Tag: new
New Story idea! – Butterfly House
Prologue
THE SEARCH CONTINUES AFTER BMW FOUND!
- Authorities located the car of missing man, David MacLeod, found parked in Notting Hill five miles from home.
- He was last seen leaving home at 7:00am Monday 19th of June to catch a flight.
By DEENA RICHARDS
PUBLISHED: 09:22, 15 July 2019 | UPDATED: 11:12, 15 July 2019
David MacLeod, husband to Jan MacLeod, father to Charlie and Margaret MacLeod, ages 1 and 4, is still missing after three weeks. Supposedly having left for a business flight, but never making it to the airport.
Authorities have responded to a report of an abandoned car, which has been confirmed belongs to that of David MacLeod. It is not known why David’s brand new BMW was parked in Notting Hill when he was due to catch a flight at 08:00 that Monday at Gatwick Airport.
Jan MacLeod is appealing for witnesses who may have seen or heard from David or knows any information to his whereabouts, to come forward as she “extremely worried” about her husband. She says “this behaviour is very unlike David, he normally finds any way to contact me and wouldn’t abandon his children!”
His ex-wife Allison refused to comment but is believed to be working closely with authorities to find David.
Click here to read the next chapter!
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Don’t forget to check out my other works!
Rose Garden Sanatorium – Prologue
New Story Idea – “I fell in Love with a Psychopath”
Protected: My Book ‘It’s My Mistake’ available in paperback!
I fell in Love with a Psychopath – Chapter 5
If you’re new to the story, please read the prologue here.
This work is my first draft and thus unedited, so may be subject to changes.
Chapter 5
Just before the guy was even able to even think about what to do in that moment, Xander lunged for him. I didn’t really see much, only really a flash and a loud gasp from someone, because I had fallen onto one of my knees and held onto my foot instinctively.
When I looked up, I just caught Xander punching the guy in the face who was knocked to the ground by the force of Xander’s punch. I saw Xander pick something up from the floor and then walk over to the guy, now in possession of the knife.
“Now let’s see what your intestines look like,” Xander sneered.
He was about to bend down when his mate rushed over to him in a panic. He looked white as a sheet. Unlike Xander who looked red from rage. “Leave him, mate, just let him go.”
“Like fuck will I, after trying to steal my watch?” Xander replied, not even looking back at his mate. “Do you even know who I am?” he sneered again at the guy on the ground. He pointed the knife at him like an extension to his own arm.
“Please don’t hurt me,” the guy started to whimper.
“Listen to yourself, you’re pathetic!” Xander huffed and shook his head in disgust.
At this point I had noticed that my foot was actually bleeding, and I cursed under my breath. The rock had caught two of my toes as they had broken its fall to the floor. One of them had started to bleed and I was worried the other one, my little toe, was broken because it was excruciatingly painful. So much so that tears were starting to appear in my eyes. It took a lot for me to cry.
Because I had muttered though, Xander looked over at me and must have only just noticed I was hurt. At this he stood up a little straighter and appeared to talk to the guy on the floor; “Leave.”
“W-what?” said a small voice from the floor.
“Leave,” Xander repeated, looking back round at him. “Just go before I change my mind and cut you open from your throat to your naval.”
The guy clearly got the message as he stood up and rushed away, without even taking his knife. At first he tried to scurry away on all fours and then managed to stand up properly and made a decent run for it, nearly tripping over as he was in a panic to get away.
“Are you hurt?” Xander asked, walking over to me suddenly, not even watching the man run away. He walked passed his friend who was standing stock still in fright and passed him the knife. He took it without hesitation and just stared down at it in his hands as if shocked he now had possession of the offensive weapon.
I laughed. I was laughing at myself. I felt stupid for what I had just tried to do. “That bloody rock fell onto my foot.”
