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Save $17 off the original price on this matchless 865-page historical epic: FALL OF GIANTS: Book One of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett
Save $17 off the original price on this matchless 865-page historical epic: FALL OF GIANTS: Book One of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard
He is blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, and his country considers him a traitor… Running With The Enemy by Lloyd Lofthouse
He is blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, and his country considers him a traitor… Running With The Enemy by Lloyd Lofthouse
“So, tell me, Detective. Do you kiss all your murder suspects?” MY BEST AND LAST: A Romantic Suspense by Jill Rice
“So, tell me, Detective. Do you kiss all your murder suspects?” MY BEST AND LAST: A Romantic Suspense by Jill Rice
A killer without a conscience who knows no bounds… Can the Roadside Cross Killer be stopped? Crime Victims by Chuck Morgan
A killer without a conscience who knows no bounds… Can the Roadside Cross Killer be stopped? Crime Victims by Chuck Morgan
Think The West Wing done as an episode of The Twilight Zone… IMP: A Political Fantasia (Revised Edition) by Steven Paul Leiva
Think The West Wing done as an episode of The Twilight Zone… IMP: A Political Fantasia (Revised Edition) by Steven Paul Leiva
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Magic Hour: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Magic Hour: A Novel by Kristin Hannah
Charlie Magus enters a fantastical world hidden deep in the forest… Do You Believe in Monsters? (Dark Circles Trilogy Book 2) by award-winning author Jim Melvin
Charlie Magus enters a fantastical world hidden deep in the forest… Do You Believe in Monsters? (Dark Circles Trilogy Book 2) by award-winning author Jim Melvin
A heart-wrenching story of a family torn apart because of a moment in time… The Ones We Leave Behind by Deanna Lynn Sletten
A heart-wrenching story of a family torn apart because of a moment in time… The Ones We Leave Behind by Deanna Lynn Sletten
Dark family secrets have a way of finding their way to the light… She’s My Sister Complete Series Box Set, Books 1-10 by Jacie Middlemann
Dark family secrets have a way of finding their way to the light… She’s My Sister Complete Series Box Set, Books 1-10 by Jacie Middlemann
A thrilling private club romance that explores the limits of dominance and submission… The Dominant: A Brother’s Best Friend Complete Series by Sienna Snow
A thrilling private club romance that explores the limits of dominance and submission… The Dominant: A Brother’s Best Friend Complete Series by Sienna Snow
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Lakeside Cottage by Susan Wiggs
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Lakeside Cottage by Susan Wiggs
Read a free sample of our eBook of the Day, D.A. Boulter’s PELGRAFF, without leaving your browser! Here’s the set-up:
On a planet peacefully and harmoniously populated by both humans and the gorilla-like Pagayans, civil war has broken out, fostered by a third species, the Damargs. None of Earth’s ex-colony worlds want to hear about it, much less get involved. But one member of the space-based Trading League, Colleen Yrden, is raising an Interplanetary Brigade to fight on Pelgraff.
Alan McLean left the New Brittain police service under a cloud: he killed a man under questionable circumstances. His need to belong to something, anything, drives him to accept Colleen’s offer of employment–to help train the Interplanetary Brigade–despite his natural disgust at the endeavour and his dislike for the Pagayans. It doesn’t hurt that she believes in him where all others have turned their backs.
Though he signs on to train men in weapons and tactics only, he finds himself drawn into the conflict and his growing hatred of the brutal Damargs–as well as his unrequited feelings for Colleen–holds him on Pelgraff even as politics makes the prospect of eventual victory increasingly unlikely and his bigotry towards Pagayans makes equally unlikely a relationship with Colleen. Others may leave, but McLean is determined to stay to the end, however it turns out.
And here, right in the comfort of your own browser, is your free sample!
Tomorrow is all about the gratitude for many of us, and all about the turkey or the football or the Black Friday preparations for others (perhaps with some overlap?), but who among us would not say thank you to find the first five books in the Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith series at the head of today’s Free Book Alert listings just in time for a long weekend of reading?
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
Rosanne E. Lortz is a talented, highly imaginative author with the kind of gift for weaving detailed research into a tale entirely of her own making that must be essential if one is to create the sort of majestic historical fiction with which she presents us in her novel, I Serve.
