowed for crab sandwiches and cream teas. The café had been full all day, a tropical rainforest, the windows steamed up and smells of wet wool, wet humanity. Broken-spoked umbrellas leaned wearily against walls, cagoules dripped from chair backs. A buzz of conversation, clatter of crockery, the gurgle of the coffee machine, waitresses scurrying back and forth to the kitchen balancing trays.

By five p.m. when Rose shepherded the last stragglers out, she longed for a cup of Earl Grey. She had just opened the fridge for lemon when the call came through. With a sigh she picked up the receiver. Felt the cat wreathe itself round her legs.

‘Yes?’

‘Have you had the radio on?’

‘What?’

‘Sit down, Rose.’ No formalities, no pleasantries. He sounded strained.

‘What’s happened?’ Aware her voice was rising, she scrabbled behind her for a chair. ‘It’s Ellie, isn’t it? Tell me.’

‘I’ve been at Heathrow all day.’

She struggled to hear him as the rain rattled on the window like thrown gravel. ‘Isn’t she there? Did you miss her? Have you phoned the airline?’ Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands. The scream of a siren outside somewhere.

‘Can’t get through.’ His voice cracked. He was crying. ‘Rose…the plane is missing.’

Darkness crept in from the edges of her vision, a rushing sound in her ears. ‘A plane can’t just disappear.’ Her lips numb, she struggled to form the words.

‘It landed at Dubai, but they lost contact after it took off again.’

‘Somebody must know where it is,’ she shouted. ‘Have you asked—?’

‘Of course I’ve bloody asked.’ He took a ragged breath. ‘We’re all waiting for further news.’

‘But can’t you…surely…you must…have you tried her mobile?’

‘She lost it. Hasn’t replaced it. I’ll phone again when I know something. Keep the line free.’

A click. Rose stared at the receiver, her fingers white where she had twisted the cord round them. Thought of cigarettes. Years since she’d stopped but she felt a desperate need for a huge lungful of nicotine. She couldn’t just sit and wait. Leapt to her feet and sped upstairs. Drummed on the desk as she waited for her laptop to fire up. Mis-typed the name of the airline. Tried again. Cursed at the crap internet speed in Cornwall. As soon as the contact number appeared on the screen she snatched up the phone. Remembered Tom’s words about keeping the landline free and slammed it down again. Scrabbled through her handbag for her mobile, tipping the contents on the floor. Punched in the number, muttering.

Come on, come on.

No sodding signal again. She threw the phone across the room where it bounced off an armchair and slid under the settee. Maybe there’d been an email? Not likely. Months since Ellie had been in touch with her—it was always Tom she turned to—but she checked anyway. Nothing.

She shivered as she stood at the window. Sails of rain blew across the promenade, people hurried past, a woman in a yellow mac, head bent into the wind. Rose wrapped her arms around her body, rocked herself. Maybe the plane had made a forced landing and they’d hear soon. But why had there been no radio contact? A plane couldn’t be there one minute and not the next.

It could if it crashed.

Her throat contracted. She heard little moaning sounds and wondered where they came from. Tears ran down her cheeks and splashed on the window sill. She couldn’t be gone. Not Ellie. Not her only child. Pictures flashed across her mind; Ellie in her red snowsuit trying to catch the falling flakes, Ellie beaming with delight when she won the sack race, Ellie trying not to cry when she had her leg stitched. And then Ellie, her face sullen, on her graduation day.

Please, God, don’t let me lose her. She should never have been in India. This is all Tom’s fault.

• • •

Dianne Noble was on a troopship sailing for Singapore at the age of seven and hasn’t stopped travelling since. Her last trip was to Moscow but her favourite place remains India. The atmospheric settings of her novels reflect her experiences.

Find Dianne online:

Website - http://www.dianneanoble.site
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dianneanoble
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/dianneanoble1
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianne-noble-183a143a
Tirgearr Publishing - http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Noble_Dianne

Available Now: Before We Say Goodbye by Julie MacLennan

BEFORE WE SAY GOODBYE
Julie MacLennan

ISBN: 9781310948978
ASIN: B00S05BR4A
Length: Novel
Genre: Women's Fiction
Price: $4.99

Buy Here: Tirgearr Publishing

Four strangers are brought together on a train journey just before Christmas.

