I know I said my next post would be for Percy Rose and be up Friday just passed, but life…better late than never.
Percy Rose, my alter-ego, has been hard at work editing and writing getting ready to publish Book 1 of the Beaufort’s Landing Mystery Series–Psychic or Psycho–on Amazon in a few short weeks. The series will be easy reading; no blood and guts, no overt sex, just a cracking story with lots of suspects. See if you can discover ‘who-dunit‘. The front cover is ready to go, I think. Might put up a preview of that just before publishing.
Writing is well under way for Book 2, Killer Crocodile, and cover is ready also.
Covers are ready for the Psychological Thriller Series, R.I.P., D.O.A., & C.I.B.which will be published some time this year.
One of the hardest things I’ve found is knowing when enough editing and titivating is enough. I am going to bite the bullet … soon. In anticipation of that, I am going to put up the first page of Psychic or Psycho and ask you all for feed-back.
CHAPTER 1
Instead of getting on with the washing up, Xelma’s hands lay still in the warm, sudsy dishwater. She stood staring out of the window at the ocean and sky; thinking of nothing in particular, unless enjoying her freedom and safety counted as thinking.
It was strange that hiding out in tropical North Queensland, in the two railcarriages that had belonged to her grandparents, could be considered freedom. Al Gottoni, her ex, had a lot to answer for. Still, it could be worse. This place was full of the presence of her maternal Grandmother, Sally Beaufort. Xelma had loved coming to visit her grandparents when she was a child. Six weeks of running wild in the bush and on the beach every Christmas holiday was a true escape from suburban Brisbane.
Thank God, Xelma had inherited the property. Thank God, she had never told Al about it.
Xelma shook her head refocussing, and studied her reflection in the window. She touched her baldhead with a sudsy hand. All her hair, gone. Anxiety induced alopecia, the doctor had said. She looked like her grandmother.
The last time she saw Grandma Sally she didn’t look like Grandma at all. Xelma was ten. Grandma was laying in a box, dressed in her Sunday-best outfit, a neatly fitting dress of florals in her favourite shades of pink and soft purples on the darkest blue background. There were roses, stasis, bleeding heart, and ginger in her hands and all around her face. Grandma was justly proud of the flower garden framing her humble home. What a magician she’d been, to grow roses in such an unlikely setting. In the coffin, her lovely face was pale and slack-skinned instead of animated and kindly.
Young Xelma’s mind had filled with the white noise of confusion and anger; why had her Grandmother died? What did that even mean? Where had Grandma Sally gone? That empty shell could not be her.
It was weird that she should find herself back here now. She smiled and thought, thank you Grandpa Beaufort, you ill-tempered curmudgeon. Xelma’s mind again filled with the white noise of conflicting emotions.
The hairs on the nape of Xelma’s neck stood to attention. Someone was in her house. She felt their presence. Oh no. She spun around searching the interior of her little home.
In the far corner, leaning on the windowsill with her arms akimbo stood Grandma Sally.
Okay, if you read this far, you have to comment…please…
Ciao for now, Rosa
Per Rose Oddly 