Sometime this season…
The secret keeper must tell.
The betrayed must trust.
The hurt must heal.

Featured book this week is Season of Shadow and Light
by Jenn J McLeod

Let’s take a closer look…

A summer road trip with her daughter is exactly what Paige needs. What she doesn’t need is a reluctant Nana Alice in tow and unprecedented floodwaters forcing an unexpected and life-changing detour, stranding the trio in the tiny town of Coolabah Tree Gully.

Paige feels like everything she trusts is betraying her bit by bit. First her body, with the stillbirth of her baby boy, then postpartum stroke strips the food editor of her sense of taste and smell. Her husband is having an affair, her mother (Alice) is acting weird, and her six-year-old daughter’s questions about ‘her other nana’ is uncovering more questions than answers.

Alice knows how to keep a secret; the sixty year old has been living a lie almost her entire life. Thirty years ago she took on the role of single mother for a child she hadn’t carried nor nurtured through those first formative years. She also made a promise to keep someone else’s secret. But can she trust herself to keep the dead’s deception when she discovers the truth might help the living?

Aiden once trusted his heart to a woman, while to his mate he trusted the dream of owning a restaurant. But the swindling pair leaves Aiden broke and broken; his only choice is to return to his hometown a place with more bad memories than good ones—where the once sought after executive chef is now executive chip fryer at his uncle’s pub.

Stranded amid rising floodwaters, someone knows that truth can wash away the darkest shadows, but …
Are some secrets best kept for the sake of others?

Excerpt from Season of Shadow and Light

‘Some secrets are best kept for the sake of others. Wag if you agree.’ She smiled when the dog’s tail twitched. ‘Good enough.’

Alice was no longer tired.
 She couldn’t afford to be tired—not here in this town and not even in the solitude of her little guest room on the top floor of the pub that, right now, was doing a good job of impersonating an oven. At her feet, an untethered Toto lay splayed out on his belly and panting, exhausted from the day’s travel and heat. The fresh bowl of water, filled from the stained ceramic wash-basin in the corner of the guest room, did no more than cause him to prick his ears when she placed it nearby, which was just as well, because he’d only have to be taken downstairs and outside to pee if he drank too much too late at night.

Alice struggled out of sticky travel clothes and into a lightweight nightie. She was certainly no stranger to secrets and lies; she’d been lying most of her life one way or another.

With her mind too active for sleep—too busy working out what she’d say if put on the spot about Nancy’s past—Alice pulled a chair over to the window. There was no open-air balcony to escape the stifling heat of the guest room. Some brains trust had thought boarding up the veranda and putting in a pathetically small aluminium-sliding window would suffice.

Wrong!

The hot flushes Alice had thought were gone were back and about as welcome as the mosquito buzzing in close proximity to her left ear. The window with its frayed fly screen overlooked the dark and mostly deserted street below, although with no moon—as the publican had predicted—it was impossible to see too far beyond the ghostly white limbs of a nearby gum tree. Despite there being little breeze, the constant brushing of branches on the hot fibrous sheeting tinged the air with the unmistakable scent of eucalyptus. The noise unsettled the dog now trying to nestle on Alice’s lap, the animal’s occasional low growl matched by a distant rumble of thunder.

‘It’s okay, Toto. The storm will pass and we’ll all be fine.’

The day had ended with a heavy blanket of menacing clouds and now the forecast rain was starting out as heavy plops on the tin roof above her. In the distance, a black sky sparked with lightning like silver veins, reminding Alice of folklore: ‘Forked lightning at night, the next day clear and bright.’ She hoped it was true and that nothing would stop them making Saddleton by road tomorrow. Alice could get far away from this town, Paige could get this country adventure thing out of her system, they could all get back to Sydney, and Nancy’s secret would stay safely stored away.

A flicker of light from the hallway illuminated the corner of the closed-in alcove and a cobweb in the path of a constant ceiling drip glistened wet. Buffeted by an occasional puff of warm air, the web’s occupant seemed intent on a meaty, moth-like morsel. As Alice blinked through the brightness, fixed on the insect entangled in the spider’s web—trapped—a terrible thought came to her. Could it be that the light Alice had switched on earlier had drawn the poor winged creature to the balcony and into the spider’s lair?

‘Oh what a wicked web we weave,’ she muttered, ‘when first we practise to deceive.’ Alice scooted the dog from her lap and secured the lead to its collar. ‘Time for sleep, Toto.’ After a final pat, she wandered back into the tight little room to the sound of footsteps in the hallway, a creaking door and Paige’s gentle coercing.

Alice eased her weary body onto the bed, picturing the nightly routine in progress next door. Within minutes Paige would be fussing with Matilda, wrestling her latest book—or the iPad—from her daughter’s grasp and tugging a brush through her hair. Much whining and complaining over the simple task of teeth cleaning would follow before Bean, the little fabric pony, would find his place under Mati’s pillow and mother and daughter would kiss goodnight. Memories of the same nightly ritual when Paige— Bean and all—had been young, warmed Alice’s sixty-year-old heart, while in the guest room—bleak and suffocatingly still—she pondered her single-bed existence.

Tomorrow she would have to start protecting Paige a little more fiercely, protecting the secret Nancy entrusted to her, and in doing so find a way to protect herself from the unthinkable consequences should the truth about Nancy’s past come out.

Should she fail to keep the secret safe, Alice had to trust that Paige could forgive her.

Season of Shadow and Light is available in eBook and paperback from all good retailers.
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Find out more about Jenn and her books on MEET JENN J McLEOD

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