Living Life Backwards

by Peter Wells

Having spent his childhood in a barren emotional wasteland
overseen by a father who valued order above feeling, Bill finally meets a woman who leads him to a place he can call home. Arriving in the small coastal town in England with his new wife, he finds that he is quickly assimilated into her community and extended family. With his somewhat murky past behind him, he forges a new life within a solid, caring community and discovers what being valued means. As it happens, his wife appears to be overly interested in “organizing” everything and everyone around her, including her young cousin who is the apple of her father’s eye.

Within the garden of Eden Bill knows he can show no interest in this apple called Misty. He knows the price of doing so, and the value of what he now enjoys. Will that be enough to protect him from desire? Luck is with him: she has no interest in him. But what if circumstances where to change and she looked at her world and him with new eyes. Would he cling to common sense?

With the hand of a surgeon, Peter Wells gently probes the thoughts of the mundane to seek those corners that still long for adventure. Those bits and pieces of each of us that gaze out on the world and find something to settle on and wonder… Tenderly touching the wounded, lonely parts of his characters’ hearts, Peter gently leads them to a destiny they never could have imagined on their own.

When an Obsession knocks on the doors of your Paradise, should they remain closed?

Visit Peter’s blog and get a taste of this wonderful and refreshing talent at www.countingducks.wordpress.com

188 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2014

About the author

Peter Wells, who has lived by the maxim,” If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same” has had a life, working in the corporate, financial and self-employed worlds, and in his spare time has enjoyed adventures on a number of continents and sailing over several seas. His writing is inspired by his working and travelling life, and the people he has met through them. He now lives just south of London and is the proud father of three daughters

Reviews

[Victoria Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

As published on my blog, Victoria's Reading Alcove

After three years of blogging success, Peter has published his first novel. And what a novel it is. If you spend time on Peter’s blog, Counting Ducks (and I highly recommend you do) you will find a delightful mix of humor, serious observation on the plights of people and humanity in general, and a craftsman’s skill at the development and illumination of character.

In Living Life Backwards Peter shows a unique aptitude for storytelling. He creates characters that you know, or will instantly recognize the next time you are out and about. Perhaps they will cause you to chuckle or even blush because of some quirk or trait a little too close to your own. This is something that I find is a lost art in much of current literature, creating characters the reader cares about. When you grow to know these people they have lives outside of the novel. You are always expecting to see them just around the next corner.

With these well developed tools, Peter weaves a story that every reader can relate to. Maybe not the same circumstances, but certainly the logic, emotions, and struggles we each face in our lives. What do you do when you have reached a point in your life when things are somewhat balanced, when you know what is expected of you, when you know deep down that this is at least what you thought you wanted, and suddenly the brass ring is placed within your reach? When that moment comes, do you decide to remain safe, and maybe even just a touch miserable? Or do you reach for paradise, perhaps knowing perhaps not, that paradise may not be all it is cracked up to be.

I highly recommend this read. You will come away having enjoyed a touch of humor, some entertainment, and quite a bit to think upon!

[Tina Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Temptation in Paradise

This insightful novel by Peter Wells is full of quirky, real life characters, to whom there is certainly a lot more than meets the eye! The plot is ripe with hidden desire and obsession and also deception and temptation. It is a beautifully written, engrossing and thought provoking read.

In Living Life Backwards, Bill, a long suffering married man, has an obsession with his wife’s younger cousin Misty, an obsession which he does not act on and does his utmost to conceal, for fear that it will destroy all he holds dear. Bill’s back story is one of a singularly loveless upbringing from his widowed father and he is adept at hiding his feelings. At the start of the novel he is already married to Katie, a woman who in stark contrast is gregarious and highly strung.

The couple moved to to be near to Katie’s family and there Bill becomes a pillar of the community. Passion and intimacy are lacking in their marriage and Katie views Bill as reserved and unexciting. However, Bill is mindful that he has at last found acceptance amongst his peers and the love and respect of his wife’s family, who view him as solid, dependable and honest. The following quotation, found early on in the novel, is revealing:

“I kept my dreams to myself and my actions to a minimum. I discovered having a reputation for being boring has advantages………. I used the time provided by her (referring to his wife) absences to live a life of imagination.”

The only chink in his armour is his long standing and secret obsession with Misty, Katie’s younger cousin. He has never acknowledged this attraction to anyone, other than himself, and does his utmost to conceal it and keep it in check. It is an obsession which does not go away and circumstances conspire in a way that Bill becomes tempted as never before………….

Is Misty aware of Bill’s obsession and is she as innocent as she appears? Also how will Bill react? Will he sacrifice all that he holds dear for this younger woman? Once he tastes forbidden fruit there will be no going back and he will have to face the repercussions.

For much of the novel Misty is as much an enigma to the reader as she is to Bill. Her persona is of a beautiful, innocent ice maiden, who appears to effortlessly rebuff the carnal advances of men. Her actions are explained in part by her background and we do get to find out more about her as the plot reaches its denouement – suffice to say that I was as surprised as Bill with the plot developments and her character development! There are many key supporting characters, which include Katie’s parents and also Misty’s. However, the characters of Bernard and Derek and their actions are pivotal to the plot and provide a counter plot in their own right.