“Why are you bare footed?” he asked, as he towered over me from where I knelt. I was starting to wish I had sat down on my backside rather than kneeling. My knee were hurting as the road was digging into it. Not to mention I was worried about flashing anyone who stood in front of me. Luckily Xander was standing by my side, otherwise it could have been a lot more embarrassing.
“I took my heels off so they wouldn’t draw attention to me.” I gasped in pain as my toe twitched. “Are you going to help me up or what?” I accidentally spat, half in frustration and half in pain.
I heard Xander laugh slightly and he held out a hand for me. Just as I placed mine into his, he turned to his friend; “Get some ice from Mario’s.”
“W-what?” the guy stuttered.
“Ice, Devon, from Mario’s,” Xander demanded, just as he helped me effortlessly into a standing position. “It’s not a hard request.”
“Oh, sure,” the guy called Devon said and then went to wander off down the street back to where Mario’s front door was waiting.
“Devon, don’t take the bloody knife with you!” Xander snapped at the guy.
“Oh!” Devon stopped, turned round, looked at Xander and then at the knife and just placed it on the floor carefully like he was handling something that might explode and just walked away.
He wobbled slightly as I watched him. I was worried he was going to faint and collapse on the hard floor, but he disappeared round the corner and out of sight, and was momentarily forgotten about. Xander was just shaking his head at his friend as he had just placed the knife in the middle of the street.
I gasped again as a pain shot up my foot and up my leg like an electric bolt. It reminded me of when I once been bitten by an ant in Australia. Although double that pain – no, probably triple it. I remember sitting drinking a small bottle of beer the Australians called a ‘stubby’ under a slight canopy in my rented house. I hadn’t noticed there was an infestation of ants right next to my bare feet – what is it with me and bare feet? They were these huge things with blue abdomens, horrible little buggars they were. One had bitten me on my big toe. The pain had shot right up my whole leg. My toe even throbbed for at least an hour afterwards.
Although the pain I felt after dropping a rock on it was worse, the idea was still the same; the pain travelling right up my leg. Although unlike the ant, I was suddenly feeling a little sick from the pain.
“It’s probably best you move out of the street, Jo,” Xander said, his voice seemed to have gotten softer in a matter of seconds. Although I was mostly concerned with the fact Xander had taken his hands out of mine and I was now standing on one leg.
“Yeah, before I fall over,” I snorted, and put my foot down. But as soon as I did, I wobbled dangerously because I didn’t want to put pressure on it and the pain had made me a little dizzy. Xander had to grab me to stop me from falling over.
He had quick reflexes, but he didn’t seem too bothered where his hands landed when he grabbed me. Although, luckily he didn’t grab anywhere inappropriate, but he did have one hand on my arm and the other on my waist.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
I muttered a thanks and allowed him to guide me over to the side of the street.
Just as we reached the side and I was able to lean against a wall – Xander taking his hands off me again – he asked me a strange question.
“Did you not care that guy had a knife?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, looking back at him in confusion, unsure I heard him right.
“The mugger,” he said, “he had a knife. Did you not care?”
“Err… I guess not,” I shrugged. “My main concern was stopping him, I was worried he was going to hurt you.”
“You didn’t have to step in like that, you could have been hurt yourself.”
“If I didn’t, he could have hurt you. Were you not scared?”
“I’m used to it.”
I laughed. “You’re used to people attacking you with knives?”
He looked at me, his deep green eyes seemed darker for some reason. “I’m sort of used to-,” he paused as if choosing his words carefully, “people trying to threaten me.”
I stared at him for a few seconds wondering what that meant. He was used to people threatening him? Why?
Check out the next chapter here!
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If you liked this story, please check out my other works!
Using constructive critism… and not throwing in the towel!
I’m feeling 100% well lately, but I’m still going to attempt this blog post!
A couple of days ago I decided to reach out on a Facebook Group called ‘We love reading books.’ What better way to get advice on your writing but from book fans!?
