Chapter 24 - Fired

The story so far ... Celia Thomas has been running into trouble as she searches for her long-lost brother. After escaping from an attack in Venice she gets home to find her flat has been burgled. But that's not the worst thing to happen...

Chapter 24 – Fired can now be found on the right under 'Good stuff'.

Audio file chapters 22 and 23...

...can now be downloaded. Go to 'Audio Files Chapters 20+' on the right under 'Good Stuff'.

End change to chapter 23

Working on chapter 24 for ages this morning, scratching my head and trying to think how to get Celia to the next stage. She now needs to try to back out of this adventure, feeling that it's all too much for her and she wants her quiet life back again. And I also have a second more banal problem which is I start too many chapters with the words 'It was....'. The more I try to think of alternatives the more my computer tries to put them into the beginning of 24 as well.
Well, I think I've finally found the answer, but to make it work I had to change the end of Chapter 23 'Burglars'. I've changed it in the post below, but - in the interests of providing excellent customer service - I provide it here so as to save you the effort of scrolling. Are you ready? Really ready? Here it is:

"Which meant, thought Timothy, his next task was to make sure she lost her job."

Doesn't that make you impatient to see what happens to poor Celia next?

Chapter 23 - Burglars

Have you ever been burgled? It's a horrible feeling knowing that somebody has been going through your own things with evil intent. This chapter has not one but two burglaries in it. Make sure you lock your doors properly tonight!
The story so far ... Franz and Celia are on their way back to Munich after Celia's adventures in Venice, but trouble is following them. And Ivan Kaiec's prediction looks likely to come true...

Chapter 23 – Burglars can now be found on the right under 'Good Stuff'.

Chapter 22 - The Reunion

The Lovers - Rider Waite
Tarot

An interesting chapter for me this one, and one which ended quite differently from how I'd planned. I thought about having multiple scenes showing the activities of different people involved in the story, similar to Chapter 17 - Sunday plans. However, it seemed to me that the shock of what had happened to Celia in the previous chapter - Death on the Rialto, would cause an enormous emotional jolt to Franz, which is what he needs to get him out of his head.
So, I dropped everybody else and just focused on the two of them. This makes the chapter much shorter than any of the others and also means that from now on they can work as allies more effectively. Which they're definitely going to need to do.

The story so far: Celia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in Venice, thanks to the help of some African street sellers. But how will Franz react when she tells him?

Chapter 22 – Reunion can now be found on the right under 'Good stuff'.

Chapter 21 - Death on the Rialto

 

The Rialto Bridge, Venice

Before I talk about chapter 21, a quick word of thanks to one of my readers. She pointed out that in chapter 20 I was starting to weaken Celia too much by making her so insecure about her appearance. The reader felt that by doing so I was seeking to explain her going to bed with Tomi as an attempt to win approval from a man and this made her look vain and trivial. This was not my intention, but I could see how it could look like that.
As a result I've adjusted the bedroom scene in chapter 20 quite a bit. You can see the new improved version on the right under 'Good Stuff'. I wanted to mention this as an example of how seriously I take people's feedback. Send me more!

Chapter 21 - Death on the Rialto. Long term readers of this blog will remember that I published an earlier version of this chapter about a year ago (yes, it is that long!). This version stays largely the same with some adaptations to take account of what has been written since then. Venice is one of my favourite cities (I wrote a novella several years ago called 'Peril in Venice' which you can find on Amazon here if you're interested) so I enjoyed writing it.

Audio files of both chapters are on the right under 'Good Stuff'.

The story so far ... After leaving Zagreb, Celia changes trains in Villach in order to go to Venice with Franz. What she doesn't realise is that the Colonel has sent somebody to follow her ...

Chapter 21 – Death on the Rialto can now be found under 'Good Stuff'.

Chapter 20 - The Storm

Storm clouds

The story so far ... Tomi has found the Colonel's first wife, Ivana and introduced her to Celia. From Ivana they find out that the Colonel was involved in smuggling arms into Croatia illegally in the 90s and that Ned was investigating the Colonel's connections to British arms manufacturers before he was killed. Ivana has kept some of the information that she collected about the Colonel's activities in order to protect her interests and Tomi asked if she would be willing to share it with them. Ivana says she'll think about it...  

Chapter 20 – Can be found on the right under 'Good Stuff'