Eyubea Girls - Palessa
Graham Tate-Fuller needs a wife. Not just any wife. One who is young enough to take on his education mission to the African continent and not ask too many questions about his past.
Lisbette Caldwell is just seventeen, a young woman who isn’t ready to give up her tomboy ways. She dreams of playing football and becoming a teacher just like her father. Through a series of circumstances beyond her control, Lisbette marries Graham and embarks on an adventure in Eyubea, a small independent township in southern Africa which managed to escape the colonial rule that overtook many other African nations.
There Lisbette settles into her new life as an assistant teacher to a small group of young girls who will have no choice but to become wives and mothers. It’s a simple enough task that will turn into a fight for their lives as Graham's past catches up to them and Lisbette faces the dark side of marriage in a land not her own.
Set in the early 1900's, Lisbette is forced to take a stand for herself and her Eyubea Girls against stacked odds, even if it means losing the life she's come to love. With the help of new friends and a will to carve out her own place in the world, she searches for a way to live life on her own terms in a place she will come to call home.
Excerpt
With trembling hands, he closed the door, gripping the door knob hard until Patrick felt his knuckles would burst through the skin. His mouth was dry and there were jolts prickling the skin all around his neck and shoulders, which were tight. After watching them leave and finding enough strength to breathe through the trembling, Patrick turned his narrowed gaze to the top of the stairs. With a second wind fueled by adrenaline and fists curled into balls, his legs practically launched him up the stairs two steps at a time.
Before he knew it, he was in front of their door. He thrust door against the back wall and there it stayed. "Wake up!" he bellowed. When Vivian didn't stir, he strode to the bed and shook her awake a couple of times.
She wailed, fighting against hands that threatened what little peace she had. It took her a moment but she realized where she was and whose hands they were.
"What is it, Patrick?” her voice was thick as she licked her lips. “I'm trying to get some sleep."
"Get up," his voice was low and dangerous. Vivian gingerly raised herself from the bed and looked at her husband. Her blurred vision eventually focused enough for her to see darkness in Patrick's face. "Just when I thought you couldn't do anything to make me hate you, just when I thought I could find a way to…"
"What are you on about?" she muttered flatly.
"This," He held up the crumpled piece of paper between his curled fingers and for a moment Vivian stuttered, squinting and blinking. Her face changed from confusion to recognition as she looked at Patrick blankly. "You placed our daughter up as collateral in one of your games. You practically sold her into slavery to a pair of blokes who would do whatever to her…"
Despite the shame she had the good sense to feel, Vivian was indignant. "She's practically a woman. It's time that she knew what the world was like." Vivian pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and grimaced.
Patrick's blood was like lava and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Letting out a wrathful growl, he curled his fingers into a white knuckled fist and raised it to her. He stopped suddenly seeing his wife shake with fright as she cowered behind her hands, murmuring unintelligibly. His chest heaved as he gathered his senses and slowly lowered his hand. What he was about to do, what he did, was not like him. Vivian had successfully drawn him into her degenerative madness that caused her own father to beat her mother into a bloody pulp day after day. He had vowed to love and cherish her all the days of his life in spite of her drunkenness, in spite of her gambling, in spite of everything that she had done to make him stop. He fought every test she administered until now. All it took was that one moment when he had raised his hands to his own wife for him to realize that he had already lost the fight. He didn't know when. He just knew that he was done.
Bio
Palessa started reading her first romance novel, at the age of 11. Then she got introduced to V.C. Andrews, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Anne Rice and many more notable contemporary authors as well as some of the classics, A Tale of Two Cities, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby and others. It was during her teenage years that she dabbled in writing. First, it was in her diaries, then she started creating characters, stories about romance, the supernatural and much more. Being an I.B. student as well as entering college, left little time for writing and so she put it and the ideas aside to pursue a career. It would take almost 20 years, a radical move from the city she grew up in, Miami, FL back to her Caribbean birthplace, and a chance Facebook meeting with Sable Hunter to start the juices flowing again. After some fits and starts, the Baxter Family Saga was born. Unchained Hearts is Palessa's first published fiction book with Beau Coup Publishing. She considers herself just a storyteller that sees no reason to shy away from the juicier romantic elements. She currently lives in the mountains of Jamaica with her crazy, cracker-munching-mutt Ivy and a farm, primarily managed by agribusiness partner, also known as Dad.
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I wrote this because I was inspired by the 2014 World Cup (Still love the Netherlands, but we won't go there) and it started off as a feel good outline. Then I started writing and well, Manda, Graham, Camden, Lisbette, were telling me a different story. So I went down the rabbit hole and I don't regret it one bit. I'm looking forward to starting the outline and first draft of the Book 2 in 2016. Graham's won't be the same...
ReplyDeleteVery interesting I will check it out
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