So I wrote a post asking if there would be anyone who’d be interested in reading a few chapters of my ‘Rose Garden Sanatorium’ so that I could get feedback. I was actually surprised that a LOT of people commented back jumping at the opportunity! So after sending out a load of personal emails with a PDF of the first few chapters, I’m starting to get a little bit of feedback.
Of course, my skin isn’t that thick to deal with negative feedback, not because I was shocked to hear my work isn’t perfect! But because I have low self-esteem in general.
But after getting the feedback, I realised that- okay, so THAT person didn’t like it – Well, not the story, but the writing style, he did say he’d like to read more! I have had some ideas on how to improve it!
I also got a lovely reply back from another reader and she was very nice. She was a lot more supportive in the sense that she told me she loved the story and did give me some feedback on how to improve it a little too.
And what is interesting, is that, I actually feel all the more happier now that I have used that feedback and done a few alterations. It’s that little bit better than it was before I sent it out. 🙂
I did also, get some lovely comments on Twitter from some other authors, so if you are reading this and you were one who encouraged me, thank you for your kind words!
And no, I’m not giving up. I’ve spent ten months so far writing this damn book (well a series), I for sure am NOT giving up on it! And I do want it to be the best it can be. I’m proud of the story line and I love the characters (well, most of them).
Moral of the story, take negative feedback with a pinch of salt. Not everyone is going to love it, but use the critism to your advantage, use it to make it better!
Plus, even famous authors have negative feedback! Just look at Dan Brown! Now his works are getting put into films! (I love his books!)
Rebecca – Chapter 1
Bit of a back story to this one before you read on. I started this one a while ago, before ‘Rose Garden Sanatorium’ and way before ‘It’s My Mistake’ but I never finished it. Reason for that was because I came up with the idea of Rose Garden Sanatorium before finishing it and got distracted to write that one instead!
Now, a few months on and I have decided to finish ‘Rebecca’ first and publish it along with ‘It’s My Mistake’, just to get a few books out there before I finished ‘Rose Garden Sanatorium’. I have decided to publish Rose Garden professionally and as my studies start up soon I might not have a lot of time to finish it before then (nor the funds, as it’s going to cost up to £1500, which I don’t have as I’m not employed!)
Anyway, I figured I’d post a few chapters of Rebecca for you anyway, so you can see what to expect when I finally finish and publish this one.
If you’re interested in the other two and haven’t come across them before, see below for the links to my other posts.
P.S. Please bare in mind this currently in first draft stage, but if you do see any mistakes in grammar, spelling or even if you’d like to comment on plotline/wording/description (or lack of as that hasn’t been added perfectly yet either) feel free to let me know. 🙂
Warning: May contact strong language and mature content
Chapter 1
I looked outside at the weather. It was horrendous, I wished I never decided to travel to Canada now or at least wished I’d looked at the best time of year to go. It wasn’t winter yet, it was mid-autumn but I was too busy in the eastern side of Canada in the summer. So here I was, travelling in this torrential weather to Vancouver, on a bus.
I should have known it was the wrong time of year to go, considering I was the only person on this bus. But the need to travel was too strong that it overruled my common sense. Never mind, I’m here now and the only time I could get work in this area was this time of year, so I had no choice really. Unless I stayed in England.
I sat on the uncomfortable bench of a seat on the bus as the rain washed passed on the windows, it was early evening by now. After a bit of a long trip from my post on Vancouver Island. The sun had settled two hours earlier and I could tell the temperature was dropping slightly too. I was just lucky that it wasn’t winter and it was freezing cold. The chances of getting stuck in the snow were greater. Although, the weather might have been drier.
After what seemed like hours on the bus, it slowed to a stop. This alerted me out of my day-dreaming. I noticed it had stopped at a petrol station-, well gas station they were called here in Canada. I wondered if he needed to refuel.
