2020 Character Interview
Beverley:
What’s your name?
Andrew:
Andrew Conroy, although that wasn’t always my name.
Beverley:
Where did you grow up?
Andrew:
Kent, England.
Beverley:
During what time period does your story take place?
Andrew:
1918 to 1919.
Beverley:
What’s your story/back story? Why would someone come up with a story about you?
Andrew:
World War One was raging and like millions of men I enlisted. Not out of patriotism,
to avoid arrest for assault. I was shipped over to the bloody battlefields of
France, and on the eve of the Battle of Amiens, I got talking to a bloke of
similar colouring and build. Like me he had no family. Next day, in the thick
of battle a shell exploded killing him and wounding me. In front of me was the
one chance of a new life. It was a hanging offence, but I was past thinking
clearly. I swapped identity discs.
Beverley:
What’s your goal in this story?
Andrew:
To survive, I cannot make one mistake because my new identity pushed me into a
life of family greed and murder.
Beverley:
What conflicts are you facing?
Andrew:
I’m in the middle of a family at war with each other. And, to complicate things
more, a young woman desperately needs help.
Beverley:
Do you have a plan for resolving them?
Andrew:
Not making one mistake is essential, but planning is impossible when I don’t know
what will happen next.
Beverley:
Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?
Andrew:
That one desperate act pushed me into a life of lies and now, as I grow closer
to this young woman who needed my help, honesty is the only way forward. What
will she think of me when I tell her I stole the name of a man who died for his
country?
Blurb for The
Proposition
They met on the eve of
a battle. One enlisted to avoid prison, the other enlisted to avoid the money
lenders. On the bloodied fields of France, Harry Connelly collapses beside the
corpse of Andrew Conroy. It is a risk, a hanging offence—and his only hope for
a future. Harry swaps identity discs.
Now as Andrew, he is just another face in
post-war London until a letter arrives with a proposition. Accepting is out of
the question, refusing pushes him into a nightmare of greed, blackmail and
murder. To survive he must live this lie without a mistake. Then he falls for
Lacey and her secrets. Will the truth set them free or embroil them even
further in the webs of deceit that surround them?
Excerpt from The
Proposition
It took many seconds before his eyes told his brain
the craters were dark red and littered with dozens of bloodied, twisted bodies.
Some stared up into nothing, some face down. Harry looked behind him, he’d been
pinned beneath bodies submerged in the crater still smoking from an exploded
shell. The entrails of one body oozed into the bloodied soil and the other
body, oh God. Harry’s stomach heaved, he was covered with blood and guts. The
ground shook again making him cringe. In the distance, a thick pall of black
smoke was covering the rows of men fighting furiously while shells pounded
around them, but it was eerily silent. Like the films at the picture house
without the words on the screen.
Harry struggled to his knees and almost fainted from
the pain in his leg. Closing his eyes, breathing deeply, he reached down to
feel the blood oozing through his trouser leg.
“Come on, move, move.” He dragged himself forward
until he came to a mound. “Give up,” his mind screamed, then his eyes settled
on a water canteen half buried in the earth. Pulling it out, he unscrewed the
cap and drank. Nectar. Spitting the dirt out of his mouth he gulped the water
greedily, feeling it flowing through his body and clearing his mind.
“Oh, Jesus.” The mound was a pile of bloodied bodies
with sightless eyes. He couldn’t crawl over them. He couldn’t do it. Wheezing
with the pain in his leg he inched around them and looked back. The crater was
barely thirty feet behind him. He had to stop. Why crawl to the trees? Stay
here. Rest.
The throbbing in his leg forced Harry’s eyes open. If
he could crawl to the little rise ahead of him, he’d stop there. Using his
elbows to propel him, he inched forward and without warning, the earth gave
way. Tumbling down the small slope he fell against a solid lump. A lump in
uniform whose blank eyes stared directly into his. Jerking back, he clutched
his head as excruciating pain tore through his ears. Moaning, he rocked back
and forth until it eased and when he opened his eyes bile ran into his mouth.
Insects were taking up residence in the gaping, oozing chest cavity while the
neck and chin, mouth and nose were strangely untouched. The scalp had gone.
Harry turned away as his stomach heaved again. Move, move. Inching forward, his
fingers touched a shiny object in the churned soil. He stared stupidly at the
unscathed cigarette case.
“Oh no!” he turned back and leaned closer to read the
name on the identity discs. Andrew Conroy, his service number and C E. The poor
scared bastard with no family. He wanted to move away but his feeble strength
failed. He’d rest here for a while.
Holding the cigarette case with both hands, he lay back against the
crumbled mound. He was so damn tired.
Voices, shouting. Blinking, he squinted at the hazy moving objects, oh
yes, the Red Cross stretcher bearers and wagons were picking up the wounded
before the ghastly task of removing the dead.
Harry looked at the cigarette case in his hand and its
owner lying next to him. It was a hanging offence. If he did, there would be no
turning back. If he didn’t...
He had no strength; his fingers wouldn’t work. Do it,
for Christ’s sake, do it. His chest wheezed, and his weak hands fumbled with
the effort of pulling Andrew Conroy’s discs over the gaping skull. His arms
ached with the mammoth task of removing his. When it was done, he lay beside the
body. He wanted to say something, beg him to understand, but he couldn’t find
the words.
His tears dripped onto the soil. “Mate, you are in a
better place.”
Buy Link for The Proposition
The Proposition - Kindle edition by Selbourne, Jan.
Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
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What a great book! And I loved Andrew--such a complex character. Great mystery with the historical accuracy we've come to expect from Jan Selbourne.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Dee S. Knight
ReplyDelete