But I think we must forgive her for any failure to update the thorough and detailed research that is the basis for her author bio at right, or for failing to share the latest details of a tale entirely of her own making. Or, perhaps I should say, entirely of the making of Rosanne and her husband David.
Keeping her author’s website or her book marketing up to date just now is probably, in fact, the furthest thing from this author’s mind.
Why?
Two reasons:
Adam and Benjamin Spears
Their names are Adam and Benjamin, and they were born less than three weeks ago.
So Rosanne E. Lortz is going to be very busy for a while here, which in my view simply compounds the immense pleasure I’ve experienced in reading I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince and in helping the author to share it with you through the Kindle Nation sponsorship program.
I will admit to having always been the kind of sentimental sap who gets jazzed when a ballplayer hits a home run after being with his wife at the hospital that morning for the birth of their first child. And I’m here to tell you that Rosanne E. Lortz’ name is in the box score today with, at the very least, a 3-for-3 performance. The picture of Adam and Benjamin speaks for itself, and the novel, I Serve, is a home run in and of itself. As someone who always wanted to learn more about the Black Death and its medieval backdrop, I was especially ready to get lost in her story, and it did not disappoint.
If enough Kindle Nation readers agree with me that the royalties allow Rosanne and her husband to keep the boys in booties, all the better.
Click on the title or cover image below below to download the complete book to your Kindle or Kindle app for just $2.99
Click on the title to download I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince (or the free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
Here’s the set-up:
A TALE OF ARMS, OF DEATH, OF LOVE, AND OF HONOR
Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Hundred Years’ War, I Serve chronicles the story of Sir John Potenhale. A young Englishman of lowly birth, Potenhale wins his way to knighthood on the fields of France. He enters the service of Edward, the Black Prince of Wales, and immerses himself in a stormy world of war, politics, and romantic intrigue.
While campaigning in France, Potenhale develops an interest in Margery, a spirited lady-in-waiting with a close-kept secret. He soon learns that Sir Thomas Holland, a crass and calculating baron, holds the key to unlock Margery’s mystery and possesses the power to overturn all of his hopes.
When the Black Death strikes Europe, however, Potenhale realizes that the fiercest enemy does not always appear in human form. Seeing the pestilence as a punishment for the sins of his generation, he questions his calling as a knight and considers entering the cloister. Margery or the monastery? Torn between losing his soul and losing the love of his life, he finds friendship with a French knight who might-just possibly-help him save both.
Rosanne E. Lortz wrote an intelligent and engaging tale based on real characters and events that made this reading journey one of the most exhilarating of this year. Historical fiction doesn’t get much better than this. –Historical Tapestry
This…had it all from disguises, unsatisfied love, fights for honor, and most compelling of all the torments of a man’s conscience. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something a bit off the mainstream. –Historically Obsessed
Well written, entertaining, and intriguing, I Serve is definitely an enjoyable and worthy read. –Historical Novel Society (Historical Novels Review Online: February, 2010)
Rosanne Lortz tells a wonderful tale…. Through vivid language and in-depth descriptions, she nudges the emotion and credibility out of the story, making the reader truly understand the difficulties of this turbulent era. –Historical Novel Review
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Free Contemporary Titles in the Kindle Store
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Just use the slider at right of your screen below to scroll through a complete, updated list of free contemporary Kindle titles, and click on an icon like this one (at right) to read a free sample right here in your browser! (Titles are sorted in reverse chronological order so you can easily find newly listed freebies.)
Three holiday novellas by three authors in one humorous book to get you in a festive mood heads up our 150+ Free Book Alert listings….
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
Start your morning with the charming and funny Cassandra Ellis. If it were up to her, she’d be at her keyboard writing her next novel, but the dead bodies keep turning up to distract her. You won’t be able to put down Cathy Wiley’s Dead to Writes. But don’t believe us. Check out this free 16,000 word excerpt.
Click on the title or cover image below below to download the complete book to your Kindle or Kindle app for just $2.99
An author hardly has time to celebrate the release of her first murder mystery before she has to step up to some real-life horror. She is forced to face the homicide of someone who helped her in researching her book. Detective James Whittaker is the only good thing about her being questioned in the case, but the second murder muddies the situation. What does it mean that she was the last to see both victims?
Here’s the set up:
Author Cassandra Ellis is thrilled to death when her first murder mystery novel is released. She enjoys glowing reviews, praise from friends and family, and the excitement from being published.
