Monthly Archives: December 2015

“The Donor” By Stevie Turner

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Stevie Turner’s new women’s fiction novel ‘The Donor’ is now published, and has a sibling rivalry / rockstar theme. Stevie usually writes about peculiar subjects that aren’t often covered by mainstream authors, and adds in a touch of humour here and there. To find out more about Stevie, please visit her website and check out her ‘About Me’ page by clicking on the link below:
http://www.stevie-turner-author.co.uk/about-me

Synopsis of The Donor:
When you know you have met the love of your life, the last thing you expect is for your sister to lure him away. Clare Ronson is faced with this scenario when her sister Isabel marries singer and guitarist Ross Tyler. To compound Clare’s jealousy and bitterness, Ross hits the big time and becomes a wealthy tax exile, relocating to France with his family. Clare cannot bring herself to speak to Isabel or Ross for the next 30 years. However, when tragedy occurs in 2002 causing Ross to arrive back in England at Clare’s doorstep, Clare must try to put the past behind her for her sister’s sake.

http://bookShow.me/B016MJ9W0Q
Goodreads review by LaDonna

LaDonna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: arr, blog, backstage-books, rockstar-romance

The author provided me an ARC of this book for a honest review and to see if I felt it fit the criteria for “rockstar romance” for a blog I run dedicated to that genre. I felt it did, though it isn’t your typical rockstar romance. This book will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, and admittedly most of those emotions will be of the darker kind.

Once upon a time, Clare is very close to her older sister Izzy, and adores/idolized her in that way that only little sisters can. As a very naïve young woman in 1970, Clare goes to a big rock festival. This American reader could really only tie it to the endless stories of Woodstock I have heard, being just slightly younger than that generation, but I realize festivals of the like were going on across the pond as well. Anyway, that is the picture I have in my mind of the festival she attended, and at the end of several days, Clare has lost her friends and is dirty, exhausted, hungry and broke. An Adonis of a man steps in and offers her an apple, and companionship back home. He is quite fond of the waif, and calls upon her to date whilst he is determined to make it in his band. He puts up with the obvious dislike of her father, and her virginal antics. She has quickly fallen in love with him, and he is quite smitten with her as well, until one night her sister decides to join them for one of his gigs.

To Ross’ credit, he never had any intention of hurting Clare, but when he met Izzy, the stars aligned and he knew he had met his soulmate. Likewise, Izzy had never meant to upset her sister, but who can deny true love. No one expected Clare to be as hurt as she was, or to hold a grudge for so long.

Life goes on as it is apt to do; tragedies, joys, and all the other little moments that make up a life pass by. Ross’ band hits the big time very quickly, as well as Izzy’s first pregnancy and their marriage. Clare refuses to have anything to do with any of it, hanging on to hatred for her sister for having the life she was sure was destined to be hers. Clare does go on to marry a perfectly suitable man, has 2 children with him, and by all accounts a pretty nice life with him. She tells him early on that she has an irreparable rift with her sister, but never tells him the reason why.

Izzy has always tried to keep tabs on her sister but Clare simply has not allowed it, even turning away when they once ran into one another and Izzy tried to introduce her to her niece. 30 years go by, and tragedy forces Izzy to contact Clare. Clare’s husband reads the note and encourages Clare to acknowledge Izzy’s plea, but Clare tears up the letter and ignores it. Not until Ross arrives at her door does she consider listening and doing what her sister needs. Here is where the story really came together for me. The senselessness of hate and holding on to a grudge, not to mention basically a teenage dream, for all those years, to finally realized how quickly life passes us by and how many precious moments simply cannot ever be replaced. There are so many unexpected twists and turns after Ross arrives, and so much depth to the amount of lives touched by this rift that seems so silly in retrospect. This story touched me on so many levels, and I hope that you will give it a chance to soak into your heart and mind as well.

Very highly recommended for anyone that realizes life doesn’t always hand us a happily ever after, at least not in the way we think it should.

