Welcome to the first blog hop for 2022. Today’s topic is:

It’s your book. The next five seconds are the most important. What happens?

Here’s a few seconds in the life of James Hynde, one of the characters in my new WIP, ‘Falling‘. James has been rather a naughty boy…

Excerpt from ‘Falling’ by Stevie Turner (Copyright 2022 Stevie Turner):

His heart beat a rapid tattoo. Was it best to jump feet first or hold out his arms and topple over and over like a somersaulting gymnast?  Bright sunlight shone through his closed eyelids, and he was aware of a pulse that throbbed in the outside corner of his right eye. 

Now or never.

He took a deep breath and imagined his parents’ grief when they read the following day’s headlines.  His father, so upright and law-abiding, would be horrified.  His mother would take to her bed and weep for a week at least.  Mental images seared through his brain; himself, happy, with Tony in the common room at Harrow, the pair of them racing each other through the maze of corridors at Trinity College, then punting on the Cam with Fiona and later on the way she had looked at him when they had made love for the first time and when he had made his first million.

Would he do it all over again?  James knew there were no more chances.  He had taken the wrong path out of sheer greed.  There was no way he could ever redeem himself.

He spread his arms wide, and then with a yell of bravado pitched forwards to let the wind rush past and take him where it would.  For a split second there were no more worries; strangely enough the same kind of abandon he had felt just before a general anaesthetic had swirled through his system to let an oral surgeon rip his wisdom teeth out.  There was nothing left in life to bother him anymore; he had checked out. 

Click on the blue button below to see what other blog-hoppers’ five seconds are…

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