Her celebration is cut short when she becomes the primary suspect for a real life murder. One of the sources she used while writing her novels has been shot, and Cassie is the last to have seen him alive. With her passion for research, she always wanted a firsthand view of the Baltimore City Police Department’s inner workings. She never dreamed she’d get that experience by being taken in for questioning as a suspect.
When another of her experts is murdered a few days later, she decides it’s time to investigate matters firsthand, much to the displeasure of James Whittaker, the homicide detective assigned to the case.
Before more friends die… or before Cassie herself is targeted.
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information.
Free Contemporary Titles in the Kindle Store
HOW TO USE OUR NEW FREE BOOK TOOL:
Just use the slider at right of your screen below to scroll through a complete, updated list of free contemporary Kindle titles, and click on an icon like this one (at right) to read a free sample right here in your browser! Titles are sorted in reverse chronological order so you can easily see new freebies!
Today’s eBook of the Day sponsor, Dawn McCullough-White’s Cameo the Assassin makes a great read and a great Kindle gift, for just 99 cents. Here’s the set-up:
Cameo the Assassin, a historical novel from Dawn McCullough-White, is an engaging, fast-paced romp about highwaymen, assassins, Lockenwood vampires, their victims, and their evaders in an age when “who knew there were so many vampires running around.” Cameo, an alias for Gwen, “the thrall of a vampire,” has two masters to serve. One is Wick, the aging, spell-casting head of the Association of Assassins, who assigns missions to the battle-scarred Cameo. The other is Haffef, Cameo’s vampire “Master,” who years ago rescued her from certain death after her vicious rape and beating and a deadly attack upon her younger sister. The one wants her to kill the prince of the Kingdom of Sieunes; the other wants her to unearth her sister’s bones and return them to him. Her life is further conflicted when she agrees to become the bodyguard for Kyrian, a fifteen-year-old acolyte healer who needs to travel to the Temple of the Sun at King’s Basin. As she balances her missions and battles the forces of evil set against her on all sides, she overcomes assassins sent to kill her, seeks revenge against highwaymen who have robbed her of her namesake cameo brooch, develops an arms-length relationship with one of the brigands, and confronts Wick in a deadly duel.
ForeWord Clarion Review M. Wayne Cunningham Five Stars (out of Five)
The Kingdom of Sieunes is rife with taverns, dirty streets, and clay pipe smoking citizens all toiling to feed their families and keep themselves in something little better than rags. With a foiled revolution just ten years prior still burning in the hearts of many, the royals enlist the aid of assassins to keep things in order.
The townsfolk entertain themselves by dreaming of better times to come and regaling in stories of the undead said to walk the graveyards at night… and of Cameo the killer with corpse-like eyes… Scarred and jaded Cameo is one of the most effective assassins in the employ of the Association, moving from one mission to the next as long as the alcohol keeps flowing.
Her acceptance of the murder-for-hire lifestyle is thrown into doubt when she meets a local highwayman with a penchant for fine clothes and women, and then she begins to think about breaking with the company but no one ever breaks with the Association under good terms.
And here, right in the comfort of your own browser, is your free sample!
We start the week with seven brand new additions to our 150+ Free Book Alert listings, with a focus on remarkable businesses, remarkable leaders, and fascinating pictures of the brain as seen through the remarkable lens of neuroscience….
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
Part thriller, part historical novel, and part love story, Set the Night on Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of Chicago during a turbulent time: the riots at the Democratic Convention . . . the struggle for power between the Black Panthers and SDS . . . and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.
(Ed. Note: Bestselling novelist Lee Child didn’t hold back when he called Set the Night on Fire “a tremendous book – sweeping but intimate, elegiac but urgent, subtle but intense. This story really does set the night on fire.” Sometimes these bestselling authors’ blurbs are dashed off without much thought, but when I picked up Set the Night on Fire myself and read it through from start to finish it was clear to me that Child had done his homework. Libby Fischer Hellmann is an author of great and diverse talents, and this book is a triumph that, unless I miss my guess, will be read with great pleasure and gifted many, many times over during the coming holiday season. I know this: everyone on my holiday living list who owns a Kindle will be getting a copy, and I can’t imagine another gift for under $5 that would be more appreciated by any reader. –S.W.)
