Excerpt from Between the Lines


A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.

He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.

The bush.

On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.

He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.

She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.

He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.

If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Spymaster's Lady- The Contenders

Plenty of entries have been received so far for the Where in the World is Spymaster's Lady contest, and without further adieu I'd like to post up a few of 'em, for your perusal. Remember, the contest is still going until February 16th- and as a newsflash, we might be extending that deadline by a week or two... stay posted. You can email me your pics at clairesgregory@gmail.com, or you can post them here at the CompuServe Books and Writers Forum.

Now, some people have been a little tricky and gone photo-shoppin'- this is very novel stuff, and fun to see, but we're looking for some nice iconic locations here. Some real show-stoppers. Here's my demonstration- Annique and Grey in a place that is likely beyond either of their wildest imaginations: Spymaster's Lady... in Gnowangerup.

That's right, Gnowangerup, Western Australia. The outback. All right, the Southern Wheatbelt, but there are trees a-plenty, and kooky locals- heck, I've even run over a goanna and a kangaroo on this very road, in separate incidents, of course.

It's at this point in time I reflect on how very odd it is for me to be hosting a contest about a romance novel on a blog about blowing things up and running things over...

Anyway! Here they are, in Gnowangerup, Stirling Range National Park in the background, and then in the outback for real:



Now for the real entrants- first up is Rachel, with a couple of great pics of TSL in Adelaide, South Australia:


Deniz has a very good chance (or her mum does) having taken this pic of TSL in exotic Turkey. No glimpse of Turkey itself, unfortunately, but the newspaper is there to prove it!


Here's Deniz's own entry from the polar opposite of sunny Turkey- snowy Montreal, Quebec. This book has done some travellin'.


Janet took some great pics with the New Orleans Superdome:



And our resident Photshop champion Betty retro-fitted TSL to a few long-lost holiday destinations, including
Sacramento, California:

So, jump in and get your entry up. Tomorrow I'll post some better pictures of the prize (tomorrow, because I've been fiddling with it to make it prettier (g)).
Posted by Claire Gregory at 9:05 PM

1 comments:

Lenora Bell said...

Hi Claire,

These are so fun! I got back from China six months ago--it's too bad I'm not still there to post a pic of the spymaster on the Great Wall. Ah well.

I lived in Brisbane for a year, so I know how to pronounce Aussie correctly. I loved it there!

So nice to meet you, too. I added you to my blogroll.

February 17, 2008 7:21 AM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)