Jack twisted his body away from the explosions and dived behind some rubble in the Afghani village in Helmand Province. He could feel the heat from the blasts and ducked lower. The noise rose and fell in undulating waves that confused his ears and made him slap his hands down tight over them.
A Northern Exit (Novel Excerpt)
Author's Note: This novel covers the 2016 national and international political scene from the perspective of the North East of England, using these events a backdrop for a young man's coming of age and initiation into the world of politics.
Flowers of Transgression
The basal rosette of the flower is heavily wrinkled and the leaves have a dentate margin. The slender stem bears the delicate flower--a heterostylous hermaphrodite. My specimen is a pin flower waiting to be fertilized by a thrum flower. I glue it to the page.
Daze Like This (Novel Excerpt)
The room was flash Las Vegas. Almost a Trumpian conception of what is “class.” A misunderstanding of subtlety and context. Trying hard to downplay the glitz of its location, there were low-key accents of earth tone and a touch of pastel here and there. Perhaps a nod to the implied garishness of the place itself. Then there were the artifacts of gold, which had no real explanation other than it was perhaps designed to give the room an air of luxury. Ashtrays, statues, lamps, tables, all trimmed with gold.
The Comet Year (Novel Excerpt)
Carl had been staying at the house longer than any other visitor ever had. At first, I didn’t realize that he was Carl Ferriman, the writer, the enormously famous writer whose first novel had become such a cultural phenomenon that even I, never much interested in books, had heard about it, probably because it involved hippies, a wounded soldier who had fought in Vietnam, a road trip across America, guns, drugs, sex, and a quest for a mysterious stranger who may have been God’s lost son. Or something like that. In any case, I had never read it and even if I had a copy, it wouldn’t have helped me identify Carl because he wouldn’t allow his picture to be printed on the book jacket. I had heard that, too.
Norma’s Secret/Excerpt from The Guarded Virgin
Oh God, what if my name isn’t there? I do not want to be anybody’s maid or washerwoman. I do not want to scrub white people’s floors. Mother has always warned me and Vera that we should never do such demeaning jobs. I must pass this exam. It is my passport out of this stifling village, my ticket to freedom where I can breathe air without being watched, my ticket to a prosperous future. Oh please, please, let my name be there!