“Just stopping for the bathroom ma’am,” the driver explained when he saw my confused look peering up from the window to him as he got up out of the driver’s seat. “Would you like to grab any snacks or visit the ladies yourself?” he asked. His accent was thick Canadian, an accent I had gotten used to for a while now after spending nearly four months in Canada. Although I had noticed a slightly change after moving away from the east coast.
“Not a bad idea,” I nodded, getting up from my seat and stretching my stiff joints. “How long now until Vancouver?” I asked, as I grabbed my bag and headed to the front of the bus.
“Another few hours, so long as the weather doesn’t get any worse,” the driver explained, hopping off the bus and waiting outside for me to get off too.
“Great,” I said, not really feeling great about it at all. I had to spend another few hours on a cold damp bus before I could go anywhere to get a decent meal and a decent night sleep. I was exhausted.
The gas station didn’t have much in terms of decent food either. I wandered down the aisles looking at the American or Canadian style chocolate bars and ‘chips’ and subsequently sighed. There were no decent sandwiches, so my choices were limited to chips and chocolates. And seeing as I wasn’t sure when my next decent meal was going to be, I decided to pick up a few things anyway, even if they were high in sugar and fat, they were better than nothing. I picked up a few packets of chips and a few bars of chocolates before heading over to the counter where the driver was talking to the guy behind the cashier already.
“I’m afraid not,” the cashier said while talking to the driver, who had come back from the bathroom. He was shaking his head and looking concerned about something. This sparked my curiosity.
“That’s just my luck,” said the driver and rubbed his face with a hand.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, dumping the snacks on the counter top.
“Road’s blocked half a mile up, no way through to the city.”
“What?” I said, feeling the blood drain from my face.
“Apparently the wind blew down an old tree, right into the road, no way of getting through.”
“Buggar!” I swore and rubbed my own face, feeling tired already, “Now what?”
“There is a Motel in the next village, hopefully they’ll have the road cleared by tomorrow?” suggested the guy behind the cash register.
“I suppose that’s all I can do!” I shrugged, “Where is the motel? Is it far?”
“A mile or so,” the bus driver explained.
I nodded and picked up the snacks, thinking that if I wasn’t heading back in Vancouver today, I might as well find somewhere to eat in the village.
“I can take you to the motel,” the driver said, “But I’ll be heading back to my town, which is a few miles away.”
I nodded, “That’ll be fine.”
The bus stopped for a second time that night, right outside a motel. I was starting to feel a little hungry, so at this point I was just glad to find somewhere to get off so I could get something to eat and rest for the rest of the night. Although I was starting to wish I had bought those snacks at the service station.
“Here’s the motel,” the bus driver said, giving me a weak smile.
“Thank you,” I said, getting up and moving to the front of the bus again.
“Keep your ticket, it’ll get you to Vancouver tomorrow.”
I nodded and thanked him again before getting off the bus. Taking my backpack and trudging up to the front reception of the motel now a little soaked from the rain.
It was only a small motel, clearly this town didn’t get many visitors.
I pushed through the reception door and up to the lady on the reception who looked up from her newspaper crossword puzzle and smiled at me. “Evening.”
“Hi, can I have room for the night?”
“Oh, sorry love, we’re fully booked for tonight!”
“Oh, shit!” I accidentally said, feeling my luck going from bad to worse.
The receptionist smiled weakly, “There is another motel in the next town up,” she said.
“Oh right, where is that?”
“If you go in that direction,” she pointed out the window, “past the post office and continue until you hit the next town, it’s right opposite a diner. They usually have a few vacancies.”
“Oh, okay, thanks!” I smiled. I just heard diner and felt my stomach urge me to leave and find food.
“Sorry again,” the receptionist smiled as I turned back around.
“That’s okay,” I muttered as I opened the door and finally trudged back out into the darkness. At least I knew there was another motel, so it wasn’t all that bad. One that had a diner right opposite. Winner.
If you like this, please check out my other work:
The Girl Who Whispered 