Genre: Crime/Thriller
Publisher: Witness Impulse, an imprint of HarperCollins
Publication Date: April 1, 2014
Event Organized By: Literati Author Services, Inc.
~ Synopsis ~
Elisabeth is a picture restorer. This gives her the solitude and independence she needs—living and working alone in her flat. Despite her skills and reliability, Elisabeth undercharges for her work—valuing the worth of the paintings rather more than she values herself. Her ambitions are modest: beauty to look upon, unintrusive friendships, and complete privacy. But when a mysterious and obviously wealthy man commissions her to restore his fabulous collection, an uncharacteristic combination of curiosity and financial need prompts her to accept his offer. Elisabeth soon realizes her error, as the past and the present combine to make privacy her nemesis. As she becomes a hostage to her patron, her lover and her friend realize they know nothing about her, or where she might be.~Purchase Links~
~Excerpt~
Running up the hill to the station,
late for the afternoon train, late for life, she had seen an old man with a
stick walking ahead and had stopped to avoid him. He had been identical to a stranger putting
flowers on a grave in the cemetery, and both times the sight filled her with
fear and fury, made her wilt, wounded with memory. After that, she had sat too long by the
graveside, distracted by the monuments of chipped angels and worn sandstone,
the new stones of vibrant white, the flowers and shrubs, new or faded. She was not mourning: she was assuaging a
constant sense of guilt and loss, aware that it was not quite the same
sensation. Flowers took a long time to
die when left in the air. It was t he
only place for miles where she could see colors.
Her father had dictated this letter, she was sure of it;
his vitriol was infectious. She could
feel the pink paper crumpled in her pocket, the reminder of the address they
never ever put on letters since they moved and the thousand and one
recriminations which would have followed if ever she had dared to knock on
their door. Father would have come
towards her leaning on his stick and, never after all these years meeting her
eyes, mumbling accusations until her willpower fell away with her coat. She had satisfied the insatiable appetite of
guilt by taking flowers to her mother’s grave.
Standing there in front of a new, crude white and gold headstone which
reminded her of a bathroom fitting, she could feel similar waves of disapproval
rising like heat, drowning her own anguish in their blind lake of
understanding.
It was the grey, utilitarian mess of the landscape above
all, but she no longer knew if this judgment was the selective nature of her
own eyes which made it seem so dead. The
bus from the graveyard into town took her past some rare fields of glowing
yellow stubble, blinding in the light, but she could not take unmitigated
pleasure in that. She could look at a
field in a state of beauty and know it would change with the same unreliability
of people, but a painting of the same thing could make her shout for joy.
After art, nature.
Never the other way round. Green
fields and wide skies were better in oil paint, more easily controlled, invoked
no loneliness. Which could not be said
for the station, unmanned after the truculent man selling tickets left at
four. A dearth of trains to take her
into lovely, filthy, metropolitan anonymity. Empty feelings and empty stations,
no sense of belonging. If you do not
belong when you are a child, you will never belong.
He never touched me, father, only you. I have tried,
mother, father, sister, brother, to gain some sort of acceptance, but you haunt
me, even in solitude, with all your bitter hopelessness.
~ About the Author ~
I grew up in rural Derbyshire, but my adult life has been spent mostly in London, with long intervals in Norfolk and Deal, all inspiring places. I was educated mostly in convent schools; then studied English and went on to qualify as a solicitor, working for what is now the Crown Prosecution Service, thus learning a bit about murder at second hand. Years later, writing became the real vocation, although the law and its ramifications still haunt me and inform many of my novels.
I’m a novelist, short story writer for magazines and radio, sometime Radio 4 contributor, (Front Row, Quote Unquote, Night Waves,) and presenter of Tales from the Stave. When I’m not working (which is as often as possible), I can be found in the nearest junk/charity shop or auction, looking for the kind of paintings which enhance my life. Otherwise, with a bit of luck, I’m relaxing by the sea with a bottle of wine and a friend or two.
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