Paranoid by Lisa Jackson Review! #SheSpeaks #ReadPARANOID

http://bit.ly/ReadParanoid
Kensington
June 2019, ISBN: 1496722469
Genre: Thriller/Suspense

About the Book

When is a weapon only a toy? In this riveting page-turner from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson, a woman haunted by guilt realizes that nothing can be trusted--not even her own memory . . .

There are people in Edgewater, Oregon, who think that twenty years ago, Rachel Gaston got away with murder.

Rachel still has no idea how a foolish teenaged game turned deadly--or who replaced the soft pellet air gun she thought she was using with a real weapon. When a figure leaped out at her from the darkness of the old fish processing plant, she fired without thinking. Too late, she recognized her half-brother, Luke, and saw the blood blooming around his chest.

Despite counseling, Rachel's horrifying dreams about that night have never stopped. In a small town like Edgewater, it's impossible to escape the past or avoid rumors and gossip. Busy raising two teens after her divorce from detective Cade Ryder, she'd rather not attend her upcoming high school reunion, though she agrees to help track down alums for the gathering. But as Rachel confronts old memories, she feels her imagination playing tricks on her, convincing her that objects in her house have moved. That there's a hint of unfamiliar cologne in the air. That someone is tailing her car. Watching her home.

Cade knows his ex is highly strung. Rachel's anxiety played a part in their split, though Cade takes his share of the blame too. Yet maybe this time, she's right to be scared. And as connections surface between a new string of murders and Luke's death, Rachel realizes that the truth is darker than her worst fears . . .

Photo by Shelby Kohler Photography

Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of more than 85 novels, including Afraid to Die, Tell Me, You Don’t Want to Know, Running Scared, Without Mercy, Malice, and Shiver.  She is also the co-author of the Colony Series, co-written with her sister, Nancy Bush. There are over 20 million copies of Lisa Jackson’s books in print in twenty languages. 

Before she became a nationally bestselling author, Lisa Jackson was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, the USA Today, and the Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

With over thirty bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity – and back – in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions.  She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional and downright twisted.  As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims, and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families. 

My Review
Paranoid by Lisa Jackson is the story of Rachel Gaston, who lives in Edgewater Oregon with her son and daughter. She is divorced from Detective Cade Ryder but they do have an amicable relationship if only for the kids. 
Twenty years ago, Rachel along with some classmates was in an abandoned fish factory with pellet air guns when hers was replaced with a real gun, unbeknownst to her. When someone jumps out she panics and shoots, finds out that the person she shot was her half brother Luke. 
Despite counseling Rachel still feels that it was her fault that her brother is dead and blames herself after all of these years. A high school reunion is being planned, she feels that there are objects being moved in her house, whiffs of cologne and cigarette smoke is in the air. She is being tailed and feels that someone is watching her home.
Now that there are classmates being murdered her paranoia increases. 
Her ex knows that Rachel has issues but he is not sure whether to believe her or not as to her paranoia. Not only that, her daughter has been sneaking out at night to be with a guy whom Rachel is not fond of. So all of these things come to a horrifying conclusion that I did not see coming.
I had not read a Lisa Jackson novel in quite a few years and I am not sure why I haven't as I do remember enjoying them. This one was no exception. This book is character driven and is believable. I love the writing as it was pretty suspenseful and I did not see the ending coming but I like to think that the ending is such that there is another book coming with the same characters.
I think that if you enjoy a good psychological thriller that you can't go wrong with the novel. 
I received a copy of this book for review purposes. 

A Dead Man’s Honor By Frankie Y. Bailey Book Tour! @FrankieYBailey

By Frankie Y. Bailey

ISBN-10: 1628158735

ISBN-13: 978-1628158731

Speaking Volumes, LLC

Paperback: 228 pages

June 5, 2018

Genre: Romantic suspense

Series: A Lizzie Stuart Mystery, Book 2

When They Met, Murder Was Only the Beginning

 Crime historian Lizzie Stuart goes to Gallagher, Virginia for a year as a visiting professor at Piedmont State University. She is there to do research for a book about a 1921 lynching that her grandmother, Hester Rose, witnessed when she was a twelve-year-old child. Lizzie's research is complicated by her own unresolved feelings about her secretive grandmother and by the disturbing presence of John Quinn, the police officer she met while on vacation in England. When an arrogant but brilliant faculty member of Piedmont State University is murdered, Lizzie begins to have more than a few sleepless nights. A Dead Man’s Honor is a haunting story that will keep you awake nights, too.

