Book one - The Aberration Series of short stories
Short Story, Crime thriller & Romantic suspense
Date Published: 1st July 2020
Publisher: Happy London Press
I am a Gigolo
He’s gorgeous, cool and slick. Small wonder those wealthy American dames are falling over themselves to taste his flirtatious skills, just where it counts. Seduction is the name of his game, and he knows how to keep
a secret. Trouble is, our Gigolo is also a mischief maker, a man with a mission - to make a killing. So he’s got a secret of his own. But, can he keep it that way?
Deliciously sensual, with a touch macabre, the opening tale, I am a gigolo contains ten startlingly original and provocative short stories, that you’ll need to be brave to read at bedtime.
Guest Post:
About the Author
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Andrew Segal
a. You didn't know I am a full time insolvency practitioner.
b. I write in every spare moment I have.
c. I once ran a computer dating agency, ( Dial-a-Date), when the whole idea was in its infancy.
d. In order to advertise in the Jewish Chronicle I needed to get a reference from a rabbi. I was the first agency of its type to achieve that.
e. Despite the emphasis on horror, last year, against the odds, I had three gentle short stories published, through my publishers, Happy Lonfdon Press, in The Lady Magazine, an elegant magazine for, in old fashioned terms, 'Ladies who Lunch.'.
f. I once had an unscheduled conversation with a contract killer.
g. In my teens I won bronze and silver medals in ballroom dancing.
h. I passed my driving test when I was seventeen, but was thirty before I could afford to buy my first car, a VW Beetle.
i. My first marriage was mixed heritage, my wife hailing from the Caribbean.
j. My ex wife and present wife, having absolutely nothing in common, spent a week's holiday together at our second home in Southern France, and got on wonderfully together.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About the author's book, I am a Gigolo
a. In my early twenties I was in Cannes, surrounded by magnificent open American sports cars occupied mainly by balding, but seemingly wealthy middle aged men, accompanied invariably by beautiful young women. I wondered how I might enjoy the benefits of that sort of lifestyle, at my time of life and with my lack of funds. Then I hit on an idea. With my youth, my looks and my charm, I might approach the problem from a different standpoint. And so the idea was born and eventually gave rose to the short story, I am a Gigolo.
b. The Devil's Game is a tale about gambling involving a competent professional gambler. I'm not a gambler, but I looked at gambling odds to try to ascertain the odds on beating the Devil at his own game. Charlie Daniels sang about a fiddle competition involving a young man called Johnny and the Devil. In the end, Johnny wins. Could the man in my short story similarly win in a competition, this time involving gambling? Who knows? When the Devil is involved, anything is possible.
c. Just how advanced is Artificial Intelligence, and how much will it intrude into our daily lives? Will it be a help? Will it be a hindrance? Might it save lives? Might it destroy them. The Knocking might provide some answers.
d. What do you think of when the word, predator comes up? Lions? Leopards? Cheetahs? Or people, perhaps. People who prey on others. People in business who prey on business rivals. Lots of different types of predators. Not necessarily in the gjuise you'd expect.
e. Sometimes the prey is someone close to you. Sometimes you can engineer things so they don't even realise you're killing them. You're killing them softly.
f. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Archie Clement, barely five feet tall and just twenty years of age, rode with the pro-Confederate gang headed by Bloody Bill Anderson and Frank and Jesse James. His preferred diet comprising neat whisky, his reputation as a young man intent on scalping his perceived enemies, was established early in his career. Tracing the young man's history and the attempts made by the authorities to apprehend him, I went back to the history books and enacted the final shoot out, exactly as it happened. But was that the end? Read on and find out.
g. My brother and I, used to living in a detached house, had no idea how much aggravation could be caused to tenants in adjoining apartments when we played our music a tad too loud, after we moved, as a family into a block of flats. Mrs Rosenfeld, who lived directly below us, and who bore the brunt of the noise stoically, came back to haunt me for years. I formulated a short story around the events.
h. Parties of climbers on Everest adhere to a stick code of behaviour. At twenty-six thousand feet and over, any climber getting into difficulties and unable to assist his or her rescuers, is left to die, rather than risking the lives of those seeking to assist. The green boots of a Tibetan border policeman who refused advice to return to base when weather was closing in, died. His boots remained on view for several years, serving as a reminder to later climbers to take sensible precautions. Not everyone is as unlucky, or as foolish.
i. It's reckoned that one in ten children born within long term relationships, is fathered by someone other than the man in that relationship. She may love her man, but feel he is inadequate to her hopes for the genetic health and intelligence of her children. I met a woman who had an undying love for her husband, but who's two children by him were instantly recognisable as smaller, less bright and less vivacious than the three she'd had sired by three other men. Is that how the story ends? Probably not.
j. Beads of Blood looks at domestic abuse. I used to hear my parents terrifying rows when I was about five years old. It stays with you for good. There are varying ways of dealing with it. Beads of Blood offers just one such solution.
About the Author
My inspirations have come from real people, events or situations that have presented themselves. Titles like, I am a Contract Killer, I am a Gigolo, Death Zone, License to Kill, are all based on my own lifetime experiences, questions asked, incidents occurring.
Let me be reassuring, thus-far, nobody has been murdered on my watch. But the notion gave rise to the impetus to write my first murder mystery, The Lyme Regis Murders. Could I make the jump after years of writing macabre short stories to a full length drama? That familiar beating in the gut, said, ‘Yes, try it. Give it a go.’
And so to that cosy coastal town where nothing untoward ever happens. Or perhaps it does. The author seeks to shatter notions, change people’s perceptions, spoil long held views. That was my intention in entering into the world of crime thrillers. I’ve found that ‘nice’ people are not always what they seem. The helpless can be transformed into the most dangerous, the most dangerous become the most harmless. It’s all up to the writer and what they’re hoping to achieve.
For me there have been 10 children’s books, 4 books of short stories and so far, three novels, with a fourth in the mixer.
Whilst a short story might be written with a flurry of adrenalin in the space of a few hours, a book will need more than just a flash of creativity. It will need perseverance, discipline and dogged determination.
But then, isn’t that what is required of every ambition?
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4 comments:
Thank you for hosting!
Short stories tinged with a bit of death and a whole lot of charm take you through sensations of love and the sweetness of flirtations in this read. Looks like there's plenty here to sin your hands in..
This looks fun!
Thank you for the opportunity to win! Looks like there's a lot to these stories
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