Excerpt from Chapter 13 of Mine to Avenge

Nina was standing by the school gate, waiting for her daughter to come out to meet her for the drive home. As she waited, she noticed another young mother standing nearby—rather shy and reticent, Nina remembered.

The young woman was clutching the hand of a small, tearful boy. The woman looked shyly at Nina and asked, ‘Are you waiting for your child, too?’

Nina had thought the question sounded unnatural—almost rehearsed. She smiled at the woman, thinking that she looked like a timid rabbit ready to bolt if Nina actually answered her question. She took a risk and replied. ‘Yes, I’m waiting for my daughter.’

The woman smiled weakly in return. She shuffled her feet and gripped the small boy’s hand tightly, ruffling his brown hair in an awkward manner. He looked shyly up at Nina from sad brown eyes.

‘We’re waiting for my husband. This is my son, Linus. It’s his first week too, but he doesn’t seem to be enjoying it much. He says he misses me during the day, but he doesn’t much like coming home either.’

She suddenly stopped speaking and looked away. She strained her eyes towards the cars pulling in at the pick-up bay. Nina thought that the woman might have said more than she intended.

At that moment Alethea appeared, with a flushed and happy face. Unlike Linus, she loved school, but still looked forward to going home.

‘Can I play on the swings before we go, please, Mum?’ she begged.

‘Of course,’ Nina answered.

Alethea then glanced at the boy holding tightly to his mother’s hand as they stood alongside Nina at the gate. She saw his tear-stained face and, without hesitating, reached out and grabbed his free hand.

‘What's your name?’ she asked him excitedly. ‘Do you want to come and play with me?’

The boy looked up enquiringly at his mother, who bent down to Alethea.

‘His name is Linus, and I think he would love to play with you—but just until his daddy comes,’ she added, looking nervously over her shoulder.

Alethea grabbed the boy’s hand, and dragged him along behind her to the swings a short distance away.

Nina smiled again at the woman, who smiled shyly in return, but didn’t engage in any further conversation. For that very brief moment as the woman had bent to speak to Alethea, she had appeared natural and relaxed, but only until she mentioned the boy’s father.

When the man arrived to pick up his wife and son, he didn’t come out of the car to meet them. At the first sight of her husband’s car, the woman nervously hurried over to the swings to fetch Linus. She looked briefly at Nina as she passed and, with a strained smile, whispered a hurried goodbye.

Mine to Avenge Book Trailer preview

I wrote a post a few weeks ago on the subject of book trailers, and said that I was a little worried about the idea, although I had already committed to having a trailer done to promote Mine to Avenge.

My concern about book trailers is the difficulty of extracting and portraying ideas from another person’s imagination. I have difficulty doing this myself as an artist/calligrapher (another cap I wear occasionally) and for this very reason commissions aren’t my favourite thing to do. I am rarely happy with the completed work because it lacks any personal inspiration on my part, and often the person who commissions the work is unhappy as well, because I have failed to see what they see in their mind’s eye. 

However, the trailer for Mine to Avenge was ready for my approval when I arrived back home after the book launch on the weekend, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Overall I was very happy with it and there were only a few minor adjustments to be made. I was very happy with the soundtrack choice and all of the visual clips except one - a visual of a person carrying what appeared to be a hatchet. There are several deaths in Mine to Avenge, but none with a hatchet, so we easily replaced this clip. And overall I was very happy with the wording, with only a few grammatical changes needing to be made.

I am planning to promote the trailer tomorrow on my Facebook page, but if you’d like a sneak preview ahead of time, you can find it at

http://youtu.be/RVT8PFlFqKQ

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think.

The book launch that nearly wasn't!

I am home again after a successful launch of Mine to Avenge in Adelaide yesterday. However, the launch almost didn’t happen, due to a monumental blunder by the council responsible for hiring out the venue. I made my booking back in September, and at the time, the council rep said that she would return a call to confirm that the hall was available.

A few days later, the council confirmed availability, charging me a very minimal AU$60 to hire the hall between 9am and 1pm (incorporating set up and pack up time) and also charging a refundable $500 deposit.

When I arrived at the hall a little before 9am yesterday morning, alarm bells rang immediately when I noticed another car in the car park, with a logo on the door, advertising a local fitness organisation, specialising in Zumba classes. This was not someone I had invited, and I immediately guessed that the hall had been double booked.

I got out of the car and the woman in the other car got out of hers, and we compared notes - and yes, we were both booked for the same time. She has a regular, permanent booking on Saturday mornings between 9.30am and 10.30am. She was furious when I explained that my booking overlapped hers as I had booked and paid (and had a receipt) for 9.00am - 1.00pm. Apparently she had also been double booked earlier in the week as well, so I could understand her anger.

This woman insisted she wasn’t moving and intended conducting her class as usual. However, my helpers and caterers were beginning to arrive, and some people were travelling from up to three hours away. I was also firmly standing my ground. I had flown a good distance for my book launch and I was determined that it was going to go ahead, but time was passing and I was losing essential set up time.

So a friend got on the phone immediately, to try to contact the council, but being a Saturday morning, that was impossible. She then began trying to contact other halls in the vicinity to see if we could find another venue for either one of us, but to no avail. I began to get desperate, and felt myself weakening, ready to give in to the other woman, thinking that I might have to set everything up outside on the grass. Fortunately the weather was fine.

Then a thought came to me - a perfect compromise I thought, if the other woman would agree to it. She had said that her class finished at 10.30, which was when my guests were expected to start arriving, but I needed to be in the hall setting up during the 9.30 - 10.30 timeframe of her class. I asked her how many people she had in her group. She said there were about 10 at the most. I then asked if her class used the entire hall or just part of it. She replied that there was plenty of space near the kitchen and around the perimeter. I asked her if she would be willing to let us set up our tables of books and food around her while her class was in progress in the middle, and whether she would be willing to finish 5 minutes earlier to give me time to put the tables in their proper position before my guests arrived.

She readily agreed and all I needed to do was to post a sentry to keep my early guests outside, while the Zumba class was in process.

So my helpers and caterers set everything up to the beat and rhythm of Zumba in the middle of the room. Everyone was smiling and bopping along in time to the music as we set up, and a good time was had by all. However, I wouldn’t want to be the person on the council reception desk tomorrow morning when weekday business resumes as there are going to be two phone calls from two very irate hall hirers!