Deep Waters is the latest Electric Eclectic book, and the first new release of 2021.
For Deep Waters, Paul White has taken a totally different approach from his last offering, the superb, gritty and surprising crime drama,‘A New Summer Garden‘.
With Deep Waters, we follow the main character, Gary, as he struggles to come to terms with the death of his beloved wife.
After a failed suicide attempt, Gary take himself off to an isolated island, far away from the distractions of daily life and the people he knows, as kind and as helpful as they try to be.
This touching and emotional tale allows privileged insight into Gary’s mind as he stumbles onward through life and unveils an understanding of why he chose this island to execute his last wishes.
Electric Press magazine says,
“Paul White uses his protagonist, Gary, as a device to explore the depths and fragility of the human psyche.
I doubt if you can read this book without shedding a tear, or two… or more.”
Deep Waters in available in both eBook format, and as an Electric Eclectic Pocketbook Paperback
EXCERPT:
“…My first thought, rather obviously, was to name the boat Francis, after my deceased wife, bless her soul.
But then, I felt it was not the right thing to do. Francis had never been here, never been to the island. Neither of us knew this place existed before, before… now, which was part of the reason I came here. To get away from those haunting memories, as callous as it may seem.
You see, that is what life is all about, the memories. The memories of shared experience. The things you do with family, mum, dad, siblings. The adventures with friends and, of course, all the things you do, all the places you go, all the battles you fight and all the little victories you celebrate with your lover, your soulmate, the one you wish to grow old with.
Francis was my soulmate. It was the memories we shared from the life we were building together which haunted me now.
Don’t get me wrong. I did not want to forget. I do not want to erase them from my mind, but neither did I want to be reminded of every detail each time I walked into a room or got onto the boat.
I want to remember Francis when I want to recall her voice or touch or tell a story about her antics. I want to remember her on my terms, not as just some random flashback.
I’m not a fan of horror or paranormal. I get spooked easily and have a very active imagination. As a teenager I would be plagued by nightmares for weeks. As I grew up I knew to stay away from anything that would frighten me. Recently, I watched Gogglebox, a TV programme that features people watching television. It’s their reactions and discussions about the what they are watching that make it interesting and funny. It showed them watching The Haunting of Hill House. I found it terrifying and I only saw bits of it!
There are lots of scary horror books on the market, and plenty of people who love a good horror film. Why would a perfectly sensible and normal human being enjoy being scared? If that’s you, perhaps you could comment below and tell me why you like it and why it doesn’t give you nightmares as it does me.
I once wrote a story called Embers of Webster Street and it was about a girl dealing with her mum who suffers from dementia. It’s heart-breaking seeing someone you love forgetting things, and not even recognising her family.
My Nana showed signs of it for years before we recognised what it was. We thought she was just a bit batty. Because Nana was always a little eccentric, she was forever the joker, keeping us entertained with her silly antics. I remember the turning point when we finally knew something had changed. She was getting out of the car one day, and struggled, stumbling a little. We laughed, as we normally did, and instead of making a joke about it, she asked if we were laughing at her.
My Auntie Mavis took her in when she could no longer care for herself. She looked after her for years and it became more and more difficult. Being a carer is very much in the media spotlight, but back in the eighties we didn’t understand what it really meant and all that Mavis did. Occasionally stories came back through mum after her phone calls to her sister. Nana had blurted out swear words or refused to get dressed. It was a very difficult time. Eventually Mavis had no choice but to let her go into hospital and by this time Nana had stopped talking altogether.
My sister and I went to visit. She was no longer the person we knew. She was just a shell with nothing inside. She had no idea who we were, and I don’t think she even knew where she was. It was the strangest thing because although she looked like Nana, the same face and the Nana who was funny and who never stopped talking, this person stared with blank eyes. It was heart-breaking, it really was.
