Hi there!
Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.
Today, we've a stop along the Rachel's Random Resources tour featuring the work of Deborah Klee. From the sound of things, it's a story that will move your heart while making you ask yourself, am I truly living my life or just going through the motions? But that's just my own first impressions...let's see what YOU think! Ready or not, today's title in the spotlight is on deck...
The Borrowed Boy
by
Deborah Klee
About the book...
A borrowed boy, a borrowed name and living on borrowed time.
What do you put on a bucket list when you haven’t done anything with your life? No interesting job, no lovers, no family, no friends. Believing she has only weeks left to live, Angie Winkle vows to make the most of every minute.
Going back to Jaywick Sands, is top of her bucket list. Experiencing life as a grandmother is not, but the universe has other plans and when four-year-old Danny is separated from his mum on the tube, Angie goes to his rescue. She tries to return him to his mum but things do not go exactly as planned and the two of them embark on a life-changing journey.
Set in Jaywick Sands, once an idyllic Essex holiday village in the 70s, but now a shantytown of displaced Londoners, this is a story about hidden communities and our need to belong.
What do you put on a bucket list when you haven’t done anything with your life? No interesting job, no lovers, no family, no friends. Believing she has only weeks left to live, Angie Winkle vows to make the most of every minute.
Going back to Jaywick Sands, is top of her bucket list. Experiencing life as a grandmother is not, but the universe has other plans and when four-year-old Danny is separated from his mum on the tube, Angie goes to his rescue. She tries to return him to his mum but things do not go exactly as planned and the two of them embark on a life-changing journey.
Set in Jaywick Sands, once an idyllic Essex holiday village in the 70s, but now a shantytown of displaced Londoners, this is a story about hidden communities and our need to belong.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ EXCERPT ~~~
Angie
arrives in Jaywick with Danny. She has carried him for nearly two
miles and they are both hot, tired and exhausted. It is getting late
and Angie needs to return Danny to his mum that day. She carries him
into the sea to try and freshen him up a bit.
Danny
clung to her at first, a look of fear and then excitement creasing
his face. A wave lifted them and Angie shrieked, ‘Whee!’
Danny’s
arms relaxed around her neck as he searched for the next big wave.
‘Is
it coming? Is it coming?’ Angie dipped down so that the sea reached
their chests, ready to catch the next wave.
‘Whee!’
Danny whistled in her ear.
It
was great fun. The cherry on the cake of a perfect day but somehow,
they had to get back to London. They were both soaking wet, no towel
or change of clothes, apart from a spare pair of knickers Angie kept
for emergencies. It was past eight and she had no idea how she was
going to get them back to Clacton, let alone London. ‘What are we
like, Danny boy? What are we like?’
Angie
retraced the route she had taken so many times before, from the sea
back towards Grammy and Gramps’s chalet. But nothing was the same.
What had happened to the pretty gardens? The handkerchief lawns
bordered with marigolds and nasturtiums?
An
abandoned fridge balanced against a low brick wall in one front yard,
black sacks of refuse in another. A TV with a smashed screen and an
old pushchair spilled onto the pavement from a garden strewn with
debris. Angie swung Danny onto her hip. He couldn’t walk barefoot
here – not like the old days. She saw a supermarket trolley dumped
in a garden and dragged it out onto the street. Shame she hadn’t
found it sooner. Angie swung Danny into the trolley; it would serve
well as a pushchair.
What
had happened to Jaywick? Angie kept expecting to turn a corner and
see everything as it had been back in the seventies. But there were
no wide clean streets. No neighbours sitting out, drinking tea and
chatting. They reached the main street, the one they had to cross to
reach Grammy and Gramps’s. It was just as grey and dismal.
In the seventies the street buzzed with happy holidaymakers. Angie
recognised the pub, a café, and the amusement arcade, but there was
little else. Shops were boarded up and graffitied. There had once
been a hairdresser and a toyshop. All that had gone. Tarnished and
damaged.
Angie
bit back her disappointment. She was a fool thinking that she could
turn back time. The world was a dark and dirty place.
Angie
sat on a garden wall opposite the Seashell Café – a closed sign on
its door. At least their clothes had started to dry in the sun. At
times like this Angie wished she owned a phone. She didn’t have the
energy to push Danny in the trolley back to Clacton and they were
both too tired to wait for a bus. That’s if there was a bus to
Clacton that evening.
A
car engine turned over, then died. Again – it whirred, then
spluttered. A girl with a funky haircut, longish one side and shaved
the other, sat at the wheel. She tried again.
Angie
peered into the car. ‘You’re not going to get her going like
that.’
The
girl glared. ‘Fuck off.’
Angie
didn’t take offence; she’d have said the same thing.
‘Want
me to take a look?’
The
girl sunk back in her seat. ‘Fuck, fuck, and fuck!’ She slammed
the steering wheel and blasted the horn.
‘Release
the bonnet.’ Angie knew everything there was to know about Ford
cars produced between 1965 and 1980. She had a full set of Haynes
manuals and had pretty much memorised them. Couldn’t drive, but she
could do basic maintenance and repairs.
The
girl got out of her beaten-up Ford Fiesta. ‘I’ve gotta get her
going. I need a car for my work.’
‘Watch
Danny and I’ll take a look. If I get her going the deal is you give
us a lift to Clacton.’
‘Sure.’
The girl shrugged.
‘There’s
nothing wrong with the battery or starting system.’
Angie
rooted in her bag for the wet knickers, the next best thing to a rag.
She prodded and poked. Cars had changed a bit since the eighties but
not so much that she couldn’t apply her basic knowledge.
‘I
reckon the compression in your engine cylinders is low. Have you got
her wet or used dodgy fuel?’
The
girl shrugged again. ‘Yeah and yeah. Rain leaks in because of the
rust and I’ve cadged containers of petrol when I’ve run out –
so could be. But can you fix her?’
Angie
wished she could get the car working that evening. It was their only
hope of getting to Clacton.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the author...
Deborah has worked as an occupational
therapist, a health service manager, a freelance journalist, and
management consultant in health and social care.
Her protagonists are often people who
exist on the edges of society. Despite the very real, but dark,
subject matter her stories are uplifting, combining pathos with
humour. They are about self-discovery and the power of friendships
and community.
The Borrowed Boy, her debut, was
shortlisted for the Deviant Minds Award 2019. Just Bea, her second
novel will be published in 2021.
Deborah lives on the Essex coast. When
she is not writing she combines her love of baking with trying to
burn off the extra calories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Special thanks to Rachel at Rachel's Random Resources for the chance to bring this tour to you. (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, this promotion, or those on the horizon, feel free to click through the links provided above. Be sure to check out the rest of tour for more bookish fun!
Special thanks to Rachel at Rachel's Random Resources for the chance to bring this tour to you. (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, this promotion, or those on the horizon, feel free to click through the links provided above. Be sure to check out the rest of tour for more bookish fun!
Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!
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