Other books in the series:

Death’s Favorite Child

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Wednesday, June 17, Drucilla, Kentucky

Rituals for the Dead and Dying.  I’d scrawled those words across the yellow page of a legal pad one robins-chirping, tulips-blooming afternoon in May.  That day, moving my hand across the page had been the only thing that had kept me from toppling over.  The paperback thriller I had brought along in my tote bag had stayed there, too intricate for my brain even if my eyes hadn’t been filled with grit.     

Rituals.  During slavery, blacks on plantations often wrapped their dead in “winding sheets” and buried them at night.  Laboring from sunup to sundown, the slaves spent their daylight hours performing their masters’ tasks. Night was the only portion of the day that they could call their own.  So that was when they buried their dead. Singing, carrying torches to light the way, they delivered the body to its grave. 

Such processions puzzled, even frightened, the whites who observed them.  Prone to their own superstitions, whites in the antebellum South understood better the “death watch” for the departing loved one and the “laying out” of the corpse. 

They, white people, died of diseases and in childbirth. Black slaves died of the same causes and of hard work and abuse. Death was a constant presence in the lives of both groups. Death required rituals. 

It still does. My grandmother, a descendant of field slaves, did her dying in a hospital room under medical supervision. But each day I drove back and forth to Lexington to keep my vigil at her bedside. 

On the night that she died, I had lost my battle with exhaustion and fallen asleep in an armchair. Her voice jolted me awake. She had pushed herself upright in the bed. “Becca? Don’t you play your games with me. I see you there.”

I twisted around in my chair. For a moment, in that dimly lit room, I expected to see something there in the shadows.

“Becca, you stop your laughing!”

I had never heard Becca laugh. Neither one of us had laid eyes on Becca, my mother, in the thirty-eight years since my birth. But to the best of my knowledge she was still alive. Not a ghost to haunt her mother’s passing. 

I staggered to my feet. “Grandma? Shh, it’s all right. Let me help you lie back down.”

She turned her head and looked up at me. “Becca? What you come back here for?’

“Grandma, it’s me. It’s Lizzie. Here, let me--”

  She grabbed my hand in an urgent grip. “It would kill you daddy if he knew. We can’t never let him find out. We can’t let nobody find out.”

“What. . .find out what?”

She groaned, rocking herself. “How could you do it, Becca? That man--” Her voice sunk to a whisper. “Oh, lord, baby. Becca, get on your knees and pray . . . pray for you and that child growing inside you.”

“Grandma, what--?”

She slumped against my arm.  I held her for several heartbeats, then eased her back down onto the pillow.

  She was dead.  I knew that even before I pressed the button for assistance, even before a nurse rushed into the room to check her vital signs.  Hester Rose Stuart was dead.   

As for Becca–Rebecca, headstrong by all accounts, had been a few weeks short of eighteen when I was born.  Five days after my birth, still without revealing the identity of my father, she had boarded a Greyhound bus and left town. Or so my grandmother had always told me. 

In the days since my grandmother’s death, I had been adjusting to living alone in the house that was now mine. Adjusting to silences filled with voices from my childhood. At around three that afternoon, I came to rest there in the kitchen doorway.  

  Silver-edged thunderheads loomed.  I considered getting in my car and driving down to the Sheraton Hotel.  I thought of sitting there in the lobby cafe sipping mint tea while the pianist played and the fountain tinkled, drowning out the storm raging outside.  I thought of leaving home before the storm broke, but I kept on standing there in the doorway with that photograph in my hand. 

  It had been taken out by the old oak tree.  My grandfather, Walter Lee, grinning that grin that people still mentioned when they spoke of him, faced the camera.  He was ebony-skinned and lanky.  Hester Rose, petite and pecan-colored, peeped around his shoulder.  That afternoon, touched by some fleeting joy, she had dared risk one of her rare full-mouthed smiles.  A hand had snapped the photograph and then it had been forgotten.  

