Hello, reader who is also a reader, and welcome to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with awesome industry people about books! I'm sick, so I don't have a guest this week. To hold you over, here's a quick excerpt from a story I once started about the redemptive power of forgiveness:
After much thought, Brandon Halifax decided that his downward spiral into despair was inevitable. He was as powerless as a house cat, strung up on a driftwood cross as it hurtled over the lip of a waterfall. His wife wasn't dead. Lots of people lose stupid wives. No, she had been killed by chickens. It felt unbecoming to Brandon, like a piece of tin can had been shoved into the soft flesh behind his ear. It was a stupid thing to happen. It didn't add up.
So he sat down at the breakfast table, tore strips of newspaper, rolled them between his fingers, and stuffed them into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully, spat out the pieces, and carefully glued them to the wire-caged doll he had prepared a few nights before. He would make a new wife. Then he would sprinkle her with arsenic and feed her to the damned chickens.
A reasonable person might ask why Brandon Halifax didn't put the poison in the chicken feed. But Brandon had listened to reasonable people all his life, and where did that get him? Nowhere. Nowhere less. He was widowed by poultry.
Really good stuff, if I may brag. Please share your weekly book adventures. Regular posts will start again next week. Books for now!