#Australia-based #psychological suspense novel #promo

For a week beginning this Friday, 24th March, The Silent Kookaburra, my psychological suspense novel set in 1970s Australia, will be on promotion for only 99c/p on a Kindle Countdown Deal.

 Extract from The Silent Kookaburra, Chapter 2...

We left Wollongong around five o’clock, Dad driving the Holden to the Royal National Park, which was halfway up to Sydney.

While my father wrangled with the tent pegs, amidst foraging currawongs and crimson rosellas, Mum and I kindled up a campfire and roasted the snags.

‘Look at him.’ I pointed to a large flat rock. Behind it, a shy wallaby peeked out at us, rubbing its forepaws together as if clapping at our show.

‘Aw, what a sweetie,’ Mum said, handing me a sausage sandwich smothered in tomato sauce.

A magpie swooped over us, clacking her bill. ‘Quardle, oodle, ardle, wardle, doodle.’

‘Defending her nest,’ Mum said as we toasted the marshmallows.

Dad smiled, gave her leg a pat. ‘Like all good mothers.’

And in the falling darkness of the coastal breeze we followed the scents of the night creatures: long-nosed bandicoots, brush-tailed possums, sugar gliders and many others whose names I didn’t know.

The shriek of a sulphur-crested cockatoo woke me on the Saturday morning. I struggled from my sleeping bag, stepped outside the tent, walked towards the smouldering campfire and almost trod on a snake. Its slimy scales gleamed in the pearly dawn light.

I almost peed myself, but held it in, not daring to cross my legs; afraid to budge an inch. A blob of sweat dribbled into my eye.

Australia's majestic Kookaburra

‘Dad, quick, snake!’

My father lurched from the tent as the black snake reared up, its thick underbelly a streak of fire. Head pointed, forked tongue out, it fixed one dark eye on me and hissed.

My throat seized up, crazy moths flapped about in my heart. I wanted to run, to scarper from the snake as fast as I could, but Dad was holding up a warning hand.

‘No quick movements, Tanya. Just wait, it’ll slither away if you don’t scare it.’

Tears pricked at my eyes. ‘No, no, it’s going to bite me … to kill me. Get rid of it, Dad!’

Mum clutched Dad’s arm, a hand flying to her cowlick. ‘Do something, Dobson … just stay very still, Tanya.’

My schoolteacher’s voice clanged through my mind. Blackies can be dangerous … can hurt you badly but they likely won’t kill you.

The red-bellied black snake sure looked deadly to me. My bladder was about to burst; my legs wobbled –– jelly left out of the fridge in a heatwave.

Go snake. Just please go away, please.

Buy The Silent Kookaburra.