I had found the camera when I was searching the attic. After two hours of dust and spider

webs, after finding nothing more significant about my mother than the paperback novels--Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, and The Scarlet Letter—that she must have been assigned in a high school English class, I had been about to give up. Then I’d opened a dented steamer truck. The camera was buried beneath a pile of moldy sheets. When I realized it contained film, I ran downstairs to change.  Half an hour later, I was walking into a camera store in Lexington. There among the prints of house, flower beds, and vegetable garden had been that single photograph of my grandparents, the proud homeowners.  

Both dead now. He of a heart attack, years ago when I was at graduate school. She at a little after midnight on June 1, the combined effects of hip surgery, diabetes, and a virulent strain of pneumonia—and perhaps whatever it was that had kept her mouth tight and her eyes wary.   

Lightning zigzagged across the sky.  I stepped back into the kitchen and let the screen door bang shut.    

When I was a child, I had been sure God was Zeus, with lightning bolts that he flung down at people who had been bad.  I shared this with my grandfather during one of our tramps through the woods, and he laughed until tears streaked his cheeks.  

Seeing my chagrin, he hugged me to his side. “Lizzie, if that was the way of it, child, you wouldn’t be able to walk after a storm for all the dead folks you’d be stumbling over.” That might be true, but all these years later I could still have gone for a very long time between colliding weather fronts.

Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked and boomed, shaking the house. I clutched my grandparents’ photograph and scrunched myself tighter into a corner of the flowered sofa. The shutter on one of the upstairs windows was loose and banging. Rain slashed against the picture window in the living room. I huddled there on the sofa, mumbling an apology for being ungrateful for what I had. An apology for being angry because I was without kin. 

God did not strike one dead for having wicked thoughts.  If that were the case, I’d already be dead.

I was astraphobic, brontophobic.  Scared of storms.  One of those silly childhood fears I intended to outgrow someday soon. The upstairs shutter banged like a gavel in the hand of an irate judge.    

“All right, you’re being ridiculous. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight. First thing tomorrow, find a repairman to fix the shutter. Ninety-seven, ninety-six. I am calm and relaxed. I am--”

White light exploded in the room. I screamed. I thought I was dead. But it was the tree. The old oak tree in the backyard had been struck by lightning. Blasted to its roots. Hester Rose, my grandmother, would have said it was an omen. A “sign.” But a sign is only useful if you know how to read it. At any rate, it was a moment of transition. Not dying was amazingly therapeutic. 

Frankie Y. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany (SUNY). Her research areas are crime history, and crime and mass media/popular culture. Her current work in progress focuses on clothing, the body, and criminal justice in American culture. Bailey serves as the project director for the Justice and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century initiative in the School of Criminal Justice. Bailey has five books and two published short stories in a mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart. The Red Queen Dies, the first book in a near-future police procedural series featuring Detective Hannah McCabe, came out in September 2013.  The second book in the series, What the Fly Saw came out in March 2015. Frankie is a former executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime.

Website URL: www.frankieybailey.com

Twitter:  @FrankieYBailey

Amazon: A Dead Man’s Honor

Amazon: Death’s Favorite Child

Book Title: Waves of Murder: A Fiona Quinn Mystery Author: C.S. McDonald Book Spotlight and Giveaway!

Join Fiona and the gang for a hot whodunit on the sandy beaches of Presque Isle, Pennsylvania!

Book Details:

Book Title: Waves of Murder: A Fiona Quinn Mystery
Author: C.S. McDonald
Category: YA Fiction, 190 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: McWriter Books
Release date: April 11, 2017
Tour dates: May 15 to 26, 2017
Content Rating: G (The Fiona Quinn Mysteries are for everyone--adults love the books and they are appropriate for teens and tweens too!)

Book Description:

School’s out for the summer!

