Fearnley Fiction

Buy Here Chapter One Arctic Red 1988 Frankie Appleton was counting gates. Heavy rain was flicking forward-slashes onto the car windscreen and the botanical temperature inside the car was steaming up the glass like a curtain but she was soon able to find a rhythm. Wipe the glass, count the gate. Wipe the glass, count the gate.  As the glimpsed gates sped by, wrought-iron, double-hinged, Buxton, lattice, Frankie’s fingers grazed the slip of paper in her coat pocket, a sentence from the magazine Garden Gates – A Definitive Guide: ‘A gate is the first thing that a visitor sees and its appearance gives an indication of what lies beyond it, providing either a positive or negative first impression.’  She didn’t just like counting gates. She liked designing them too. She’d written the quote in red felt-tip pen on her bedroom wall, behind a Madonna poster – the ‘Angel’ one, where she’s wrapped in a blue towel, or maybe it’s a blue dressing gown. She could never quit...

Buy Here Summer 1929 The lake is silky smooth, lapping gently around the legs of the jetty. The knobbly planks beneath my toes are thick and warmed by the sun. Karl is on the bank, wriggling into his shorts under the towel Mutti is holding around him. ‘Careful Hetty,’ Karl shouts. ‘The water’s deep out there.’ ‘I’m just looking,’ I call back. ‘I want to see the big fish.’ I shuffle right to the very end and curl my toes around the edge. Crouching low, I peer into the water. I can’t see the bottom of the lake. Maybe there isn’t one. Perhaps the dark green water goes all the way down to the middle of the earth where savage monsters lurk, waiting. Walter swims towards the jetty. He splashes his arms around then floats on his back, pale toes bobbing up out of the water. He pops up again, grinning at me, pushing his wet hair off his face. I wish I could have swimming lessons like Karl, then I too could glide like a fish, instead of splashing about in the shallows, stubbing...

Buy Here ‘Thank you, Monsieur l’Abbé.’ She spoke with downcast eyes, and waited until she heard the front door close behind him before she heaved a sigh of relief and went up to her attic bedroom where she lit her candle and closed her door. It was cold in the room and she undressed quickly, putting on her nightgown and wrapping her blanket round her as she sat up in bed to read a news sheet she had picked up off the street on her way to the market. Sometime later she heard the front door bang and after a moment Father Thomas’s heavy tread as he made his way upstairs. To her dismay he did not stop on the first floor where he had taken over Father Lenoir’s bedroom, but continued up the steep stairs that led to the attics. Hurriedly Annette blew out her candle, and turning her back to the door curled up in her blanket as if already asleep. She waited with bated breath as she heard the footsteps stop outside her door. There was a long pause and then she heard the handle turn and...

Buy Here Chapter 1 Alice Alice Fletcher has never seen a dead body before. She always imagined they’d look peaceful: their skin slackened, their muscles  softened and their mouths settled, not into a smile exactly, but  a loose, contented line. Alice Fletcher was wrong. The body lying motionless at her feet looks nothing li. ke the soothing mental   image she’s been carrying around with her for the last forty-six years; the mouth is open, the jaw is hinged into a silent scream  and the glassy, lifeless eyes are staring into the distance, some- where beyond the toes of her sensible court shoes.   Alice isn’t aware of the frantic pounding of her heart, the heavy-duty lino beneath her feet or the steel-grey shutter that   separates her from the rest of the world. Nor is she conscious of the people around her. She doesn’t notice when the tall hulking  woman to her left takes a step closer. She doesn’t see the sweat...

Buy Here Chilled by the frozen air, Freddy found herself doing a Hail Mary for the Mermaids, wherever they were now. For Mags. There was a shortfall on her order of smoked haddock. It was a popular day for making Cullen skink, a soupy stew of haddock, leeks and potatoes. She’d be out of haddock by mid-morning. Annoyed with herself, Freddy set about arranging her stall. Erica had been on the nightshift so all was shipshape, price labels ready, cutting boards scrubbed. Freddy put the previous day’s unsold fish at the front of the cabinet, closest to the customers, to encourage a quicker sale. Smoked fish on their left, then breaded fish, followed by a strip comprising tuna, scallops, sardines and squid. Hake, bass and one of her favourites, bream. Lastly, a delicate arrangement of prawns, oysters and mussels around the bags of samphire and parsley and delineated with lemons. The samphire was imported from Israel. As a kid, Freddy used to pick it from the beach at Newhaven. ...

