Fiction

The Three Bears

The Three Bears is a new novel from Derec Jones, published by Opening Chapter and is available as a paperback book through the usual channels, or direct from the publisher - Opening Chapter.

For a limited time The Three Bears is available as a free download - here!

Extract from The Three Bears

There’s Daddy Bear, Mammy Bear and Baby Bear and they’re my friends. We go across to the grassy bit and play touch. So there I am playing touch with the three bears and according to the rules of the game if you get tired you are allowed to stop and say ‘Release’. The other players have to let you rest for say ten seconds; then you’re fair game again. When you’re playing the game if the one who’s ‘on it’ touches you, you become the one who’s ‘on it’

So, I stop and say ‘Release’, and I’m laughing and out of breath. And I think they’re laughing too. Then Daddy Bear comes up to me and I hold my hand out to him and say ‘Release’ again; I’m still laughing. He isn’t smiling; he’s got these huge sharp teeth and his eyes are narrow and mean. He says ‘There’s no release in this game boy.’

-------

The Walker

The Walker and Other Stories is a new collection of short stories available from Opening Chapter. The stories cover a wide range of subjects in an exciting mix of styles.  Find out what The Richest Man in the World really wants and join The Walker on a hike across the town centre as he puts the world to rights. The book is available through the usual channels, or direct from the publisher - Opening Chapter.

For a limited time The Walker is available as a free download - here!


Dead Flowers - a story from the Walker

Twenty-seven people were killed or injured when the bomb exploded. I happened to be travelling past on the bus, but I was only shaken up a little.

I went to help of course; I am a doctor after all. I attended to three of the victims. Mair died on the spot and Alice lost a leg, but it was Tom who got my sympathy. I suppose it was because I identified with him more than I did with the others. He was a man, we were about the same age and more significantly, it had been twenty-seven years for me too.

Tom whispered: “Twenty-seven years married, I thought I’d seen it all.” He laughed.
I laughed with him, there’s not much else you can do in a situation like that. He wasn’t seriously hurt in a physical way, but I could see the damage just as clearly as if he was. I knew the signs. Read More . . .

-------

Works in Progress:

From the Backfields
a novel
Betty Fish, the widow of a successful businessman is murdered in her own living-room in her house on the edge of the Backfields estate.

It is 1963; a gang of boys, including Mick Matthews, witness the murder; but it is never solved . . .

until, decades later, Mick returns to the estate and stirs it all up again . . .

Skin and Bones
a novel
Skin is a cab driver, his brother Bones is a detective. They hate each other and even though they both work in the same town they succeed in keeping their lives separate.

Tragic events conspire to destroy this fragile truce and the brothers find themselves embroiled in a terrifying helter-skelter ride through the seedy and dangerous side of life in the town.

menu

tidy links