I was so excited when I saw it was your review! I read my little butt off just so I could open tonight :)
I really, really appreciate your reading of ch 1. It is actually my problem chapter right now--just mainly in the way of being a bit too long in Angel’s VP. However, I’m trying to wait for some input, and for fine-tuning and revision of later chapters before I go back and cut, so I can see exactly what I need. Ruth Ann does play a big role (a sort of foil type character) for Angel throughout the book. When the book opens, the biggest thing is, Angel does not have a good grasp of her own identify seperate from her family, what others expect of her, etc. She has to gradually move away from this and find who Angel really is, and what she’d really do--rather than what others (and herself) expect from her. For example, in Chapters 19 and 22, mostly all in Angel’s VP, we do find Angel finally doing the first thing she’s maybe ever done (besides the trip) on impulse (which would be having sex with Karim—just because she wants too, etc). She starts becoming less what she thinks she should be, and more what she is as the book progresses.
I hope you will read more! I need more input on characterization so badly. These two are both very complex in their way, and both have inner conflicts that are very difficult to treat effectively.
Karim’s backstory is laid out in the prologue.
Thank you again so much! Everything you’ve laid out has been excellent and I’m putting it to use! (so glad you spotted all those “gasps”!)
Please let me know anything of yours you’d like me to read. I’m not a poet, but I do enjoy well-written poetry!
Action Adventure / Demon Lover Chapter 1 (Analysis)
June, 1987
Chapter 1
For the third time in eight hours, the computerized screen above the Aero-Trans ticket counter flashed the word “DELAYED” beside flight 191. A crowd of angry 191 ticket-holders gathered around a tight-lipped Italian woman from the front office. As the battle heated up, it drew more and more onlookers into the lobby from the gates. In the midst of all this confusion, looking like he just stepped off the pages of Gentleman’s Quarterly, a handsome dark-haired man in a gray suit moved with easy grace through the crowd.
Women’s eyes followed him. Ordinarily he would have returned their stares with his own brand of sizing up—sizzling perusals designed to draw out those interested in membership to the mile-high club. A brunette with an attractive face, dangerous curves and a nice display of cleavage spilling out from her form-fitting blouse over slim, tailored slacks gave him the look. Her gaze traveled the length of his well-built frame. She met his dark eyes with a suggestive gleam in hers and the further hint of her tongue darting out to moisten her lower lip. She had that aura of experience about her he preferred. No fabrications, no explanations… no complications. But today, she was not what he was seeking.
Without a trace of his usual irresistible smile or the charming sweep of coal-black lashes that normally accompanied it, he turned from the woman and continued scanning the crowd for what he considered--not just a complication—but a major fuck-up in the plan that had taken years of preparation, maneuvering and laying his ass on the line for.
In his hand he clutched a clipping from the New York Times. He glanced at it periodically as he searched faces. Suddenly, he hit on one that clicked. His eyes narrowed, then honed in on a particularly pretty blonde woman standing about ten feet from him.
She has that all-American look, he thought, feeling instantly agitated. He folded the clipping and placed it in the breast pocket of his coat, then moved in for a closer look.
Angel Smith did not think of herself as beautiful, but actually, she looked far better than she should have for someone who had just passed the night on a chair in an airport lobby. There was hardly a wrinkle in her trim salmon-and-navy jacket and skirt ensemble that was all the style right now, and although her thick hair was starting to escape from its once neat twist at the back of her head, the errant tendrils fell softly around her face. The natural shade of pale gold brought out the sun-kissed tones of her would-be fair skin and emphasized the delicate curve of her face. Brows only slightly darker than her hair color arched intriguingly over eyes that were a striking shade of changeable blue. While her poise at this moment was more due to the numbness of fatigue than any sort of training or conscious effort on her part, her straight posture came automatically from her love of outdoor activities that included work on her family’s small Tennessee hills farm, and the hours she spent on horseback exploring those beloved hills. A part of her was attached umbilically to home and the crisp air of mountain mornings when fog hung like ethereal mist over green hills and moist, shadowy hollows. But there had always been a wistful part that yearned for at least a taste of the wider world—which, up to now—she’d read about only in books.
In fact, she’d lived most of her life vicariously through books…
She’d only been out of Tennessee a handful of times—a few family trips to Stone Mountain in Georgia, once to Atlanta for a teacher’s conference, and several more trips with the church group or her cousin Ruth Ann and their friends from high school to the Carolina beaches. She’d never been on an airplane before these past few days when she’d crossed almost 4,000 miles of earth and ocean from the front porch steps of her family‘s rambling, clapboard farm house.
Right now, with a little homesickness starting to creep in, and the excitement of first-time travel wearing thin, she wondered if an impulsive venture like this hadn’t been a bit drastic. Her back ached from the uncomfortable night, and she was actually as close as she’d ever come to being asleep on her feet. As her bags started to slip off her shoulder and migrate slowly down her arm, she hardly noticed.
Five armed security guards burst into the lobby and began shoving people back—away from the Italian woman and the desk. Angel’s eyes flew open as she felt the crush, but it was too late to do anything but go with the backward momentum of the crowd. She tripped over someone’s feet, her bags, something, and would have fallen if a handsome man in a gray suit hadn’t grabbed her arm to steady her.
The man’s dark eyes lingered on her face for a moment before he released her and Angel blushed. She’d never encountered men so bold as these foreigners seemed to be. Certainly not back home in Antioch, a little town of less than 5,000 situated in one of the primordial green hollows south of Knoxville.
She’d been nicknamed “Angel” by her grandfather and Uncle John at an early age, when her blonde curls were like a halo around her small heart-shaped face with big, solemn eyes. Her eyes had been her most prominent feature even back then… Now that she was grown up, she was mostly Angel Mae to her family and extended kin that populated over half the valley. “Miss Angel” to her kindergarten students and their parents alike. To the rest of the town, she was just plain Angela Maelene Smith, granddaughter of the Reverend and Mrs. William H. Smith. Beyond that, nobody in Antioch seemed to notice her for reasons other than these. If they did, it would have embarrassed her, just like this man was embarrassing her right now.
He was still staring.
Recently acquired experience involving strange men in airports told Angel she should ignore him, but her eyes seemed to drift in his direction of their own accord. Fortunately, he chose that moment to return his unsmiling attention to the action up front, presenting her with a well-chiseled profile that combined to optimum advantage a decidedly masculine jaw with smooth, almost classically beautiful features—like the breathtaking marble statues she’d seen in museums during her three days here in Italy. She’d scrimped and saved on her first-year teacher’s salary just so she could afford some time to tour Roman ruins and take in some of the classical artwork before she would continue on with her journey. She’d taken a bus trip up to Florence to see the Uffizi, including Michelangelo’s David, which she’d always longed to see in the flesh. That had been just a metaphor to her before, but David—in the cool marble, seemed almost flesh and blood. Every vein, every defining muscle and tendon had been accounted for by the master, even down to the look of determination captured in the line of his beautiful brow; the fierceness of his tormented eyes. What moved her most was the hint of anguish captured in his clenched jaw as he stood poised, rock and sling in hand, to slay his giant. In spite of his beauty, the effect was one of disquiet to Angel. She sensed danger in his overt sensuality, his anger, his intensity of purpose… And yet, while she walked every gallery in the sprawling ancient seat of Florence’s ruling class—most of whom thankfully had been art patrons—she’d come back again and again just to have another look at David’s majesty.
Angel felt the same sort of unsettling draw now as she continued to cast furtive glances at the gorgeous man with smoldering dark eyes who’d grabbed her arm, though she couldn’t imagine why. With his suave appearance and startling good looks, he might have been the epitome of the darkly handsome foreigner her more worldly cousin Ruth Ann had warned her about.
