A Surprising End of Chapter

I was reading a book called Love Under the Golden Sun recently. A book about bushrangers set in 1877 western New South Wales. It had it all, romance, intrigue, crime, mystery and criminals galore causing havoc in a small town. Bushrangers were the Aussie equivalent of British highwaymen, shouting ‘Bail up!’ instead of ‘Stand and Deliver’. The robbed banks and stagecoaches, Ned Kelly being quite famous in Aussie history.

In this book, the heroine was a schoolteacher who was an accomplished horsewoman as well. Thing is, I was about four fifths of the way through when I came across an event that shocked me. The heroine was being forced into a marriage by the Big Bad.

“Golly!” I said to myself. (The actual expression may have been a tad more vocal but this is a family site so I don’t use swear words in it). “What a brilliant end of a chapter. I never saw that coming.”

The problem was that I should have seen the twist coming. I wrote the blinking story 7 years ago. Fair enough that I’d written another 13 books after this but even so, I should have remembered. I’m revising this book for publication next year and rereading the original as I go along revising it is the way I do things. I do love the plot twist and will keep it in my new version, “The Maid and Midnight – A Bushranger Tale”.

I learned two things that day. One I was a brilliant writer and two, my memory ain’t what it used to be. Concentration is going but writing is my mental lifeline still.

Enough said. Hopefully readers will enjoy my fanciful writing too. Please signup to my WordPress page of Follow my Facebook page.

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