Kindergarten teacher, Fiona Quinn is looking forward to spending some quality time in her yard and with her boyfriend, Detective Nathan Landry. However, Fiona’s plans get squelched when her mother volunteers her to edit a manuscript for famous romance author, Wyla Parkes.

What’s so bad about that? The author insists Fiona must work on the manuscript at her beach cottage on Presque Isle--three hours away from her yard and Nathan. Spending six weeks in an adorable cottage on a private beach doesn’t really seem all that bad until people start turning up dead—beginning with the author! Fiona’s summer of sun and sand is instantly transformed into a murder investigation. Can Fiona and Nathan crack the case or will the murderer get away on a wave of deceit?

Join Fiona and the gang for a hot whodunit on the sandy beaches of Presque Isle, Pennsylvania!

Buy the Book:

Amazon

Add to Goodreads

Author…Where do Characters Come From?

People are always asking me, “where do you get your stories from, and where do your characters come from?” “Are they people who you know? Is it someone who I know?” Sometimes they will gasp while cupping their hand over their mouth in complete panic and ask, “Oh, my God! Is it me?”

*giggle* If it were the person, do you think I’d actually admit it to them?

Okay, so where does a character like Fiona Quinn come from? Fiona is a product of my heart. I absolutely love characters who are flawed, who get flustered. Characters who try to the right the debacle and it all turns out wrong—such is the case with my unlikely sleuth, Fiona Quinn.

Fiona is a kindergarten teacher who lives in Pittsburgh. As a matter of fact, she lives in the very house that I grew up in at 529 Oxford Street, in a little neighborhood called, Westwood. Fiona grew up much like I did—taking dance classes. She almost became a ballerina, until a skiing accident. In book #1 Murder on Pointe, poor Fiona is dragged into a murder investigation by going undercover as a ballerina—and thus, we begin our stories of this darling young woman who has a knack for solving mysteries. In books #2 Merry Murder, Fiona can’t wait for her parents to return to Pittsburgh for the holidays. She’s got everything perfectly planned, until her great Uncle Wilbur, who is a department store Santa, is murdered, and again, Fiona jumps into action to try to solve the case before Christmas arrives!

Of course, Fiona has lots of help in solving mysteries. There is the quirky, but oh, so charming, Detective Landry—he is so much fun to write, and kind of reminds me of my husband. And in Merry Murder, we meet Fiona’s mom, Nancy. Believe it or not, when I was creating the character Nancy Quinn, the character told me her name was indeed, Nancy. No, Janet wouldn’t do—nor would Carol or Jean or Penelope—it had to be Nancy. Period.

At this point in the conversation, the person I’m talking to tilts their head to one side, narrows their eyes and askes, “Seriously? The characters talk to you?”

Absolutely!

If you’re an author reading this you know exactly what I’m talking about. Characters tell us when they want to fall in love or when a relationship just isn’t working out, and yes, oftentimes they will tell us what their name is. They tell us how they are feeling and what they fear, and as authors we react accordingly.

In book #3 Waves of Murder, I’ve taken Fiona to Presque Isle, located in Erie, Pennsylvania—about three hours North of Pittsburgh. Hold the phone! Fiona’s ghostly grandmother, Evelyn, who lives in the attic wasn’t too pleased to hear the story was moving to where she was not present. That’s right, Evelyn whispered in my ear. So yes, I had to accommodate Evelyn, and make sure there were scenes that involved her character in this book. To be honest, I think Fiona’s readers would’ve been just as disappointed as she was if I had left Evelyn out of the story.

So where do the characters who whisper into our ear come from? Many places. They come from our childhood, our relationships, experiences, and things we witness—currently or from long ago. Characters are asleep in the deep crevasses of an author’s mind—they awaken and emerge making themselves known to us when the time is right, and then our fingertips race over the keys to make them flesh and bring them to you.

Meet the Author:

For twenty-six years C.S. McDonald’s life whirled around a song and a dance. She was a professional dancer and choreographer. During that time she choreographed many musicals and an opera for the Pittsburgh Savoyards. In 2011 she retired from her dance career to write. Under her real name, Cindy McDonald, she writes murder-suspense and romantic suspense novels. In 2014 she added the pen name, C.S. McDonald, to write children’s books for her grandchildren. Now she adds the Fiona Quinn Mysteries to that expansion. She decided to write the cozy mystery series for her young granddaughters, and has found that so many adults love them too.