He continued to stand within feet of her. His elegance and obvious polish prompted Angel to wonder if he wasn’t a movie actor, or member of the European jet-set. Everything about him, from the first-rate designer quality of his suit with its perfect fit, to the rather large ruby ring she saw glittering on his right hand, bespoke culture and affluence. In another stolen glance, she noted the way his thick, but neatly feather-cut hair fell in glossy waves that hinted of severely repressed curls. The top layer showed sun-streaked sable highlights, but the rest appeared almost raven’s wing black as it brushed against the pristine white of his collar. Sooty long lashes beneath an inky-perfect arch of brow swept downward as he glanced at the very expensive-looking gold watch on his wrist, then suddenly, without warning, cut his gaze sharply back to her.
Angel felt herself color again and quickly looked away before she met his eyes.
She made a mental note to ask the stewardess for more stationary once she got on the plane. She’s already used up all she’d purchased in London’s Heathrow Airport to write Ruth Ann blow-by-blow descriptions of her trip so far just like she’d promised.
Sneaking another side-long glance, Angel knew the man was still there, but couldn’t bring herself to linger on more than his black leather shoes. They looked like the expensive Italian designer shoes she’d seen in shop windows in Florence—the kind of shops she’d known better than to even pass through the door of on her meager budget.
Thinking of Ruth Ann made Angel smile and forget herself again. Her gaze traveled unconsciously up the man’s legs to his admire his wide shoulders, which tapered down into a flat middle, suggesting the hardness of six-pack abs beneath the cut of the suit. He was just a little taller than average and well-proportioned, which the suit seemed to enhance rather than hide. Now Ruth Ann—Angel’s elder by three years, proprietor of Antioch’s sole beauty salon and on her second divorce at just 27 years old—would have noticed a man like that right off, even in this crowded mayhem. In fact, Angel decided, her more brash and wayward cousin would have already wriggled her curvy, low-cut-spandex and big-haired self into a full-blown flirtation.
What’s yer name, Sugar?
By now, Ruth Ann would have known his entire life story, his moon sign, place of birth, siblings’ names, not to mention, the size of his daddy’s Swiss bank account…
Ruth Ann could be hard to take sometimes, but Angel loved her to death. They were just like sisters—being so close in age and having been raised together by their grandparents in the same 75 year-old farmhouse as their parents. However, the two couldn’t be less alike.
“The way you like animals and kids, you’d think you’d want to fetch yourself a man, Angel Mae… And you got what it takes honey, let me tell you, if only you’d fix up once in a while—” Ruth Ann had admonished her more than once.
Of course, “fixin’ up” to Ruth Ann meant a whole lot of eyeliner and something with spangles or fringe. Angel considered herself neat and well-groomed for the most part, if self-admittedly a bit old-fashioned. But then, she’d had five years of training by Grandma on Ruthie and never felt quite right about it if she caught herself sitting with her legs open—even in jeans, or if she didn’t wear a slip under her dresses, even on the hottest of summer days.
And while Ruth Ann had always loathed daily chores on the farm, Angel still didn’t mind puttering around the barn with Grandpa or even the heavy work, like shoveling out the horse stalls or helping him and Uncle John overhaul a tractor engine.
Cursing the sleek little suit with its too-short skirt Ruth Ann had insisted she buy for the trip at that red tag sale last month, Angel absently tugged at the skirt with her free hand in what had become a 14 hour battle of friction ride-up as 100 percent stretch polyester met reinforced “sheer energy” nylons.
“Okay, so it shows a little thigh… If I had neat, trim little thighs like that, I’d be struttin’ my stuff all over the Mediterranean in hot pants! Geez, Angel Mae, when are you going to get a life girl?”
She could almost hear Ruth Ann’s scolding from across an ocean and half-a-continent away. There was actually nothing wrong at all with Ruth Ann’s own thighs, and she had the string of casual boyfriends in her life to prove it. Angel already missed her something terrible.
Meant only for herself, Angel’s distracted half-smile froze on her lips as she turned inadvertently toward the man in the gray suit. While she’d been lost in thoughts of home, he’d moved in close again. So close in fact that the top of her head almost grazed his chin as she’d nearly turned into him. She drew back in surprise, only to be shoved toward him again by the people behind and to one side of her who were angling to get a better view of a sudden fist-flying altercation near the desk. She had to place one hand against his chest just to keep from colliding with him. Rock-hard, just as she’d speculated… Her gaze flew upward to his face, for the first time actually meeting and locking with a gaze so dark as to appear almost black.
Black like velvety midnight... Black like ebony stones…
Angel snatched her hand back, but for a moment he held her captive with his unblinking stare. The noise and confusion of the scene going on around her faded to mere backdrop as she recalled what her grandfather had said one time in a sermon about eyes being the gateway to a person’s soul. Framed by those startling lashes and jet brows, this man’s were almost too brooding. Too intense. Something burned within their dark depths that Angel simply couldn’t fathom. Looking into his eyes was like standing on the brink of a chasm… A slippery slope that plunged into the unknown and beckoned even as her brain screamed warning. Perhaps it was fatigue that heightened her senses, but she became suddenly and intolerably aware of the nearness of him, her own pounding heartbeat, and the stifling press of bodies all around. She could think of nothing else but getting back to the safety and solitude of the connected row of chairs in front of the viewing windows where she’d passed the night.
On impulse, she turned to flee, but a grip on her shoulder halted her retreat.
“Mademoiselle?”
His voice was rich and compelling, just as she imagined it would be. Taking a deep breath, Angel turned back toward him, and without meeting his eyes, managed a firm, even courteous, “Yes?”
“Your bags,” he said matter-of-factly, holding out her carry-on shoulder bag and purse. “You were about to leave them.”
As he hooked them on her arm, Angel felt another blush creeping up her neck. She felt foolish in more ways than one. But when he’d grabbed her like that she’d thought… Well, maybe she was just tired… Brushing back the escaping hair from her face, she glanced up and offered him a flustered smile.
“I, ah… I… really do thank you so much,” she said in her slow Tennessee drawl.
While his expression remained pretty much unchanged, there was a barely perceptible softening of his eyes as he continued to stare down into her face.
“Je vous en prie…” he replied, adding in heavily accented English, “The pleasure is mine.”
“French?” she asked, thinking to herself that he didn’t look French.
That strange fire again lit his eyes. “No,” he replied crisply, without offering anything further.
“Oh,” she said after another hesitant pause, during which her eyes had retreated back to his shoes. Another long moment ticked by, and Angel could think of nothing witty or cosmopolitan to add. Starting to panic, she blurted out, “I’m American.”
“But how nice for you—” he said, and Angel couldn’t help but notice a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
His unnerving gaze finally left her to wander briefly around the lobby, then darted to his watch, which Angel could see now was a Cartier.
His attention strayed toward the lobby entrance, then around to various points in the crowd, tossing a look of mild chagrin and a slight raising of his brows—but not at her, as he asked casually, “So chéri, what is your destination?”
Angel smiled uncomfortably. She thought he’d lost interest, but his smoldering gaze had returned to her face, eyes narrowing as he awaited her answer. No, something in his expression seemed to demand it. Angel knew instinctively that giving out personal information to a strange man in an airport could not be a good idea. She gulped back her initial response, and instead, said with a nervous laugh, “Sorry, that would be classified information…”
A line Ruth Ann had given her… One of the few polite responses to an unsolicited come-on in her cousin’s arsenal… She’d thought to be courteous, but slam the door firmly on any further attempts at familiarity, as she knew she should. His eyes registered a glimmer of… What? Surprise? Impatience? No, irritation… An undercurrent of anger… What in the world was the deal with this fella? Was he trying to flirt with her… or interrogate her?
