This week, we're welcoming author Benny Lawrence with her latest title, The Ghost and the Machine from Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company. Join us on Sunday, when the author will offer a free copy of the book to a lucky blog visitor. Here's the blurb:
It’s 1838, and Europe is
obsessed with mechanical contraptions, and the Rajah is the height of
entertainment as the ultimate chess-playing machine. Kit has toured with the
Rajah since the age of ten and knows the secret behind the machine all too well
. . . just as she knows that people would rather be fooled than have their
illusions stripped away.
An eccentric Countess summons
the Rajah to her manor house in Vienna for a private engagement. There, Kit
meets the inquisitive Eleanor, who tests Kit's ability to tell the difference
between truth and illusion . . . Or is it all just another game of chess?
"Written in the first
person, The Ghost and the Machine is a smart, cunning, original, and
well-written story dotted with dollops of droll observation, dry wit, and
gripping pathos. The characters are by turns quirky, insolent, insightful,
deceptive, and all together brilliantly flawed. In addition, the storyline is
fresh and tight, and manages to surprise, even though the end game is revealed
to the reader early in the narrative." -- review by Salem West, The Rainbow Reader
** An Excerpt from The Ghost and The Machine**
People sometimes ask me what
it’s like to travel inside a box.
I don’t like to answer with
sweeping statements, because I think it depends on the box. Mine was quite
nice, as boxes go.
Don’t ask me about
measurements. I didn’t have a ruler up my sleeve. But it was long enough for me
to lie at full length, and high enough to let me turn over. It was lined with
red cloth, like a jewellery case, and there were slits carved in the lid for
airholes. On cold days, I was allowed to have a blanket in there.
The box was strapped to the
back of the coach, and that was how we travelled. I was packed away with the
rest of the luggage, hidden from any curious eyes. Von Hausen was in the
coachman’s seat, her face a thundercloud as she whipped along the four black
horses. (We went through a lot of black horses over the years, and they never
did have names.)
The inside of the coach was
reserved for the brains of our little operation, our guiding light and lord
protector. That was Diana Rushmore—Rush, we called her. In wintertime, she
spent each journey wrapped in furs, with her feet propped up on hot bricks,
nursing a flask of the best brandy. In the summer, it was lemonade laced with
gin.
Von Hausen’s bull mastiff,
Towser, used to trot alongside the coach in his younger days. That was before
he aged into a grave and portly dog whose fastest pace was a waddling walk.
When he couldn’t run anymore, Von Hausen began to hoist him into the coachman’s
seat next to her. She rigged a sort of harness to make sure he wouldn’t tumble
off and go splat on the road, and it worked, mostly.
I didn’t spend all my time in
the box. I wouldn’t want to give you that impression. When we were into a long
leg of a journey—say, if we were driving overland from Brussels to Cologne—we’d
rearrange things once we were on a deserted stretch of road, out of sight of
any town. The coach would rumble to a halt. Then the carriage-frame would
shudder, which meant Von Hausen was swinging down from her seat. I’d hear her
heavy tramp as she stomped around the carriage to the luggage rack, and then
the scraping sound as she undid the hidden catches. The lid of the box would
pop open, and as I rose, blinking, Von Hausen would hold up her heavy black
cloak to shield me. The cloak stayed up for the few seconds it took me to
scramble down from the luggage rack, around the side of the coach, and in
through the opened door.
When I slid onto the bench
next to Rush, her hand would come over to rest heavily on my knee. At
intervals, while the carriage rattled along, she would give me a pleased,
possessive little squeeze.
There were thick wooden
shutters nailed across the windows of the coach. Rush kept it dark in there,
dark as the bottom of a boot, and that was for my sake.
All of those elaborate
precautions were for my sake—the shutters, the box, the cloak. That was the
manner of thing that I was: a creature designed to live in dark and secret
spaces. For my own safety, I had to be kept tucked away in the black, away from
the bustle of the world. What other choice did Rush have, when a breath of open
air or a ray of light was enough to wound me? Left alone under the noonday sun,
I would have collapsed, broken apart, and blown away.
I know what that must sound
like, but it’s not what you think.
You’ll have questions for me,
of course.
People have asked me more
questions in the past couple of years than in the rest of my life all put
together. When I feel like being difficult—and most of the time, these days, I
do—I give clipped, inadequate answers, accompanied by a flippant little shrug.
I’m sure it’s annoying. It’s meant to be annoying. I spent far too much of my
life being eager to please, and now I’m past it.
Who am I? Well, I’m me. Where
was I born? Paris. When was I born? Eighteen sixteen. How old was I when I left
Paris? Ten. Why did I leave Paris? Long story. Where have I been since then?
Oh, you know, around. What have I been doing since then? This and that.
Why am I so angry?
(I’ve been told that when
someone asks this question, my eyes glint in a dangerous sort of way.)
I’m angry because it’s the
best way to get people’s attention. Nothing else seems to do the trick. Human
beings, those shy, retiring things, will go to absurd lengths to avoid noticing
anything that might complicate their lives. They won’t just cross the street to
avoid a beaten man, they’ll pretend he’s a bundle of rags or a dead dog. Unless
you’re angry—unless you’re making a scene, as Rush would put it—people look
straight through you, clear out to the other side.
If I could change one thing,
out of everything that happened, it would be this: I wish I’d learned how to
make scenes earlier in my life. I wish I’d learned how to force people to
notice me. If I could have done that, then maybe . . .
Maybe what? Maybe I could have
prevented the murder? I don’t believe that, not really. Looking back, I can see
how inevitable the whole thing was. During that last week, events were rushing
single-mindedly in one direction, like water running downhill. It was all one
unbroken chain of circumstance, from the moment that the carriage pulled up
outside the manor, right up to the second the Countess unlocked the door to the
red room and beckoned me inside.
I don’t think there’s anything
I could have done which would have altered the outcome one iota. And in
particular, I doubt I could have done anything which would have kept her alive.
But it’s impossible not to think about what could have been different, if only
I . . .
I’m getting ahead of myself. I
do that sometimes.
How am I doing these days?
Fine, I suppose. Considering.
How did all this happen?
It’s complicated. You might
want to start by asking how it all began.
How did it all begin?
It began with a game of chess.
Author Bio:
Benny Lawrence lives
in Toronto, Canada, where she works as a lawyer while wondering just when in
hell she grew up. Occasionally, she dons elaborate hats and sallies out after
dark to solve crimes. There being no crimes lying around for her to solve, she
mooches off home and eats cookies instead. She enjoys dead languages, not-dead
cats, fizzy drinks, preparing for the apocalypse, and board games. She has been
told that she takes her board games much too seriously. On a literature front,
she is obsessed with mysteries, science fiction, and fantasy books, as long as
they involve snappy dialogue and females who can deliver it.
Website: http://www.bennylawrence.com/