Someone is trying to kill Lila Hilliard. During the Christmas holidays she returns from running errands to find her family home in flames, her father and brother trapped inside. Later, she is attacked by a mysterious man on a motorcycle. . . and the threats don’t end there.
As Lila desperately tries to piece together who is after her and why, she uncovers information about her father’s past in Chicago during the volatile days of the late 1960s . . . information he never shared with her, but now threatens to destroy her.
Part thriller, part historical novel, and part love story, Set the Night on Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of Chicago during a turbulent time: the riots at the Democratic Convention . . . the struggle for power between the Black Panthers and SDS . . . and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.
“A brilliantly-paced thriller, transitioning seamlessly from modern-day Chicago to the late ’60s. First-rate characterization…Best to start early in the day, as it is easy to stay up all night reading it.” –Foreword Magazine
“RT Top Pick for December: “Electric… a marvelous novel.” –RT Book Reviews
Click here to download Set the Night on Fire(or a free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors and thank you for considering them.
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Free Contemporary Titles in the Kindle Store
HOW TO USE OUR NEW FREE BOOK TOOL:
Just use the slider at right of your screen below to scroll through a complete, updated list of free contemporary Kindle titles, and click on an icon like this one (at right) to read a free sample right here in your browser! Titles are sorted in reverse chronological order so you can easily see new freebies!
I don’t want to get in the way of this, but I think we may be onto something once again here at Kindle Nation. I’m still in the midst of my own reading of Thanatos Rising, but that “discovery” word is on my mind again.
And I had an opening to share this 8,000-word free excerpt with you, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to involve the greatest readers in the world in helping to confirm my feeling that this novel is the beginning of something very special by author Derek Prior.
I’ll admit that I am charmed by the idea of a genre novelist who devoted his postgraduate studies on Antonin Artaud, and by the notion of a novelist who also writes books on nutrition and personal training, but shjares an author bio photo of himself (at the right, above) hoisting a pint. Here’s an author I can relate too, I thought.
But then I began reading, and I was moved on every page by the tour de force virtuosity of the prose and by the compelling complexity and vitality of the characters.
I won’t adorn this excerpt with much more from myself, except to say you can scroll down to begin reading the excerpt immediately, and you can click right through to Derek Prior’s Author Central page to purchase either or both of his novels for just 99 cents each. I do have a feeling that you may be proud to be able to say, some years in the future, that you were among his first readers.
Here’s the set-up from the Kindle Store page:
Too dark for science and too evil for theology, but some secrets refuse to stay hidden.
Postgraduate student Harry Chesterton uncovers a trail of dark science that leads to the old monastery above the Welsh university town of Aberystwyth.
With bodies beneath the cafe, residents oozing puss from puncture marks on their necks, and the disappearance of the University Chaplain, Chesterton’s research into post-mortem consciousness is about to leap off the page.
The Memoirs of Harry Chesterton were found by the author in an attic flat in Eastbourne along with Chesterton’s final letter before crossing over into the world of Thanatos.
Thanatos Rising constitutes the first volume of memoirs which recounts Chesterton’s perilous investigations in Aberystwyth up until the time of his first disappearance.
Click on the title or cover image below below to download the complete book to your Kindle or Kindle app for just 99 cents
Click on the title to download Thanatos Rising (The Memoirs of Harry Chesterton)(or the free sample) to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android-compatible, PC or Mac and start reading within 60 seconds!
I pray, dear friend, that upon finding these, my memoirs, you will have patience with me. Understand, I urge you, that these thoughts were written hastily over a long period. The despair and cynicism that sullies the opening reflects my disillusionment upon returning to our mundane world.
I had thought to remain on Thanatos, revelling in my strength and purpose, and thus to find myself trapped in Eastbourne with my imperfect flesh and muddied mind I sought the defence of bitterness. I did not expect to see Thanatos again and in time I doubted its veracity. After many months, I began to chronicle my adventures, fearing all the while that they were born of my own imaginings.
I surmised that my wranglings with Dr Blightey in Wales, the illusions, the strange happenings, the narcotics and my obsession had conspired to generate this dual fantasy life. To prove my theory and to clarify my thoughts, I set about writing the whole fantastic tale, to which I now add this note. This I include should you chance upon my manuscript whilst I am absent; you see, I have journeyed once more to Thanatos, and this time I know how I shall get back.