He answered with a delayed, but smooth laugh that ended in a brilliant smile—a flash of perfect white teeth against light-olive tan. Yet something in his demeanor told Angel he was not amused…
He returned his gaze to the front. This time his voice had an edge as he asked, “Your name? Or is that classified too? You have one, right mon chéri? ”
“Yes… I have a name.” Angel was a little annoyed herself now. Time to end this. Still trying to keep her tone light, she said, “Well, I’d better be going… It really was nice to meet you—”
As she turned to make her escape, her purse—the one she’d borrowed from Ruth Ann which was one of those impossibly slim “envelope” types with the shoulder strap and flap closure—banged against her other bag and popped open. The entire contents, including interwoven layers of receipts, stray chewing gun wrappers and crumpled Kleenex, spilled out onto the floor around her. Everyone in the vicinity turned and stared. Angel watched in mute horror as a now uncapped tube of lipstick rolled, as if in slow motion, toward the man in the gray suit. The glossy “passion flower” pink tip came to rest against the toe of his shoe.
People began feeling around their feet and handing her objects, which Angel—stammering a string of ‘thank you… thank yous,’ stuffed back in her purse as quickly as possible. The man in the gray suit picked up the lipstick, blandly studying the indentation her lips had worn in the oval tip. His flat gaze moved over her face, then leisurely descended, wandering down the length of her. Just as casually, his eyes returned upward, finally meeting her slightly startled stare. Once again, his expression remained closed-off, but there was a slight quirking of one dark brow. With the hint of a smile again, and a sweep of dark lashes, he rolled the tip back into the tube and dropped it in her hand.
Angel flung the lipstick back into her purse and fled. She fancied she could feel those black eyes following her as she picked her way through the crowd, but by the time she’d located an empty space on the chairs, he’d turned away.
Thank God. Angel slumped down on the plastic and sighed in relief. There were some things about traveling the Roget guides left out completely.
This was one story Ruth Ann wasn’t going to hear—at least not in a letter, knowing full-well that her cousin would be so excited she’d be reading all her letters aloud to everyone that passed through the shop.
So what if some guy in Gucci shoes thought she was a complete bumpkin? And so what if he did look a little like Michelangelo’s David—with clothes of course? She’d never see him, or any of these other people again. It was a big, wide world, right?
Even so, Angel knew her cheeks were still flaming. She focused for all she was worth on smoothing her skirt down as far as it would go—which was not close enough to a hemline she was comfortable with.
Really, this was a perfect example of her problem with the opposite sex...
Oh, she had dates—lots of dates actually, as much as she could tolerate with Ruth Ann always trying to fix her up… but never really a steady boyfriend. Men were intrigued by her looks she knew, and their eyes always lingered on her body, which was not as stacked as Ruth Ann’s but she knew it was curvy enough to hold interest. But as Grandma was always pointing out—mainly to Ruthie—looks were only skin deep. Honestly, it wasn’t that she rejected the idea of romance, passion—in fact, she daydreamed all the time about it. She just wished there was a man out there with whom she could feel at ease enough to carry on a conversation that he didn’t direct at her bust line. One of the great novelists—she couldn’t remember which at this moment, had a line that had stood out to her: Love begins with a thought, an imagining… desire comes to the mind first… Then that certain wistful yearning in the heart, that the two might indeed become one…
Yes, this was what she was waiting for… Seduce my mind first…
The breast-directed lines usually were just that… Lines… And most of the time, not even very good ones. Certainly not like the poetry of Robert Browning, or Pride and Prejudice’s Lord Darcy to his Elizabeth…
Usually they were badly delivered and mostly designed as a prelude to him trying to slip his hands someplace where he’d yet to be invited. Most of it left her cold, and wondering what Ruthie really got in return for the endless hours she spent on her appearance, just so she could attract another Lothario whose eyes would start roving—pretty much right away—after getting what he wanted. Except husband number one, who had left something behind—little John Tallie, Jr. was now six years old, from what Angel could deduce, Ruth Ann rarely benefited in the long run from all her efforts.
Little Johnny as they called him, was precious—even if he was a bit slow, and he was the son of the son of the richest farmer in the county. The Hamiltons had a plantation that spread over some 2,000 acres, and in addition, bred some of the finest horseflesh in the region. John Hamilton had come onto Angel first—even though she was barely 18 at the time, and he’d been almost 30—but she’d seen through all that good ol’ boy charm on trips she and Ruth Ann made to ride with his younger sister, who was Ruthie’s age. He’d actually tried to feel up her bottom once under the pretense of helping her into the saddle… Lothario… They all might think she was naïve, but she’d always been able to read people well… Maybe this came from her early childhood, which she could barely remember before coming to live with Grandma and Grandpa, but there was always this sense that avoiding danger meant rightly deducing the moods of those around her.
Daddy had hit Momma.
Was that something she remembered, or just something she’d heard in whispers when the ladies gathered for canning or quilting? Thank goodness, Grandpa and Uncle John were nothing like that. If they hadn’t given her a different perspective, she might have thought that all men were creatures of lust and violence… But one did not find a more gentle-natured fellow than Grandpa, and Uncle John did seem to take after him, except he that didn’t talk very much… Feed them and turn on NASCAR or wrestling, they were content…
Well, Ruth Ann had gotten enough child support and alimony to open the shop downtown, which had always been her dream, so maybe there had been some benefit.
She and Angel always did have very different ideas on what they wanted out of life…
Fighting the stiffness in her back, Angel corrected her posture and once again tugged at the errant skirt. It would not reach her knees, which she of course kept properly clamped together, legs primly at a side-angle beneath her chair as Grandma had instructed. Ruthie crossed her legs, but Grandma said it would give her varicose veins one day… All the while, she wished fervently for her oldest pair of holey warm-ups and her well-worn copy of Thomas More’s Utopia, which she was on a re-read of when she’d begun the packing of her bags for this journey that she knew was drastic, and impulsive, and not at all like the usual, staid and predictable Angel. She could only hope this was in keeping with own her life‘s dreams...
She thought she’d packed Thomas More in her carry-on, but found that Ruthie—ever the jokester, had replaced it with “Pirate’s Ecstasy”, one of those bodice-ripper type romance novels that came replete with its own well-worn looking cover featuring a couple locked in torrid embrace. The woman’s breasts were about to heave out of her flowing gown, and the man’s passionate expression looked as if he would soon be helping out with that. Okay, so maybe that line about ‘desire begins in the mind’ had come from one of Ruth Ann’s books she’d read surreptitiously, and not any of the great novelists… After all, Angel really was not a literary snob… Especially in her teen years, she’d read pretty much anything she could get her hands on. But she did have standards, and this was not something she dared whip out in a crowded airport lobby without a plain brown wrapper. She hoped Ruth Ann had thought to place Thomas in the trunk being shipped separately, which also contained a few of her more treasured volumes of Roman and Greek classical literature, 18th and 19th century short stories and poetry anthologies, as well as a smattering of Lord Byron, the Bronte’ sisters and Keats. In spite of having to travel fairly light, she couldn’t imagine feeling at home anywhere in the world without them. It had been hard enough to leave her horse Sugarfoot and her favorite dogs behind…
A lot of these more precious volumes, like this trip, she’d scrimped and saved for—even working extra hours in high school at the Tasty Freeze just so she could afford to actually amass her own collection. Still, most of them were used copies, and some were paperback. Of course Ruth Ann though it kind of weird—using one’s extra cash to buy books instead of clothes and makeup.