Ms. McDonald resides on her Thoroughbred farm known as Fly by Night Stables near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband, Bill, and her poorly behaved Cocker Spaniel, Allister.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

BOOK SPOTLIGHT TOUR:

May 15 - Library of Clean Reads - book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
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May 15 - Corinne Rodrigues - book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
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May 17 - Zerina Blossom's Books - book spotlight / giveaway
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May 18 - FUONLYKNEW - book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
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Enter the Giveaway!

Ends June 3

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@alisonbrodie2 Brake Failure by Alison Brodie Book Spotlight!

Title:  BRAKE FAILURE

Author:  Alison Brodie

Publisher:  Clipboard Press

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Page count: 340

ISBN:  978-0-9954568-2-2

Publication date:   9 January, 2017

Brake Failure is a contemporary romance with humour, suspense and a kick-ass heroine.  The story is set in one of the most fascinating periods of America's history:  the months leading up to Y2K "melt-down."

"Is it too late to tell him you love him when you're looking down the barrel of his gun?"

Ruby Mortimer-Smyth is an English debutante, destined for Ladies Day at Ascot and taking tea at The Savoy. She knows the etiquette for every occasion and her soufflés NEVER collapse. 

She is in control of her life, tightly in control.  Until fate dumps her down in … Kansas. 

Ruby believes that life is like a car; common-sense keeps it on the road, passion sends it into a ditch.  What she doesn't know is, she's on a collision course with Sheriff Hank Gephart. 

Sheriff Hank Gephart can judge a person.  Miss Mortimer-Smyth might act like the Duchess of England but just under the surface there's something bubbling, ready to explode.  She's reckless, and she's heading for brake failure.  And he's not thinking about her car.

With the Millennium approaching, Ruby gets caught up in the Y2K hysteria.  She joins a group of Survivalists, who give her a gun and advise her to stockpile basic essentials, such as gasoline and water-purifying tablets.  So she bulk-buys Perrier, Gentleman's Relish and macaroons. 

Ruby, far from home, is making Unsuitable Friends and "finding herself" for the first time.  She falls in with a gang of Hells Angels and falls foul of the law.  At every turn, she comes up hard against Sheriff Hank Gephart, whose blue eyes seem to look deep into her soul.  She desperately wants him but knows she can never have him.

She's angry and confused at the emotions he arouses in her.  Pushed to her limit, she bursts from her emotional straightjacket.

As the clock strikes midnight of the new Millennium, she's on a freight train with three million dollars, a bottle of Wild Turkey and a smoking gun.

What happened to Miss Prim-and-Proper?   And why did she shoot Mr Right?

______

Note:  Alison Brodie wrote this story from first-hand experience.  She lived in Kansas during this time and was stunned by the hysteria, unnerved that the US government was spending $150 billion preparing for Armageddon.  As Lionel Shriver says in her novel, We Have To Talk About Kevin:  “1999, a year widely mooted beforehand as the end of the world.”

Praise for Brake Failure

5 *  “OMG…I freakin’ LOVED this book…going on the list of one of my favorites of 2016.” –Star Angels Reviews

5*  “Everyone needs to read this book.  It’s blooming brilliant.” –The Reading Shed

5*  “Hilarious.”  -Lauren Sapala, Book Reviewer and Writers’ Coach.

5*  “A laugh-out-tale that will keep you flipping the pages as fast as possible.” –Tome Tender

5*  “Empowering…comical…refreshing.” –San Francisco Book Review

Read an Excerpt – Brake Failure

Brake Failure by Alison Brodie Blog Tour!