In the Embers of Webster Street, dementia was the main topic. Only something happened as I was writing, my pen took on a life of its own. It was supposed to tell the story of Jen, who felt tremendous guilt at having to put her mum in a home. Instead it introduced the ghosts of all the people who had lived in the family home before they did. It brought in a twin sister with problems of her own. Their mum could never accept that Jen saw things and it was the undoing of her.
This turned out to be the first of paranormal stories I suddenly found I loved to write
It is one of the stories featured in The Magic of Stories, a collection of short stories, articles, poetry, flash fiction, and shorts.
I found my pen wandered in all sorts of directions as I wrote this book. It turned into an eclectic collection of different genres.
Like Embers of Webster Street, many of the stories were taken from real life situations.
The following article is from a wonderful author whom I am lucky to count amongst my friends.
Julia Blake is warm-hearted, funny and straight-talking; her words dance across the page, keeping you entertainingly captivated from start to finish.
In this guest post for Electric Eclectic, Julia addresses a question many authors are asked.
Author Julia Blake
One of the questions readers ask me the most is, where do you get your ideas from? The honest answer is most of the time I have absolutely no idea. I’ll be going about my daily life and suddenly a scene, or a name, or a scrap of dialogue will float into my brain. For a few days, weeks, months or even years, it will simply sit there, putting out little tendrils of ideas that twist and grow and take root in my imagination, until suddenly, bam, I have a complete plot in my head, fully formed, as if from nowhere.
Occasionally though, I can pinpoint the exact moment when a book was conceived and can say “there, that was when it all started.” It was like that for The Forest ~ a tale of old magic ~ my most popular book to date. Over a decade ago I was at a family party. It was one of those parties where ages ranged from babes in arms up to great-grandfathers ensconced in the corner with a glass of sherry. It was getting late, the party was winding down, parents of very young children had taken them home and I was sitting on a chair sharing the dregs of a bottle of wine with my brother. Behind us, a group of elderly gentlemen were reminiscing about the good old days. Only half-listening, my attention was abruptly grabbed when one of them came out with the best line ever. Leaning towards the other gents, he enquired…
“Whatever happened, to old Wally Twitchett?”
Wally Twitchett? What an amazing name. My imagination started humming. By the time I went to bed that night I could “see” Wally in my mind right down to his patched but clean clothes, his beak of a nose and protruding Adam’s apple. I could imagine him rattling around the village where he lived on his old boneshaker bike, because, of course, he had to live in a village. An old, isolated, insular village in a forgotten corner of Britain. A village that appears suspended in time and peopled with quirky characters all with names as odd and memorable as Wally’s. Maybe, the residents of this village never leave, ever. My, that is interesting. Why do they never leave? Because the village is slap bang next to a big old creepy forest with something evil at its core that’s placed a curse on the village and its people. Ooh, a curse! I love it. What type of curse? And so on…
You can see from this process how one simple name can spark a chain reaction in an author’s brain, where one idea tumbles onto the next and the next and so on until the whole plot lies before you. Rather like those domino effects where one tap sends the first domino falling onto the next and it’s only when the whole lot has fallen the picture is revealed.
I wrote the book.
Over a decade later, I published it.
To my joy, others loved the village and its characters as much as I did, and even though Wally ended up a minor character, he still finally found his voice in my story.
A sweet postscript to this story happened last year. I work part-time for a mattress and bed retailer and was one day putting through an order for a lovely young girl and her husband. They wanted to finance the purchase so in the course of completing the form I asked her for her maiden name. Twitchett, she replied.
I stared at her in disbelief.
“No relation to Wally Twitchett?” I tentatively enquired.
“Oh yes,” she replied, he was my great-uncle.
I couldn’t help the smile of disbelief that spread over my face and explained to her the significance of that name. Intrigued, she ordered the book there and then, wanting to share it with the rest of her family. It is touching to think that even though the real Wally Twitchett died childless many years ago, some small part of him will live on forever in The Forest.
“I met a man made of leaves, with roots for hair, who looked at me with eyes that burnt like fire.”