Thank goodness, the rest of the family accepted her oddness more-or-less nowadays, but she often found them pondering and shaking their heads when she sat on the porch swing with a book for too long instead of a man…
Shifting her posture in the plastic chair, Angel sighed and was about to lean back and close her eyes when her attention was seized again by loud curses and more shouting. Another wave of shoving rolled through the crowd as a swarthy-looking little man now attempted to hoist himself onto the information desk, bolstered by other disgruntled 191 passengers. This was the flight she’d also been scheduled for, but with so much Scot/Indian blood in her veins, (which lent a certain dourness to the Tennessee mountain people, unlike the gregarious charm of their fellow southerners) this kind of emotional display did make her uncomfortable. My, how dramatic these foreigners seemed to be… The Irish side of her however could relate…
Her interest heightened as fellow ticket holders hissed, booed and jostled one another for a better view of two blue-coat security officers who had grabbed the man and were hauling him away. Angel’s anxiety increased. She was certainly glad the row of chairs were far enough back from the desk that she was well out of any physical danger. The man in the gray suit was also nowhere in sight…
With the renewed tension, feelings of self-doubt resurfaced. She could hear Ruth Ann’s voice in her head: “And now, yer going to haul yer cookies all the way to some dried up watering hole in Africa. Really, Angel… You know, sometimes I just don’t get you, Cuz… that ain’t some church camp or Ladies-of-the-Mission drive yer getting yourself into, Angel Mae. You said yourself, there’s a war going on over there, and there’s lions and giant snakes and God-knows what else… And no men—there can’t be any decent-looking men in a country where its against the law to buy whiskey…”
Finally exasperated, Angel had snapped, “Oh Ruthie, for crying out loud! There’s more to life than Revlon you know.”
Angel the reserved one… Angel the respectful, the patient and dutiful but far less pragmatic one, did have a temper when pushed. This was the Irish part…
And Ruth Ann the Flamboyant, the abrasive and sometimes even overpowering one—the one who chose words, deeds and even that most hideous shade of five-alarm red lipstick she’d worn to church last Sunday for the purpose of shock value—also had a knack for having the final word.
“I told ya so Angel Mae, but you never listen… You’ve got that sunshiney-yellow head of yours up there in the sky somewhere… Your own little world where birds chirp around your head and you can take in all the stray dogs, feed the world’s hungry, stop all wars and unpleasantness, and of course someday, Prince Charming is gonna to come riding up on his white horse and sweep you off your feet, so you can have a dozen young’uns together and live happily-ever-after… Its just not reality, Angel… The rest of us aren’t heartless, but we have to live the best we can in this cold, hard world…”
Angel had heard that tirade—or something similar—more times than she cared to admit.
Like the time they’d sent her to the pound when that roaming hound of Uncle John’s had been picked up, and she’d come home with four strays in addition to ol’ Blue… Or the time when she was six and Ruth Ann was nine and Angel had insisted on bringing home that little baby ‘coon from the river where they’d been fishing because she thought it had lost its mother. It turned out to have rabies. They’d both had to go through a series of painful shots and Grandpa’d had to put down three of his best hunting dogs… Angel had nightmares even now about the sharp reports and sickening finality of the shotgun blasts and the howl of the ol’ mama dog for days outside her bedroom window.
I told you so…
Or just last September when the three little Watkins kids had come to school with bruises and no shoes or lunch money and Angel had crusaded for Grandpa to release just a little of the church’s mission fund to tide the family over—just until Tom Watkins could sober up from his latest month-long drunk and re-secure his job back at the canning plant.
Ruth Ann had pursed her vermillion-lined lips and guffawed. “You just go ahead and write that poor white trash a blank check, and see if the money goes toward shoes for them young’uns and the light bill, or ol’ beer-belly Tom’s tab down at Charlie’s Pool Hall…”
The Watkins kids did end up with some shoes—eventually—courtesy of Child Protective Services… But only after a women’s shelter in Nashville had called in the government to take in three kids and an infant that a woman with a black eye and swollen lip had dropped off in the middle of the night.
Next thing everybody in town knew, the Watkins woman was pregnant again, and back living with her ol’ man in their ramshackled trailer with no running water or electric lights. Tom Watkins was back to being a regular at Charlie’s, and the ‘missus’ was still a regular at the Squaw Valley Emergency Room. The kids were back too, as the state had deemed the family “fit” after Tom’s employment was reinstated briefly before the pre-Christmas layoffs at the plant. Angel had raised money at the church and school to get the family some presents and a tree.
“Good Gawd-almighty, Angel! When are you ever gonna learn to leave well-enough alone?”
Ruthie might crawl her butt on occasion, but she was completely loyal. Nobody else better mess with sweet little Angel… Ruth Ann did have a large streak of redneck girl in her… Last time Tom Watkins had shot his mouth off down at Charlie’s ‘bout “Lil’Miz Golden-hair Goodie-two-shoes,” Ruth Ann had laid in wait with her pool cue for him to lumber into range, then accidentally skewered him so hard in the gut he’d almost puked up next month’s tab’s worth of Budweiser. According to her recalcitrant cousin, she’d still managed to get off the shot.
“I’m sorry Angel Mae, I know you mean well—but you gotta come down off that cloud of yours once in a while and realize that one person just can’t change the world,” Ruth Ann said from the midst of her own halo-cloud of AQUA NET and with a shake of thick, gold curls just like Angel’s. …Only Ruth Ann’s were usually teased up and pick-lifted until they resembled a Dolly Parton wig. Angel was certain she’d heard her add under her breath, “…but they sure can make trouble.”
“I know you love me, Ruthie,” Angel sighed and leaned her head back against the hard edge of the plastic lobby chair.
She’d given Ruth Ann a smothering hug in the gate at the airport, and they’d both cried a bucketful of tears, along with Uncle John, Grandma and Grandpa.
And she’d explained it all to them for the thousandth time—just like she had again and again on the drive that morning to Charlotte.
While they waited for the boarding announcement, she’d pulled out the white legal-sized envelope addressed to her beneath a big red-lettered Save the Children and an Interdenominational Christian Faith logo. The canceled postmark read: “Khartoum—The Sudan.”
Ruth Ann had pondered, “Why you reckon they put the ‘The’ on there? It ain’t like the rest of us go around saying ‘The’ America, or ‘The’ France…”
Angel sighed.
From the envelope, she first removed the Polaroid snapshot that had of late been secured with a magnet to their refrigerator door. It showed some wanly smiling and somewhat emaciated children and adults, gathered in a semi-circle and all clad in a hodgepodge of mismatched clothing with American styles and featuring American icons like Michael Jordan, SWATCH, and ‘NIKE… Just Do It.’ A fresh-faced young American couple knelt on the barren earth in their midst, also smiling.
Angel had met Jolene and Dary Anderson on a church retreat for young adults last summer. Dary had just graduated from Seminary and the newlyweds talked non-stop about their plans to travel to Africa where they would devote their lives fully to the work of God. Jolene said it had been Dary’s dream ever since he’d been baptized at age eight to become a preacher or missionary. And whatever Dary’s dream was, it was also Jolene’s. It seemed to bring a light to her eyes too…
Angel skipped over the newsy, lighter stuff in the first few paragraphs, then started reading aloud when she got to the part where Jolene described in vivid, wrenching detail what life was like for the refugees of famine and war in the camps along the border with Ethiopia and The Sudan.
Fleeing the clash of government armies and bands of armed rebels, Jolene wrote of how many families traveled for days and even weeks—only to find the conditions sometimes worse than what they’d left behind on their meager farms, and in the villages. She described the desperate frustration of how—when food, blankets, and medical supplies finally did arrive, the roving armies and bandit gangs often took what they wanted first, leaving little to distribute among the people.
