I’m pleased to be welcoming Michael Lawrence to Novel Kicks as we shine a light on his book, This Ruined Place.
Evy Miller thinks a summer with her grandparents in sleepy Dorset will be painfully dull. Her suspicions are confirmed when Juby, a wild-haired, lanky old man, strolls through her grandparents’ doorway. At first, she thinks he’s nothing more than an odd duck who charms her grandmother and annoys her grandfather. The last thing she expects is to become his companion on visits to the small village of Rouklye, whose entire population was evicted during WWII.
She has no idea that the reason for Juby’s visits will become a defining moment in her life and change her understanding of history and her own family forever.
Michael has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
The following excerpt is from This Ruined Place by Michael Lawrence. The teenaged main character, Midge, is visiting the ruined village of Rouklye with her elderly companion, Juby.
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There were several adjoining cottages beyond the wall. A much smaller building at the near end of them, a shed of sorts, was the only one with a door and roof. The roof was topped with crudely-cut gray slate, and on the equally rustic door, which was padlocked, a notice asked visitors not to pick the wild flowers, a request that might have amused Midge if she’d been in an easily-amused mood because there were no flowers in the immediate vicinity, wild or tame.
Juby had gone straight to the second cottage along, where he stooped to look in the doorway. ‘Post office and village shop,’ he informed her as she drew near.
He ducked inside. Following with a long-suffering sigh, she found a crumbling interior open to the skies, ivy reaching across exposed walls to which ragged portions of ancient plaster clung, an iron fire-grate teetering on a ledge where a ceiling and upper floor had once been, and beneath their feet ailing weeds between uneven gray paving slabs, while year-old leaves crunched underfoot. The place smelt of nettles and moss, the dust of an overheated summer.
‘Looks bigger empty,’ Juby said. ‘When the counter was in, shelves stocked, customer or two chatting, it was a right jam in here.’
Sunlight entered the broken building in tall bright spirals, picking out hovering dust motes. Watching the dust’s leisurely dance, Midge’s mind wandered. Her thoughts were still adrift when the whispers started. Whispers so indistinct that they registered only gradually; but once her attention was caught she glanced about for whoever it was that had followed them in.







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