Being Watched – Story Snippet

I am so delighted to finally see my YA mystery book on sale on Amazon as well as other bookshop sites such as Waterstones. It feels like an age ago that I wrote it and I am excited to see people start to buy it and let me know what they think.

Today I would like to share another extract from the story and hope that it grabs your interest. Drew and Siobhan are the main characters who stumble upon a weird, old country house which then leaves a lasting impression on their lives.

Check out this little snippet:

“Man, did you have to wake me? I mean it’s not even afternoon yet,” he said, opening the door and grimacing as the sun shone in his eyes. “Come in. I reckon I have something you might wana see.”

I followed him into his living room where he quickly shoved back the curtains and slapped a book down on the table. It was a tatty looking book with old fashioned binding and that kind of been in the attic for decades dusty look.

“What is that? Looks ancient.”

“It is pretty ancient. I found it in the loft when I was looking for a set of earphones,” he said, holding up the title.

I realised that it was in fact some kind of scrap book.

“Art – photos and drawings,” he said. “It was dad’s. Since dad don’t live here no more I don’t think he will mind us looking through it.”

“Has it got pictures of his old girlfriends or is it the drawings he used for his GCSEs?”

“Nah, it’s a bit of everything. Dad was trying to be arty though. Some of these pictures were really well planned. Like this one of a squirrel perched right on the edge of a branch, with a massive storm cloud behind it. I can see why he ended up as a designer.”

I flicked through some pages and saw random sketches of wildlife and houses. His dad had written jottings by the side of every picture and you could tell that he took a lot of pride in his photographs, which were well protected by a layer of plastic stuff surrounding each page. As I fingered through them, I noticed his fascination with animals and the delicate way he framed each piece. The sketches were in pencil but the light and shade was spectacular.

“I mean… this is great and everything. But I don’t get the feeling that is all you wanted to show me,” I muttered quietly.

“You’re right,” he went on. “Let me find the page I want you to see.”

He fingered the pages carefully and soon opened up a page of photographs. There were four of them and they all seemed to be different views of the same building. I gulped as I realised that I knew exactly what he was showing and as he drew it closer to me… Well it was clear that these were slightly unusual. These pictures were of that damn house and it looked more menacing than usual. His dad had managed to capture what appeared to be hundreds of black birds all sitting on the lawn, on top of the roof, flying around in circles and generally highlighting the fact that there was the outline of an old man stood in front of the house. Although the crows were distinct, the man was just a shadow, with no features apparent. He stood with one arm bent, and the other holding a a spade.

To many, it must have just looked like a man doing his garden, but to me it looked scary. It gave me a shudder and I looked over to Max who was patiently waiting for me to freak out. I didn’t. I sat. I stared. Then I asked him to make us a drink.

One thing was for sure, that house was going to haunt my dreams for the next few weeks. I took some pictures on my phone and Max told me that he was going to ring his dad to ask what made him take those pictures. I agreed that would be a good idea. When Max made the call it went straight to voicemail and we decided to leave it until another day. The only thing we were certain of after this was that that house had a way of filling us with questions. Our pact was to find the answers, and we knew that Siobhan needed to be a part of our detective work.

Thank you for reading my extract of ‘Being Watched’ which is on sale now.

 

 

 

7 thoughts on “Being Watched – Story Snippet

  1. Oh this sounds so exciting and the perfect read for spooky season! The excerpt got me very intrigued and so glad to hear it’s selling at major bookshops x

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