It is such a blessed release to travel once more in that land of giants, to feel the power of my perfected frame and the sense of a destiny that matters. I hope I am able to record more: I do not wish to cut the connection with Earth, nor with you, dear friend – whoever you are that reads this – for I wish to impart a message of hope. There is so much more; so much to discover.
If I fail to return from this trip, if I should fall to the powers that rule on mighty Thanatos, I beg that you will preserve my story. I might die, but let not hope die with it. I have been blessed with high adventure and I cannot accept that it is mine alone.
Ever yours,
H.C.
THE FIRST ENTRY
I have decided to record the strange events of the last decade in an attempt to render them meaningful. Already, I sense the futility of such an enterprise, the reduction to rationalistic comprehension of experiences that are beyond the jurisdiction of words. Nevertheless, the compulsion lingers, the burning need to compress the disparate totality into a conceptual framework, a neatly packaged prerequisite for my next foray into undiscovered country.
For those who may discover this confession when I have left the world of flesh, a brief introduction may be in order.
On Earth I am called Harry Chesterton. I am now forty-two years of age, a premature resident of the coastal town of Eastbourne.
My return to the town of my birth was always uncomfortably inevitable. I share with so many that tormenting loathing of my own blood, that age-old enemy of the living: the bourgeoisie. My birth was unremarkable, as was my education. My parents worked and yet were not, in attitude at least, working class. In spite of their need (or was it perceived as a need?) to work double the standard working-week, they never showed the least personality, that rich and bawdy character of the mythical working classes. For a time I thought that this was a regional distinction and that the true proletariat spoke with northern accents and scoffed mushy peas and mint sauce. But gradually, as my little noose of experience widened I began to see the working classes rooted gnomically in the flesh-and-now, adorning stalls and streets and pubs with an enviable, yet despicable, integration.
Much of my work, most of my striving, was simply a reaction to the insubstantiality of my freedom. Freedom was only ever an illusory liberation from the crumbling post-war morality. Free speech, free thought and free love were all so terribly disheartening. Whilst born a Catholic, to agnostic parents, I was educated C. of E. and baptised in psychiatry.
Mental Health was to be my field for seven soulless years, interspersed with desperate flights to the theatre where something always intangibly beckoned. At such moments, the icy fingers of psychiatry became visible around my throat and I would fight with great fury to escape them. But always, the gravity-well of consensus shepherded me down to normality.
It is a problem still, this war between fact and life. At present, I just about hold the Cartesian forces at bay by my clinging to the traditional hermitage of the artist, amongst the eaves of an attic flat on the lower side of town: Grove Road – an undulation of sleazy subterranean bars and pizzerias with a cockroach residency of pushers and alcoholics. I say this almost with affection, for they are my army of life against the ever-encroaching hoards of undeath.
So there you have my present, another dose of purgatory following great snatches of life-giving breath. Such are the moments I wish to record: those episodes of discovery, those peak experiences that would otherwise pass unnoticed down the U-bend of civilisation.
I
I had not long been at the University of Wales when I became aware of something stirring. My escape from psychiatry had been less than well planned but had carried with it the conviction of fortuitousness. There was virtually no transition from the sterility and mundane bizarreness of the acute psychiatric ward to the remote island of eccentricity that was Aberystwyth.
I remember the occasion of my first visit to the cafe in Pier Street. I was trying to find the much-maligned Dr Blightey who had been sequestered in this academic backwater for unspeakable crimes against the scientific community some twenty odd years ago. Although Dr Blightey seldom had anything to do with the university, it was the promise of his presence that had drawn me to the town. Having finally navigated the torturous enrolment and settled into my lodgings in North Road, I immediately set about locating the nefarious doctor.
I made tentative enquiries amongst the postgraduate community who congregated grubbily in the comparatively salubrious surroundings of Seren’s. Even then, with the life of the town but hours old to me, I sensed the quicksand pull of their half-existence, those shabbily dressed fops with their interminable research degrees stretching out till doomsday.
I was summoned to the table of the postgraduate pope himself, one Marius Vacek, a portly fellow sporting a ponytail and an enormous black woollen pullover. With the enviable charm of the socially adept (Marius had evidently spent the last fifteen years conducting his MPhil research from the window table of the most popular cafe in Aberystwyth) he poured me tea and questioned me with convincing interest about my life. My answers wilted to monosyllables after half an hour of relentless, silky interrogation. Marius, however, clearly did not like silence.
