Spotlight: Just Friends by Elizabeth Grey

Just Friends
Elizabeth Grey
(The Agency, #1)
Publication date: September 15th 2017
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Romance

Why did her heart have to choose him?

Violet Archer has her dream job at one of London’s top advertising agencies, and the fact she gets to work with Ethan Fraser every day makes it even better. He’s the best friend a girl could have. And she’s never even noticed how hot he is. Nope. Definitely not.

When a big night out deteriorates into a great big mess, Violet’s world starts to wobble like a drunk giraffe on stilts. She’s caught in a web of secrets, none of which are hers. And maybe she is starting to notice how hot Ethan is, after all. And sweet and kind and… oh dear.

Has Violet fallen for her best friend? Can their friendship survive yet another secret? And, the question Violet is most scared to ask, could Ethan have feelings for her too?

This raunchy, hilarious rom-com is the first in The Agency series by Elizabeth Grey.

Goodreads / Amazon

—

EXCERPT:

IT’S ONLY TAKEN THREE MONTHS, two weeks and five days, but here I am – in Stuart Inman’s Notting Hill bedroom, wearing underwear that screams ‘sex goddess’ and a spray tan that shrieks ‘never again!’

Thankfully Stuart is too busy burying his head in my cleavage to notice my tangerine armpits and stripy inner thighs. He’s also groaning and purring and nuzzling and . . . okay, I’m not really sure what he’s doing down there, but I hope he tries another move soon. I can think of much better things I’d like him to do to my boobs than use them as a pair of earmuffs.

Ah, good, he’s heading north now. I look into his deep blue eyes and remind myself why I’m here. Stuart Inman is hot. Think Matt Damon in an action movie: all blonde and ripped and gun-toting. Matt Damon, that is, with the gun-toting. Not Stuart. The only thing Stuart totes is a rather feminine Burberry man-bag.

He backs me up against his bedroom wall and I run my fingers over the taut muscles of his fabulous chest. Then I feel his lips brush against mine, his tongue darting in and . . . oh, sweet Jesus, what the . . . ?

Breathe. Close your eyes, think of England and for heaven’s sake, just breathe . . .

What in the name of all things holy was that? If it was supposed to be a kiss, then please don’t let him kiss me again. Talk about disappointing. Has he been practising his make-out skills with a bathroom sponge? I’ve kissed a few men in my life, and most of them have been far less confident, successful and drop-dead gorgeous than Stuart Inman, so how is it possible that he kisses like a half-starved pufferfish devouring a shrimp? Ugh . . . no. Just no.

I run my fingers over his abs, trying to avoid his hungry mouth. So what if he’s a crap kisser? We can work on the finer details later. The important thing right now is sex is happening – my eight-month-long drought is coming to an end and my velvet-touch, thirty-function, silicone Raunchy Rabbit can hop off into the sunset and do one.

His hands move over my body as he lowers me onto his bed. I look into his eyes, his cheeks dimpling as he smiles seductively. I should be kissing him, feeling him, touching him until we’re both sweaty and panting for more, but my stupid brain decides to torture me instead: Stuart kisses like a pufferfish. Stuart kisses like a pufferfish. Stuart kisses like a pufferfish . . . and . . . oh no, he’s nuzzling my boobs again . . . and oh my god! What the hell was that? Why are his pants stuck to my stomach? Oh shit, he has, hasn’t he? He’s shot his load. He rolls onto his back with a thump. “I’m sorry . . .” he whimpers.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Where’s my Matt Damon action hero gone? Why does the fittest client I’ve ever worked with have less knob control than a horny teenager who’s just discovered Pornhub? What did I do to piss off the gods of shagging this time? Could life be any more bloody unfair? Come back, my beloved Raunchy Rabbit, I miss you already.

He turns to face me, but I don’t want to look at him. Yes, I’ll admit, I’m a coward. I can’t think of anything good to say, which, given words are my livelihood, is pretty pathetic.

