KAREN’S KILLER BOOK BENCH: Welcome to Karen’s Killer Book Bench, where readers can discover talented new authors and take a peek inside their wonderful books. This is not an age-filtered site, so all book peeks are PG-13 or better. Come back and visit often. Happy reading!

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GIRL WITHOUT A VOICE
Psychological Thriller
BY SANDRA J. PAUL

BLURB

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GIRL WITHOUT A VOICE
Psychological Thriller
BY SANDRA J. PAUL

Note from the author: I chose to share the beginning of my book to give you a glimpse into the life of the main character, Alice. Raised in isolation by her eccentric parents, she had little sense of what real life was until she reached adulthood.

Set in 1980s America, the story captures the feel of the era. The first part takes place entirely in one house; the second follows Alice on a journey across the country.

More info about The Girl Without a Voice can be found here: https://daturabooks.com/product/the-girl-without-a-voice/

Happy reading,

Sandra J. Paul

@authorsandrajpaul

EXCERPT

I’m dying.”

Dad dropped his travel bag and briefcase to the floor and sat down on his favorite kitchen stool, barely looking at us as he spoke.

“Give me a cup of coffee.”

Mom and I shared a glance before she walked calmly to the coffee machine that she had gotten just the other day and started a fresh brew. Soon, the scent of coffee filled the kitchen, providing us with some sense of normalcy in a world that had suddenly changed.

Mom set a mug down in front of him and filled it to the brim, spilling a bit over the side onto his hand. He hardly noticed it. He drank the scorching-hot coffee as if it were a cold milkshake. Perhaps dying did that to a person. Maybe he didn’t feel anything anymore.

“How come?” Mom asked, emotionless.

“How do you think?”

“The cancer.”

She stated it as fact, revealing in that very moment that she had known that he’d been sick. I had noticed the gray pallor of his skin before but never really thought about it. I didn’t know what sick people looked like.

“Yeah. The cancer.”

“How long?”

“Not long.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to have to make some arrangements. I need to call the office first.”

“You mean they don’t know yet?”

“Nope.”

Dad finished his coffee and got up, not even looking at me or Mom as he walked over to the phone hanging on the wall. He furiously tapped the office’s number, dragging the long cord of the phone with him as he stepped into the hallway to speak to whoever it was that he needed to talk to.

Mom looked at me. I looked at her. I sighed and scratched an old scar on my wrist that I’d had for as long as I could remember. Was I supposed to do something now? Cry? Whimper? Jot down how sad I was in my journal?

But I wasn’t. I was devoid of any feelings, and I knew that it wasn’t normal. He was my dad, and he was dying, and I felt absolutely nothing.

*****

I’ve never lived a normal life, at least not in comparison to all those people in all those books I’ve read over the years. Or if I compare myself to the characters in those soaps I secretly watch when mom runs off to the grocery store. I manage to catch about one episode and a half while anxiously peeking out the window before she returns, only really half-enjoying what I’m watching.

She’s always fast. Her grocery store trips take no more than an hour, but it’s enough for me to sneak a glimpse of the real world out there, no matter how twisted television’s version of reality may be. I like it better when she goes out for other things, like appliances, clothing, the hardware store. That takes more time, but it’s also more unpredictable. I linger behind the heavy drapes while I sit in her rocking chair, ready to fly out of the seat as soon as I hear her old, battered car roll up the driveway. That thing makes so much noise you can hear it from a mile away. By the time she’s inside the house, I’m already upstairs in my favorite reading chair, apparently lost in whatever world it is I’m reading about.

Everything I know of life comes from books, and only the ones Dad – and occasionally, Mom – gives me. I’m not allowed to choose my own. So I end up with an odd mixture of romance novels, children’s books, and thrillers. The latter are my favorite; I love reading about murder mysteries and how to solve them. Murder on the Orient Express, Murder on the Nile, the Endless Night… or stories about detectives in New York who solve crimes.

My books are my pride and joy. I have titles that are over seventy years old, like the one about Gulliver, who traveled to the strangest countries and returned with the oddest tales about tall and small people.

And all of my books are used, often torn and tattered. The oldest ones have notes in them, written in handwriting I can’t really read. I’ve kept them in my bedroom for as long as I can remember, and I’ve read them all multiple times.

Reading those books has shaped my vision of what life out there must be like. I sometimes imagine those huge cities with millions of people, all cooped up together in small apartments, sharing the crowded but dangerous streets.

I also dream of places like London or Paris, where, according to my books, life is so wonderful that everyone wants to live there. I have a few picture books with images of the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, and I know what Tower Bridge looks like. I’ve also seen pictures of the Twin Towers in New York, and the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s all so perfect that I yearn to go there some day and see it for myself.

But I am not allowed to. My home is this house, with its four bedrooms, its huge basement, and the dusty, dark attic I never enter because it gives me nightmares. Kids should never be in attics anyhow. They’re dangerous places, but then so are cold and damp basements. I just stick to the ground floor, with its old kitchen and unpleasant living room, where my mom usually hangs out.

About Author Sandra J. Paul..

Links to Sandra’s websites, blogs, books, #ad, etc.:

Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/45pHLfV

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/3G10HqM

https://daturabooks.com/product/the-girl-without-a-voice/

@authorsandrajpaul

Happy Reading!