“So, in order to fully exploit the welfare loopholes, you must register as a part-time postgrad, sign on, and tell the job centre that you’ll only accept graduate jobs in the region of twenty thousand. You’re easily worth that with a degree, but you’ll be lucky to get three pound an hour in Aberystwyth; so you just keep signing on. Then, teach the odd seminar, which basically means play some obscure video, ask the students to discuss its relevance to whatever the subject is, and get the department to do a deal for cash in hand.”
I forced a wry smile and gazed out of the window, seeking a pause in which to gather my thoughts. Heavy rain splashed against the pavement whilst black clouds patrolled cumbrously across the pea-soup sky. And yet hordes of adolescent students strode to and fro with barely more than a T-shirt between the elements and their pockmarked flesh.
“The freshers are sooo bad this year,” Marius continued to rape my thoughts. “It’s the bloody principal’s fault, allowing the boyos from the valleyos in with poor grades just to keep the Taffia happy.”
“Do you know Doctor Blightey?” I interjected.
“Doctor Death, you mean? Sure. Everybody knows him. But, you’ve noticed? The farm-boy freshers? It’s like anyone can have a degree these days. Still, you probably know a degree’s worthless. You only start doing the real work as a postgrad.”
“Why’s he called Doctor Death?”
“Oh, some shit about necrophilia or something.”
A gust of cold air hit me as a group of young girls entered the cafe, uniform in their jeans, Doc Marten’s, and exposed frozen mid-rifts. Marius immediately switched his attention from me to the female freshers so I quietly took my leave of him and went back out into the street.
I roamed aimlessly for a time, gazing up at the hidden apartments perched vertiginously atop the shops and tea rooms; those places that are seldom noticed unless consciously sought. Each flat, each room, it occurred to me, was occupied, probably by second year undergraduates living at this altitude of incognito. Above and beyond the rooftops I glimpsed an ancient grey-stone building atop the cliffs that loomed over the crachach, the abode of the wealthier residents of Aberystwyth. It peered down upon me like a sentinel from another time, a sombre anachronism that fuelled my imagination with fantastic images of gothic horror. I determined to visit this place at a later date, certain that I would be disappointed when it turned out to be modernised for the purposes of academia or weekend Christian workshops.
I eventually gave up my search for Dr Blightey at a dirty little cafe in Pier Street. The faded hand-painted sign outside boasted the sale of goods inappropriate to a cafe, an indication of the building’s longevity. Its brown facade and clouded full-length windows reminded me of The Old Curiosity Shop, so it was with some trepidation that I crossed the threshold.
The place looked empty. I stood before a misted-over glass counter, barely able to make out the dried up and rather sorry-looking offerings on display. Hand-written signs described vegan and vegetarian preparations, and yet I was certain I spied liver pate at the front of the display cabinet. I rang the small brass bell that stood next to the wrinkled pizza and was answered by a shuffling sound from the direction of the kitchen.
Flicking through the tatty menu, I deduced that the cafe was called Y Draig, the letters encircling a picture of a winged beast. The menu appeared to be quite old, and yet the prices were ludicrously low, at least a third of the prices asked by Seren’s.
“Yes please?”
I was startled by the voice, a peculiarly shrill piping monotone. I’d heard no one approach. Before me stood a tall man of middle age dressed shabbily in a faded corduroy jacket and half-mast trousers. I started to reply, but my speech was arrested by his vacant stare: like the window and the display case, his eyes seemed to be frosted over.
I managed to order a tea, but the fellow just stood there, slightly inclining his head. It occurred to me that he was a leftover of the early days of my old profession: a lobotomised schizophrenic, condemned to a zombie-like half-life. His eyes vibrated rapidly, a sort of lateral blinking, before fixing me once more with the cloudy stare.
“I shall have to fetch some tea bags,” he piped before coming round the counter. He strode straight at me and I backed away sharply. Carrying on past me, he opened the door and disappeared down Pier Street. I was alone in the cafe.
Posters, browned with age, plastered the walls, their messages lost amidst their proliferation. Mostly they advertised engagements long since passed, evidencing a gregarious history within this ghostly cafe.
