Please help us welcome Jan Selbourne to the blog this week. Jan is here to share her historical romance, The Proposition with us. Welcome, Jan! We are all excited to hear more about The Proposition!
Guest Post from Jan Selbourne:
In 1915, my grandfather and his brother enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces and set sail for what so many believed would be the adventure of a lifetime. Teach the Germans a lesson and be home by Christmas. For the next three years they were involved in horrific battles on the Western Front – Amiens, Fromelles and Villiers Bretonneux to name a few. Both came home but were never the same again.
In 2015 I joined an Anzacs on the Western Front tour, visiting those battlefields where my grandfather and his brother fought. To see the final resting places of thousands of young men who never came home was very humbling. Particularly sad was the inscription on so many headstones “Known Only to God”. When our guide told us the huge numbers of deaths in each battle, it brought home the utter waste of that war and how awful the task would have been identifying and recording deaths and injuries on their service records. That made me wonder if it was possible for a soldier to swap identity discs with another who had been killed in battle. In those days, war service records were hand-written with basic personal details – name, address, marital status, religion, date of birth, nationality, height, weight and colouring. Curiosity grew to a real need to know because I was sure it would have happened – a soldier suffering shock or desperate to make a new life somewhere else. As a historical fiction author, I believe we must research the era of our story to provide an authentic as possible background, so I contacted London’s Imperial War Museum and the Australian War Memorial asking that question – were discs stolen or swapped. Both replied that it was possible, but the chance of discovery was very real and the penalties very harsh. Neither would confirm it did happen but that was good enough for me to begin my third book, The Proposition.
About The Proposition:
They met on the eve of battle. One enlisted to avoid prison, the other enlisted to avoid the money lenders. On the bloodied fields of France, Harry Connelly collapses beside the corpse of Andrew Conroy. It’s a risk, a hanging offence, it’s his only hope for a future. Harry swaps identity discs. Now Andrew, he’s just another face in post war London until a letter arrives with a proposition, plunging him into a nightmare of murder, family jealousy and greed. To survive he must live this lie without a mistake, until he falls in love with Lacey. To keep her he must tell the truth and face the consequences.
The Proposition Buy Links:
- Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LoTcef
- B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-proposition-jan-selbourne/1128928662?ean=9780228603283
Excerpt from The Proposition:
Harry screamed as excruciating pain tore through his ears, then something slammed into him. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t move. He was dead and the Man he didn’t believe in had despatched him to sinners’ hell. His throat gagged on the dirt stuffed in his gaping mouth. Oh Christ, he was buried alive by the huge weight pressing down on him. His heart thumped with terror. Don’t move, don’t swallow, but his throat gagged again, and instinctively he coughed and spat. Frantic, he gasped and felt cloth brushing against his face. He was lying on his outstretched arms. Hot tears filled his eyes. Very soon this little pocket of air would be gone, and he’ll die a slow death. No, think, think, push your hands forward. What if he was lying upside down?
The earth beneath him shuddered and soil fell onto his head. The weight above him was shifting, just like the underground coal mines before they collapsed. More soil fell on his arms and the blackness above him turned grey. Scrabbling like a crab, he wriggled upwards and howled in agony when a savage pain sliced through his leg. Terrified of falling back, he pushed up further into the light. He had no idea where he was.
Dragging the precious air into his lungs, Harry lifted his head to a silent scene from hell. Black roots of trees pointed to the sky and thick smoke poured from huge craters gouged into the earth. Just like the books on the Apocalypse. It took many seconds before his eyes told his brain the craters were dark red and littered with dozens of bloodied, twisted bodies. Some stared up into nothing, some face down. Harry looked behind him and opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. He’d been pinned beneath bodies submerged in the crater still smoking from an exploded shell. The entrails of one body oozed into the bloodied soil and the other body, oh God. Harry’s stomach heaved, he was covered with blood and guts. Using his arms, he lurched forward, bit by bit over the churned earth towards the blackened tree stumps. The ground shook again making him cringe. In the distance, a thick pall of black smoke was covering the rows of men fighting furiously while shells pounded around them, but it was eerily silent. Like the films at the picture house without the words on the screen.