“Many of the refugees arrive in such bad shape, there is little or nothing we can do for them. The Red Cross tents are filled to capacity with the dying, and thousands more keep pouring over the border every day. The weaned children and young adults fare a little better than the old and very young. Among these, the greatest killer is not an empty belly, but an empty soul. They feel they have no future, and therefore no hope, and so many of them just lay down in the dust and die…”
Angel summed up, “These are the ones Jolene and Dary want to make a special effort to reach. They’ve combined efforts with some of the other relief agencies and have received funding for a school. They even have a building now—they just need someone qualified to teach.”
“And who won’t mind being shot at, starved, baked like a mud-brick in the heat… I still say yer out of yer cotton-pickin’ mind, Angel,” Ruth Ann had said.
“You know,” inserted Uncle John, usually the quiet one, but it was obvious he‘d been a-ponderin’. “We say ‘the’ United States…”
“They use the ‘The’ when the name is called after the topography of the location, kind of like we say The Mississippi Delta, or The Rockies,” Angel explained with the same gentle, if sometimes exhausted patience she used for her 5 year-old students.
To Ruth Ann she said, “Don’t you see? I have a chance to make a difference… Little children and people who need some light and hope…”
“I can understand you wanting to make a difference in the world, wanting to help some kids and teach. But you’ve got a good job right here in Antioch with the elementary school. And believe me, that school could use some decent teachers…” Ruth Ann replied.
Angel knew that little Johnny, now a first grader, had gotten into a fist fight again last week, and he still couldn’t read on the level of most of Angel’s kindergartners.
“I love my job at Eagle Feather, I really do…But Miz Shaw said there’d be a position open for me when I get back. I only committed for six months—just long enough to help them get started—that’s not exactly a lifetime,” Angel said.
Grandpa—who’d said all along that he understood, now looked like he was also starting to have his doubts. “Now Angel Mae, I want you to be sure this is something that’s one-hundred percent in yer gut to do. If not, we can tear that ticket up and take you right back home with us… We won’t think no less of you fer it.”
Angel kissed him on the forehead and smiled through the tears starting to return to her eyes. “Its in my gut, Grandpa… I want to do this.”
Grandma kept silent, except when she placed Grandpa’s great big black Bible in Angel’s hands at the boarding gate.
“Comes time for all little chickens to fly the coop,” she said, mostly to Angel, but also included Ruth Ann and Uncle John in her sweeping, wistful glance.
Grandma knew. She’d always been the one to say, “Now Ruthie’s always been a handful, sure ‘nuff. She’ll never take no for an answer, and no one’s going to get the best of her in the end… But our lil’ Angel chile here—and Lord I know she’s shy and has her odd ways—but she’s set her mind on something higher than most folks. She’s the one that will do something with herself one day, just wait and see.”
Well, Bethel College in Clarkesville wasn’t Harvard, or even the state university at Knoxville, but on the merit of her 3.989 grade point average, Angel had won for herself a full four-year scholarship. They didn’t have a major in literature like she’d wanted, but it was her dream to one day get her Masters at one of the larger universities…
Still, to her grandparents, the achievement of a college degree seemed more lofty than anyone of their generation ever dared dream. They were both plenty smart enough. Grandpa had no degree but there were lines from some of his sermons that stuck in Angel’s mind as vividly as any of the great poets. And Grandma’s homespun wisdom might be simple, but it always rang with truth. But as depression-era children, neither could conceive of time devoted to an activity that didn’t at least partially revolve around providing the family with something to eat. Or study of the Good Book… And while Ruth Ann didn’t always understand her, she was the first one to brag to stranger, friend and foe alike, “Lil Angel’s the first one in our family to get a college degree…”
“And she can fix a tractor,” Uncle John would throw his two-cents worth in.
Grandpa and Ruthie walked Angel through the boarding chute, with Grandpa almost looking like he didn’t want to stop when the Stewardess at the open door of the plane smiled, but informed him that guests not flying could not board the airliner.
The grizzled, 5’3” Scots-Irishman in his Dekalb Corn cap and overalls didn’t embrace Angel, but studied her as if memorizing the moment with those intense blue eyes so like her own, and—so she’d heard—those of the father she couldn’t recall. Did his eyes ever smile like Grandpa’s? Not in her dreams, which were more like nightmares… Finally, he’d reached out with a sun-speckled hand and touched the big Bible still tucked in the crook of Angel’s elbow.
“This here’s God’s plan for the world,” he said about his Book, adding to Angel, “He’s got a plan for you too. I always knowed you was special, Angel Mae.”
Angel smiled, patted his hand, and kissed his weathered forehead.
Grandpa cleared his throat. Finally withdrawing his hand from hers, he shoved it into a deep, denim pocket, adding with assurance, “Everybody’s got their place in God’s Will.”
In other words, destiny awaited…
Angel didn’t quite smile at the remembrance, but lost some of the pinch-browed, bewildered expression she didn’t realize she’d been wearing along with tight, itchy polyester.
“Well, like I said before—don’t get too disappointed, Cuz, if one little gal can’t change the whole world. Just do what you can and get back home to us safe, okay?” was Ruth Ann’s bit-too-breezy farewell. It came with a peck on the cheek, then more of the big, fat mascara-tinged tears she’d been trying to hold back. “Oh, I am sooo very proud of you, Angel… I wish I had this kinda gumption…”
Gumption? Me? It seemed impossible even now that Ruth Ann would have said anything so utterly… well, Ruthie could be a sloppy sentimentalist at times… After all, she did have that pinch of Irish too—maybe the bigger pinch… And as a one-hundred percent ever-true-to-Dixie daughter of the South, she could certainly be moved to tears on occasion—like when one of the guys played “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down” on the jukebox down at Charlie’s. Angel did on occasion get talked into accompanying Uncle John and Ruth Ann sometimes—even though she drank coffee and read her book at the back corner table. All the men in Antioch still took their hats off when they heard any song to do with Dixie played in public. But they also did so for the Star Spangled Banner. So Ruth Ann could be an ol’ softy when she was good and lickered up…. But self-deprecating? Never. Her southern manners did not extend to that like Angel’s and Grandma’s, so she had to have been serious about the gumption part…
Angel rubbed her eyes in defense against what had now been a steady at-least 15 hours of fluorescent lighting and sleep deprivation. Once more straightening her back, she watched as a grim-lipped woman in a suit and two men with Aero-Trans jackets came through the double doors of the main lobby. The crowd surged forward to meet them.
With one wary eye on this latest potentially volatile development, she searched through her bag until she laid a hand on Grandpa’s Bible. She brought it out and placed it on her lap without opening it.
Evidently, the trio was attempting to diffuse, placate, maybe even offer discount coupons or “frequent-flyer” miles to those who would sit down and patiently await a solution everyone could live with. The woman in the suit was telling the crowd in halting, brusque English that ‘Resolution was in process, even now… As she was speaking…’ But some in the crowd were too worked up to buy it. Looking ever more aggrieved, the woman continued to hold up her hands for calm, but when an angry swipe from a ticket-wielding passenger nearly knocked the woman’s very official-looking glasses from her nose, more blue-clad security poured into the lobby and the three retreated, fleeing the gate area with beleaguered if very official-looking frowns.
Angel idly traced the outline of Jesus on the cover of Grandpa’s Bible with a shell-pink polished fingernail. Yes, Ruth Ann had won that battle as well… It brought some comfort.
Passengers were getting in fist fights again with one another and security. With the situation rapidly deteriorating, Angel didn’t notice that the man in the gray suit now stood by the row of vending machines lining the wall less than twenty feet away. As she sat ponderin’ whether one person really could change the world, he appraised her coldly, trying to determine whether he was about to turn hers inside out.
