Description
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About the author:
Book Cover Designer, Artist, writer. Voracious reader. Tea drinker, dog owner. Chief-cook and dish washer loader. Jocose, English Ex-pat in Spain. Beach freak. Science fiction fan. Habitual doubler of entendres. Caricature and Cartoonist junkie. Part-time philanthropist. Music nut. Movie addict. Occasional faux finisher. Renaissance man. Opinionated. Wordy. Modest…
What inspired you to write your book?
I first come up with the idea after watching The Fisher King. It left me with the question how does our actions affect other people’s lives.
Here is a short sample from the book:
For Shaun it all started on a bright, Saturday morning, sat at a stainless steel table, foot tapping el fresco in front of Joe’s café, Greenwich high road. A big issue newspaper rolled up in one hand, and a frothy latte held firmly in the other. Shaun carried the guilty expression of a slouching dog, deep in thought about his precarious situation. Saturday retail workers filled the pavements striding towards the station at the end of the road. This was meant to be the start of the return journey up North, his failed attempt at a new life in London, beat him down to the clothes on his back. His only possession of value left was his grandfather’s Timex, the one thing so far, hadn’t let him down and that’s including him. But Shaun’s an optimist and some would say a Polly-Anna optimist, often biting off more than he could chew. He doesn’t blame anyone else for his predicament and viewed his defeat as a retreat to fight another day. Still, for every adversity there’s a greater or equal opportunity and unbeknown to Shaun he was staring at his from across the road. This particular edifice like so many in Greenwich had been changed, reformed and reinvented. The building was colossal with thirty five rooms on four floors built around the 1830’s. Most of the time spent as a hotel and corner pub with red brick string courses above panels of ceramic faced bricks. The windows spanned with arched tops, cast with painted stucco. A sign loomed over the three brass balls of the Pawn broker. Traditionally written with a dark green background and gold lettering it read: KLEPTOMANIACS. That morning had a delicious chill as Shaun cupped his hands around the coffee mug. He was fascinated by a woman cleaning the windows from within the building. The next day after the royal wedding, sales for self-tanning products skyrocketed, a reaction to seeing the English socialite, “Pippa” Middleton. But not this woman, even if she had seen the event, she would staunchly prefer to remain a typical English beauty, with a milk-and-roses complexion, big pansy brown eyes, which had experienced well over fifty years of life, and an extremely interesting one. She was immodestly dressed in a red chequered dressing-gown wrapt with a yellow scarf as she continued to clean the shop windows. The lady clutched her gown together in the middle stopping her breasts from spilling out. She had piled her long strawberry blond hair atop her head, held in place with another yellow scarf, tastefully matching the one around her waist. She seemed to beckon him in-between window smears. He raised his eyebrows compelled to find out what she wanted, and how this intriguing person knew he was waiting for the shop to open. Shaun hated not being able to afford to leave a tip for the waiter, don’t look back he thought, as he scuttled across the road, darting in-between the traffic gaps. He slowly pushed the door open as if not wanting to draw attention to himself, but it jarred from the swollen, damp timber. He half cringed awkward, embarrassed to be in the shop skint as the ringing bell jingled, reminiscent of a corner sweet shop from the seventies, he had seen on the TV, in fact he instantly felt like he’d walked through a portal in time, the smell of the place comforting, nostalgic. A sweet sounding voice came from the belly of the shop, “I’ll be with you in a mo’ Love.” At that moment, at that failed pathetic point in his life, a warm safe mum-like person was here to welcome, save, tell him well done or everything was okay. To the right of the door the wall was dominated by a mural where a masked Scaramouche, from the 1952 film, swung on a tassel rope from a Parisian theatre
Mark Shearman. Streaking For Mother (Kindle Locations 106-125).
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