“You’re just so hot. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” He removes his sticky pants to reveal an appendage that could accurately be compared to a half-eaten Walnut Whip – sad, shrivelled and hollow. He crosses his legs in an attempt to hide his shame, and sadly, it doesn’t take much to hide it. How on earth didn’t I notice that before? I usually check out a guy’s bulge before I commit, don’t I? Jeez, this must be the most desperate for sex I’ve ever been in my entire life.

“It’s okay. Maybe next time?” I say, with the kind of insincere politeness a politician would be proud of.

“I can still go on. Just give me a minute,” he says with an enthusiastic tug to his manhood, and my stomach lurches. Do I want to have sex with a Matt Damon lookalike if he’s only packing a chipolata and kisses like a pufferfish sucking on a sponge?

Ten seconds later, he’s sliding his hand into my knickers and frantically rubbing away at what I’m sure he thinks is my clitoris, but of course, it isn’t. The gods of shagging wouldn’t be that merciful. I simulate a few polite moans and consider following through with a fake orgasm, but as he’s jabbing the inside of my leg with the elbow of the hand that’s futilely attempting to transform the chipolata into a frankfurter, I can’t take it anymore.

Mission abort! Mission abort!

“Okay, stop. Just stop,” I say as I squirm out of his grasp.

He removes his hand from inside my underwear and frowns at me. “What’s up?”

“Um . . . that’s not really doing much for me. Sorry.”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong with you? I always get girls off doing that.”

I feel my eyes pop. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” he replies with an eye roll and way too much attitude. All of a sudden I have too many words, but as none of them are kind, I swallow them down and start putting my clothes back on.

Stuart tuts, gets up and pulls on a robe. I leave his apartment as fast as I can and head towards Holland Park Tube, flagging the first taxi I see on the way.

Author Bio:

Elizabeth Grey spent a sizable chunk of her childhood in North East England locked away in her bedroom creating characters and writing stories. Isn’t that how all writers start?

Following a five year university education that combined such wide-ranging subjects as fine art, administration, law, economics, graphic design and French, Elizabeth entered the business world as a marketing assistant before moving into operations management.

Marrying Chris in 2007, Elizabeth now has three young children and runs a small, seasonal business selling imported European children’s toys and goods – www.tildaandtom.co.uk. During her time as a stay-at-home mum, Elizabeth rekindled her love of writing and thinks herself lucky every day that she is now able to write full time.

When not working, Elizabeth finds herself immersed in her kids’ hobbies and has acquired an impressive knowledge of Harry Potter (thanks to the big boy), Star Wars (thanks to the little boy) and Barbie (thanks to her daughter). She loves European road-trips, binge-watching Netflix series and doing whatever she can to fight for a nicer world.

She’s been told she never loses an argument.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spotlight: Never Apart by Romily Bernard

How many times would you die for love?

What if you had to relive the same five days over and over?

And what if at the end of it, your boyfriend is killed…

And you have to watch. Every time.

You don’t know why you’re stuck in this nightmare.

But you do know that these are the rules you now live by:

Wake Up.

Run.

Die.

Repeat.

Now, the only way to escape this loop is to attempt something crazy. Something dangerous. Something completely unexpected. This time…you’re not going to run.

Combining heart-pounding romance and a thrilling mystery Never Apart is a stunning story you won’t soon forget.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Romily Bernard graduated from Georgia State University with a literature degree. Since then, she's worked as a riding instructor, cell-phone salesperson, personal assistant, horse groomer and exercise rider, accounting assistant, and, during a very dark time, customer service representative. . . . She's also, of course, now a YA novelist. So don't let anyone tell you a BA degree will keep you unemployed. Romily currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Her debut novel, Find Me, won the Golden Heart Award for YA Romance from the Romance Writers of America in 2012.

