It’s time to share a snippet of the upcoming Devonshire Mystery.
The finished version of this book still feels like it’s some way off, but I thought you might like to see how it’s shaping up. Sharing it now will also help to keep me accountable.
The new novel still doesn’t have a title, but much of the action takes place in Exeter, so the picture is a snap I took of Exeter Cathedral.
I hope you like the look of the snippet. As always when I share an advance snippet, it’s very much a work in progress. I may well change it when I redraft the novel, and it will also be run past an editor.
If this leaves you wanting more, then I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to be patient. I’m writing it as fast as I can.
Prologue
The room is dark, lit only by the blue-white glow from a laptop’s screen. The keyboard clicks beneath the relentless thudding of my too-fast fingers.
But the reply comes before I’ve even finished my sentence. I stop suddenly, staring at the screen, and my chest tightens. Oh no. My mind spins, and I force myself to breathe, exhaling in a long, unsteady breath.
“This can’t be right,” I whisper into the darkness.
But the message remains; stark black letters stretched across the glaring white background:
No one must know. You’ll have to deal with it, once and for all.
I type my reply, pleading for another option, a way out. Then I wait, my hands curled so tightly into fists that my fingernails nip my skin. I need the pain, need something to tether me to real world. Because none of this can be happening. It’s a bad dream, a fantasy. I can’t let it be true or it will overwhelm me, swallow me up in its madness. I have to beat this, escape its inexorable logic. I cannot admit defeat.
But a message flashes onto the screen, and I can’t hold back the moan that creeps from my throat.
I read the text from the screen, whispering the words because, despite myself, I have to hear them. I have to know they’re real. “You know what you have to do,” I read aloud. “The dead tell no tales.”
A tremor runs through me, fear mingled with revulsion. In a flash of anger, I slam the laptop shut, then I hang my head, covering my face with my hands, fingertips pressing hard against my eyes until I see starbursts of green.
And after a while, my mind grows still. Because I will have to do this. I have no choice.
*
That’s the end of the snippet, but I’ll be sharing a few more over the coming weeks.
Happy reading.