EXCERPT FROM ‘THE DONOR’ BY STEVIE TURNER
COPYRIGHT STEVIE TURNER 2015
CHAPTER 1 – 1970
CLARE

Life as I know it is definitely starting to be a bit of a drag, due to the fact that I’ve been awake now for 3 days and nights on Desolation Hill. I am finished, kaput. Thank God it’s the last day, that’s all I can say.
I yawn for the umpteenth time and watch in a kind of stupor as the fences are torn down. Ruth jumps up excitedly and decides that she wants to try and get nearer the stage. I watch her treading unconcerned over zombie-like bodies lying comatose and frying in the heat of the late August afternoon, and try to summon up enough strength to follow her. But by then, hungrier and more tired than I have ever been, I am faced with the certainty that all I really want to do is to go home. Bands have started to merge one into the other, but I know I’ll have to face a ribbing from Ruth if I set off without first having tried to get nearer the stage if only to feast one weary eye on the hunk of masculinity that is Paul Rogers while there is still some good daylight left.
I force my body to move, performing a quick recce around what has transformed in three days from arable farmland into a nuclear fallout zone contained in some kind of human landfill site. I cannot see Ruth, but I stumble on regardless. Somewhere out there my friend has become lost in a sea of 500,000 faces; just another flower-bedecked hippie indistinguishable from the masses.
Far away on the horizon I can see a speck holding a microphone stand up above his head; Paul Rogers is holding the crowd in the palm of his hand, and I am missing it. Behind him on the low stage, long hair flying in the sultry air, Paul Kossoff, six string shredder extraordinaire, is ripping into the solo for ‘All Right Now.’
I cannot make my legs walk another step. I yawn. Infuriatingly I still seem to be on Desolation Hill as far as I can make out. Sighing with fatigue, I slump down on the grass where I stand, close my eyes, and listen to the hubbub around me. My long hair feels like a heavy blanket on my back; I desperately want something to eat, I need a bath, and I ache for my mum to be fussing around me like she does when I am sick.
“Hey babe, have some of this.”
I am startled by a voice very close to my ear. I open my eyes again and look to my left to see what only can be described as a bronzed, blond Adonis, with long fair curls stretching down over his shoulders. He is stripped to the waist apart from a small rucksack on his back, and wears frayed pale-blue Levi shorts and a pair of well-worn ‘Jesus creeper’ sandals. He squats down beside me and holds out a lighted spliff.
“It’ll take away the pain.”
I consider myself to be in extremis, soon to be engulfed in the Grim Reaper’s arms. There is no way out except death. I take a huge drag and retch as the sweet fumes of cannabis grab the back of my throat.
“Thanks.” I cough. “I think.”
“Woh!” Adonis laughs into the sun. “Easy! You’re not used to it, I can tell.”
“Is it that obvious?” I want my head to stop spinning. “I’ve come to the end of my rope. A spliff won’t do any harm now.” I take another drag.
“I think I’ll take it back actually.” Adonis prises the joint from my fingers. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” I nod, with eyes trying to close. “All I’ve got left is my hovercraft ticket back to Southsea.”
“And you can’t eat that.” Adonis attacks the spliff with expertise, puffing out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “I’ll see what I’ve got left in my rucksack.”
Keeping the spliff between the index and middle finger of his left hand, with one poetic swoop of his right shoulder he dislodges the rucksack’s straps, opens it up and looks inside, bringing out a slightly dented but still crisp-looking Golden Delicious apple and handing it to me.
“My mum’s always on at me to eat more roughage.”
Laughing, I feast my eyes on the apple, which in my famished state seems to have taken on the proportions of a gargantuan banquet.
“If you’re sure.” I cannot help but take it. “I’ve eaten nothing since yesterday. Somebody stole what was left of my food. It’s too far to walk to try and buy some, and anyway, I’ve no money left.”
“It’s every man for himself, here.” Adonis nods. “What’s your name?”
