Today I'm welcoming Josephine Greenland and her book - Embers - to my blog as part of the blog tour hosted by The Coffee Pot Book Club (founded by Mary Anne Yarde)
I'm delighted to share an excerpt with you all, but as always I will introduce the book.
Embers
Two
siblings, one crime. One long-buried secret.
17-year-old
Ellen never wanted a holiday. What is there to do in a mining town in
the northernmost corner of the country, with no one but her
brother Simon – a boy with Asperger’s and obsessed with detective
stories – for company?
Nothing,
until they stumble upon a horrifying crime scene that brings them
into a generations-long conflict between the townspeople and the
native Sami. When the police dismiss Simon’s findings, he decides
to track down the perpetrator himself. Ellen
reluctantly helps, drawn in by a link between the crime and
the siblings’ own past. What started off as a tedious holiday soon
escalates into a dangerous journey through hatred, lies and
self-discovery that makes Ellen question not only the relationship to
her parents, but also her own identity.
Publication Date: 4th
March 2021
Publisher: Unbound
Page Length: 336 pages
Genre: Young Adult /
Crime / Mystery
You can purchase a copy of the book via -
Amazon
UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Embers-Josephine-Greenland-ebook/dp/B08PDY4LKV
Amazon
US:
https://www.amazon.com/Embers-Josephine-Greenland-ebook/dp/B08PDY4LKV
Waterstones:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/embers/josephine-greenland/9781789651034
UK
Bookshop:
https://uk.bookshop.org/books/embers-9781789651034/9781789651034
Now for the excerpt -
‘Just
a bit further, please!’
Ellen
wanted to yank her brother off his bike. They’d been cycling around
Svartjokk all day, criss-crossing through the town centre, darting
along the river and through the park. Now, on Simon’s insistence,
they were rushing along the country road out of the town, the dense
pine forest surrounding them on both sides. Her top was plastered
against her skin, her yellow hair sticky and damp with sweat under
the helmet, and her legs ached from the exercise. The day was so
bright it hurt her eyes merely looking straight ahead.
‘Ten
minutes,’ she called. ‘Then we must go back.’
Simon
nodded and swerved off the main road, heading down the forest track.
Ellen lingered by the turn-off, taking the chance to catch her
breath. The path, a two-furrow track probably used by tractors,
forged dead straight through the pines. She’d be able to keep an
eye on her brother from here.
Exactly
what it was about this place that excited him so much she struggled
to see. The town was like the palm of one’s hand, after ten minutes
you could navigate it with your eyes closed. It was a transit point,
a place you passed through on the way to somewhere else.
There
will be plenty to see there, Ellen! Mum had told her. The mining
museum, the local history, the Sami…
So
far, the mining museum was closed. The history museum showed the same
kind of How-did-people-live-in-the-past exhibitions with model
villages, hunters and stuffed animals that you could see in any town.
The Sami, well they’d be with the reindeer in the forest and on the
moors. Or did Mum really think they would stand by the station in
their traditional clothes, waving at the tourists getting off the
train?
She’d
booked the siblings in at the Hostel Polaris beside the train station
for five nights. Five nights of counting
trees
and iron ore mines. Perhaps Simon was excited now, on day one, but
once the novelty of this place wore off…
Ellen
stopped her thoughts. Simon had got off his bike and was kneeling on
the ground at the edge of the track.
Had
he seen something? An animal, an insect?
‘Simon,
your ten minutes are up!’
That
wasn’t true. Looking at her watch, she guessed five or six minutes
had gone, and if Simon had heard her, he would tell her so. But what
she needed now was his attention and she did not care if her
inaccuracy irked him.
‘Come
on, we need to get back in time for the tour!’ She biked over to
him and said his name again, louder. Still, he didn’t react. In the
sun, auburn tones flashed in his straight, sandy hair. She walked up
and peered over his back.
There
was a dark spot on the ground.
‘What
is that?’ She bent down beside him. Up close, she saw the mark was
reddish brown. When she sniffed it, it smelled metallic, like copper.
‘Blood?’
The word left her lips before she could rein it in. She looked around
her. Did an animal get injured on the
road? There were no other spots on the ground. The pine trees formed
a thick wall on either side of the path and peering through them she
saw only darkness.
‘A
car has been here,’ Simon said, his voice flat. ‘The grass lining
the track is flattened. The car must have reversed and headed back to
the road.’
He
pointed past her, further down the track. There was a puddle of shiny
liquid beneath an overhanging spruce branch,
rainbow colours dancing on its surface. Oil.
‘Why
would anyone drive a car down here?’ Ellen said. ‘There’s loads
of roots and stones and stuff.’
‘It
must be a very old car to drip oil like that,’ Simon said. ‘And
look here.’ He pointed at the blueberry bushes in front of them.
‘There’s blood drops on the leaves.’
There
was a dark mark, like a squished berry, staining one of the leaves.
Another one further along. And there, a strip of plastic.
