Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

Within days, I’ve selected him from the saloon passengers as the most suitable candidate. Sensitive, tidy – not flamboyant like some of those men. And always attentive to his son – a family man, if you will. I do like a family man. Especially one with no wife!  If he’s emigrating, he’ll be looking to make friends, that much you can count on. I smile broadly as we pass on deck. His pace quickens. The boy follows, looking down. So, he’s shy – what’s wrong with that? Shy I can work with. Shy I can handle. If only my ex-husband had been so shy! During lunch, I occupy a nearby table. He orders pea soup. So I order pea soup. He gets out a copy of the Times. And I do the same. His hand shakes as he turns the pages. I might be making him nervous! Is this the right time to introduce myself? Maybe I should bide my time. Several days pass. On some I don’t see him at all. They must be keeping to their cabin. Once or twice we say a courteous ‘hello’. But never more than that. Not ye...

‘I believe I lost my husband outside the Church of Miracles. I knew he had been there at the time in the gardens, which were dark green and dismal after rain. I was trying to use up the end of a long roll of film and called out to him. He looked back at me and I think he smiled. But when the photographs came back from the developer, he was no longer there. You could just about make out some distant shape, almost a shadow,  at the end of the avenue of cypresses, but it no longer resembled a person.’ Cafe Aphra follower M.S. Clary has won three prizes for short fiction and has now published her first novel, A Spell in France , with Matador. It is available as an eBook   on Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad and all electronic readers. Cafe Aphra: Tell us a little bit about your novel,  A Spell in France . How would you sum it up for a potential reader? M.S. Clary: It's a psychological thriller which involves a mysterious disappearance and its aftermath. ...