Drowning Rapunzel
Annette Gisby
Annette Gisby
Genre: Romantic
Suspense
Publisher: Pink
Petal Books
Word Count: 66,000
Cover Artist:
Valerie Tibbs
Book Description:
Recently released
from a mental institution, Beth Gregory accepts a job as a live-in secretary/PA
to the reclusive painter Josh Warrington. Beth's long red hair fascinates him
from the first moment he sees her and Josh wants her to be his Rapunzel for a
series of fairy tale paintings he's working on.
Beth has two major
fears: that she will be sent back to the mental hospital and the visions which
landed her there in the first place will return. They do; this time giving her
glimpses of murders before they happen. Beth becomes the main suspect in the
murder investigation and then she has the most disturbing vision of all: she
will become the next victim...
Short Excerpt:
He wished he'd thought of the water sooner. It was
easier that way, not so much mess. It was peaceful too, watching her hair fan
out behind her like a veil of gold. She didn't struggle after his hands were
around her neck, and he was grateful. It showed him that she accepted her fate
dutifully, like she should. She should never have made him wait so long.
Now he was waiting again, but he didn't mind. He was
used to waiting now. Waiting could almost have been his middle name. Actually,
it was Alphonse, but anyone who knew that was already dead, and so it didn't
matter anymore.
It was a while since he had hunted like this,
anticipated the inevitable. Usually he preferred the quick kill, where they
didn't know he was coming until they started screaming. He liked to hear them
scream. Made it all seem that bit much more worthwhile.
But there was something different about this one;
something that made him want to wait, to delay the final moment, to make it
last. He wanted to frighten her long before the end, when she would beg him to
kill her. He couldn't quite tell what it was; there was just an air of
something other about her. She wasn't like the other girls, and he
grinned broadly. Of course she wasn't. She was special. But then, they were all
special. They were his.
Maybe it was the hair which attracted him. It was
long, tumbling in red-gold waves down her back, almost to her waist. It
reminded him of golden syrup. He loved golden syrup, loved to eat it straight
out of the tin with his fingers. No mother to nag him about that. Not anymore.
Fingers were fine, but sometimes he preferred bread, white bread, none of that
wholemeal nonsense. He could almost taste it on his tongue, could almost taste
her and he had to stifle a gasp at the image. No point in attracting undue
attention to himself.
He glanced at the folder on the passenger seat, her
name stark black against the buff-coloured folder. It had almost been too easy
to get hold of her file, but no one knew what he wanted it for and he wasn't
about to tell them, either. He lifted it up and traced her name with a gloved
finger, feeling almost as if he was caressing her already. This one would be so
easy to break; she'd already been in a mental hospital once. He had to be
careful; if she was sent back he couldn't get to her, not there with their high
walls and staff on alert all the time. No, he just wanted to scare her for a
while, but not inflict madness on her once more. He gasped as he saw her
walking towards his parked car, her head down, her loose hair being buffeted by
the spring wind.
Maybe it wasn't the hair; maybe it was the grey-green
eyes which seemed to see right down to his soul. Would she recoil in terror at what she saw there,
or would she welcome it like the others before her? They had all welcomed him
in the end. Or maybe it was the way she dressed, so unlike her contemporaries
in their short skirts and skimpy tops. Any time he'd seen her, she was always
covered up in long dresses and baggy sweaters, as if she didn't want to show
off any of her womanly curves. She had curves, the clothes could not disguise
them, and he had long imagined his hands roving over her delicate skin.
He also knew that underneath all those layers, there
was a wanton harlot waiting for him to let her out, just like all the others.
How they loved to tease and torment him. This time he would be the tormentor.
But not yet. He would wait. He was getting good at
waiting.
Adventures in E-Publishing
Guest post by Annette Gisby
My first ebook, a short story
and novella collection, Shadows of the Rose, was published by Double
Dragon in the early 2000's, long before the Kindle was a glint in someone's eye
and the iPad hadn't been thought of yet. When it was first out a lot of people
wanted to know when it was available as, you've guessed it, a real book.
Now, ten to twelve years
later, Kindles, iPads and other readers such as the Sony and the Nook are
household names and now people ask me if my work is available as an ebook! With
the rise of self-publishing platforms like Smashwords and Kindle Direct
Publishing, authors are more in control of their writing than ever before.
Some of my work is with
publishers, some of it I have self-published, but they all have one thing in
common, they are all available as ebooks. The rise of Smashwords and Kindle
Direct has enabled writers to sell short stories electronically, when before
the only options were to submit to magazines, who may or may not have accepted
them. Then there was erotica, and a lot of traditional magazines and publishers
didn't want erotica.
I had written an M/M fantasy
romance novel called The Chosen and sent it off to quite a few
e-publishers. Some of them wanted me to add more sex, some wanted me to have
less sex in it and some weren't that keen on same-sex romances. It found a home
in 2010 with Lyrical Press, who wanted it as is, I didn't have to add more sex
just for the sake of it, which I was very pleased about. The way it was
written, I thought the love scenes flowed within the context of the narrative
and I was afraid that if I added more love scenes, they would just look tacked
on and not really flow with the story.
The Chosen was my last novel
for a while, in 2011 after four years of unexplained dizziness, I finally got
to see a balance specialist and I was diagnosed with migraine associated
vertigo. A lot of things can trigger the vertigo, it might be food, flashing
lights or loud noises and computer screens/television. It also plays havoc with
your memory and concentration so I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on
completing a full-length novel for quite some time. This is where e-publishing
saved me once again, you don't just have to write novels, some people like
short stories too and I have self-published a few using Smashwords and Kindle
Direct.
Pink Petal Books/Jupiter
Gardens Press is giving one of my older novels, Drowning Rapunzel a new
electronic lease of life this year too. It's been revised and extended since
that first edition way back when and I'm pleased that with e-publishing, you
can give some of your back list a new lease of life and perhaps get more
readers who've never seen it first time around.
About the Author:
Annette Gisby grew
up in a small town in Northern Ireland, moving to London when she was
seventeen. She writes in multiple genres and styles, anything from romance to
thriller or erotica to horror, even both at the same time. When not writing,
she enjoys reading, cinema, theatre and travelling the world despite getting
travel sick on most forms of transport., even a bicycle. Sometimes you might
find her playing Dragon Quest or The Sims computer games and watching Japanese
Anime. She lives in Hampshire with her husband, a collection of porcelain
dolls, cuddly toys and enough books to fill a library. It's diminishing
gradually since the advent of ebooks, but still has a long way to go.
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ReplyDeleteAnnette
Congratulations on your new book! Seems like a great read. Enjoyed the excerpt. Thanks for the giveaway.
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