They come from very different backgrounds but they all share one thing in common – they have reached a pivotal moment in their lives and after this journey nothing will ever be the same again.

From the sorrow which follows joy, the love which turns to betrayal and the rejection which finally finds the door to acceptance, each will discover that the only journey which really matters is the one which leads to survival.

• • •

‘I’m leaving you!’

The young woman at the end of the phone screamed in fury as Damien Hunt calmly rose from his desk and walked towards the window.

The late afternoon sun was slipping silently below the horizon in a last brilliant blaze of crimson defiance. The irony was not lost on him as he witnessed the magnificent rays disappearing from sight at exactly the same moment as Stella Milner was doing her best to elicit a response – any response – from him.

‘Do you hear me? Are you even listening? What’s the matter with you?’

She was almost hysterical now, and he could tell that his continued refusal to answer her was only inflaming an already volatile situation. But not for the first time, he recognised it as his escape route and said nothing.

‘Damien? Damien! Will you answer me?’

The silence on the line was deafening and Damien could hear her start to cry.

He closed his eyes. There was a part of him which felt guilty, responsible for the situation in which they now found themselves. But only a part of him.

Mostly what he felt was a dreadful and overwhelming weariness.

It was a feeling which was unfamiliar and yet it had crept up on him lately, invading his thoughts during random moments and making him doubt everything. Including himself.

And now it was telling him that there was no point in prolonging this conversation.

He let the phone fall to his side as Stella continued to rage against him.

They both knew that she was right. She wanted only what she deserved. There was only one problem.

He couldn’t give it to her.

Couldn’t give her the commitment and the stability that she hadn’t cared about in the beginning but now seemed to crave. He couldn’t give it, and more importantly he didn’t want to give it. Not to her. Not to anyone. Not ever.

Her voice became louder and he reluctantly raised the phone to his ear again.

‘Can’t you even speak to me now, Damien? What do you think I am? Some little tramp? A one night stand? You really think that you’re better than me, don’t you, Damien?’

Still he remained silent.

When she spoke again, her voice was lower and she sounded more in control.

‘Okay, if you won’t speak to me on the phone, you leave me no choice. We’ll just have to have this conversation in front of everyone in your office. I’m coming round.’

• • •

Julie MacLennan lives and works in Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland.

This is her first published novel, although she has been writing for as long as she can remember.

Some of her earliest memories are of sitting by her grandfather’s chair and being fascinated by the books he read. Later, encouraged by her grandmother’s gift for writing and her mother’s imagination, she began to transfer her own short stories and poetry to paper.

Her shared love of football with her father inspired her to write the poem “Farewell, Our Friend” which was read out and televised around the world at George Best’s funeral in late 2005.

More recently, she was honored to be asked by the Royal British Legion if they could use another of her poems, “The Promise”, as part of their commemoration of the First World War.

She is now working on her second novel.

Find Julie Online:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008443877097
Tirgearr Publishing - http://tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/MacLennan_Julie

Available Now: My Husband's Sin

MY HUSBAND'S SIN
Mary T. Bradford

Length: Novel
Genre: Contempory Fiction
Price: $3.99

Get your copy here: Tirgearr Publishing

In the weeks following Lillian Taylor’s burial, her four loving adult children assemble for the reading of her will. For the grieving youngest sibling, Lacey, life is about to come crashing down as a deep secret is revealed. The fall-out affects every member and they struggle to regain the happy family unit they once shared. Each of the siblings, take the reader on a journey as they try to come to terms and learn to handle this huge revelation.

Visit Mary at Heart of Fiction today. Leave a comment or question with your email address, and enter a chance to win a free copy of My Husband's Sin.

