Thursday 29 October 2015

#Medieval #histfic #Blood Rose Angel Longlisted for #msLexia Novel Competition


 

Very pleased to announce that the third book in my French historical The Bone Angel series, Blood Rose Angel, has been longlisted in the MsLexia Women's Novel Competition 2015. A short extract...

… Ava woke moaning and clawing at her temples. I started rubbing lavender and rose-oil across her brow, then her eyes rolled back till all I could see was the whites … no colour. Just all white.’

‘How horrible.’

‘Worse than horrible, Héloïse. By that time I was screaming … begging the Blessed Virgin to spare my twin––as close to me as my own soul. I’d always thought we’d go together, you see … I couldn’t imagine living if Ava was gone.’ She exhaled a long breath and looked down at the river; at the mountains standing upside down in the water.

‘The Devil crept inside Ava,’ Isa said, ‘and started up a shaking as an earthquake might splinter the earth when Dieu was in a fury. My mind was spinning. What physick could stop the brain spasms? A potion of dandelion roots? Saint John’s Wort seeds eaten for forty days? I didn’t have forty days, Héloïse. Not forty seconds! All I could do was kneel beside her and watch the falling sickness snatch my sister to the dark side.’

I didn’t know what to say, so I just curled my hand over hers.

‘There wasn’t a second to grieve,’ Isa said. ‘I had to free the unborn and baptise it before it died too, or owls would devour its soul. I didn’t ponder … knew I’d lose my nerve if I did. So I swiped a wine-soaked cloth over her belly, made the sign of the cross and sliced an arc clear across Ava’s womb. Then I unfurled the tiniest baby from the gaping red darkness.

‘At first I couldn’t look at that limp, underbaked non-born,’ she said, ‘dragged into the world against every force of nature. But then I couldn’t resist, and you know what? That little girl seemed too lovely to be doomed: pale wisps of hair, eyelids veined like a butterfly’s wing, fingers curling like flower petals at witch-light.’

I gave Isa a small smile as the sun sank onto the rim of the hills in a brilliant orange rind.

‘I laid her between her mother’s legs,’ Isa said, ‘and thought I glimpsed a movement … an eyelid blinking, a fluttering so slight I could’ve imagined it....






















Thursday 15 October 2015

The Good, the Strange and the Inexplicable #Lyon's #ModernArt Biennial Exhibition



13th Biennale de Lyon

La Vie Moderne (Modern Life)


Place: La Sucrière, 47/49 Quai Rambaud – La Confluence – Lyon 2e

Interesting and informative guided tour, but only an hour, so just time to skim the surface:










1. (1st level): Mohamed Bourouissa: "The Hood". Photos on car hoods, during his time in Philadelphia.








(1st level): Mike Nelson: "A7, Route de Soleil". Anything but sunny. Burnt out, torn and smashed-up tyres. A bit depressing.


3. (2nd level): Magdi Mostafa: "The Surface of Spectral Scattering" : Cairo represented in lights.

4. (2nd level): Michel Blazy: "Pull Over Time": displayed on x 2 balconies  and "Running Al Fresco"















5. (Ground floor): Andreas Lolis: "Permanent Residence". 50 Marble elements put together to resemble a garden shed. Cardboard and polystyrene aspect.





6. (Ground floor): Anna Ostoya: "Yellow, Red, Blue"

Friday 9 October 2015

How Héloïse was Sculpted

If you'd like to read the story of how my latest heroine, Héloïse, wife of Raoul Stonemason, came to life, it's all in today's Triskele blog post.