The novel has so many different themes and layers. Prima facie it is a romance where the hero is tempted by a younger woman, who happens to be related to his wife, and is in a moral dilemma on how to act when circumstances conspire to bring them together. However, it is far more than this and to me illustrates how we can sometimes become trapped in a certain way of acting by circumstance or individuals and the power we allow them to hold over us. It also illustrates how reality can be manipulated by others.

The novel is narrated in the first person, from the POV of Bill. It is very readable and I felt as if I was in Bill’s head. It delves deep into the psyche of its characters and is not devoid of gentle humour, often self-depreciating and contains moments which blend sadness and hilarity. It is immensely quotable and contains many memorable one liners, an aspect that applies to all Peter’s work.

I recommend this to readers who enjoy a realistic, yet quirky, character driven contemporary romance that focuses on inner turmoil and transformation. A copy of the novel was given to me by the author for the purpose of a fair and honest review.

[Terry Barca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love characters.
I love writing them and I love reading about them.
So imagine my great delight when I discovered that Peter Wells was having a book published [Living Life Backwards].
Peter is the king of character. As we all know, average writers are obsessed with plot but really good writers know how to get us inside their characters.
I really enjoyed this book, but you had probably worked that out by now.
The book is filled with rich characters who move though a landscape that only Peter could construct.
Along with a lot of other people, I have been following Peter’s short stories on his Wordpress blog. Good short story writers tend to make excellent novelists, and Peter proves the rule. If you like books where stuff explodes and you forget about it moments after you put it down then this is not the book for you. On the other hand if you enjoy getting to know characters who are more than one dimensional, then you are headed for a rich and rewarding experience.
‘Living Life Backwards’, by Peter Wells

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Renaissance of Literary Fiction: “Living Life Backwards,” by Peter Wells

At last: a first-person-singular point-of-view narrative with the strength of voice, command of language and depth of understanding to successfully pull off generous swaths of ruminative paragraphs. Such “old fashioned” writing is not to everyone’s taste, and it’s not the only style of literary fiction, but this reader was pleased to be treated to a modern incarnation of the masters (think: Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat,” or Siegfried Sassoon’s “Sherston’s Progress”).

There are weaknesses. More diligent attention to hands-on editing would have caught a dozen or so spelling or usage errors, and application of a hyphenation utility would have eliminated unsightly, distracting gaps in many sentences. The front cover art, apparently rendered in smudged pastels, is bright and intriguing, although amateurish in execution, and font size, style and color make the back cover blurb difficult to read. The enigmatic chapter heading vignette is not explained: perhaps as a compliment to the reader’s intelligence, permitting one to ponder what one knows about seagulls and clam shells.

Dialogue and other action come in scanty clumps, which weakens character development. It’s asking much of the reader, to accept the claims the narrator makes about other characters, but the author’s sense of humor and his insight into the human condition partially ameliorate this problem, and he does make an effort to attribute a mix of positive and negative traits to everyone.

The author finds it impossible to prevent the point of view from wandering: a common temptation when the innate ignorance of a first-person narrator seems to hinder plot development, and the writer desires to reveal what another character is thinking, in more detail than would be possible if he relied on what that character could say or do during the scene.

Additionally, the reader must absorb large doses of back-story data-dumping about characters and events that the first-person narrator cannot reasonably be believed to have been privy to, at the time that those things happened. Such revelations are the privilege of an omniscient narrator, but omniscience is not a feature of the first-person point-of-view: as much as “I” may wish to be a fly on the wall, or to know what on Earth is going on inside someone’s head, “I” can’t read minds, nor teleport across the world (not in contemporary realistic fiction).

Physical intimacy is treated tastefully, and four-letter words are kept to a minimum. Ne’er-do-wells fade into obscurity despite attempts to give them their just deserts, and towards the end, a word is emphasized that suggests a convenient (albeit unstated) reason for a satisfactory resolution after the “black moment.” Repetitive foreshadowing abounds, but curiosity about exactly how loose ends get tied up was enough to keep this reader engaged.

Those who are familiar with Peter Wells’s flash fiction and memoir-esque musings at his blog, will like seeing him apply his style to this longer format. This reader looks forward to enjoying more of what Mr. Wells can write.

(I purchased this book and then decided to review it.)

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author Peter Wells has a wonderful facility with language and a keen imagination. He can take the ordinary and make it into something extraordinary. Such is what he does with the life and times of Bill, a most unreliable narrator who seems determined to convince the reader that he really meant no harm at all. Bill is in a loveless but convenient marriage and has found a comforting and comfortable living in his wife's village. It is near idyllic except that Bill is rather smitten with his wife's cousin Misty, and his wife tends to be rather reckless with the needs of others. Events ensue that disrupt the whole family, even the village, and Bill presents himself as the innocent spectator. But is he? Writing in omniscient first-person, Mr. Wells uses a technique that lures the reader in and pulls the reader through the mucky mess that threatens to overwhelm Bill’s life.

I’ve given a 4-star rating because while I did like the novel, especially the conceit, I do think it could have been less repetitious and better edited. The consistency of the typos suggest that perhaps an automated spell-checker was used in lieu of a living, breathing proofreader. But Mr. Wells is a wonderful storyteller, with an attention to detail that makes you feel you are “there” with the characters as you read. I also appreciate that this story did not end as I thought it might have. Rather, there’s interesting twists in how each character’s life turns around (or upside-down) that leave the reader somewhat surprised and perhaps even relieved.