It’s that time of week again when my fellow Rainbow Snippetters post their excerpts and then report back at the Facebook group.
I mentioned Ghosts Galore in my post about blurb-wrestling yesterday so I thought I’d choose a few lines from that. This is from near the start of the book, where main character Adam is wrestling with the cost of running an ancient, if much-loved (and haunted) home. It’s a little longer than the regulation six lines (so sue me lol) but helps to explain why the lure of payment from a TV production company is so tempting…
His eyes strayed to the nearest window—a Gothic affair with a pointed top—and the view of the garden it gave. He could be out there now, painting the early tulips or the new shoots on the larch, not stuck indoors on a rare and beautiful day. But there’d been a letter in the post yesterday, with an official-looking header and some threatening red ink. It was, all too probably, the tax return or bust.
He scribbled some numbers on a bit of scrap paper and blanched. Was that even possible? Oh, hang on, he’d got the decimal point in the wrong place. Well, that helped. A bit. ‛Why we chose to live in a draughty, falling-down-round-our-ears place like this instead of a nice, easy to maintain modern house…’ He glanced at the portrait of his grandfather that hung in pride of place over the mantelpiece. The eyes were as kind as ever, but there seemed to be a rueful expression on the old man’s face. An expression that said ‘Not much I could do about that’. Which was true, since Gramps had inherited Greystones Hall from his father, and his father’s father before that, all the way back to some improbable date not long after the Normans had first marched into the local area. And he had to admit it was a wonderful place to live. Just… an extravagance he could barely afford…
The snippet gives a good flavour of the very tongue-in-cheek tone of the book. The whole thing was an absolute joy to write and I still giggle at the flouncing mediums, unbeliever producers and dotty vicars that pepper the pages. If you like the sound of it you can buy the book for only $3.92 (or your local equivalent) on Kindle – or of course it’s free on Kindle Unlimited.
FIONA GLASS 
Great snippet from a fabulous story! Adam is so endearing. I must give this another re-read soon as it’s such fun!!
Aww, thank you! I must admit I still giggle at the book too!
The home sounds so inviting to me (in spite of its old building issues)
Thanks! and yes, main character Adam adores his creaky old home and will do almost anything to save it. 🙂