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don’t need quotes around DELAYED
“Gentleman’s Quarterly” – italicize (title of magazine)
“membership to the mile-high club” – “membership in”
“what he considered—not just a complication—but a major fuck-up” – no dashes
“New York Times” – italicze
no comma after “but actually”
“its once neat twist” – “once-neat”
no comma after “Tennessee hills farm”
“wider world—which, up to now—she’d read about only in books” – “wider world which – up to now – she’d only read about in books”
“In fact, she’d…” – don’t italicize “In”
“almost 4,000 miles” – “four thousand”
comma after “released her”
“less than 5,000” – five thousand”
“Angel Mae to her family and extended kin that populated over half the valley. “Miss Angel” to her kindergarten students and their parents alike” – “Angel Mae to her family… half the valley, Miss Angel to her kindergarten…”
“but David—in the cool marble, seemed almost flesh and blood” – “but David, in the cool marble, seemed”
comma, not semicolon, after “beautiful brow”
“look at David’s majesty” – “David’s” (italicize because you’re talking about the statue, not the person)
no comma after “movie actor”
“his thick, but neatly” – no comma
“raven’s wing black” – “raven’s-wing black”
“on her meager budget” – “with her meager budget”?
“to his admire his wide shoulders” – delete first “his”
“just 27 years old” – “twenty-seven”
no comma after “not to mention”
comma, not dash, after “just like sisters”
“75 year-old farmhouse” – “seventy-five-year-old”
“what it takes honey” – comma after “takes”
(Your italics aren’t showing when I cut and paste. Unless I say “don’t italicize,” assume they should be there.)
“Ruth Ann had admonished her more than once” – don’t italicize
“open—even in jeans, or if she didn’t” – dash, not comma, after “jeans”
“14 hour battle” – “fourteen-hour battle”
“100 percent stretch polyester” – “one-hundred-percent”
“get a life girl” – comma after “life”
“half-a-continent” – don’t hyphenate
“So close in fact that the top” – commas before and after “in fact”
“as she’d nearly turned” – “as she nearly turned”
“Rock-hard, just as she’d speculated” – don’t italicize “Rock hard” – don’t hyphenate, either
“toward him, and without meeting his eyes, managed” – “toward him and, without meeting his eyes, managed”
comma after “grabbed her like that”
“Well, maybe she was just tired…” – don’t italicize (If this was her exact thought – and should be italicized – it would be “Well, maybe I’m just tired…“)
“raising of his brows—but not at her, as he asked” – “raising his brows – but not at her – as he asked”
“So chéri” – comma after “So”
“seemed to demand it” – don’t italicize “it”
“and instead, said” – no comma after “instead”
(“Sorry, that would be classified information…” – Oh, bad move. Sometimes it is unwise to make jokes like that…)
no comma after “courteous”
“a delayed, but smooth laugh” – no comma
“right mon chéri” – comma after “right”
comma after “borrowed from Ruth Ann”
“a now uncapped tube” – “now-uncapped”
“glossy “passion flower” pink” – no quotes – “glossy passion-flower pink” (or maybe “glossy Passion Flower pink” – those color names are usually capitalized, aren’t they?)
“which Angel—stammering a string of ‘_thank you… thank yous_,’ stuffed back” – “which Angel – stammering a string of thank you… thank you – stuffed back”
“remained closed-off” – “closed off”
“There were some things about traveling the Roget guides left out completely” – don’t italicize, or change to “There are some things…” (although you could italicize “Thank God” if you wanted to)
“everyone that passed” – “who passed”
“Michelangelo’s David” – “David”
“with clothes of course” – comma after “clothes”
comma after “these other people”
“It was a big, wide world, right?” – don’t italicize, or change to “It’s a big, wide world, right?”
“Really, this was a perfect example of her problem with the opposite sex…” – don’t italicize, or change to “Really, this is a perfect example of my problem…” (Exact thoughts are italicized; they’re also first-person present tense. Does this make sense?)
“dates—lots of dates actually, as much as she could tolerate” – “dates – lots of dates, actually – as many as she could tolerate”
comma after “intrigued by her looks”
comma after “Ruth Ann’s”
“great novelists—she couldn’t remember which at this moment, had a line” – “great novelists – she couldn’t remember which at this moment – had a line”
“Yes, this was what she was waiting for…” – don’t italicize – DO keep italics in next sentence
“Pride and Prejudice’s Lord Darcy” – “Pride and Prejudice_’s Lord Darcy”
period, not comma, after “six years old”
“Little Johnny as they called him, was precious” – no italics – comma after “Johnny”
dash, not comma, after “a bit slow”
“some 2,000 acres” – “two thousand”
“barely 18” – “eighteen”
“almost 30” – “thirty”
“all men were creatures of lust and violence” – either don’t italicize or only italicize “all men”
“She and Angel always did have very different ideas on what they wanted out of life…” – don’t italicize, or change to “Ruth Ann and I always did have very different ideas on what we wanted out of life…”
“that she knew was drastic” – only italicize “knew”
” Ruthie—ever the jokester, had replaced” – dash, not comma, after “jokester”
no quotes around “Pirate’s Ecstasy” – keep italics
“Okay, so maybe that line about ‘desire begins in the mind’ had come from one of Ruth Ann’s books she’d read…” – don’t italicize, or change to “Okay, so maybe that line about ‘desire begins in the mind’ came from one of Ruth Ann’s books I’d read…” (I think this one works best as is, but without italics.)
“Tasty Freeze” don’t italicize
“Thank goodness, the rest of the family accepted…” – don’t italicize…
“accepted her oddness more-or-less nowadays” – “more or less accepted her oddness nowadays”
“fellow southerners” – “Southerners”
comma after the parentheses instead of after “veins”
” My, how dramatic these foreigners seemed to be… The Irish side of her however could relate…” – italicize the first sentence – don’t italicize the second – commas before and after “however”
“fellow ticket holders” – “ticket-holders”
“the row of chairs were” – “was”
“dried up watering hole” – “dried-up”
“that ain’t some church camp” – capitalize “That”
“God-knows what else” – no hyphen
“its against the law” – “it’s”
comma after “Revlon”
don’t capitalize “flamboyant”
comma after “told ya so”
“gonna to come riding” – delete “to”
“Its just not reality” – “It’s”
comma after “Ruth Ann was nine”
comma after “painful shots”
comma after “lunch money”
don’t hyphenate “well enough”
“Lil’Miz Golden-hair Goodie-two-shoes” – keep quotes, but don’t italicize
“I’m sorry Angel Mae” – comma after “sorry”
“AQUA NET” – Is this supposed to be all caps? (haven’t paid attention to the stuff since the last time I used it as fixative on a charcoal drawing)
no colon after “postmark read”
” ‘The’ America” – don’t capitalize “the” – in all three, italicize instead of putting in single quotes
“Seminary” – don’t capitalize (you wouldn’t capitalize “university” unless it was part of a name) – comma after
comma after “light to her eyes”
“and The Sudan” – I’m pretty sure National Geographic doesn’t capitalize “the” in this name.
no comma after “meager farms”
dash, not comma, after ” finally did arrive”
“mud-brick” – don’t hyphenate
“use the ‘The’” – don’t capitalize – italics but no single quotes
“The Mississippi Delta” – don’t capitalize “the”
no comma after “gentle”
“her 5 year-old students” – “five-year-old”
“a first grader” – “first-grader”?