Connect: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spotlight: Someone Like You by Brittney Sahin

He was a nameless guy in a bar—a man Grace couldn’t get out of her head…
A week later, she came home to find him sweaty and shirtless with a tape measure in hand, remodeling her loft. As a Parker-King, she’s not allowed to want someone like Noah Dalton. She’s sick of her life, though. Sick of the rules of being a Parker-King. She wants something more, even if it isn’t forever. Somewhere in history there was that one time where hot, no-strings-attached sex didn’t end badly, right? Finding comfort in the arms of a former SEAL is easy, not falling for one . . . not so much.

Noah left the military and moved to New York for one reason: his daughter. Not for some uptight businesswoman—a Manhattan elitist. So when Grace offers him the kind of relationship that no hot-blooded man can turn down, he should say no. And when her seemingly put-together life spins out of control, and his instincts to protect and save kick in, he should turn away. But he doesn’t.

Can two people from different worlds really live in the moment, knowing they’re on borrowed time, or is someone bound to get hurt?

Exclusive Excerpt

“Sorry about him. I hope he didn’t say anything offensive.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” she says while glancing over her shoulder at me for a fleeting moment.

“Right. Well, can I buy you a drink to make up for it?” I have no clue why I’m still standing here, but damned if I can get myself to move.

“Ohhh, I get it.” She slips her hand free from her glass and faces me. “Is this some party trick of yours? One of you approaches and acts like an ass and the other guy steps in for the rescue? It’s kind of a tired routine, don’t you think?”

Her pale eyes draw me in before my attention dips down to her lips. No lipstick or gloss. Just full, natural lips. Lips I suddenly want to pull between my teeth to see if she tastes as good as she smells.

This is new for me. This feeling of being drawn to another woman. Even after almost a year of separation, I can’t help but notice the tinge of guilt coiling inside me over being attracted to another woman. Sure, I had those random rebound hookups, but those were out of anger.

“No, it’s not a routine,” I say.

“Well, you’re not my type.” Her eyes wander to my hand, which is pressed to the counter at my side.

“And what’s your type?” I look at her. “Some guy in Armani with a money clip packed with more bills than I have in my bank account?”

Shit. Cindy’s in my head and this woman is fast becoming my target, someone I suddenly want to hate.

Although Miss Fourth of July looks nothing like my ex, she certainly reeks of money. Her clothes probably cost more than my rent at the docks. Not that I’m paying that much thanks to a friend.

But the huge Prada bag on the bar stool next to her could buy my meals for a month. And the bag is another reminder of Cindy, because the only reason why I know it’s Prada is because Cindy’s mom bought her a similar purse on our ten-year anniversary—as if that wasn’t enough to make me feel like shit. Yes, thank you, mother-in-law, for outdoing me about ten times over on my goddamn anniversary.

The woman stares at me with parted lips, not saying anything, and I get the feeling that isn’t the norm for her. There’s a slight bit of red pulling at her cheeks when she finds my eyes again.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, lady, but you’re not exactly my type either.” Okay, so I don’t even know what my type is anymore, but I’m not in the right state of mind to find out.

“Ah. You really are clever, aren’t you?” The woman’s smiling now. Her white teeth tease between her lips, but it’s the sexy way her eyes and nose smile too that has me swallowing.

“Oh yeah? How so?” I place a hand on my chest, forgetting Cindy for the moment. Hell, the way this woman is looking at me right now, I can barely remember my own name.

“You’re trying to make me want what I can’t have. You, in this case.”

I didn’t expect that. Women don’t talk like this where I grew up, but I guess New York is a whole other ball game.

“Oh really?” I’m keeping up this charade longer than I have any business to. “So you have everything you want in life, huh?”

She wets her lips briefly. “I do, in fact.” Her eyes drift away from mine, an attempt to hide a lie.

I step closer and bend my neck a little so our eyes meet again. “You sure about that?”

She sucks in a noticeable breath, and when I realize I have her roped in—right the hell where any man would want a woman—I back up and turn away. Because I know a woman like her can be dangerous, and right now, I have one person I need to focus on.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Brittney Sahin began writing at an early age, with the dream to be a published author before the age of 18. Although academic pursuits (and, later, a teaching career) interrupted her aspirations, she never stopped writing—never stopped imagining.

