The 4th book in the Dark and the White series was published late last night, on this very special 4 day weekend. Hi America, we should do this more often.
I digress. This time around the language got a bit strong, or colorful, or shameful depending on how terribly polite you are, and whether or not you have ever accidentally touched a hot stove top.

Still digressing.

Anyway, here's a bit of it

“Heavens, but I would wrestle a shark for a nice salty pound of bacon.”
Diedre’s husband watching eye landed ruefully on him, “Per chance you could unearth some of the vast fortune buried around the hut, or secreted in the walls, take it to the mainland and barter for something nice to eat?”
Corben rubbed a hand over his sweat damp face, “It is just as I said, my dear, the King’s customs agents have been sniffing around like flies on a corpse. They know we can’t pay our taxes and now they suspect we haven’t bothered trying. They think we have more than we do, and what with Jocky getting himself nabbed…!”
“We have more than their bloody King does!” Diedre snapped. “Everybody on this island has been ferreting away treasures they drag from the ocean floor, or wash up on the beach. We’ve been at it for many a long year. And everything we get we hide it. Enough is enough already. Last night I had to rebury a gem the size of my fist because I stubbed my toe on it in the night!”
“It’s the principle,” he rolled his eyes, wincing at the thought of what he just did. His wife only had one eye functioning properly, so rolling them in front of her was an additional slight. The arms crossed her chest and the one foot tapped slightly on the bare floor.
“What principle?”
Corben looked at his hands while he spoke, knowing well her fury and the sound of her speaking through gnashed teeth “Tax this, tax that! We live on the arse end of nowhere and they do precious little for us, so we do for our own. They’re not entitled to come here harassing us for a share just so they can spend it on luxuries for themselves.”
“And how do we benefit, husband?” with every perceived bit of injustice, Diedre’s temper cranked up to another level “The King and his cronies might have luxuries and a royal arse wiper if the stories are true, but we’ve got everything and nothing at the same time. I wanted some curtains to hang in the windows for the summer. You told me the King was instituting a curtain tax! I wanted some perfume for when we go to the dance halls. You told me to go roll around in the sea!”
“We live by the sea,” he protested meekly “Everything smells like it anyway.”
“Not the bloody point, sunshine of my life. Either you buy your lovely wife something nice or you’ll wake up in the morn with something missing!”
“If we display wealth they can sniff it out, those customs vultures,” he felt the confidence of justice blowing a wind at his back as he stood, towering over his diminutive wife. “We had a town meeting about it, the MacQuarrie private wealth act. Do you mind of it? No taxation without representation!”
“In the pub? After hours? During the great night of the no women allowed, lock in?”
“That’s the one!” he bellowed “Heck, imagine the time. Must dash!” He slapped a wet kiss on his beloved’s cheek, snapped his checkered bonnet up on the way out the door and took off running for his fishing boat docked by the shore. As he ran, thoughts and possibilities whipped around in his head: customs inspector’s monthly visit now two days overdue, light house now broken and how long before someone spotted it, the darling wife was acting up, and how did I end up in this mess? One word came crashing through the mix: MacQuarrie!
He was there, when Corben arrived half out of breath at the dock, his best friend and fishing partner was lounging by the side of the boat chewing on a stem of grass “What keptcha?” He asked nonchalantly staring out at the waves tumbling onto the shore. Corben was taken back at the vision of peace, how MacQuarrie could stand in the eye of the storm and chew grass like it didn’t matter.
“It’s happening,” Corben shook his head in dismay.
“The Falcon has heard the falconer?”
Corben smacked his head loudly with his hand “You know I hate the stupid codes! Can we not just say the wifies are wanting to spend money? Look about! There’s nobody here but us.”
“Oh, Corbs, my wayward son. You’re a decent fellow, I’ll give you that. But you haven’t a clue about life, have you pal?” His friend stood there looking annoyed, so he went on anyway “First off, a wife can hear her man talking from almost a hundred yards away.”
“Balls,” Corben scoffed.
“It’s true,” MacQuarrie shot back. “Did you not pay attention in school when they were talking about the natural world?”
Corben mulled the thought of what lesson he might be talking about, remembering their days at school as mostly being about getting into trouble and ogling the girls.
“The social evolution of gender based society,” MacQuarrie snapped his fingers to get his friend’s attention. “Mind when we were wee boys, we used to hook sea weed on a stick and chase the lassies with it?”
Corben chuckled quietly at the memory of it. “We told them it was whale shit and whoever got it on them would have ten years of getting called the clatty ghoul.”
“That’s right, Isabel Lords still gets called that sometimes, and we’re in our thirties now.” MacQuarrie paused to snicker. “But that’s how it works, eh. See, the women folk were being coddled by their fathers as wee dainty things too pretty to play in the muck. They got wee dollies made for them so they could learn to be good mothers. They learned to love and care for things and pay special attention to the needs of everything about them.”
“While we learned to be a bunch of mad fuckers?”
“That’s right Corbs. So, when someone tells you a woman can hear the voice of her man a league away, don’t doubt it mate. That’s nature.”