Book Title: The Writer
ISBN 978-1-920659-22-6
Part of Series: No. See other books by Nicole Stuart:
Lost!
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Author: Nicole Stuart
Price: $2.99
Number of words (approximately): 50042
Star Rating (of five): 5
Summary: A writer,
frustrated at the failures of his plots and characters, travels from Vancouver to Mossel
Bay , South Africa
Extract:
- “Have a look down there!” Peter exclaimed the words suddenly, quietly,
so their sound carried only to Roger and Geraldine. Roger looked in the direction of Peter’s nod,
and his heart stopped. ‘Down there’ was
the woman. She was sitting at a bench
seat with three men, her right side and back to them. Her hair, blazing bright in the sunshine,
made her impossible to miss. It was a
beacon of light in the crowded open-air restaurant area. As Roger looked, she turned her head to talk
to the man beside her. The move brought
her delicate nose, her fine lips and her elegant eyebrows into sight.
Roger raised his camera and took a series of shots of
her, the automatic exposure and focusing mechanisms of his new camera making
light work of the mechanics of the act.
Roger’s action was brought to an abrupt end when the man who had
previously blocked his view of the woman returned to his seat on a slightly
raised level of the restaurant, and blocked the view again.
“I agree with you!” stated Geraldine, turning back to
face Roger. “There is a story
there. She’s a German heiress to an
industrial empire. The three men with
her are suitors, each one vying to become her husband and to share the spoils
of her father’s reign of tyranny over the repressed workers in his fifteen
factories!”
“You know her?” asked Peter. “Gosh, that’s impressive!”
“I don’t know her, dummy!” laughed Geraldine. “The story just seemed plausible. “She’s got to be something special, looking
like that! Those men are doting on her!”
Roger was looking in the direction of the table that
had disappeared from view, hoping that the large man who was blocking his line
of sight would move away, evaporate, anything!
He needed to see the woman again.
He did not simply want to see her.
He needed to see her, in a way that he had never experienced before!
Suddenly, there was a disturbance at the edge of the
water. One of the surfers was wading in
towards the shore, dragging something behind him and shouting unintelligible
words. Roger picked up his camera and
walked towards the beach, near to where the surfer would be coming on shore,
keen to record any additional atmosphere that might be included in his story. He looked around briefly, noticing that
Geraldine and Peter were close behind him.
The surfer finally reached the beach and turned side on, to pull the
object he was towing onto the sand.
It was a man.
A dead man, to be exact. The body was dressed in lightweight clothing
suitable for a business meeting in a hot climate – trousers, a light cotton
shirt with no tie, socks but no shoes on his feet. He was clearly dead, in the sort of way that
one instinctively knows indicates death.
His mouth was partly open, the eyes staring. Roger lifted his camera without thinking, and
took a series of photographs, changing focal length from wide angle to
telephoto as he did so, covering the general scene, the surfer, the body and the
crowd now standing around it, gaping in that horrid fascination that draws
crowds to freeway pile-ups, building collapses and other forms of violent
death. Every face that Roger
photographed showed the same expression of shock, horror and fascination. Every face but one. The last face that Roger captured on his
digital memory card was that of the blonde woman, as she approached the scene. It showed a series of expressions on her
at-first serene face that changed, developed, as she took in what she was
seeing – interest, tragedy, fear, and
recognition. Roger managed to film in
rapid fire each development of the expression as it changed from interest to
recognition, as the woman moved through the blanketing crowd to a position
where she could see the dead face of the man on the sand. Roger saw her eyes roll backward. Without thinking, and without intention, he
forced his way through the crowd to her side, and caught her as she fell in a
dead faint. -
Reviewer’s Comments:
Structure: The book is
well-structured, makes good use of the language and is easy to read.
Content: The plot is an
interesting one. It tells the story of an
author writing his story, and also the story he is writing. A number of coincidences occur, bringing his
real life into parallel with his story, and he is increasingly compelled to
allow his characters to tell their stories to the end.
Reviewer’s Comments:
I love Nicole Stuart’s work. It is easy to read, compelling, with many
unique thoughts and plots. This book is
one of her best – it is un-put-downable, and leaves the reader with the feeling
that all is as it should be. A
delightful book! I look forward eagerly
to the next.
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