Harry struggled to his knees and almost fainted from the pain in his leg. Closing his eyes, he fell onto his side, breathing deeply, then reached down to feel the blood oozing through his trouser leg. He rolled onto his stomach.
“Come on, move, move.” He dragged himself forward until he came to a mound, but his strength failed. “Give up,” his mind screamed, then his eyes settled on a water canteen half buried in the earth. Pulling it out, he unscrewed the cap and drank. Spitting the dirt out of his mouth he gulped the water greedily, feeling it flowing through his body and clearing his mind.
“Oh, Jesus.” The mound was a pile of bloodied bodies with sightless eyes. He couldn’t crawl over them. He couldn’t do it. Wheezing with the pain in his leg he inched around them and looked back. The crater was barely thirty feet behind him. He had to stop. Why crawl to the trees? Stay here. Rest.
The throbbing in his leg forced Harry’s eyes open. If he could crawl to the little rise ahead of him, he’d stop there. Using his elbows to propel him, he inched forward and without warning, the earth gave way. Tumbling down the small slope he fell against a solid lump. A lump in uniform whose blank eyes stared directly into his. Jerking back, he clutched his head as excruciating pain tore through his ears. Moaning, he rocked back and forth until it eased and when he opened his eyes bile ran into his mouth.
Insects were taking up residence in the gaping, oozing chest cavity while the neck and chin, mouth and nose were strangely untouched. The scalp had gone. Harry turned away as his stomach heaved again. Move, move. Inching forward, his fingers touched a shiny object in the churned soil. He stared stupidly at the unscathed cigarette case.
“Oh no!” he turned back and leaned closer to read the name on the identity discs. Andrew Conroy, his service number and C E. The poor scared bastard with no family. He wanted to move away but his feeble strength failed. He’d rest here for a while. Holding the cigarette case with both hands, he lay back against the crumbled mound. He was so damn tired.
Voices, shouting. He forced his eyes open and everything tilted sideways. Blinking, he squinted at the hazy moving objects, oh yes, the Red Cross stretcher bearers and wagons were picking up the wounded before the ghastly task of removing the dead. Feeble whimpering cries rose from the churned soil, arms outstretched from the wounded and barely alive pleading to be rescued from this bloodied, silent, wasteland.
Harry looked at the cigarette case. It was a hanging offence. If he did, there would be no turning back. If he didn’t…
He had no strength. Do it, do it. His chest wheezed, and his weak hands fumbled with the effort of pulling Andrew Conroy’s discs over the gaping skull. His arms ached with the mammoth task of removing his. When it was done, he lay beside the body. He wanted to say something, beg him to understand, but he couldn’t find the words.
A lump was in his throat. “Mate, you are in a better place.”
His tears dripped onto the soil beside the body before he crawled away and lifted his arm.
About the Author:
Jan Selbourne grew up in Melbourne, Australia and thanks her parents and teachers for her love of history. Her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, then a working holiday in the UK and Europe brought that history to life. Marriage and career put her writing urge on the backburner, then on the point of retiring she changed direction to work as secretary for a large New South Wales historical society. Now really retired, she has published three historical fiction/romance novels. Jan has two adult children and lives in New South Wales.
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jan.selbourne
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JanSelbourne
I love when a writer brings history to life for me. I can’t wait to read this book!
Jan: Your family history is so unique. I always find the bits and pieces you share with us so interesting. No wonder why you write historical romance, and write it well. I could see what Harry saw; what a scene.
Thank you,
Callie
Jan,
It is a compelling story. I was engrossed. Your writing is descriptive and vivid. I can’t wait to read this.
Thank you for sharing.
Carol
I read this book and loved it. The period detail is so accurate, I felt I was there – sharing the lives of these wounded men and women trying to rebuild their lives.
Great excerpt Jan. I loved the authenticity and attention to detail in your other book, Lies Of Gold. I will put this book on my tbr list.
Thank you so much Callie, a lovely compliment from you, much appreciated.
This book is so very good! I loved the mystery but more, I enjoyed the characters and the sense of history.
Thank you very much Dee – I’m so glad you liked the characters and their time in history.
You have a very unique talent in that your research flows into your setting and characters effortlessly. I so enjoy reading your novels.