It wasn’t until her students encouraged her to follow her dreams that Brittney said goodbye to Upstate New York in order to start a new adventure in the place she was raised: Charlotte, North Carolina. Here, she decided to take her students’ advice and begin to write again.

In 2015, she published her first novel, The Safe Bet. When she is not working on upcoming novels, she spends time with her family. She is a proud mother of two boys and a lover of novels, coffee, and the outdoors.

Connect: Brittney's Book Babes (FB group) | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Website | BookBub

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Read an excerpt from The Midnight Line by Lee Child

Reacher takes a stroll through a small Wisconsin town and sees a class ring in a pawn shop window: West Point 2005. A tough year to graduate: Iraq, then Afghanistan. The ring is tiny, for a woman, and it has her initials engraved on the inside. Reacher wonders what unlucky circumstance made her give up something she earned over four hard years. He decides to find out. And find the woman. And return her ring. Why not?

So begins a harrowing journey that takes Reacher through the upper Midwest, from a lowlife bar on the sad side of small town to a dirt-blown crossroads in the middle of nowhere, encountering bikers, cops, crooks, muscle, and a missing persons PI who wears a suit and a tie in the Wyoming wilderness.

The deeper Reacher digs, and the more he learns, the more dangerous the terrain becomes. Turns out the ring was just a small link in a far darker chain. Powerful forces are guarding a vast criminal enterprise. Some lines should never be crossed. But then, neither should Reacher.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Jack Reacher and Michelle Chang spent three days in Milwaukee. On the fourth morning she was gone. Reacher came back to the room with coffee and found a note on his pillow. He had seen such notes before. They all said the same thing. Either directly or indirectly. Chang’s note was indirect. And more elegant than most. Not in terms of presentation. It was a ballpoint scrawl on motel notepaper gone wavy with damp. But elegant in terms of expression. She had used a simile, to explain and flatter and apologize all at once. She had written, “You’re like New York City. I love to visit, but I could never live there.”

He did what he always did. He let her go. He understood. No apology required. He couldn’t live anywhere. His whole life was a visit. Who could put up with that? He drank his coffee, and then hers, and took his toothbrush from the bathroom glass, and walked away, through a knot of streets, left and right, toward the bus depot. She would be in a taxi, he guessed. To the airport. She had a gold card and a cell phone.

At the depot he did what he always did. He bought a ticket for the first bus out, no matter where it was going. Which turned out to be an end-­of-­the-­line place way north and west, on the shore of Lake Superior. Fundamentally the wrong direction. Colder, not warmer. But rules were rules, so he climbed aboard. He sat and watched out the window. Wisconsin flashed by, its hayfields baled and stubbly, its pastures worn, its trees dark and heavy. It was the end of summer.

It was the end of several things. She had asked the usual questions. Which were really statements in disguise. She could understand a year. Absolutely. A kid who grew up on bases overseas, and was then deployed to bases overseas, with nothing in between except four years at West Point, which wasn’t exactly known as a leisure-­heavy institution, then obviously such a guy was going to take a year to travel and see the sights before he settled down. Maybe two years. But not more. And not permanently. Face it. The pathology meter was twitching.

All said with concern, and no judgment. No big deal. Just a two-­minute conversation. But the message was clear. As clear as such messages could be. Something about denial. He asked, denial of what? He didn’t secretly think his life was a problem.

That proves it, she said.

So he got on the bus to the end-­of-­the-­line place, and he would have ridden it all the way, because rules were rules, except he took a stroll at the second comfort stop, and he saw a ring in a pawn shop window.

The second comfort stop came late in the day, and it was on the sad side of a small town. Possibly a seat of county government. Or some minor part of it. Maybe the county police department was headquartered there. There was a jail in town. That was clear. Reacher could see bail bond offices, and a pawn shop. Full service, right there, side by side on a run-­down street beyond the restroom block.