 Title: Brake Failure

By: Alison Brodie

Publication Date: January 9, 2017

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Brake Failure is a contemporary romance with a kick-ass heroine. The story is set in one of the most fascinating periods of America's history: the months leading up to Y2K "melt-down." "Is it too late to tell him you love him when you're looking down the barrel of his gun?" Ruby Mortimer-Smyth is an English debutante, destined for Lady’s Day at Ascot and taking tea at The Savoy. She knows the etiquette for every occasion and her soufflés NEVER collapse. She is in control of her life, tightly in control. Until fate dumps her down in … Kansas. Ruby believes that life is like a car; common-sense keeps it on the road, passion sends it into a ditch. What she doesn't know is, she's on a collision course with Sheriff Hank Gephart. Sheriff Hank Gephart can judge a person. Miss Mortimer-Smyth might act like the Duchess of England but just under the surface there's something bubbling, ready to explode. She's reckless, and she's heading for brake failure. And he's not thinking about her car. With the Millennium approaching, Ruby gets caught up in the Y2K hysteria. She joins a group of Survivalists, who give her a gun and advise her to stockpile basic essentials, such as gasoline and water-purifying tablets. So she bulk-buys Perrier, Gentleman's Relish and macaroons. Ruby, far from home, is making Unsuitable Friends and "finding herself" for the first time. She falls in with a gang of Hells Angels and falls foul of the law. At every turn, she comes up hard against Sheriff Hank Gephart, whose blue eyes seem to look deep into her soul. She desperately wants him but knows she can never have him. She's angry at the emotions he arouses in her. Pushed to her limit, she bursts from her emotional straightjacket. As the clock strikes midnight of the new Millennium, she's on a freight train with three million dollars, a bottle of Wild Turkey and a smoking gun. What happened to Miss Prim-and-Proper? And why did she shoot Mr Right? ______ Note: Alison Brodie wrote this story from first-hand experience. She lived in Kansas during this time and was stunned by the hysteria, unnerved that the US government was spending $150 billion preparing for Armageddon. As Lionel Shriver says in "We have to Talk About Kevin": '1999, a year widely mooted beforehand as the end of the world.' What Others Are Saying 5 * “OMG…I freakin’ LOVED this book…going on the list of one of my favorites of 2016.” –Star Angels Reviews 5* “Everyone needs to read this book. It’s blooming brilliant.” –The Reading Shed 5* “Hilarious.” -Lauren Sapala, Book Reviewer and Writers’ Coach. 5* “A laugh-out-tale that will keep you flipping the pages as fast as possible.” –Tome Tender 5* “Empowering…comical…refreshing.” –San Francisco Book Review

Pre Order Your Copy NOW!

Amazon US - http://amzn.to/2i0j2rf

Amazon UK - http://amzn.to/2gLNTDh

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Amazon US - http://amzn.to/1RsAsnm

Amazon UK - http://goo.gl/58v0r5

Amazon CA - https://goo.gl/duU52G

That afternoon, Ruby parked outside Shady Acres. She couldn’t wait for Gephart to ask her out on a date. Then she could tell him she was married. Ha!

He sat in reception. In full uniform. Why couldn’t he have changed into civilian clothes? Now he would make her look like an offender. Or was that his intention? Just because she’d put a few scratches in his police car.

‘Hi, Ruby.’ He stood up, crushing a plastic cup in one hand and tossing it in the bin.

She stared pointedly down at his belt. ‘Are you going to put me in handcuffs?’ she asked sarcastically.

He winked. ‘Not if you’re good.’

Ruby blushed. Why was it that every time she gazed into his eyes, she felt as if a hand was pressing down on her chest? She was only thankful that once she started reading to the old lady, Hank Gephart would go.

The receptionist was busy dealing with two elderly gentlemen, so Ruby and Hank had to wait to sign-in. Ruby felt strangely jittery in the big man’s presence. She only wished he wouldn’t stand so close. She inched further along the reception counter and, wanting to hide her nervousness, started squaring up the brochures into neat piles.

He came closer. ‘Ruby, I don’t like you mixing with Hells Angels.’

She felt his warm breath on her cheek. ‘Is there a law against that?’ Refusing to look at him, she picked up a brochure and found herself reading about incontinence.

‘No, but-’

‘Then, presumably, I have the freedom to choose with whom I associate?’

‘Yeah, but I’m warning you-’

Warning you. Angrily, she grabbed up another brochure and flicked through it at speed, false teeth and hearing-aids flashing by. ‘Why do you have to be so aggressive? Why can’t you say, “may I suggest?”’

