I’m
delighted be be visiting as part of my blog tour to celebrate the publication
of No Time Like Now. It’s a romantic suspense novel and it’s setting is perhaps
an unlikely one - a geology field centre on the Mediterranean island of
Majorca. And it doesn’t just have science as a background — but science forms a
central thread to the plot.
And
why not? Science is pretty damed sexy these days. It’s about getting down and
dirty and close to nature. It asks big questions and which demand big answers.
It’s about the elements which form us and shape us, the disasters which befall
us. Sometimes, of course, the questions lead us into places we would have been
wiser, at a personal level, not to venture; especially when they’re laced with
danger.
Questions
that big require characters who are big; and that means we need heroes. My
hero, Tim Stone, is a geologist. Dynamic, a man for the outdoors, at home on
the wild and capable of wresting with demons both real and imagined.
He
isn’t without his flaws, of course (what man is?). And Tim’s driving passion
for answers — answers about anything, no matter how difficult, no matter the
risk involved in getting them — brings both him and our heroine, Megan into
extreme danger. But that’s okay because he’s just the sort of man you want
beside you in a crisis or anywhere else for that matter.
Unless
you’re Megan…
***
Hiding
away from a disastrous past, Megan McLeod is getting along nicely in her job as
housekeeper at a university field centre in Majorca. But the arrival of
geological researcher, Tim Stone, throws everything into disarray — because Tim
was the father of the baby she lost some years before and the two of them had
parted very messily indeed.
As if
having Tim on the scene wasn’t bad enough, he's there with his new partner,
Holly. But when in the course of his research he comes upon something extremely
nasty along the cliffs of north Majorca, he’s forced to turn to Megan for help.
***
I put the cups on
the tray and left Domenica alone with the biscuits as she struggled with her
glasses and her filing. Even in the kitchen it was airless, though cooler. I
put the urn on to heat up in case the students wanted tea or coffee when they
arrived, then stepped out through the back door. The relentless limestone
ridges of the Serra Tramuntana stretched away to eternity on my left; to the
right the ground sloped steeply towards the sea, a quarter of a mile away. In
the deep shade of the north-facing doorway, I took a few calming breaths as I
tried to formulate a plan.
A plane slid
through the sky on its descent to Palma. I imagined the passengers peering down
at the scalloped coast with the long fingers of its limestone headlands
reaching out through the bay, thinking how beautiful it was, how much freedom
there was as they headed to this escape from their offices and their humdrum
urban lives. And who else might be on it?
Tim Stone. Well. Wasn’t that just the last thing I needed?
Academically brilliant, emotionally flawed, charming, handsome, unbearably
arrogant… Tim bloody Stone, appearing out of nowhere and landing in my field
centre. On my patch. Whatever Domenica said, however little I saw him would be
too much. Every morning at breakfast, every evening at dinner. In the common
room and the garden, chance encounters on the stairs and in the hall.
For a month.
I couldn’t clearly remember
the last time I’d seen him, but I remembered enough to
know that a month was going to be a very long time indeed.
Jennifer Young is an Edinburgh-based
writer, editor and copywriter. She is interested in a wide range of subjects
and writing media, perhaps reflecting the fact that she has both arts and
science degrees. Jennifer has been writing fiction, including romantic fiction,
for a number of years with several short stories already published. No Time
Like Now is her second published novel; her first novel, Thank You For The
Music, is also set on the Balearic island of Majorca.
Find her on
Twitter: @JYnovelist
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Sexy scientists? Sign me up! This sounds like something I'd really enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean, Jillyn. Scientists are yummy.
ReplyDeleteKay