“Clare.” I bite into pure nectar. “Clare Ronson. How about you?”
“Hi Clare, I’m Ross Tyler.” Adonis holds out his hand. “I hitchhiked from Ryde on Friday with a mate from college, who was last seen yesterday trying to find somewhere private to take a crap.”
Juice from the apple runs down my chin and I wipe it away with my left hand, shake Ross’s hand with the other, and smile up at him.
“You’re a lifesaver, Ross. I came here with a friend as well, but maybe she met up with your mate. I haven’t seen her for a few hours now.”
“Looks like it’s us two against the world then.” Ross slings the rucksack back over his shoulder. “I’m on my way up the hill; going to hitchhike back to Ryde and get a chance on the hovercraft before this lot set off. Coming?”
I’ve had enough. My knight in Jesus creepers has materialised and is standing right in front of me. Not one for wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, and fortified by the sweet fruit, I nod and get to my feet.
“Yes; I want to go home.”
Paul Rogers is giving it all he’s got. Taking one last look at the stage and wondering if we would ever see the like of it again, I grab my saviour’s outstretched hand and we begin to thread our way between the bodies and mounds of detritus, back up Desolation Hill and over Afton Down, eventually descending onto the Military Road. Crowds of young people have the same idea, and we all saunter along amiably in the late afternoon heat, in no rush to get off the Island, and unaware that we are part of history in the making. In front of us are two girls holding hands; one is naked except for a pair of pink knickers, and the other is bare from the waist down.
“Looks like those two have fared worse than you.” Ross smirks.
I am stoned on cannabis fumes, lack of sleep, hunger, and a definite animal attraction for my new-found friend. It matters to me not one jot that female flesh usually kept under wraps is now exposed to the stares of all and sundry. Presently the girls slope off and join many other festival-goers, washing off the dirt from Desolation Hill in the choppy waters of Freshwater Bay. I smile at Ross as we trudge along Military Road, copying him and raising my thumb some time later as crowds begin to thin out and the odd car can be seen driving past us on the way to maybe Brook Green or further on into Niton or Newport.
“Who in their right mind is going to give us a lift?” I panic while wondering just how much further I can walk. “Look at the state of us. How many miles is it to Ryde from here? Can’t we wait for a bus?”
“About twenty.” Comes the cheerful reply. “I’m skint, the same as you. It’s hitching or Shanks’s pony.”
My affable, blond Adonis is prepared to traipse into the night to reach his destination. It’s all I can do to keep up with his long, loping strides. The buzz from the apple wears off around Compton Bay, and I want to cry.
“Cheer up, babe.”
Ross winks and puts his arm around me. The effect is galvanising and instantly spurs me on. I gaze up into his pale blue eyes, and his nearness causes a pleasant throbbing sensation in my groin. I have never seen such beauty in a man before. I am certain I haven’t seen him at Uni.
“Which University are you at?” I find myself looking down in the direction of his groin as we walk.
“Not Uni; Portsmouth Art College.” Ross holds his fist up and jerks his thumb at passing cars. “How about you?”
“The Uni; not far from there though. Reading English; I want to be a teacher. Do you think you’ll be a famous painter then?”
“Don’t know.” Ross shrugs and fondles the hair at the back of my neck. “But I’m having a ball finding out.”
***
It’s not until we walk past Compton Bay and head towards Brook Green that a van stops next to us. Ross is still pointing his thumb in the vague direction of Newport, but I have long ago given up, and am just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. I hear Ross speak to the driver who is on his way to Bembridge, and to my great delight he beckons us into the cab and agrees to drop us off along the seafront at Ryde. The van has three seats at the front. I let Ross go in first, who chats amiably to the driver most of the way I think. Me, I put my head on Ross’s shoulder and am asleep before the van has even pulled away.