‘Okay.’ He rested his arm along the counter and leant towards her. His eyes were blue, very blue. ‘May I suggest you keep away from them?’

‘No, you may-!’ She stopped abruptly. A matronly nurse was hovering beside them.

‘Well, Hank,’ the nurse said gaily. ‘Is this your lady friend you’ve been telling us about?’

Hank beamed down at Ruby with proprietary pride. ‘It sure is.’

‘I’m not his lady friend,’ Ruby mumbled.

‘Nice to meet you, Ruby,’ the nurse said. ‘I’m Amy.’ She beckoned with a finger as if tempting two small well-behaved children to an exciting treat. ‘If you want to come along, Mrs Amstruther is waiting.’

As they walked along the corridor, Ruby noticed two pretty nurses break off from their conversation to study her. She sensed that Hank had been gossiping about her. She caught up with Amy, determined to quash whatever rumours were flying around. ‘I am not at all familiar with Geph- I mean, Hank.’

The nurse stopped at a door and knocked. ‘I love your accent.’

Ruby persisted. ‘I have merely bumped into him on various occasions.’

‘We know.’ The nurse winked and opened the door. ‘You two go on in.’

As Ruby spluttered indignantly, Hank took her by the elbow. ‘Mrs Amstruther?’ he called. ‘I’ve brought my friend to meet you.’

‘Come in, come in,’ a quavery voice replied.

Ruby stepped across the threshold and froze.

Mrs Amstruther was blind.

The old lady was sat up in bed, dressed in a faded, flower-print bed-jacket, her eyes wrapped in bandages; her skin appeared almost translucent, the pink skull showing beneath a mop of dazzling white hair. She smiled sweetly, reaching out a tentative hand.

Ruby felt a pang. Mrs Amstruther shouldn’t be here; she should be in a cottage-garden in Devon with a wicker table laden with a cream tea and a vase of freshly cut delphiniums; and surrounded by her grandchildren.

‘Dear Hank,’ Mrs Amstruther murmured. Ruby stepped forward, and put her hand in the old woman’s. ‘Hello, I’m Ruby.’

‘Oh, how lovely to hear an English voice! You’re so kind, Ruby; volunteering to read to a boring old lady like me.’

‘It’s my pleasure.’

‘Hank didn’t bully you, I hope?’ Mrs Amstruther said in mock gravity.

With an ache of sadness, Ruby gazed down at the old woman so far from home - a home she would never again see. Ruby realised the childish bickering between her and Gephart was pathetic. The discord she had brought into the room, evaporated. ‘I didn’t need to be bullied. I was delighted with Hank for asking me.’

‘Do take a seat, Ruby, dear,’ the old woman said.

Ruby pulled an armchair closer to the bed. The room was sunny, the walls covered in framed photographs of children at the seaside. Beyond the window, at the far perimeter of a vast lawn, a freight train rumbled passed, the melancholic blast of its horn fading into the distance. Gephart, too, was watching it.

Mrs Armstruther’s hand was searching the rumpled bedding. ‘Ruby, could you possibly read a few pages of Wind in the Willows? My son loved it when he was little.’ She brought out a book from under the covers. ‘It’s so annoying not being able to see. Thankfully the bandages come off at the end of the month.’

‘So it’s not …?’

‘What, dear?’

‘Permanent?’ Ruby asked, taking the book.

‘Oh, no, it’s just cataracts; the curse of old age.’

Ruby, discovering the old woman would recover her sight, felt a lightness of spirit; felt she could embrace all her fellow beings - including Hank. He was standing, studying the photos on the wall. Catching his eye, she smiled at him, tilting her head towards the door, a silent message that he could leave.

He wrinkled his brow, evidently unable to gauge her meaning.

She tried again, running her fingers through the air towards the door.

He gave her a stupid look.

‘Are you going?’ she mouthed silently.

He nodded to signify that he understood. Then he shook his head, walked over to the armchair by the window, sat down and rested his hands squarely on his knees.

He was obviously staying.

