Claire Gillian

Welcome to “Six Sentence Sunday”. Thank you for visiting and especially for any comments you might leave me.

This six comes from my 2010 NaNo novel that’s still unfinished though it earned me a win last year. Sins of Our Mothers, currently at about 60k words with perhaps another 20k to go, is about:

An American woman, Neely Shaw, is arrested twenty five years after her involvement with a group of Irish terrorists and their British kidnapping victim. She’s extradited back to England. In a series of interviews, conducted as Neely’s trial unfolds, her interviewer, Siobhan, learns that the victims and criminals aren’t nearly as black and white as the press would have the public believe. And Neely is guarding more secrets than just those of a criminal nature.

In this six, Neely has just arrived at a London jail for processing and interrogation. Neely speaks first, then the Crown’s interrogator, Siobhan Feeney.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of bail here is there?” She knew it was a stupid question before she’d uttered the words, but she had to at least ask.

Siobhan made a scoffing noise, the nice young woman from earlier that morning long gone. “Slim to none. You’re a flight risk, Neely. You fled the country after the crime and have been so good at hiding, it took us twenty five years to find you.

Be sure to check out the host site, Six Sentence Sunday, for links to more tantalizing snippets from some very talented writers.

A few weeks ago, I attended the Wordstock Festival in Portland, OR. There I enjoyed the presentations of many authors and strolled through the booths. One of the exhibitors was a writing team named Dielle and Jeff. I had seen Jeff strolling around wearing nothing but a kilt and a leather vest with a horn affixed to his forehead. You tend to notice people like that. At the time I dismissed him as being one of Portland’s free spirits. Yeah, we have people who make those sorts of lifestyle choices in this neck of the woods.

Later, as I strolled through the exhibits, I saw a lady painted purple with goat legs and hooves and two little horns on her forehead. Sitting behind the woman as she talked to the kids who strolled by was kilt guy. So, I took a picture because I realized they were in costume for their booth, purpose unknown to me at the time. I didn’t want to draw attention to my photo-taking because I’ve had punk rockers in London chase me down insisting I pay them for the privilege of having taken their photos. While I didn’t expect kilt guy to tackle me and confiscate my cell phone, I was still a little nervous about taking it without asking. Plus, they were chatting with children visiting their booth.

I moved on, but I posted their picture on my blog as part of my weekly ROW80 update.

A few days later, Dielle found my blog, most likely through Googling–a smart thing for any writer to do. She introduced herself and her writing partner in the comments to my blog post and explained that she and Jeff are the authors of Sambuka Black and its accompanying activity book.

So I thought that was pretty cool and responded to her comment, thanking her for dropping by my blog and explaining the picture.

Dielle returned a few days later and offered to send me a copy of their book. I thought that was awesome too, and you never say no to a free book, right?

So, guess what showed up today?

Wasn’t that nice? The book is illustrated and features mystical creatures such as those Dielle and Jeff portrayed and also dragons! Now, I happen to love dragons, so that makes it full of win. The activity book contains puzzles and pictures, all from the book. Wonderful! I haven’t read it yet, but I certainly shall.

To Dielle and Jeff, thank you for the books and for the internet friendship. Writers helping writers is a wonderful thing, though I am not sure exactly who’s helping who here. LOL

If you’re interested in learning more about Sambuka Black, you can visit the website at www.sambukablack.com or visit the authors’ site: www.chezchampignon.com