Read an excerpt from Chasing the Wind by C.C. Humphreys
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Smuggler. Smoker. Aviatrix. Thief. The dynamic Roxy Loewen is all these things and more, in this riveting and gorgeous historical fiction novel for readers of Paula McLain, Roberta Rich, Kate Morton and Jacqueline Winspear.
You should never fall in love with a flyer. You should only fall in love with flight.
That’s what Roxy Loewen always thought, until she falls for fellow pilot Jocco Zomack as they run guns into Ethiopia. Jocco may be a godless commie, but his father is a leading art dealer and he’s found the original of Bruegel’s famous painting, the Fall of Icarus. The trouble is, it’s in Spain, a country slipping fast into civil war. The money’s better than good–if Roxy can just get the painting to Berlin and back out again before Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring and his Nazi pals get their hands on it . . .
But this is 1936, and Hitler’s Olympics are in full swing. Not only that, but Göring has teamed up with Roxy’s greatest enemy: Sydney Munroe, an American billionaire responsible for the death of her beloved dad seven years before. When the Nazis steal the painting, Roxy and Jocco decide that they are just going to have to steal it back.
What happens when Icarus flies too close to the sun? Roxy is going to find out. From African skies to a cellar in Madrid, from the shadow cast by the swastika to the world above the clouds on the Hindenburg’s last voyage, in the end Roxy will have just two choices left–but only one bullet.
Excerpt
She woke near dawn to the sound of waves and the taste of salt. Her sweat, his, the ocean they’d swum in—the only bath she was going to get.
He was sitting naked on the end of the camp bed, framed against the entrance of the tent. He’d thrown open the mosquito netting and was smoking one of his roll-up cigarettes, holding it in that way of his, his chin resting on his hand, his elbow on his knees, so the smoke would curl up into a trail and he could look at the world through narrowed, Meissen-blue eyes. She studied his back, her eyes going where her fingers had in the dark, tracing the raised lines of his scars, one map of his life. She’d wondered at it the first time they’d made love: how a twenty-six-year-old floppy-haired German had gotten himself into so much trouble. He’d laughed the scars off. “Skiing,” he’d said. “I fell in a race.” An angry cat. But something would flash through his eyes as he told the lies, something haunted, so she knew different; but she didn’t probe. After all, were he to answer all her questions truthfully, she just might have to answer his.
“Roll me one.”
He turned. “Good morning, Fräulein. Did you sleep well?” He was always formal first thing. He was “an inquiry after your health” kind of guy. A “hold your chair” guy. For all that he was a goddamn godless Commie, he’d gone to the best schools that big money could buy. “Breakfast first? There’s mangosteen. I saved a custard apple.”
“Tobacco,” she growled. “Now.”
He nipped the stub of the cigarette and put it in the tin with the dozen others—a last smoke if all else failed. He slipped in beside her on the narrow metal-frame bed, reached for his fixings and worked his effortless magic. Lit the result and held it between her lips so she didn’t even have to move, just take a deep, life-sustaining drag. “Ah!” She breathed smoke out on her sigh. The day had begun and she was ready to think.
And remember. “How’s my bird?”
She knew he’d left her after they’d made love. He was also one of those guys: get up straightaway and check that all was well. Primal, she’d teased him once. As if the moment right after lovemaking was when a man was at his most vulnerable, with beasts about, waiting for the opportunity to attack. In Africa, maybe not too far-fetched an idea.
“Prop is bent. The boys have been hammering it out for the last two hours—they just finished. I’m surprised they didn’t wake you.”
“I’ve barely slept in a week. I could sleep through a ground assault.” She took the cigarette from his mouth, inhaled deeply. “Engine good? It cut out as I was flying in.”
“I heard.” He shook his head. “Engine works fine. But you have to remember to put gas in it.” He looked down at her. “You only just made it, kid.”
“Kid!” She snorted. He was just the one year older. He only called her “kid” because he was near a foot taller. “You got any?”
“In my bird. Half a tank. I’ll give you half of that.”
“Obliged. Where we going?”
“I’m going to Addis.”
“What? We can still get in?” She sat up and put her bare back to the earth wall. “Then I’m coming too. Got three hundred rifles in the hold.”
“Three hundred?” He whistled. “No wonder you looked so heavy. I thought it was just your flying.” When she punched his arm, he laughed, and took the cigarette. “But it’s too late for your guns. War’s over.”
“Hell it is!”
“Over.” His eyes narrowed as he inhaled. “Fascism has triumphed. The Italians have won. Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile tomorrow.”
“And how do you know this?”
“Krueger. Came through yesterday, just before the Italians bombed the ’drome. Everyone left. Aside from you and me.”
“Well, shit.”
“I know—you won’t get paid.” He said it as a statement, not a challenge. They’d had that fight too many times. When they first met, in that bar in Alexandria where mercenary flyers were gathering like kites over a new corpse called Abyssinia. Some, like Jocco, were going down for a cause. Most, like Roxy, were headed for the money. Big money, commensurate to the risk, flying guns to the overmatched Ethiopians.
“The first stand against the Fascists,” he’d called it.
“Causes are for suckers,” she’d mocked.
“Dollars are for exploiters,” he’d replied.
The argument had continued whenever they met—Addis Ababa, Khartoum, Djibouti. She’d slapped him in Nairobi. He’d kissed the slapping hand. They’d slept together for the first time that night.
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About the Author
Chris (C.C.) Humphreys was born in Toronto, lived till he was seven in Los Angeles, then grew up in the UK. All four grandparents were actors, and since his father was an actor as well, it was inevitable he would follow the bloodline.
Chris has performed on stages from London’s West End to Hollywood in roles including Hamlet, Caleb the gladiator in NBC’s AD-Anno Domini’, Clive Parnell in ‘Coronation Street’, PC Richard Turnham in ‘The Bill’, the Immortal Graham Ashe in ‘Highlander’, Jack Absolute in ‘The Rivals’ (This performance led to him writing the Jack Absolute novels – and they say acting doesn’t pay!). Bizarrely, he was also the voice of Salem the cat in ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’.
A playwright, fight choreographer and novelist, he has written eleven adult novels including ‘The French Executioner’, runner up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers; ‘The Jack Absolute Trilogy’; ‘A Place Called Armageddon’; ‘Shakespeare’s Rebel’ and the international bestseller, ‘Vlad – The Last Confession’.
He also writes for young adults, with a trilogy called The Runestone Saga and ‘The Hunt of the Unicorn’. The sequel, ‘The Hunt of the Dragon’, was published Fall 2016.
His recent novel ‘Plague’ won Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel in 2015. The sequel, ‘Fire’ is a thriller set during the Great Fire, published Summer 2016. Both novels spent five weeks in the top ten on 2016’s Globe and Mail and Toronto Star Bestseller lists.
His new novel is ‘Chasing the Wind’ about 1930’s aviatrix – and thief! – Roxy Loewen, will be published in Canada and the USA in June 2018.
Several of his novels are available as Audiobooks – read by himself! Find him here at Audible.
He is translated into thirteen languages. In 2015 he earned his Masters in Fine Arts (Creative Writing) from the University of British Columbia.
Chris now lives on Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada, with his wife, son and cat, Dickon (who keeps making it into his books!).
For more information, please visit C.C. Humphrey’s website. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