Available Now: Stray Ally

STRAY ALLY
Troy Lambert

ISBN: 9781310743665
ASIN: B00IRFVC98
Length: novel
Genre: Contempory Thriller
Price: $3.99

Get your copy here:   Kindle US, Kindle UK, Smashwords

A strange accident on the freeway, accusations of murder, and an encounter in the Idaho wilderness all propel Todd Clarke into a new friendship with a dog named Sparky. But Sparky is no ordinary dog, and there is more going on than Clarke could have imagined.

A military commander he investigated for Aryan activity and links to domestic terrorism is after him, and he’s not sure why until another chance encounter provides the answer.

With Sparky and the help of his canine friends, will he be able to figure out the Colonel’s plan and stop him in time? All Clarke knows for sure is none of it would be possible without the help of his Stray Ally.

Visit Troy at Heart of Fiction today. Leave a comment or question with your email address, and enter a chance to win a free copy of Stray Ally.

Available Now: I Will Sing My Songs For You

I WILL SING MY SONGS FOR YOU
Harry McGilloway

ISBN: 9781310760426
ASIN: B00IEAQJWQ
Length: novel
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Price: $3.99

Get your copy here:  Amazon US, Kindle UK, Smashwords

Young musician, Simon, is the songwriter and front man of the very successful group, Simon and the Heartbeats. He is surrounded by all the trappings of a rock-star life style.

On a song-writing break to rural Inishowen in County Donegal, that borders the troubled province of Northern Ireland, Simon meets and becomes enchanted with the very beautiful Marie-Clare. As their lives being to entwine, can their relationship survive the tragedies and misunderstanding that will invade it? As Simon's fame and fortune climbs to a higher plane, Marie-Clare has her own demons to conquer.

Throughout the intriguing twists and turns, we encounter breaking points and endurance, tenderness and vulnerability, deep sorrow and intense love.

This is an in-depth look at the workings of the music industry machine and portrays the reality behind the popular misconceptions.

Visit Harry at Heart of Fiction today. Leave a comment or question with your email address, and enter a chance to win a free copy of I Will Sing My Songs For You.

Available Now: My Grandfather's Pants

MY GRANDFATHER'S PANTS
Tegon Maus

ISBN: 9781310037856
ASIN: B00HZH5A7O
Length: Novelette
Genre: Contemporary Paranormal Fiction
Price: $3.99

Get your copy here:  Kindle US, Kindle UK, Smashwords

Jack Laskin is an ordinary man. More than ordinary according to some. Running the family hardware store and a life that would bore a snail, nothing exciting ever seems to happen to him.

Then, at his mother’s urging, he tries on a pair of his late grandfather's old pants and everything changes -- most importantly his emerging love life. It's not long before his mother and her meddling friends get involved.

When an old friend of his grandfather’s tells Jack he has something she wants, his new-found life takes another turn. Having no idea what he is supposed to have, Jack looks to his girlfriend, Connie, and her brother, Robert, for help.

In the end, the answers will all be found in his Grandfather’s Pants.

Visit Tegon at Heart of Fiction today. Leave a comment or question with your email address, and enter a chance to win a free copy of My Grandfather's Pants.

Available Now: The Universe Doesn't Do Second Chances

THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T DO SECOND CHANCES
Sean-Paul Thomas

ISBN: 9781301590612
ASIN: B00EX9RHV4
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Price: $4.49

Get your copy here: Kindle US, Kindle UK, Smashwords

A lonely man in his late thirties living an average life of missed opportunities and regrets especially regarding the opposite sex, dies in a plane crash somewhere over the English channel. When he awakens in a subdued and bizarre subconscious state, he is granted by the powers that be, one chance to spend a day with the two women in his life who made an impact on his heart, yet he never had the courage to let go of his fears and act upon his instincts and desires at the time of meeting them.

Log into Sean-Paul's page on the Tirgearr Publishing site for an excerpt from Watchers.

Visit Sean-Paul at Heart of Fiction today. Leave a comment or question with your email address, and enter a chance to win a free copy of The Universe Doesn't Do Second Chances.