He was stiff from sitting. He scanned the street beyond the restroom block. He started walking toward it. No real reason. Just strolling. Just loosening up. As he got closer he counted the guitars in the pawn shop window. Seven. Sad stories, all of them. Like the songs on country radio. Dreams, unfulfilled. Lower down in the window were glass shelves loaded with smaller stuff. All kinds of jewelry. Including rings. Including class rings. All kinds of high schools. Except one of them wasn’t. One of them was West Point 2005.

It was a handsome ring. It was a conventional shape, and a conventional style, with intricate gold filigree, and a black stone, maybe semi-­precious, maybe glass, surrounded by an oval hoop that had West Point around the top, and 2005 around the bottom. Old-­style letters. A classic approach. Either respect for bygone days, or a lack of imagination. West Pointers designed their own rings. Whatever they wanted. An old tradition. Or an old entitlement, perhaps, because West Point class rings had been the first class rings of all.

It was a very small ring.

Reacher wouldn’t have gotten it on any of his fingers. Not even his left-­hand pinky, not even past the nail. Certainly not past the first knuckle. It was tiny. It was a woman’s ring. Possibly a replica for a girlfriend or a fiancée. That happened. Like a tribute or a souvenir.

But possibly not.

Reacher opened the pawn shop door. He stepped inside. A guy at the register looked up. He was a big bear of a man, scruffy and unkempt. Maybe in his middle thirties, dark, with plenty of fat over a big frame anyway. With some kind of cunning in his eyes. Certainly enough to perfect his response to his sudden six-­five two-­fifty visitor. Driven purely by instinct. The guy wasn’t afraid. He had a loaded gun under the counter. Unless he was an idiot. Which he didn’t look. All the same, the guy didn’t want to risk sounding aggressive. But he didn’t want to sound obsequious, either. A matter of pride.

So he said, “How’s it going?”

Not well, Reacher thought. To be honest. Chang would be back in Seattle by then. Back in her life.

But he said, “Can’t complain.”

“Can I help you?”

“Show me your class rings.”

The guy threaded the tray backward off the shelf. He put it on the counter. The West Point ring had rolled over, like a tiny golf ball. Reacher picked it up. It was engraved inside. Which meant it wasn’t a replica. Not for a fiancée or a girlfriend. Replicas were never engraved. An old tradition. No one knew why.

Not a tribute, not a souvenir. It was the real deal. A cadet’s own ring, earned over four hard years. Worn with pride. Obviously. If you weren’t proud of the place, you didn’t buy a ring. It wasn’t compulsory.

The engraving said S.R.S. 2005.

The bus blew its horn three times. It was ready to go, but it was a passenger short. Reacher put the ring down and said, “Thank you,” and walked out of the store. He hustled back past the restroom block and leaned in the door of the bus and said to the driver, “I’m staying here.”

“No refunds.”

“Not looking for one.”

“You got a bag in the hold?”

“No bag.”

“Have a nice day.”

The guy pulled a lever and the door sucked shut in Reacher’s face. The engine roared and the bus moved off without him. He turned away from the diesel smoke and walked back toward the pawn shop.

Chapter 2

The guy in the pawn shop was a little disgruntled to have to get the ring tray out again so soon after he had put it away. But he did, and he placed it in the same spot on the counter. The West Point ring had rolled over again. Reacher picked it up.

He said, “Do you remember the woman who pawned this?”

“How would I?” the guy said. “I got a million things in here.”

“You got records?”

“You a cop?”

“No,” Reacher said.

“Everything in here is legal.”

“I don’t care. All I want is the name of the woman who brought you this ring.”

“Why?”

“We went to the same school.”

“Where is that? Upstate?”

“East of here,” Reacher said.

“You can’t be a classmate. Not from 2005. No offense.”

“None taken. I was from an earlier generation. But the place doesn’t change much. Which means I know how hard she worked for this ring. So now I’m wondering what kind of unlucky circumstance made her give it up.”

The guy said, “What kind of a school was it?”

“They teach you practical things.”