Stevie interviews author/poet Kevin Morris

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Many thanks to author Stevie Turner for featuring me. I very much appreciate it. Kevin

Stevie Turner's avatarStevie Turner

I had a fantastic response last week to my interview with Chris, the Story Reading Ape.  At the end of the interview I asked if any authors were interested in answering 20 of my questions, and this is how I met Kevin Morris.

Kevin Morris

Kevin is a remarkable author in that apart from his 7 published books of poetry and prose, he is also registered blind.  Due to the wonders of the modern day computer he is still able to write the poetry he loves, which you can check out on the links below.  Thanks Kevin, for agreeing to be interviewed!

Worldwide Amazon pages:  http://bookShow.me/B00CEECWHY

Kevin’s Website:  http://newauthoronline.com/

Kevin’s Goodreads page:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6879063.K Morris

1.  I recently visited Liverpool for the first time and was impressed with the Albert Dock area, the Beatles museum, and the general area around the Liver Building, which has been extensively rebuilt.  Do you ever get…

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Albatross – A Guest Post By Jeff Grant

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I am delighted to publish the below guest post by my dear friend, Jeff Grant. I have known Jeff for some 10-11 years and have looked forward to the publication of his novel “Albatross”, which is now available as a paperback or a Kindle download. Do please check out Jeff’s book.

Kevin

—

‘Albatross’
the idea

One evening six years ago, in a bar in Buenos Aires in Argentina, I sat chatting with my son Alastair, a teacher of English in that city. The conversation drifted to the subject of my father. I had never known him – not in any real sense. He and my mother separated when I was less than three years old. I never saw him or heard from him after that. The only conscious memory I have of him is as a participant in a family argument. Even then, all I am aware of is a tall male figure whose face is way above my head.
As I grew older, my natural curiosity about him developed. My mother however, would never talk about him. But some instinct which I sense is unerring, tells me that most of the real love and care that I received in those very early days, I received at the hands of that man. His departure from my life was, consequently, devastating.
In my twenties and thirties, I made various attempts to find him. But I discovered very little. My all-demanding career as a director of TV and cinema commercials in London gave me no real time for anything else. Only much later, when I’d met my present partner, Anita, did concrete details start to surface. Anita had worked for a long time in adoption and was adept at finding things out via the internet. It was a sad day when we came across the evidence that my father had died in the mid 1980’s.
We also discovered around the same time that I had a half-sister in the north of England. She sent me a photograph of my father. Until that moment I had no idea what he looked like. It was a strange, almost spooky, first view. I look so much like him. But in his eyes – and it was the same in many of the photographs I was subsequently to see of him – there was a wistfulness, a sadness. Rightly or wrongly, I attributed that look in part at least, to what I feel sure must have been a permanent facet of his existence after he and my mother split – that of having been separated, for the remainder of his days, from one half of his own self.
As Alastair and I discussed all this, it became obvious that that permanent separation must have had a profound effect on my father – on the way he led his life, on his later relationships, on how he viewed himself and his future; and that the older he grew, the more painful the whole thing must have become. Did it ever prompt him to try and get in touch with me? I’ve no idea. What I do know is that had he done so at any time while I was still living in the family home, I would never have been told. And I guess that in any case, a time eventually comes when, in order to be able to lead a reasonably peaceable and balanced life of your own, you have to do your very best to blank that sort of thing right out of your memory. Forget it; make it seem like it never happened. But of course you can’t; and it did. So to his dying day my poor father must have been living a monumental lie.

And so the idea for ‘Albatross’ was born. In the few days I had left in Buenos Aires I made some notes on whatever ideas came to me in that time – structure, characters etc. Then back in London I started to write it. It took me five years.
I cannot work to a structured plan. I have an overall idea of where and in what direction I want the story to go. But the details of place, character, twists of the plot etc. come to me only as I work. Which I do every morning for at least three hours. It’s occasionally longer, but I’ve found by experience that three hours at the keyboard is enough. However well things are going, my concentration and creativity almost always start to fade after that. And if things aren’t going well and ideas are not coming to me – which, I’m pleased to say is rare – I’ll nevertheless sit there until the three hours are up. It’s like being at a football match. You may be a goal down – but until the final whistle, you can never be sure the equalizer won’t come!

