WAR

prologue — the storm coming

(an extract from my novel of the same name, currently available on Kindle at Amazon)

Edinburgh in January takes on a hellish aspect — cold and grey and desolate with a wind so vicious it drills deep in your bones.

With Christmas and New Year over life for most has returned to dreary routine. City centre streets that were teeming with shoppers and revellers now lie empty and sparse, while the abundance of impressive monuments and grand Georgian architecture loom as dark and dismal as the history and culture that produced them.

Their splendour is lost, as always, on the ranks of the homeless who colonise these city centre streets. It is lost, too, on the people rushing to and from work in the myriad stores and the coffee shops, offices and cafes, prominent on their minds the woes of another bleak January and winter to get through.

And why the hell did I spend so much on Christmas this year when I promised myself I wasn’t going to? Need to get back to the gym after eating and drinking so much. Really wish I was single again because tired of arguing every night. Tired of being single and wish I was in a relationship.

What they all have in common is a shared sense of end of days as they struggle in the midst of swirling wind and rain that banishes all hope of life…