‘Someone’s
carried something into the forest, and the plastic bag ripped. Some
of the sprigs are broken.’ Simon squinted.
‘I think I can see a clearing over there.’
‘Simon,
this isn’t the time for playing detective…’
Simon
didn’t listen. His narrow, fox-like face, already red from all the
hours in the sun, was fixed on a distant point beyond the trees. He
stepped off the track into the underbrush.
‘Wait!’
Her
brother stopped. He folded his arms.
Ellen
licked her lips. A strange feeling grew inside her, a pulse within
her neck, as if she had been stung. She brought a hand to the spot.
‘What if…’
What
if what? her brother’s
grey eyes said. Hadn’t she been complaining about how dull
Svartjokk was?
She
looked back from where they’d come. The road was a silver line
between the trees.
It
wasn’t more than twenty minutes back to the town.
‘OK,
then,’ she said. ‘But just a quick look, all right?’
Simon
nodded and continued. Ellen prodded her neck carefully. The skin was
smooth. No tenderness, no swellings from a sting. Yet the pulse was
still there, a heartbeat in her spinal cord.
She
shook her head. Perhaps it was just the heat. She stepped off the
track and followed her brother, blueberry sprigs snapping under her
feet.
It
wasn’t long before the stench reached her nostrils. Rot. Decay.
She
covered her nose and mouth. A fly buzzed by her ear and she hit at it
with her free hand. The clearing was close. Light filtered through
the trees, painting yellow tracks in the moss.
Simon
was stepping into the opening. Didn’t he smell it?
She
quickened her pace. When she reached the light, she froze.
Animal
heads were lying in a circle in the glade. Reindeer heads.
They
were larger than she’d imagined, maybe twice the size of her own
head. They stared at Ellen with their glassy eyes. A fly wandered
across a pink tongue hanging from a gaping mouth. She saw teeth, flat
and broad, like grey stones protruding from the pale pink gum.
Grinning at her.
The
animals’ antlers had been cut off and laid in a cross. At the
centre of the cross was a large, arrow-shaped rock.
Simon
had stepped past the heads into the circle. He turned around, taking
in the scene, muttering to himself.
Ellen
blinked and rubbed her eyes. Scanned the trees and the shadows
circling the glade.
Who
would do this?
She
stumbled forward, failed to spot a root lurking in the undergrowth
and fell face forward. Pine needles and dirt in her mouth. She spat
them out, wiped her lips, stood up.
Simon
was still pacing inside the circle. He’d covered his nose and mouth
with his shirt, but he showed no other sign of being affected by the
smell. As she watched, he bent down and ran a hand along one of the
antlers, fingers curling over the tip. He continued along the line,
until he disappeared behind the stone.
‘Simon!’
Ellen called through her fingers. ‘Don’t touch them! We have to
call the police.’ She took a few steps forward, and then it hit
her: the death, the stench, the heads. Her stomach heaved
dangerously. ‘Simon!’ She fumbled for her phone.
Her
brother appeared around the corner of the rock. He bent down by one
of the heads, then picked something from
the neck wound and crossed the glade towards her.
‘Look,
Ellen,’ he said, holding out his hand.
In
his palm was a fly.
‘Simon!’
She reeled back. ‘The bacteria!’
‘It’s
strange,’ he said, voice level. ‘All of the flies inside the neck
wounds are dead.’
She
took a step back. ‘We need to call the police,’ she said again.
‘I’m not doing it here.’
‘But
I need to investigate.’
‘You
can investigate when the police come. Please, Simon. We have to get
out of here.’
She
grabbed his hand, ignoring his protests, tugging harder when he
struggled against her grip. He wasn’t getting out of her sight this
time. Their strides broke into a jog, the jog into a run. When they
reached the track, she collapsed by the bikes and her stomach emptied
itself. She rolled over onto her back, the taste of bile in her
mouth, legs limp as if they’d never be able to walk again, and
stared at the distant strip of sky, a blue bridge through the sea of
pines.
There
was no birdsong, no chirping or tapping. No wind.
From
the road a car swished by.
That
was all the sound there was.
Josephine Greenland
Josephine
is a Swedish-British writer from Sweden, currently working as an
English teacher in Edinburgh. She has a BA in English from the
University of Exeter, and an MA in Creative Writing from the
University of Birmingham. She started writing novels at the age of
nine, but only began writing seriously in English while at
university, for her first creative writing course (2015). Since then,
she’s had 14 short stories published, won two competitions and been
shortlisted twice. Embers is her first novel, inspired by her travels
in northern Sweden with her brother, and was her dissertation project
for her MA. When not writing, she enjoys playing music, jogging,
hiking, and discussing literature with her cat.
You can connect with the author via these platforms -
Website:
https://www.josephinegreenland.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/josephinegreenlandwriter
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/greenland_jm
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/jm.greenland/?hl=en
You can also learn more about the book and the author by visiting the other blogs on this tour.
That's it for now.
Till the next time.
Take care Zoe.