“Like a trade school?”

“More or less.”

“Maybe she died in an accident.”

“Maybe she did,” Reacher said. Or not in an accident, he thought. There had been Iraq, and there had been Afghanistan: 2005 had been a tough year to graduate. He said, “But I would like to know for sure.”

“Why?” the guy said again.

“I can’t tell you exactly.”

“Is it an honor thing?”

“I guess it could be.”

“Trade schools have that?”

“Some of them.”

“There was no woman. I bought that ring. With a lot of other stuff.”

“When?”

“About a month ago.”

“From who?”

“I’m not going to tell you my business. Why should I? It’s all legal. It’s all perfectly legitimate. The state says so. I have a license and I pass all kinds of inspections.”

“Then why be shy about it?”

“It’s private information.”

Reacher said, “Suppose I buy the ring?”

“It’s fifty bucks.”

“Thirty.”

“Forty.”

“Deal,” Reacher said. “So now I’m entitled to know its provenance.”

“This ain’t Sotheby’s auction house.”

“Even so.”

The guy paused a beat.

Then he said, “It was from a guy who helps out with a charity. People donate things and take the deduction. Mostly old cars and boats. But other things, too. The guy gives them an inflated receipt for their tax returns, and then he sells the things he gets wherever he can, for whatever he can, and then he cuts a check to the charity. I buy the small stuff from him. I get what I get, and I hope to turn a profit.”

“So you think someone donated this ring to a charity and took a deduction on their income taxes?”

“Makes sense, if the original person died. From 2005. Part of the estate.”

“I don’t think so,” Reacher said. “I think a relative would have kept it.”

“Depends if the relative was eating well.”

“You got tough times here?”

“I’m OK. But I own the pawn shop.”

“Yet people still donate to good causes.”

“In exchange for phony receipts. In the end the government eats the tax relief. Welfare by another name.”

Reacher said, “Who is the charity guy?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s none of your business. I mean, who the hell are you?”

“Just a guy already having a pretty bad day. Not your fault, of course, but if asked to offer advice I would have to say it might prove a dumb idea to make my day worse. You might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

“You threatening me now?”

“More like the weather report. A public service. Like a tornado warning. Prepare to take cover.”

Excerpted from The Midnight Line by Lee Child. Copyright © 2017 by Lee Child. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Lee Child is the author of twenty-one New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher thrillers, twelve of which have reached the #1 position. All have been optioned for major motion pictures—including Jack Reacher (based on One Shot) and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City.

Spotlight: Five-Carat Soul by James McBride

The stories in Five-Carat Soul—none of them ever published before—spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic—all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens. Five strangers find themselves thrown together and face unexpected judgment. An American president draws inspiration from a conversation he overhears in a stable. And members of The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band recount stories from their own messy and hilarious lives. 
 
As McBride did in his National Book award-winning The Good Lord Bird and his bestselling The Color of Water, he writes with humor and insight about how we struggle to understand who we are in a world we don’t fully comprehend. The result is a surprising, perceptive, and evocative collection of stories that is also a moving exploration of our human condition.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

James McBride is an accomplished musician and author of the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, the #1 bestselling American classic The Color of Water, and the bestsellers Song Yet Sung and Miracle at St. Anna. He is also the author of Kill ’Em and Leave, a James Brown biography. A recipient of the National Humanities Medal in 2016, McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

Read an excerpt from After the Fire by Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell’s last novel about an aging man whose quiet, solitary life on an isolated island off the coast of Sweden is turned upside down when his house catches fire. 

Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees and his mailman Jansson is the closest thing he has to a friend, and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude.