(Angel’s kindergarteners can read?? Wow, I thought that that only happened in northern rural areas. I moved from Maine to Kentucky with one month left of kindergarten, and most of my classmates down here didn’t even know the alphabet…)
dash, not comma, after “he understood”
“Now Angel Mae” – comma after “Now”
“one-hundred percent” – don’t hyphenate
“Its in my gut” – “It’s”
“3.989 grade point average” – “three-point-nine-eight-nine”
comma after “no degree”
“two-cents worth” – “two cents’ worth”
“Stewardess” – don’t capitalize
no comma after “smiled”
“5’3” Scots-Irishman” – “five-foot-three”
“Not in her dreams, which were more like nightmares…” – don’t italicize
“deep, denim pocket” – no comma
“In other words, destiny awaited…” – don’t italicize, or change to ”...destiny awaits”
“a one-hundred percent ever-true-to-Dixie” – “one-hundred-percent”
““The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down” – quotes but no italics
“on occasion get talked into accompanying Uncle John and Ruth Ann sometimes” – delete “sometimes”
“the Star Spangled Banner” – “The Star-Spangled Banner” (in quotes – name of song)
“southern manners” – “Southern”
“at-least 15 hours” – “at least fifteen hours”
“‘Resolution was in process, even now…” – no italics, no single quotes, don’t capitalize “resolution”
comma after “into the lobby”
“Yes, Ruth Ann had won that battle as well…” – don’t italicize
(I like how you capture the culture of rural Tennessee without making the people look like idiots. I’m from Kentucky – I know how the rest of the US typically sees this region.)
- add/view comments (3)
Ok. I think you start this chapter very well. Lots of description and backstory. The tense of the chapter is fluent. The chapter seems to have alot of words like ‘was’ indicating past tense. Though it does work, I wonder you mean to have this story setting more in the moment, present tense like chapter 21.
I notice you are very much more into Angel’s and thoughts. I like that, now that I am actually reading from the beginning, that Angel is a vocal point from the beginning.(Thus, now I know you need more Angel in chapter 21, and so forth.)
Again, the backstory is plentiful, which is a good thing. Since this is only the second chapter I have read, I do not know that the backstory about Ruth is really necessary in it’s current form. It is true that, since Angel and Ruth are like sisters, Ruth would influence Angel with advices and ‘girl talk’. But some of the history behind Ruth I believe is not needed until either Ruth becomes a prominent influence later on in Angel and Karim’s Story or to just eliminate some of the backstory all together…but than again, this is only th first chapter. So, keep that in mind until I read further through the story.
I notice on page 9 there is a long run-on sentence that could use some work.
Again, I love the backstory of Angel. The mentioning of Angel’s and Ruth Ann’s closeness in the beginning of the capture is definitely backed up in later pages. By now, I notice that Ruth Ann is speaking to her through memories. I can see Ruth, being older, watches out for Angel (stating the obvious). I might be wrong, but do I see a transition from her recalling memories to an actual flashback? I love when writer’s can do something like that and make it feel real.
I think you did a real great job with Chapter 1. I always love the descriptive detail in your work. Again, well done and keep writing.
I understand what you meant when you said chapter 1 was a mess. There is too much yet not enough going on in the chapter to make it work. As a reader, I started drifting when the story lost its focus toward the end. There’s so much back story, that you forget where the story is going. The opening scene of a vastly delayed plane doesn’t mirror reality. People know to cut their losses, reroute or reschedule. and move on. That said, it might be much more interesting to stay with the current opening, but to place her on a hijacked plane that’s 8 hours late. The gate scene can be filled with people waiting for loved ones. You can introduce back-story through their thoughts as they anxiously await word. I know that this would require an extensive rewrite and you may not want to go there. If not, start by taking out everything that does not advance the plot and then re-introducing bits and pieces until the story provides the information you want it to without providing too much.
All the fashion in the first page will make male readers think this is a women’s romance novel. If you want broader appeal, tone that part of the description down.
Though I like the image, I’m not sure that the sign would actually flash. Suggest a more direct “Flight 191 was eight hours late, and a crowd of angry ticket-holders were gathered…
As the battle heated up, it drew more and more onlookers into the lobby from the gates. Would this have really happened that way? What would the airline do? If it was of any size, it would have replaced the aircraft and gotten those people (I’m assuming that they are waiting for the arrivals vs. those waiting to leave into a more controlled area like a Skycap Lounge.
Ordinarily(,) he would have
own brand of (delete sizing up—) sizzling perusals
interested in a little mile-high action.
Delete – spilling out from her form-fitting blouse over slim, tailored slacks,
She met his dark eyes with a gleam in hers and the suggestive hint of her tongue darting out to moisten her lower lip.
charming sweep of (his) coal-black lashes
the woman and (delete continued) scanned the crowd for what he considered—
fuck-up to the plan he had worked years on, and had laid his ass on the line for.
as he searched the faces of the people in the crowd.
and moved in for a closer look.
Angel Smith did not think of herself as beautiful, but after passing the night on a chair in an airport lobby, she looked far better than she should have.
wrinkle in her stylishly trim salmon-and-navy jacket and skirt. Although her thick shiny blond hair was starting to escape from its once neat twist at the back of her head, the errant strands softly framed her face.
The natural shade of pale gold brought out the sun-kissed tones of her would-be fair skin and emphasized the delicate curve of her face. Huh? Where did the gold come from? Suggest – The sun-kissed tones of her skin emphasized the delicate curves of her face.
Delete. spent on horseback exploring those beloved hills.She was (delete A part of her was) attached (delete umbilically) to home and the crisp air of mountain mornings when fog hung like ethereal mist over green hills and moist, shadowy hollows(,) but a part of her had always yearned for a taste of the wider world – one that she had only read about in books.
Delete In fact, she’d lived most of her life vicariously through books…
She had only been away from home (Delete out of Tennessee) a handful of times and then only to Stone Mountain in Georgia on family trips and to the beaches in South Carolina with her church group. Prior to crossing 4,000 miles of earth and ocean, she’d never even stepped foot on an airplane. (Delete the rest.)
- before these past few days when she’d crossed almost 4,000 miles of earth and ocean from the front porch steps of her family‘s rambling, clapboard farm house.
She was feeling a little homesick, and the excitement of first-time travel was wearing thin. She wondered if she had not been a little impulsive/ Her back ached from the uncomfortable night, and she was actually as close as she’d ever come to being asleep on her feet. She hardly noticed as the straps to her bags slowly migrated off her shoulder and down her arm.
and shoved people away from the Italian woman at the desk
She tripped over someone’s feet and would have fallen if a handsome man in a gray suit hadn’t grabbed her arm and to steadied her.
She blushed as the man’s dark eyes lingered on her face for a moment before he released her. She’d never encountered men so bold. Certainly not back in Antioch – the small hollow town she lived in south of Knoxville.
Before she could barely toddle, her grandfather and Uncle John had nicknamed her “Angel” because her blonde curls were like a halo that surrounded her small heart-shaped face with big, solemn eyes.
In the following sentence there is no transition between how she was called and how she was regarded. Delete that sentence continue at He was still staring.
There’s a problem here. How did Angel come to be at the Italian Airport. We open in the hollows, jump to the commotion, but don’t know how she got there.
You could almost start this with – Five armed security guards burst… all the backstory can be inserted into the action and dialog as reflections as the plot advances.
direction on their own. (delete accord)
that combined (delete to optimum advantage) a decidedly masculine jaw with smooth, almost classically beautiful features. He was as breathtaking as the marble statues she’d seen here at the Italian museums.
another look at David.