A thud from somewhere downstairs distracted me from my wall reading. I listened silently and was sure I heard a faint sliding sound, as if something heavy was being dragged across the cellar floor. I determined to investigate but was immediately arrested by the opening of the cafe door. The piping fellow stood rigidly in the doorway clutching a handful of tea bags, and for a moment eyed me with a sideways stare before jerking back to life once more and heading back behind the counter.
The tea was tepid, with the slightly strawberry taste of off milk. I was about to leave when the door opened again and another man entered, small in stature with a great mop of snowy hair and an uncropped beard.
“I was just debating with a couple,” he said cheerfully, as if we were old friends, “as to whether or not there is any such thing as Absolute Truth.”
“I suppose it depends on what you mean by that,” I offered politely, sinking back into my seat.
He paused in assessment of what I had said, apparently turning my statement over and over in order to extract the profoundest exactitude.
“I’m not sure I agree,” he frowned. “When one speaks of the
Absolute, one is being very specific.”
“Certainly,” I continued in my politeness, “but the concept
alludes to an implicit reductionism.”
Once again there was a pondering pause as if he had to dredge up a reply from interminable depths. Either that or the fellow wasn’t very bright and it took him a long while to work out my meaning.
“But is the Absolute God?” he asked with a smile.
“Are they synonymous, you mean?”
“You see, I would always question one’s need for a belief in God. I felt that the couple I was talking to were religious in some way.”
It appeared to me that his earlier conversation had unsettled him, bringing to the surface those age old existential questions which were the grail from which I drank.
“‘I pray for the honesty of death,'” I quoted, immediately sensing from the sparkle in his eye that I had somehow lost a pawn.
“Go on,” he prompted.
“‘I pray for the honesty of death
Calm and unfearing,
Gently endearing,
Free from the prophets
Buried in the communion of saints.'”
“Otto Blightey,” he observed correctly.
“Indeed,” I replied. “You’ve read him?”
“Not really. He comes in from time to time.”
I stood, perhaps a little too eagerly.
“I would very much like to meet him.”
“He’s not well liked by the locals,” said the snowy haired man as he moved behind the counter to begin slicing up the wrinkled pizza.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I remarked. “Genius is often reviled.”
“I don’t suggest that anybody denies his genius,” he looked up from the pizza, the knife poised for the next precision slice. “But there are those who retain a degree of superstition.”
“Perhaps they shouldn’t believe all they read in the papers,” I quipped.
Again there was silence whilst he chewed my thoughts, masticating them into a reply.
“In this town,” he bit his lip in seriousness, “rumours tend to start with the academics.”
We continued to talk about more mundane matters. I had a cup of Earl Grey and browsed through the local rag as Alwyn (for he had made me the gift of his name) introduced me to the tedium that was recycling. I had the impression that he so organised certain aspects of his life (particularly the disposal of waste, for which he had seven different coloured refuse sacks) as to condemn him to a crippling neurosis, and yet, judging from his personal hygiene and the shoddiness of his business, other aspects were in stark diametrical opposition.
As I wandered back towards North Road some two hours later, I realised that I had found the hub of Aberystwyth in that dirty, run-down little cafe. I was mesmerised by Alwyn’s sharply polarised contradictions, and the way in which his cafe seemed to sprout from his personality.
That night, I wandered down North Road to the promenade and on from there to the foot of Constitution Hill. There was an eeriness about its artificial illumination from unseen lanterns that emphasised the path of the cliff railway and the whiteness of the camera obscura at the summit. I looked up and to the right at the old grey building I had spied earlier in the day. There was a light on in the tower that called strongly to my imagination. I decided that I would visit the place in the morning.
As I turned to leave, I was startled by the presence of a tall figure behind me.
“It was once a monastery, you know,” he spoke in a soft and genial Irish accent. He stepped towards me and I was able to discern that he was a Catholic priest, dressed against the chill air in a long black overcoat and brown Ushanka hat.
“What is it now?” I asked, still gazing upwards.
To my surprise, the priest turned and started to walk back down the promenade.
“It is a place of study, I am told,” he said. “God bless you, brother, and good night.”
I did not sleep at all that night, or so it seemed. The cotton-wool visage of Alwyn dominated every dreamscape, waving innumerable petitions in front of me, petitions that would save the planet in all manner of ludicrous ways. The monastery was there as well, looming up before me whichever way I turned. My dream-self panicked, its thoughts scattering like a shoal before a shark, and yet, on waking, I wasn’t tired. Instead, I was full of zeal for the quest ahead. I was determined to climb up past the crachach and explore the ancient building.