One autumn evening, he is startled awake by a blinding light–only to discover that his house is on fire. With the help of Jansson, he escapes the flames just in time wearing two left boots. Dawn reveals that everything he owns is now a smoldering pile of ash and his house is destroyed–forcing him to move into an abandoned trailer on his island. A local journalist, Lisa Modin, who wants to write a story about the fire, comes into his life. In doing so, she awakens in him something that he thought was long dead. Soon after, his daughter comes to the island with surprising news of her own. Meanwhile, the police suspect Fredrik of arson because he had a sizable insurance claim on his house. When Fredrik is away from the archipelago, another house goes up in flames and the community realizes they have an arsonist in their midst. After the Fire is an intimate portrait of an elderly recluse who is forced to open himself up to a world he’d left behind.

Excerpt

Chapter 1
       My house burned down on an autumn night almost a year ago. It was a Sunday. The wind had got
up during the afternoon and by the evening the anemometer indicated that the gusts measured over twenty metres per second.
       The wind was coming from the north and was very chilly in spite of the fact that it was still early
autumn. When I went to bed at around half past ten I thought that this would be the first storm of the
season, moving in across the island I had inherited from my maternal grandparents.
       Soon it would be winter. One night the sea would slowly begin to ice over.
       That was the first night I wore socks to bed. The cold was tightening its grip.
       The previous month, with some difficulty, I had managed to fix the roof. It was a big job for a
small workman. Many of the slates were old and cracked. My hands, which had once held a scalpel
during complex surgical procedures, were not made for manipulating broken tiles.
       Ture Jansson, who had spent his entire working life as the postman out here in the islands before
he retired, agreed to fetch the new slates from the harbour although he refused to accept any payment. As I have set up an improvised surgery in my boathouse in order to deal with all his imaginary medical
complaints, perhaps he thought he ought to return the favour.
       For years now I have stood there on the jetty by the boathouse examining his allegedly painful
arms and back. I have brought out the stethoscope which hangs beside a decoy duck and established that his heart and lungs sound absolutely fine. In every single examination I have found Jansson to be in the best of health. His fear of these imaginary ailments has been so extreme that I have never seen anything like it in all my years as a doctor. He was simultaneously the postman and a full-time hypochondriac.
       On one occasion he insisted he had toothache, at which point I refused to have anything to do
with his problem. I don't know whether he went to see a dentist on the mainland or not. I wonder if he's
ever had a single cavity. Perhaps he was in the habit of grinding his teeth while he was asleep, and that's
what caused the pain?
       On the night of the fire I had taken a sleeping tablet as usual and dropped off almost immediately.
       I was woken by a light being switched on. When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by a dazzling brightness. Beneath the ceiling of my bedroom I could see a band of grey smoke. I must have pushed off my socks in my sleep when the room got hot. I leaped out of bed, ran down the stairs and into the kitchen through that harsh, searing light. The clock on the wall was showing nineteen minutes past
midnight. I grabbed my black raincoat from the hook by the back door, pulled on my wellington boots, 
one of which was almost impossible to get my foot into, and rushed outside.
       The house was already in flames, the fire roaring. I had to go down to the jetty and the boathouse
before the heat became unbearable. During those first few minutes I didn't even think about what had
caused this disastrous conflagration; I just watched as the impossible unfolded before my eyes. My heart
was pounding so hard I thought it would be smashed to pieces inside my chest. The fire was ravaging me
in equal measure.
       Time melted away in the heat. Boats began to arrive from the other islands and skerries, the residents rudely woken from their sleep, but afterwards I was unable to say how long it took or who was
there. My gaze was fixed on the flames, the sparks whirling up into the night sky. For one terrifying
moment I thought I saw the elderly figures of my grandmother and my grandfather standing on the far
side of the fire.
       There are not many of us out here on the islands in the autumn, when the summer visitors
disappear and the last of the yachts return to their home harbours, wherever those might be. But someone had seen the glow of the fire in the darkness, the message had been passed along, and everyone wanted to help. The coastguard's firefighting equipment was used to pump up seawater and spray it on the burning building, but it was too late. All it changed was the smell. Charred oak timbers and wall panels, burned wallpaper and linoleum flooring combined with salt water to give off an unforgettable stench. When dawn broke all that remained was a smoking, stinking ruin. The wind had dropped - the storm had already moved on, heading towards the Gulf of Finland - but it had fulfilled its spiteful task, working together with the blaze, and now there was nothing left of my grandparents' pretty house.
