Blackout: The Dark side of the Valleys

by Tracy Williams

Wales versus England. Ambition versus Apathy. Technology versus Mother Nature... Tonight’s the night; ready for a fight? Two generations after the mines closed down in the South Wales Valleys, a metaphorical blackout seems to have infiltrated a vast part of its mentality. Life has truly turned toxic in the valleys but no one seems to have noticed except one factory worker; a wild Welsh woman named Tessa. From spending her life making clocks and drinking by night ‘up the Angel’ (the local pub-cum-procreation-parlour) Tessa finds herself in a totally different Wales when she is caught singing the Welsh National Anthem on a mountain top by a snobbish, English, wealthy, ex-public schoolboy who has come from London in order to make a pop music album so that he can pursue the only ambition worth having in contemporary society; fame. Armed with state-of-the art technology, Sam recruits Tessa as his backing singer; a label Tessa is determined to supersede. A battle of wills ensues in Sam’s country cottage until one night a real blackout changes everything. In a world overwhelmed by technology, the massive power cut presents the two celebrity-obsessed performers, whose very existence hides a dark secret, with the chance to experience life free from machinery, to become human and fall in love.

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010