‘Have you ever read Wind in the Willows, Ruby?’ Mrs Amstruther asked.

‘Yes, years ago.’

The old lady laughed. ‘Mole is delightful, isn’t he? Who is your favourite character?’

‘Toad. I loved it when he dressed up as a woman to escape the police.’ Ruby instantly regretted the words. ‘Of course, I don’t identify with Toad,’ she added hastily, forcing herself not to look at Gephart. ‘I just think he’s a loveable rascal.’

‘Isn’t he just!’ Mrs Amstruther settled back to enjoy the story, and Ruby began:

‘“The Mole had been working hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home …”’

Why is P.C. Plod hanging about anyway? Surely he’s not interested in riverbank creatures.

‘“First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash till he had dust in his throat and eyes and splashes of white-wash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms …”’

He’s staring at me; I know he is.

‘“Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below …’”

This was too much! Ruby glared at him. ‘Haven’t you got a murder to solve?’

‘What?’ Mrs Amstruther jerked in confusion.

Ruby was appalled by her thoughtlessness. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs Amstruther, I was talking to Hank. You see, I don’t want to keep him from his work.’

He folded his arms across his chest and grinned. He was obviously taking delight in her embarrassment. ‘I’m off-duty,’ he said.

For the sake of the old lady, Ruby had to speak sweetly, but there was nothing stopping her from raking the man from head to foot with hostile eyes. ‘Do you always wear uniform when you’re off-duty?’

‘I do when I haven’t had time to get to my locker and change.’

She couldn’t bear to look at that smug face a second longer. She snatched up the book and continued to read. ‘“Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below-’” She stopped in confusion, her cheeks a fiery red.

‘Oh, I’ve read that bit already.’

She could sense him laughing at her. And he was!

He stood up, his eyes dancing mischievously. ‘I’ve got a feeling Ruby can’t concentrate with me here. I’m flustering her pretty little head.’

Her relief that he was going was rapidly replaced by horror. That awful man was insinuating she fancied him! As he passed by, he bent and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll be waiting for you in the lobby … Sweet Cheeks,’ he said softly, squeezing her shoulder.

Wide-eyed and apoplectic, she watched him walk to the door.

‘He’s such a lovely man,’ Mrs Amstruther said after he had gone.

Ruby couldn’t trust herself to speak.

‘The nurses say he’s very handsome. Is he?’

Ruby was still pinning the door with a look of fury. ‘O-h-h, you don’t want to know what I think.’

She picked up the book, her decision made.

She was no longer angry; in fact, she was rather jubilant. Like any institution, this building would have a goods delivery entrance. Well, Gephart, she thought complacently. You’re about to have a long wait because Sweet Cheeks, here, is going out the back.

Alison Brodie is a Scot, with French Huguenot ancestors on her mother’s side of the family.  Alison was a photographic model, modelling for a wide range of products, including Ducatti motorbikes and 7Up.  She was also the vampire in the Schweppes commercial. 

A disastrous modelling assignment in the Scottish Highlands gave Alison an idea for a story, which was to become Face to Face.  She wrote Face to Face as a hobby and then decided to send it off to see what would happen.  It was snapped up by Dinah Wiener, the first agent Alison sent it to.  Three weeks later, Alison signed a two-book deal with Hodder & Stoughton.  Subsequently, Face to Face was published in Germany and Holland.  It was widely reviewed, ie:  “Vain, but wildly funny leading lady.” -Scottish Daily Mail.  It was also chosen as Good Housekeeping’s “Pick of the Paperbacks.” 

Unfortunately, Alison then suffered from Second-Book Syndrome.  The publisher’s deadline loomed and she was terrified because she didn’t have an idea for a story!  She found the whole experience a nightmare; and this is why she cautions first-time authors to write more than one book before approaching an agent.  She managed to finish the book – Sweet Talk – but it bombed.

While writing Sweet Talk, she moved to Kansas and lived there for two years.  She loved the people, their friendliness, their free-and-easy way of life, the history and the BBQs!  Sadly, her visa ran out and she had to come back to the UK – although her dream is to one day live permanently in America.  Now, Alison lives in Biarritz, France.