Today I have the great pleasure of welcoming
back my friend and fellow-scribe Tim Taylor, who is here to tempt us with a
very special offer!
Welcome, Tim!
Please, tell us more…
Hello, Sue. Many
thanks for inviting me along! As my novel
Revolution Day is currently on special offer for Christmas at 99p/$0.99, I
thought I’d share a short extract from the book. First, though, I’d better give
your readers an idea of what the novel is about.
It follows a year in the life of Latin American dictator, Carlos
Almanzor. Carlos has been in power for thirty-seven years and is now in his
seventies. He is feeling his age and seeing enemies around every corner. Yet he clings tenaciously to power, not for
its own sake, but because he has come to believe that he alone can be trusted
with the stewardship of the nation. He derives support from his secretary
Felipe, who is trying to get him to show a more human face to the world through
a video blog; and solace from his young mistress Corazon, who unbeknownst to
Carlos maintains a discreet social life of her own.
Carlos’s estranged wife Juanita,
who has been under house arrest for sixeen years, is writing a memoir of his
regime and their marriage, excerpts from which are interleaved with the main
narrative. It recalls the revolution
that brought him to power and how, once an idealist, he came to embrace autocracy
and repression, precipitating the catastrophic breakdown of their personal and
political relationship.
Meanwhile, Manuel, Carlos’s
efficient and ambitious Vice President, is frustrated with his subordinate
position. When his attempts to augment his role are met with humiliating
rejection, he resolves to take action. Lacking a military power base, he must
make his move not by force but through intrigue, manipulating the perceptions
of Carlos and others to drive a wedge between him and the Army.
As Manuel begins to pull the
strings, Juanita and Corazon will find themselves unwitting participants in his
plans...
In the extract which follows, Juanita looks out from the house which has become her prison:
It is just a line on the ground, a slight
change in colour between the asphalt on one side and the gravel on the other, a
few metres away from the door of my house. The same weeds grow on both sides of
the line. After rain, part of it is concealed by a puddle. When I was free, I
crossed this line hundreds of times without noticing it, except when the
wrought iron gate lay closed above it. But even the gate had little
significance. It was never locked in those days; its opening and closing were
the task of a couple of seconds. Walking over the line made no impact upon my
consciousness other than a rather pleasant, fleeting sense of entering a place
of peace, of refuge from the demands of public life. Or – when I was going the
other way – an odd mix of apprehension and excitement as I prepared to get back
to work.
The
line has not changed in any way since then. It, and the gate itself – still the
same gate, after all these years – continue to be ignored by all other forms of
life but me. The birds fly over it. Snails and lizards move unhindered beneath
it. My cat – how I envy her this – passes between the bars as if they were not
there when she begins and ends her nightly prowlings. The gate is locked now,
of course, but for the various men and occasional woman who come here for one
purpose or another, that fact is of no consequence. They all have keys, and the
act of unlocking it hardly delays their progress at all.
But
for me, the line, and the gate above it, are now an impermeable barrier. I have
crossed it no more than four times in sixteen years, under armed guard. The
trees on the other side of the road beyond the gate do not look any different
from the ones I remember, the ones I could have walked among and touched if I
had wanted to. They are no further away, in space. But I no longer see them as
real trees. To me, they are like a picture of trees or, when the wind blows, a
movie of trees swaying to and fro. They are beyond the line, and all that is
outside it has for years been slowly fading out of reality.
More information and excerpts can be found on the Revolution Day page on my website: http://www.tetaylor.co.uk/#!revday/cwpf.
Thanks again for hosting me, Sue!
My pleasure, Tim! Please come again!
You can find out more about Tim and his books here:
Facebook
author page: https://www.facebook.com/timtaylornovels
Website: http://www.tetaylor.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/timetaylor1
Revolution
Day on Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolution-Day-T-E-Taylor-ebook/dp/B0106GALR4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1435449288&sr=1-1&keywords=Revolution+Day
Tim was born
in 1960 in Stoke-on-Trent. He studied Classics at Pembroke College, Oxford (and
later Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London). After a couple of years
playing in a rock band, he joined the Civil Service, eventually leaving in 2011
to spend more time writing.
Tim now lives in Yorkshire with
his wife and daughter and divides his time between creative writing, academic
research and part-time teaching and other work for Leeds and Huddersfield
Universities.
Tim’s first novel, Zeus of Ithome, a historical novel about
the struggle of the ancient Messenians to free themselves from Sparta, was
published by Crooked Cat in November 2013; his second, Revolution Day, in June 2015.
Tim also writes poetry and the occasional short story, plays guitar, and
likes to walk up hills.
Interesting post, thanks both and good luck with the book, Tim!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a fascinating story Tim. Hope the promotion goes well. Tweeted.
ReplyDelete