II
Dawn brought more rain and a gusting wind that seemed to concentrate its assault on the quaint French-windows at the foot of my bed. The windows withstood the onslaught, but alas, irritated me with their clattering.
I broke my fast at the window-seat in the lounge, searching for the sunrise through the obscuring canopy of clouds. The house was still in silence, my studious fellow tenants not tending to surface until après midi. Their initial awakening was always followed by a protracted period of afternoon breakfasting, arguing about whose turn it was to fetch the daily paper, and preparing for a late afternoon gathering in Seren’s.
The sink was overflowing with unwashed dishes, and so it was with great skill and care that I balanced my breakfast plate and mug atop the stack. It was a dreadful place to come back to with all its accumulated waste. The stench of rotting vegetables came from the splitting black bin-liner; great puffs of dust from the carpet greeted my every footfall, planting asthmagenic spoors in my lungs. The chairs, tables and floor were strewn with the pages of a week’s worth of news that would one day be read if I only had the time. I resolved to hire a cleaner, perhaps from amongst the undergraduate community, for mess was intolerable, both to tidy up and to work in.
After washing and dressing I made my way downstairs to collect the morning post. Besides one rather unsavoury looking bill, I had nothing but junk mail and, as was my wont, I felt a pang of disappointment, of disconnection from the world.
I opened the front door, causing a hand-written note to fall to the floor. Snatching up this most unexpected prize I looked straight for the signature. It was from a Father Cornelius McBride, presumably the tall priest from the night before. I sat myself down on the stairs and read:
White Friars,
Russell Street.
My Dear Mr. Chesterton,
Forgive my imposing upon your privacy in this manner, but I felt it my overwhelming duty to communicate certain matters to you as urgently as possible. I know it must be somewhat of a shock for you to receive such a letter from someone whose existence you were not even aware of until our brief encounter yester-evening. Your name, I must confess, has been known to me for some time and I pray that you will forgive my not approaching sooner, and in a less clandestine manner.
I’m ashamed to say that the reason for my discretion has been concern for my own safety and it was not until I actually saw you in the flesh that I realised how un-Christian my reticence has been. Suffice it to say that the matter which has led you to Aberystwyth has certain far-reaching consequences. Some of the ‘fallout’ of this situation has long since settled into the fabric of town life as a dark and brooding presence. Forgive my obscurantism, but I really can bring myself to say no more at this time.
I beseech you to pursue the matter no further, but anticipating your unwillingness, or inability, to give up the chase, I implore you to call upon me at the chaplaincy before visiting the old monastery.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Cornelius McBride O.Carm.
Apparently the priest was a Carmelite, part of a religious fraternity that had originated on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the Crusades. I had come across the Order in my reading of the poetry of Saint John of the Cross, a marvellously dark mystic whom I had long since regarded as one of the few sensible adherents of religion. John had led the friars along the lines of reform drawn up by his contemporary, Teresa of Avila, a reform which, after both their deaths, led to the splitting of the Order. Interestingly, the reformed Order, the Discalced Carmelites, went on to draw up entry criteria which would have excluded their founder, Teresa, on account of her Jewish ancestry!
It was from John of the Cross that I first learnt of ‘the dark night of the soul’, a total immersion in what Crowley termed ‘the Abyss’, where all is dark: the senses, the intellect, the emotions, faith, and even God. The possibilities, for the traveller in the night, are twofold: either union with God, to whom darkness is light, or depression and dissolution in the void.
I left the house shortly after nine and ascended to the crachach, the domain by means of a narrow, steep and muddy track. A gale was blowing leaves and crisp packets about my face like angry flies but I pressed on nevertheless, determined to make a quick reconnaissance before calling on Father McBride.
My next recollection is of the tall priest answering the door to me. How I came to be at the chaplaincy I could not tell, but clearly, due to my dishevelment and fatigue, some time had passed since my trek to the monastery.
“You could not wait, I see,” sighed Father McBride. “Come inside, I’ll make us some tea.”
Bewildered, I saw no alternative to following him down the hall and into a small dark kitchen at the rear of the building.
“Perhaps I have failed in my persuasiveness,” said Father McBride, “for in spite of my protestations, you sought to learn the reality empirically.”
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