Book Extract: The Songs That Find Us by Andrea Darby
I am so pleased to be welcoming Andrea Darby to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, The Songs That Find Us.
Lizzie thinks the difficult years are behind her.
She has a happy marriage, a career she loves, and a daughter beginning to find her place in the world. But when her husband Ed receives a devastating diagnosis, long-buried secrets surface – shattering everything Lizzie believes about their life together.
Now Ed is desperate to set things right before his memories slip away.
Meanwhile, their adopted daughter Beck is searching for answers of her own that could change the family forever.
After rediscovering her love of singing, Lizzie brings together a community where friendship, kindness and music forge unexpected connections — and perhaps a way back to one another.
Andrea has kindly shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
beginning of extract
This is from an early part of the novel featuring one of its three narrators, Lizzie. The other two narrators are her husband Ed and their 24-year-old adopted daughter Beck – so the reader gets three different perspectives as the story unfolds. This scene follows Beck’s shock announcement that she wants to move away to London.
Lizzie
In the living room, Ed is equally shocked by Beck’s bombshell. He’s still bent over his guitar, wearing his birthday jumper, the tags on the table next to him.
‘London?’ He shakes his head as if dismissing it. ‘How will she afford to live there?’
‘Probably expecting our help, as always.’
He blows out his cheeks, releases the air noisily.
by 
Book Extract: Ancestral Virgins by Fiona J. Mackintosh
Please join me in welcoming Fiona J. Mackintosh to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Ancestral Virgins.
In early 20th century Britain, society was changing rapidly, but not much was changing for women.
From different ends of the social spectrum, Celia Mapperley and May Hallam wrestle with rules and circumstances beyond their control and must navigate love, sex, war, and the thin line between conformity and scandal.
As they each bear the shame of a devastating family secret, their stories come together in ways that neither could have imagined.
Fiona has kindly shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy it.
beginning of extract
My historical novel Ancestral Virgins is set in early 20th century Britain, when society was changing rapidly, but not much was changing for women despite the efforts of the Suffragettes. Lady Celia Mapperley is a young aristocrat who is being dragged around the marriage circuit but feels out of place and unwanted and is searching for a way to feel whole. Meanwhile, May Hallam is the youngest child of a waggoner who works on Celia’s father’s estate in Nottinghamshire. Both young women have to wrestle with rules and circumstances beyond their control and must navigate love, sex, war, and the thin line between conformity and scandal. As they each bear the shame of a devastating family secret, their stories come together in ways that neither could have imagined.
This extract is from the point of view of May Hallam as a child. Although the youngest of six siblings, she’s always been expected to take care of her brother Davey who is 16 months older and has what we now call Down’s Syndrome. In this piece, May and Davey are about 8 and 9 and have been sent out to pick up fallen branches to fuel the kitchen range, but May has become distracted.
February 1915
May noticed the light was fading. It would still be light outside the wood, but she and Davey should hurry and find some kindling before it was too dark to see. She heard the rustling of footsteps and, suddenly afraid, she called out, “Davey!” A startled pigeon burst out of the hedgerow, and then there was a crumpling sound. May jumped to her feet. Nothing moved in the treetops and the air was very still, and then all at once it was pierced by a long, high-pitched howl.
by Book Extract: Dragon Kin’s Choice by Jo Gatenby
I am beyond excited to be welcoming Jo Gatenby and the blog tour for her book, Dragon Kin’s Choice.
What do you do when your world expands, but your choices shrink?
When an orphaned dragon bonds with fourteen-year-old Tad, who never knew his parents, they believe they’ve finally found the family they’d never had. However, there’s more to them than they realize, and that might be the very thing which tears them apart.
Meanwhile, the duke’s daughter, Marian, struggles to avoid an arranged marriage. In trying to escape her fate, the truth is revealed, and she is forced to reconsider everything she thought she knew.
And although the prospective groom’s younger brother, Aldoran, is resigned to being the ‘spare heir’, he’s restless and bored. Drawn into a web of secrecy, he struggles to rise above his father’s expectations and complete his mission.
When these four lives converge, their choices reshape each other—and the world around them—in ways none of them could have predicted.
*****
Jo has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
beginning of extract
While the main character of my novel is a newly hatched dragonet who doesn’t even know the names of things—or even how to speak—one of my favorite secondary characters is Tad, the teenager who will become her bondmate.
This excerpt takes place shortly after we meet him and his friends, and learn that he can sense the emotions of others. He’s just jumped into the quarry lake and is still underwater when he glimpses her.
I’ve also used square brackets and italics [like this] to indicate mind-speech throughout the novel. You’ll also notice Tad’s peasant dialect. I wanted this to bleed into the prose slightly, giving the narrative the flavor of his speech without becoming distracting. So you’ll notice the was/were grammatical reversals, along with expressions such as if’n, mayhap, or certain sure woven throughout.
I hope you enjoy their very first encounter!
*****
A flicker of movement caught his eye. His body gently rocked side to side, and he glimpsed a large black form racing below him. Startled, his open senses registered curiosity—and an alien wisp of loneliness—from a thing what certain sure weren’t human.
by Book Extract: Bob & Shirley’s Guide To Murder by Suzy K Quinn
Please join me in welcoming Suzy K Quinn to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Bob and Shirley’s Guide to Murder.