       That was when I first thought to ask myself: how had the fire broken out? I hadn't lit any candles
or left any of the old paraffin lamps burning. I hadn't had a cigarette or used the wood-burning stove. The electrical wiring throughout the house had been renewed just a few years ago.
       It was as if the house had set fire to itself.
       As if a house could commit suicide as a result of weariness, old age and sorrow.
       I realised I had been mistaken about a key aspect of my life. After performing an operation that
went disastrously wrong and led to a young woman losing her arm, I moved out here many years ago. 
Back then I often thought that the house in which I was living had been here on the day when I was born, and that it mwould still be here on the day when I no longer existed.
       But I was mistaken. The oak trees, the birches, the alders and the single ash tree would remain
here after I was gone, but of my beautiful home in the archipelago only the foundations, hauled to the
island across the ice from the long-defunct quarry at Hakansborg, would remain.
       My train of thought was interrupted as Jansson appeared beside me. He was bare-headed, wearing very old dark blue overalls and a pair of motorcycle gloves that I recognised from the winters when the ice had not been thick enough to drive across, and he had used his hydrocopter to deliver the post.
       He was staring at my old green wellingtons. When I looked down I realised I had pulled on two left boots in my haste. Now I understood why it had been so difficult to put one of them on.
       'I'll bring you a boot,' Jansson said. 'I've got a few pairs back at home.'
       'There might be a spare pair down in the boathouse,' I suggested.
       'No. I've been to look. There are some leather shoes and some old crampons people used to fix onto their boots when they went out on the ice clubbing seals.'
       The fact that Jansson had already been rooting around in my boathouse shouldn't have surprised
me, even if on this occasion he had done it out of consideration. I already knew that he was in the habit of going in there. Jansson was a snooper. From an early stage I had been convinced that he read every postcard that passed through his hands when the summer visitors bought their stamps down by the jetties.
       He looked at me with tired eyes. It had been a long night.
       'Where will you live? What are you going to do now?'
       I didn't reply because I didn't have an answer.
       I shuffled closer to the smoking ruin. The boot on my right foot was chafing. This is what I own now, I thought. Two wellingtons that aren't even a pair. Everything else is gone. I don't even have any clothes.
       At that moment, as I grasped the full extent of the disaster that had befallen me, it was as if a howl swept through my body. But I heard nothing. Everything that happened within me was soundless.
       Jansson appeared beside me once more. He has a curious way of moving, as if he has paws instead of feet. He comes from nowhere and suddenly materialises. He seems to know how to stay out of another person's field of vision all the time.
       Why hadn't his wretched house on Stangskar burned down instead?
       Jansson gave a start as if he had picked up on my embittered thought, but then I realised I had pulled a face, and he thought it was because he had come too close.
       'You can come and stay with me, of course,' he offered when he had recovered his equilibrium.
       'Thank you.'
       Then I noticed my daughter Louise's caravan, which was behind Jansson in a grove of alders alongside a tall oak tree that had not yet lost all its leaves. The caravan was still partly concealed by its
low branches.
       'I've got the caravan,' I said. 'I can live there for the time being.'
       Jansson looked surprised but didn't say anything.
       All the people who had turned up during the night were starting to head back to their boats, but
before they left they came over to say they were happy to help with whatever I needed.
       During the course of a few hours my life had changed so completely that I actually needed
everything.
       I didn't even have a matching pair of wellingtons.

Excerpted from After the Fire by Henning Mankell. Copyright © 2017 by Henning Mankell. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Henning Mankell’s novels have been translated into forty-five languages and have sold more than forty million copies worldwide. He was the first winner of the Ripper Award and also received the Glass Key and the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger, among other awards. His Kurt Wallander mysteries have been adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. During his life, Mankell divided his time between Sweden and Mozambique, where he was artistic director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo. He died in 2015.