What we are Writing: Rhys returns to war.

 RHYS BOWEN: I was planning to give you a teaser from The Venice Sketchbook that will be published next Tuesday. But Hallie is going to be interviewing me next week about the book, so I decided to be quite literal for once. I'm going to give you a snippet of what I was writing today. Not even polished. Just as I have put it down a few minutes ago.

I'm writing another book set in World War 2, but this one quite different. A Cockney woman, uneducated, trapped in a bad marriage to a sadistic bully, but given her first taste of freedom when her husband is drafted into the army and then sent out to North Africa. She has a lucky escape when her house is bombed and she is buried alive in the rubble. She is wounded and evacuated out to the country--a beautiful big house that is right beside an RAF bomber command base. Every night those big planes head for Germany and so many don't return.

Josie realizes what those men need is a taste of home and starts a little tea shop in the unused drawing room of the big house. She comes to love her new life--the setting, her job, the people--one particular person.

All this comes to an abrupt end when a telegram informs her her husband has been shipped home, gravely wounded. Stan has lost his leg and will need taking care of. She is back in London with a life stretching ahead with no hope.  

Then comes this scene:

Downstairs she could hear Shirley and Fred laughing as they tried to get Stan into his overcoat, give him his crutches and then help him out of the front door. When they had gone Josie let herself finally cry. She was just wiping her eyes when she heard the air-raid warning siren echoing out. How were they going to get Stan into a shelter, she wondered. He’d never get down steps into the underground. Bloody fools. They should have thought of that first.

                Her thoughts turned to her own safety. Shirley and Fred had that little air-raid dug-out shelter but she remembered her panic last time they tried to get her into it.  The air-raid warning grew louder. So did the drone of approaching planes. Josie made up her mind. She opened the front door and walked out into the street. People were streaming past her, clutching valuables, carrying babies, dragging along crying children. The street emptied out and she stood alone as the distant drone of planes became louder, now punctuated by the anti-aircraft fire. A distant thud then another as bombs were dropped. The first planes were caught in searchlights—big black crosses in the dark sky. A sky that seemed full of them.

                “Here I am!” Josie yelled. “Come and get me! Take me now! I’ve nothing to live for. I don’t want to live another moment.”

                The first wave of planes passed over.

                Josie stretched up her arms to the sky as the second wave approached. A loud boom sounded at the docks followed by the red glow of fire.

                “Look at me, you silly sods,” Josie screamed. “Look at me. Don’t you think a bomb is worth wasting on me? Finish me off now.” She danced around in frustration.  Then there was a whooshing sound, a deafening explosion, a sheet of flame. Josie felt the intensity of the blast. The air was sucked from her lungs and she was blown backwards. As she tried to stagger to her feet the air filled with dust and swirling debris. She put her hand up to her mouth, trying to breathe, trying to find where her house was. So close. It had been so close. Half a street away and she would have been out of her misery.

                Then she remembered Stan, Shirley and Fred at the pub. How close had they been? Other people had emerged from their houses and were making their way toward the glow of the fire. She could already hear the clanging of a fire-engine bell. She hadn’t gone far before she realized: the pub on the corner was no more.

Does Stan survive by a quirk of fate? What lies ahead for Josie? You'll have to wait until I've written it.

And the book does have a title but I am not supposed to share it with you yet.

So what do you think? Are you fed up with WWII books? Can the world use any more?