Bob and Shirley run a lovely country pub. They also solve murders …
A warmly funny, gloriously British cozy crime and murder mystery series that can be read as standalones or part of a series. Set in a village where the pub is the heart of country life and served with warmth, wit and a very good Sunday roast.
“Murder? In our quiet, little English village?
Great Oakley is a place of hanging baskets, tearooms and riverside walks. We’ve won ‘Britain’s safest village’ 10 years running. I keep three pound coins, a box of toffees and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol on my dashboard at all times, and I’ve never needed to lock my car.
Certainly, Bevvy Hogg was disliked. She ran the local Waist Watchers group, yet came to our pub for fish and chips, treacle tart and a bottle of Chardonnay every Friday. But I don’t think she was murdered …”
When Bevvy Hogg is found dead in the Goose and Gander pub garden, with an empty treacle tart plate beside her and several dress sizes slimmer than anyone remembers, Great Oakley’s winning streak as Britain’s safest village comes to an abrupt end.
Suzy has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
Bob and Shirley run the Goose and Gander pub in the Suffolk village of Great Oakley. When Bevvy Hogg, leader of the local Waist Watchers slimming group, is found dead in their pub garden, several dress sizes smaller than anyone remembers, the pair start investigating.
In this scene, Bob and Shirley go undercover at a Waist Watchers meeting. Bob is a fitness fanatic with absolutely no tact. Shirley is a larger lady who considers weighing scales the enemy of happiness. It goes about as well as you would expect.
Bob
The Waist Watchers meeting was certainly an experience. The logic baffled me. How do people think that sitting around, talking about food, will help them lose weight? It would be far better to spend their evenings having a long walk, which would not only burn off calories but also improve their moods.
Jade welcomed us with a ‘red light’ forbidden food list to stick on our fridge. It looked broadly similar to Shirley’s daily diet: beer, crisps, cider, wine, chips, butter, lard, pies and pastries.
Then we were ushered to a horseshoe of seats, semi-circling a table of weight-loss shakes, soups and chocolate bars.
We were supposed to ‘listen with two ears’ while others talked about their weekly food intake. But I soon cracked and demanded, ‘What’s this obsession with milky, frothy coffees from overpriced coffee shops? Milk is designed to help young animals put on weight. Obviously, it’s not a sensible choice for dieters. Why not just have a nice cup of tea? It’s much better for you, and also less expensive.’
On reflection, I shouldn’t have voiced my opinions so early on. It wasn’t the best way to build group rapport. In fact, Jade asked me to stop talking after I explained that the artificial sweeteners in her Glow Up shakes were scientifically proven to make you crave more sugary food.
by Book Extract: Paper Over It by Ruth Gresty
Please join me in welcoming Ruth Gresty to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Paper Over It.
Jennifer Jones is in control.
Jen is confident she has complete control over the things that are trying to control her. Until she isn’t. Until she hasn’t. Until she realises she has never been in control at all. She’s been papering over it for years.
It’s the start of the year 2000. A new millennium has arrived. For Jen and her three friends, university life in Manchester is full of possibility and endless fun. Sassiness, spontaneity, marvellous mayhem and youthful optimism reign in the Manchester rain.
But beneath the sometimes brash bravado sometimes even the most resilient, carefree, fun-loving characters who, on the surface look like they are living their best lives, are perilously close to falling apart. Over the course of one unforgettable year, the young women confront their own realities and truths. Some make foolish mistakes and others life changing choices.
Sometimes heartwarming and other times heartbreaking, but always brutally honest. This is a story of friendship, mistakes, self-discovery and acceptance; identity, love and the messy reality of becoming an adult. It’s about the masks we wear, the mistakes and choices we make, and the courage it takes to stop papering over it and face ourselves when everything feels like it’s falling apart.
It’s real, raw, raunchy, sometimes random and frankly rude at times. Just like Jen and her friends.
Ruth has shared an extract from Paper Over It with us all today. Make that drink, find those biscuits, head to that comfortable chair and enjoy.
(Warning: mild language).
*****beginning of extract*****
I have chosen this extract as it hopefully sums up how twenty-one-year-old single mum Jen (the main protagonist of four key characters) is feeling and why she knows she has to somehow evolve and enhance her life. She doesn’t fit into her old one (or her friends) on a day-to-day basis. She is lonely, however much she loves her baby boy. She is also being dragged back into her un-named eating disorder just to try and feel a little control over something.
She has hit a crossroad, on a road in her much-loved Manchester, and knows she needs to make some changes. She just doesn’t really know how yet.
This extract is towards the end of the book and only features one of the four main characters, and I appreciate it gives away the spoiler of Jen having a baby, but hopefully it makes sense why I have chosen this.
End of Chapter 49 – ‘Show me the meaning of feeling lonely’
Joseph is fast asleep, only taking a single suck of his dummy occasionally. She suddenly feels sightly uneasy in her beloved city. Detached in a weird way. She drives south, out of it.
As she crosses the inner ring road and onto the Princess Parkway, a strange cloud descends over her.
by Book Club
