Description
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About the author:
Jill Boon writes about romantic encounters experienced by those of you who dream of being swept off your feet to find yourself on some romantic island. Add to all this, the unexpected turn of events, a love story, and unforgettable characters. And you have here a page turner to entertain you and offer you an escape to a place where dreams come true.
What inspired you to write your book?
A desire to find happiness after facing grief and depression following the death of a loved one.
Here is a short sample from the book:
Their eyes meet and kiss, the way only hungry eyes can kiss… And the kiss lingers like a scent, filling her with desire and a deep aching for him. A shadow passes like a knife, disturbing the moment. It slices through and grief returns in one heavy shiver. She is back to that fateful day when her eyes refused to kiss Glen’s eyes, sending him off to drive to his untimely death…
Pamela snaps her eyes away, as she feels her stomach turn and little honey birds flap their wings in her stomach. He has caught her checking him out. He is there, tall, dark, fit and stunningly attractive, the cliché of every woman’s fantasy. Standing at the counter, buying a takeaway. Her mouth moves to wet her quivering lips. She is seated at the far end of the fast-food place, the Wimpy, waiting for her order to be served. She is eating in.
Loneliness always begs for company.
It is like she is being rejected in a way, the way leaves fall from a tree when the season changes and the tree is left to feel abandoned, rejected, and alone. Her seasons keep changing, shading more leaves until her tree is as naked as the emptiness inside her. How she longs for company. To have someone, anyone, to talk to, say anything that comes to mind. The word WIDOW kind of sticks out and depresses her most. To her widow has always been the reserve of old people, mostly over sixty, visually just waiting to die. Now, she is like one whose turn to be served has arrived. To her, it’s like the end of a life.
Home, the same brick structure she shared with Glen, is enveloped in total emptiness. It is like an abandoned structure. A dwelling without a soul. She feels his presence, the way one senses warmth just by looking at the sun’s rays penetrating through the gaps in the curtains in the windows. Imagined. Remembered.
Though the house is tucked in loneliness, it is a loneliness she can’t do away with by selling the house. She clings on Glen’s fading shadow, hoping to touch, smell, feel and taste him in every room, every corner, and on every piece of furniture, he used to sit in. She sometimes hears him in a crazy way, in every sound in the house. The sound of a door closing, the sound of a window opening, she always expects to find him there, waiting to say something humorous in his crazy, unique way.
She turns a tap, listens, convinced she’s heard him say something muffled by the sound of water coming out of the tap and hitting the sink uninterrupted. The loud sound must surely usher in her Glen, the way applauses at a theatre are followed by the appearance of the star performer. She is sure she can hear his flat-footed trudging steps as he comes to sit where he always loves to sit (even on the day he last came in the kitchen, he came and sat there, before walking off to meet his death). She thinks the light is playing tricks with her mind as she stands at the sink in the morning wake and there at the kitchen table, he is waiting for a shower of words from her, like always, engaging him in conversation. The tap is now quiet. The entire house is as quiet as a tombstone. The only sound comes in rude commotion from outside. It is the sound of the world blurting on without grief.
They slow down and come to a stop. Ghost is there, waiting for them. The helmet comes off and Pamela is stunned, speechless. For Ghost is none other than Gelda. Pamela’s heart is pumping fast, adjusting from the shock and the adrenaline high of the racers chase.
Gelda is waiting for them. She comes over to speak to her dad, then walks to where Pamela is busy removing her helmet.
“Did you enjoy the ride, ma’am?” The cheek of it. Did I fuckin’ enjoy being flung across the island on a glorified bicycle with nothing save for a helmet to safeguard my life? How responsible of me!
“Yes… And Gelda, please stop calling me ma’am. I am Pamela.” Her voice is soft and trembling as if disturbed by the wind. Fear has returned to keep her company. She feels this relief of being on solid ground. Then, her eyes settle on the machines and she feels the chill. Deep in her, she feels she should walk back. No more unsafe motorcycles.
“Okay, Pamela,” Gelda says and smiles widely, like one who has just said some word she has always found hard to pronounce. Hers is an innocent face shaping adult emotions too soon. She looks so relaxed, in her biker gear, that Pamela can’t help think what her mom must have been like. She is a smart, confident and polite girl, well-mannered and yes, the ideal child. If only she would give up her fanatical devotion to bike racing she would be the perfect child. Was her son, Shaun, ever going to be like this, one day? Pamela wonders.
Having chased Ghost for so long she feels angry by the discovery.
There she stands, besides her bike, watching the last straws of dawn burn across the lilac sky. She is so small, like a cider of wood, her hair glowing and waving in the wind like smoke curls, to blend into the glowing dark spread around them.
Thor mutters something about needing to check something on the bike. He is down on his knees, going through each and every part of his bike. He is too absorbed in what he is doing to bother with the two of them.
Ghost is Gelda, tiny and strong. Standing there at the cliff edge like she is about to take a step forward and jump, and become part of the sprinkles of seagulls showering the lower reaches, floating as they shift across the sky with their persistent cries and shifty winds. Pamela realises she can become part of this if she chooses so. Just like Ghost is now part of Gelda’s life, and Gelda is now part of this spectacle of the island’s choruses, mourning the death of another night. To have the ability and brave recklessness to ride like a phantom; ride with the wind and defy all odds, knowing each and every twist and turn so that you ride with the wind, removed from all mortals and be cast into the shrouding veil of the immortals. To become one with Ghost. Ghost is detached, emboldened, decapitated from this realism and floating freely.
Gelda returns from the shadows of dreams, from staring into the distance, and hints at feeling the cold. Her little arms are wrapped around her like a shawl. She has her eyes half closed, her hair in a riot like the mane of an angry lion. She looks up sweetly at Pamela. Pamela’s charcoals of anger dampen their glow. She finds herself unable to scold Gelda for riding so dangerously. How do you begin to say it when innocence is staring back at you warmly? Gelda is like an infected carrier of a lethal virus who innocently moves and mingles with the uninfected, not knowing better not to do this, unaware of her infectious nature.
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