Buy Here Finishing the letter, Jessica rested her pen and looked up from her sunbed. It was hot today – she guessed at least thirty degrees – and Chris and Bella were still splashing around in the pool. She smiled, watching them for a moment.   This was their first family holiday since Bella was born nearly two years ago, and after a long, wet winter, the feeling of warm sunshine on her skin was very welcome indeed.   Jessica sighed and shut the notebook, moving it to the table alongside her sunbed. She closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift away, listening to the sound of the waves breaking on the shore behind her. This was the life.   ‘Mrs Holmes?’   Her eyes shot open. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Holmes. I trust that you were expecting me?’   Jessica blinked up at the blonde lady stood over her sunbed and nodded. ‘Of course, yes, hi Annika,’ she said, pulling off her sunglasses. Annika was wearing a formal chocolate-brown skirt su...

Buy Here -1- SOME SAY BEING in the building trade isn’t a job, they say it’s a way of life. What they never tell you about is the problems – every day of every week of every year – nothing but problems. Everyone you work with wants money off you, everyone you work for wants to keep money from you, and everyone – and I mean everyone – wants it done by yesterday. It’s problem after problem after bloody problem. And right now, I seem to have more than anyone. I’ve got a hysterical woman screaming down the house, a dead man on her kitchen floor, and I’ve got absolutely no idea what’s going on. All I do know… there’s no way now this job’s going to be finished by Friday. MRS WILKES SQUEEZED my hand and sobbed. I looked at the mess that was once Tommy and couldn’t help wondering – had he been having a bit of a dabble with Mrs Wilkes? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d entertained the client, and it would explain the overly dramatic wailing that quite frankly was start...

Buy Here Having previously read this author and enjoyed her writing style, I had to pick up this book.  Winning a bookshop is every book lovers dream, however this one came with financial difficulties. And a man who is there everyday but not employed, yet knows more about the bookshop than the owner.  At times I did find this story a little bit repetitive, especially in the first half. I found that a lot of things did repeat =, especially in the same chapter. After half way the story started to pick up and get moving.  There are some great characters in this book and also some great imagery that you can picture, the little village and shopping square among them. There are a lot of references to the film Anastasia, if you haven't seen it then you might not know exactly what is being mentioned in some parts.  An enjoyable read, I can see there being some sort of follow up. Lets see what happens next! 

Buy Here I was a bit unsure of this to begin with. I did get a bit confused between who was who as there waa no voice changes or definition. However as the audio went on I started to really enjoy it. I got to grips with who was who and what was happening.  It went from the present to the past and back again. All of it finally linking together in a great way. I thought that this was very cleverly done.  I never expected the book to go down the path it did, so was very pleasantly surpised. Sharon Bolton always draws you in and makes you want to keep reading or in this case listening. I could never have guessed any of this story or plot. Very well crafted and written. Very vivid descriptions and it is clear that a lot of research has beem done on top of this to make everything accurate. Sharon Bolton has never written a book that I haven't enjoyed. 

Buy Here Lizzie: Amelia and Dudley’s Wedding, 2010 Everyone was drunk. They had broken into the wed- ding favour boxes early and were downing champagne directly from the quarter-bottles, lobbing chocolates at each other and throwing the be-ribboned scented teabags into the swimming pool. Amelia, the bride, who had personally chosen the Rose Pouchong and Green Jasmine teabags to match the scented candles, had stormed off in tears. Dudley, instead of going after his new wife, had jumped fully clothed into the pool, laughing maniacally. Lizzie thought boy bands were the pits, especially Dudley’s band, Call Back Summer, whom she secretly believed were just talentless entitled rich boys. She would never say that to Dudley, of course. He was her friend. But she wrote and played her own music and before they’d split up, her band had been way more successful than Dudley’s. Lizzie didn’t drink. She hated it when Dudley behaved like her father, ringing her up when...