An impenetrable forest that denies entry to all but a select few. A strange and isolated village, whose residents never leave. A curse that reappears every generation, leaving death and despair in its wake.
What is lurking at the heart of the Forest?
When the White Hind of legend is seen, the villagers know three of its young people will be left dead, victims of a triangle of love, murder and suicide. This time, Sally, Jack and Reuben have been selected, and it’s their turn to be tormented by long-buried jealousies, aroused by the dark entity existing within its shadowy glades. Only by confronting the Forest’s secrets, can they hope to break the curse and change their destinies – if they have the courage.
Keeper of secrets. Taker of souls. Defender of innocence. Existing on the very edge of believing, there is the Forest.
This is its story
Love reading, find Electric Eclectic books on Amazon’s @open24, the store for bookworms, readers and writers.
Hey, why not check out ‘Teardrops and White Doves’ a collection of my poetry. Available in a fully illustrated, full colour, Hardcover book direct from my printers, or as a standard Paperbackfrom Amazon
I‘m not a fan of horror or paranormal. I get spooked easily and have a very active imagination. As I teenager I would be plagued by nightmares for weeks. As I grew up I knew to stay away from anything like that. Recently, I was watching Gogglebox, a TV programme that features people watching television, their reactions and discussions. It showed them watching The Haunting of Hill House. It was terrifying and I only saw bits of it!
There are lots of scary and horror books on the market, and plenty of people who love a good horror film. Why would a perfectly sensible and normal human being enjoy being scared? If that’s you, perhaps you could comment below and tell me what it does for you. I would really like to know!
I once wrote a story called Embers of Webster Street and it was about a girl dealing with her mum who suffers from dementia. It’s heart-breaking seeing someone you love forgetting things, and not recognising you.
My Nana showed signs of it for years before we recognised what was happening. We thought she was just a bit batty. Because Nana was always a little eccentric, forever the joker, and kept us entertained with her antics. I remember the turning point when we finally knew something had changed. She was getting out of the car one day, and struggled, stumbling a little. We laughed, as we normally did, and instead of making a joke about it, she asked if we were laughing at her.
My Auntie Mavis took her in when she could no longer care for herself. She looked after her for years and it became more and more difficult. Being a carer is very much in the media spotlight now but back in the eighties, we didn’t understand what it really meant and all that Mavis did. Occasionally stories came back through mum after her phone calls to her sister. Nana had blurted out swear words or refused to get dressed. It was a very difficult time. Eventually Mavis had no choice but to let her go into hospital and by this time Nana had stopped talking altogether.
My sister and I went to visit. She was no longer the Nana we knew. She was just a shell of a person. She had no idea who we were, and I don’t think she knew where she was either. It was the strangest thing because although she looked like Nana, she had the same face and body, the Nana who was funny, who never stopped talking, and yet the woman in front of us stared at us with blank eyes. It was heart-breaking, it really was.
I wrote a story called Embers of Webster Street, dementia was the main topic. Only, something happened as I was writing, my pen took on a life of its own. It was supposed to tell the story of Jen, who felt tremendous guilt having to put her mum in a home. Instead it introduced the ghosts of all the people who had lived in the family home before them. It brought in a twin twin sister with problems of her own. Their mum could never accept that her daughter saw things and was was the undoing of her.
This turned out to be the first of paranormal stories that I suddenly found I loved writing.
It features in The Magic of Stories is a collection of short stories, articles, poetry, flash fiction, and shorts.
I found my pen wandered in all sorts of directions as I wrote, and this book turned into an eclectic collection of different genres. Like Embers of Webster Street, many of the stories were taken from real life situations.
You know the saying you shouldn’t tell a writer your secrets? Well, I used something my sister told me. When I showed it her she loved it saying she hadn’t expected me to turn a serious situation into something very humorous story!
One more thing, before I sign off. There is a another short story book offered for free by author Karina Kantas, should you choose to buy this book. You will find the details in the introduction. Two for the price of one!
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