‘Albatross’
the book

‘Albatross’ – subtitled ‘The scent of honeysuckle’ – is the story of a man’s search for his only child, a son he abandoned when the boy was just three and the marriage with his mother over. The man concerned is Barnaby Marechal – born Bernat Gyorgy Horvat-Marshall of Hungarian mother and English father. A successful and popular back-bench politician, he is regarded by the public generally as a likeable maverick. But his long-abandoned son is a subject that in all his adult life, he has spoken about to no-one, not even to his present wife, Ellen. The older he gets, the more he is plagued by shame, guilt and regret. The time comes when he finds it difficult to concentrate on his work. He is convinced he has transgressed against some fundamental law of nature.
Returning one day from a speaking engagement in the north of England, his train pulls into an intermediate station in the Midlands. Suddenly, without any conscious forethought, he finds himself getting off and standing on the platform watching the train disappear from sight as it continues on its way to London without him.
He books into a run-down hotel. A night of turmoil brings a sort of clarity – he has to do all he can to find his son; there will be no rest for him without that. If it means giving up all else, including his career and even his marriage to Ellen – then that’s how it will have to be. The alternative – a slow psychological meltdown under the burden of an intolerable moral debt – is unthinkable.
The story proceeds in a number of strands and sub-strands, all of which, it is soon apparent, are ultimately convergent – the search itself, his early married life, his often dubious exploits in the years immediately following his divorce, his wealthy family background, his childhood and teenage years, his troubled relations with an alcoholic mother and workaholic father.
The search begins in Halifax and ends in the infamous Tenere Desert in the central Sahara of Niger. In between, it ranges across the UK, from rural Lincolnshire where Matthew was brought up with his mother and her second husband, to London’s Soho and the world of films and TV advertising, back to Lincolnshire where he meets and has a brief but life-altering sexual fling with the strange and unknowable Celeste Johannson. He meets the boy’s bizarre stepfather, now himself divorced, and who regards Barnaby as the source of all that went wrong in his own marriage. It takes him to a lonely house by the sea where he meets up again with Stella, Matthew’s mother, living a solitary life with just two dogs for company.
But Matthew, it turns out, has had good reason to disappear, and all trails go cold. Weary and despairing, Barnaby gives up his quest and moves to the north-east of England planning to live a life of quiet retirement. He buys a motorhome and plans an extensive holiday for himself in Scotland. He is about to set out early one morning when, on an old mobile phone he has resurrected and charged-up for this trip, a voicemail from a young woman in London tells him she thinks she knows where his son is.
After meeting with the woman, a vodka-addicted pop-singer from Eastern Europe named Katalin Varga, followed by a late night interview with the chain-smoking, wary-eyed Kit in a pub in London’s Soho – a confrontation which frightens the life out of him – Barnaby finds himself en route for the desert town of Agadez in Niger.
In a five-man expedition led by a Tuareg guide, he sets out across the desert on the trail of a red Suzuki pick-up, the vehicle in which Matthew – if indeed it is him – is reputed to have been travelling when Katalin Varga last heard from him. The boy’s purpose in Niger remains a mystery. But the signs are ominous – this is drug country. The shock and disorientation of his surroundings force Barnaby so far out of his comfort zone that he struggles to retain intact his mental faculties. When the red Suzuki is finally spotted, abandoned on the dunes of the Tenere Desert in temperatures nudging 55C, Barnaby, all warnings, all caution gone, sets out across the sand towards it like a man on Clacton beach in summer.

To find out what, if anything or anybody, he finds there, I’m afraid I’m going to refer you to the book itself! It’s available on Amazon as a paper-back and Kindle here –

I shall also be starting up my blog once again very soon at –

https://besonian.wordpress.com/

It’s a blog I’ve been forced through pressures of time and work to suspend for a long time – and I shall be posting extracts from the book on it. Those extracts will be chronological as far as the book’s concerned – though the book itself does not always follow a chronological order.
But however much of the book you read, and wherever you read it – I hope you enjoy it! I’ll be interested in your views.

Sitting At My Desk

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Sitting at my desk
Thinking of the final rest.
No need to weep
When I take my final sleep.
I will not know
When I go
To the place where snow
Does not fall
And even the raven’s call
Can not penetrate
For beyond the eternal gate
There is neither love nor hate.

Demons

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Walking the old familiar track.
There is no turning back.
I lack
The will
To drill
Down and discover
What lies under cover.
It is not buried deep
For when I sleep
Memories creep
Out
And demons shout
In my ear.
It is always near
The old familiar fear.
mocking laughter
echoing down the years.