Today iit’s my final outing on the SpellBound St Patrick’s Day blog tour and I’m sharing an extract from Secrets Under Spanish Skies. My post is shared with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell and the team at SpellBound Books for inviting me on the tour and for my copy of the extract:

Blurb:

A New Country.
A New Start.

Moya moved from Dublin to Nottingham when she was a teenager and met Kevin. But, after they were married he became increasingly controlling, and her only solace was in attending Spanish and book-keeping night classes.

When Moya finds out Kevin has cheated on her – worse still, re-mortgaged their house to support his now pregnant mistress, she is devasted and left broken hearted.

At an all-time low, Moya’s oldest friend suggests she join her in Spain. Taking a leap of faith, Moya decides a fresh start in a new country is just what she needs.

But upon her arrival a prediction by a Spanish gipsy’s unnerves Moya…

Is Mateo the mysterious Lawyer all he really seems to be or is Moya about to open up Pandora’s Box to secrets under Spanish Skies.

Extract:

Tears flow, and the inner screams of a deranged woman take over. I pull myself together and swipe my phone screen. Its light brings the mound of bills to my attention. The one on top has a Nottingham County Court stamp franked on the envelope. I bite my bottom lip and open it to see the words: Application Marriage (Divorce). My body goes cold as the floor comes up to wallop me.

I’m flat on my back on the cold tiled floor, and when I raise up, the pain in my head forces me back down. Crap! This is all I need. I touch the back of my skull and feel a bump half the size of an egg. It’s wet, which means I’ve split myself. God, like I haven’t got enough on my plate. I ease up, and the filtered light from the street reveals a smudge of blood on the floor. Great. Just great. Why couldn’t Kevin speak to me first about this? I pick the letter off the floor and lift myself to my feet, grasping the countertop for support. Divorce, eh? The end. Just like that.

No tears flow. No, this time, it’s anger filling my veins. Maybe it’s time to take a leaf from Joanne’s book. Yes, I need to look after myself for a change. Before it kills me, I need to see a solicitor about this nightmare of a situation. 

***

I rip open a box and pull out the duvet to lay it on the floor, making sure to clean the blood up first. My head wound isn’t as nasty as it feels, and the bleeding has stopped. I could put a bag of frozen peas on it, except I don’t have any. I have nothing. No furniture, either. The whole house is free of it. My beautiful oak dining-room suite was purchased when we moved into this place. It breaks my heart to see my beloved things lumped around by a couple of men – dealers in house clearances. They snapped up the job lot, all so I could pay something towards the outstanding debt. Shame it wasn’t enough to keep my dignity from slipping away and the lousy debt collectors at bay. My house repossessed by the building society is heartbreaking, calling time on a shattered relationship. The dream has turned into a nightmare. As a child, I always played at owning a stylish home full of mod cons and a gorgeous husband with two kids. If only life could be so easy. If only I’d known.

I rest my head on the pillow, the lingering aroma of Kevin’s expensive aftershave tweaking my nostrils. Did I buy him that one? Did it come from the other woman? Come to think of it, he would wear an expensive-looking new shirt and inform me some lads were selling them from the back of a lorry. We could never afford over-the-top luxuries while struggling to pay off the mortgage. I didn’t mind the scrimping when it meant we owned our piece of paradise. Past tense. All gone. 

I burrow into the duvet, trying to keep warm on this cold March evening. The lack of heating gives the feeling of living in a freezer. No heat, no light, no soul. Everything is gone. But I’m still here, alive, and I try to rekindle my anger, though it’s challenging to push through the hurt.

My mobile’s message alert cuts through the eerie silence. After reading it a few times, a cold sweat breaks out. Joanne’s only gone and asked Danny, her older brother, to collect me and my belongings tomorrow. It appears his business is storage and furniture removals, local and overseas. Flipping heck, Joanne, what have you done?

***

Secrets Under Spanish Skies is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: