By
Jennifer Young (Guest Blogger)
I
don’t believe that people are truly bad — or not many of them,
anyway — which is why I don’t tend to have real villains in my
books (though that may change in the future). Even my baddies aren’t
serious villains; they either don’t do things that are truly
dreadful or they are forced into doing the bad things by
circumstances or by other people. They act with regret, or look back
on the results of their actions with regret; but they aren’t really
bad.
That
is why Looking For Charlotte, my latest book, has no villains.
It’s the story of Flora Wilson, who becomes obsessed with searching
for the body of a murdered toddler, Charlotte Anderson, to bring
closure to the child’s bereaved mother. Flora’s motives aren’t
altogether altruistic, but the aim is nevertheless positive: she
wants to help someone, even though it’s someone who she’s never
met.
You
might, with reason, argue that the murderer of a toddler must be a
villain of the highest order and that’s a question that Flora asks
herself as she searches. It’s a question that Charlotte’s mother,
Suzanne, asks herself too; but because the murderer, Charlotte’s
father, was a man suffering form mental illness, even Suzanne
challenges herself to tackle the seemingly impossible task of
forgiving him.
Flora
and Suzanne, living separate lives, plough their way through traumas
and difficulties, through grief and failure. And they don't just find
support along the way; they give it, too. Life is cruel but the
cruelty is unintentional. People do things that hurt others —
sometimes, as Suzanne learns, to the point at which they might think
they were better dead. But every corner hides a secret kindness, an
act of fellowship from a stranger.
Villains
are a staple of romantic (and other) fiction but they don’t pop up
that often in real life. One day I’ll write about a villain and I
promise I’ll make him or her eye-poppingly evil, lacking in
conscience, a stranger to remorse and one whose regret comes only
from being caught. But you won’t find that person here.
In
lacking a villain, I don’t think that Looking For Charlotte
is any weaker than it would be with a wicked lead or antihero.
Instead it offers a cluster of everyday heroes, passing by and
casting the magic spell of a good deed as they go.
Blurb
Divorced
and lonely, Flora Wilson is distraught when she hears news of the
death of little Charlotte Anderson. Charlotte’s father killed her
and then himself, and although he left a letter with clues to her
grave, his two-year-old daughter still hasn’t been found. Convinced
that she failed her own children, now grown up and seldom at home,
Flora embarks on a quest to find Charlotte’s body to give the
child’s mother closure, believing that by doing so she can somehow
atone for her own failings.
As
she hunts in winter through the remote moors of the Scottish
Highlands, her obsession comes to challenge the very fabric of her
life — her job, her friendship with her colleague Philip Metcalfe,
and her relationships with her three children.
Excerpt
She
turned the card over and looked at the photograph of Stac Pollaidh
sitting proud above its carpet of rocks and lochans. She’d
climbed Stac Pollaidh as a child, on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition
from school, in searing heat on a June day and she hadn’t
enjoyed it. Walking wasn’t really her
thing. She didn’t want to walk now. All
she wanted to do was to drive up and down forever in this land of
ghosts and legends and look at the mountains; and then one day a
pretty blond child would appear by the roadside, beckon her to stop,
and lead her away forever.
A
tapping on the window startled her. She jumped, turned her head, and
saw a concerned face. In front of her a car was parked in the lay-by,
a big blue Jeep, its spare wheel smeared in mud. It had arrived just
after she had, and decanted a family. She’d
watched them setting out for a walk, strung out along the path.
The
face was kind. She wound the window down hastily. ‘What?’
The
man outside had a round face topping a knitted jumper in navy, worn
under a waxed jacket. He drew back a little. ‘Sorry. Don’t
want to interfere. We wondered if you were all right.’
She
must have looked distressed. God, how she hated being an object of
pity. She looked at this pale face of the city man, heard the London
accent, recognised a stranger like herself. ‘Thank you. I’m
fine. But it was kind of you to ask.’
‘I
know I shouldn’t interfere,’
the man said, backing away, apologetically, ‘but my wife...
Well, you were sitting here when we went for our walk, that was all.’
She
gave a quick glance at the dashboard clock. She’d
been sitting there with her hands on the steering wheel for over an
hour. ‘No, no. It’s all right.’
She was appalled at herself. She must have sounded terse.
‘Really. It’s very kind of you.
Actually, I’ve had some bad news, that’s
all. So I was just sitting.’
His
good-natured face flushed with the Englishman’s
embarrassment at having barged in with misplaced goodwill.
‘Goodbye
then.’
‘Goodbye.
Thank you.’
He
got back into the car and roared out of the lay-by. Two faces,
children captivated by the sudden moment of drama, twisted round and
peered towards her as it disappeared along the winding grey road.
Yes, that was it. Pity. Concern. Whatever.
Get your copy today!
Tirgearr Publishing
Tirgearr Publishing
Amazon
UK
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US
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Author
Bio
I
live in Edinburgh and I write romance and contemporary women’s
fiction. I’ve been writing all my life and my first book was
published in February 2014, though I’ve had short stories published
before then. The thing that runs through all my writing is an
interest in the world around me. I love travel and geography and the
locations of my stories is always important to me. And of course I
love reading — anything and everything.
Links
Facebook
Twitter
@JYnovelist
Website
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1 comment:
I enjoy books with or without villains... for me it is all about the journey the characters take throughout their story.
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