Angel felt the same sort of unsettling draw (delete now) as she glanced furtively at the gorgeous man with smoldering dark eyes who’d grabbed her arm. (delete though she couldn’t imagine why. Unless she’d dead she knows why.)
like shoveling out the horse stalls This is not heavy work. Thisis the light work you do before breakfast. Suggest “putting up hay.”
better view of a sudden fist-fight that had broken out near the desk.
just as she had thought…
plunged into the unknown (delete and) beckoned even
Perhaps it was fatigue that heightened her senses, (No not fatigue. Fatigue dulls the senses. Use something else like Perhaps it was being so far from home that heightened her senses,
Voice was deep and rich just like she imagined. (delete it would be)
Without meeting his eyes, she took a deep breath and turned back toward him. She managed a firm, even courteous, “Yes?”
which Angel could now see was a Cartier
It wasn’t that she rejected the idea of romance. She dreamed about it all the time.
She just wished there she could have a conversation with a man that was not directed to her breasts.
not even (delete very) good ones
or Lord Darcy to his Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.
Usually, the lines she heard were poorly delivered preludes to him slipping his hands someplace where they had not been invited. It left her cold, and wondering what Ruthie got in return for the endless hours she spent trying to attract another Lothario whose eyes would start roving almost the instant he got what he wanted.
Aside from six year-old little John Tallie Junior that Rutthie Anne’s her first husband had left behind, Angel could not see any long-term benefit from all Ruthie’s efforts to attract such men.
acres, and (delete in addition,) bred some of the finest horseflesh in the
John Hamilton had come onto Angel first—even though she was barely 18 at the time, (this bit is rough either give more time to it or get rid of it altogether.
with Grandma and Grandpa, but Daddy had hit Momma, and there was always a sense that avoiding danger meant rightly deducing the moods of those around her.
The lust is not developed previously in any vaguely remembered memories. If she were molested as a child this could add greater dimension to her character in later chapters.
all men were creatures of lust and violence…
all men were of lustful and violent…
except (that he vs. he that) didn’t talk very much… Feed them and turn on NASCAR or wrestling, (and) they were content…
The following bit is out of order and needs to be moved to the earlier bit about him or tied together more concretely.
(Delete Well,) Ruth Ann had gotten enough child support and alimony from (John Hamilton) to open the shop downtown. Since it had always been her dream, maybe there had been some benefit after all.
It would not reach her knees, which she kept properly clamped together, legs primly at a side-angle beneath her chair as Grandma had instructed. (She is standing in the scene) (If this is reflection on her differences with Ruthie put those together as well.) If your intent is to show that grandma thought as Angel as an angel and Ruthie as a slut this is good, but it’s muddled. Ruthie crossed her legs, but Grandma said it would give her varicose veins one day… All the while, she wished fervently for her oldest pair of holey warm-ups and her well-worn copy of Thomas More’s Utopia, which she was (rereading) when she packed her bags for this drastic, impulsive journey—not at all like the usual, staid and predictable Angel.
and the man’s passionate expression looked as if he’d already or was just about to ejaculate. There’s nothing wrong with the way you had it.
She hoped Ruth Ann had thought to place Thomas (who is Thomas?)in the trunk being shipped separately
horse (delete or name the dogs) Sugarfoot and her (Delete favorite. It implies she has others she doesn’t care for.) dogs behind
Like this trip, she had scrimped and saved for these precious volumes by working extra hours at the Tasty Freeze during high school so she could add them to her own collection.
Still, most of them were used (delete copies), and some were paperback. Ruth Ann though(t) it was weird to use one’s money to buy books instead of clothes and makeup.
her oddness (perhaps delete more-or-less, but definitely nowadays), but she often found (also, except in rare cases reading and education is highly valued.
she was startled by shouting and curses.
shoving (suggest passed) rolled through the crowd
little man (delete now) attempted
by other disgruntled 191 passengers This is an important flow in the text. These passengers would have been rerouted through other cities and rebooked on other flights. It doesn’t make sense.
scheduled for. Unlike the gregarious charm of their fellow southerners, Tennessee mountain people had a great deal of Scotch and Indian blood in them. It gave them a certain dourness and emotional displays made her uncomfortable. My, how dramatic these foreigners seemed to be… The Irish side of her however could relate…
jostled (delete one another) for a better view
grabbed the man’s arms and were hauling him
She was (delete certainly) glad that the row of chairs were far enough back from the desk that she was (delete well) out of any physical danger. You did not have her sit. She needs to sit down, then cross her legs, then reflect on grandma and her talk to her an Ruthie.
The man in the gray suit was (delete also) nowhere in sight…
(Delete Finally exasperated, Angel had snapped, “Oh Ruthie, for crying out loud! There’s more to life than Revlon you know.”) you need to have something like there’s more to life than hunting for men in Antioch.
church last Sunday for shock value also had a knack for having the final word
Its (delete just) not reality, Angel… The rest of us aren’t heartless. We just have to live in this cold, hard world…”
Angel had heard variations of that tirade more times than she could remember.
picked up (by the dog catcher), and she had come home (from the pound) with four strays in
shotgun blasts (pistol shot or a rifle blast. Nobody but a fool would use a shotgun for that purpose.)
Delete (and the howl of the ol’ mama dog for days outside her bedroom window.) over the top.
and (get or beg for) (delete re-secure) his job back at the canning plant
Charlie’s Tavern (delete Pool Hall)
The next thing, the Watkins woman was pregnant again living with her ol’ man in their ramshackle trailer with no running water or lights.
Tom Watkins was back to being a regular at Charlie’s while and the ‘missus’ was back to being regular at the Squaw Valley Emergency Room.
The kids were back, too. After Tom’s employment was reinstated briefly before the pre-Christmas layoffs, the state had deemed the family “fit.” Once more seeing only the need, Angel raised money in the school and at church to sure that the children had presents and a tree.
Ruthie might crawl (on) her butt on occasion
Nobody (delete else) better mess with
then (delete accidentally) skewered him so hard in the gut (with it that) he’d almost puked up (an entire) month’s tab’s worth of Budweiser.
All this Ruth Ann material takes away from the story. This needs to be pared to a minimum and reinserted into the action and dialog.
And she’d explained it all to them (We still don’t know why she’d there. This should go in early. It give her better depth.
Love the transition from David to the man in the grey suit. I like the way you compared their intense features. Nice touch.
The background information on Angel is a little too much. I would suggest breaking it up a little more throughout future chapters, but the her back story pulls my attention away from the story at hand.
Very VERY nice description of the man in the grey suit. I can visualize him perfectly.
Ruth Anne sounds like a character. I like your descriptions of her. She and Angel seem like perfect foils of each other. I’m curious as to what she looks like. I’m interested in seeing how she falls into the story later.
I notice, from this chapter and chapter 18, that people seem to be “intrigued” by Angel’s looks, however, the way she’s described (blonde hair, blue eyes) seems very average all-American. If you’re going for all American (to go with the whole American girl kidnapped theme) that would be great. However, i can’t help but visualize Angel as a more exotic or unique beauty. I picture her with dark hair that contrasts with her light eyes or even red (since you mentioned she’s Irish). Of course, that’s just me. I can definitely see why you would go for the all American look, though. As i said before, it goes with the theme of the story.
Love all your detail. You really did a good job of developing all the characters and showing their personalities.
Overall, I loved it. I think its a great start to the rest of the book. However, i do suggest cutting out a lot of Angel’s back story. I found myself sort of rushing through it just so i could see what happened with the man in the grey suit and her flight, etc. I can’t wait to read the next chapter. I’m definitely marking this as a favorite. I doubt you’ll have any problem getting this published.
Love it, love it, love it. I can relate fully with Angel and my sister is much like Ruth Ann. I love the tension between the man and angel, as a teenager almost all my confrontations with good looking boys are filled with anxiety and tension.
Any girl who reads it will be able to relate to this wonderful chapter.
I love how you describe Angels shyness without actually really using the word shy and her charitable sense after a confusing past.
Her family is very real especially Ruth Ann. And her grandparents seem like the typical Australian family to me. (I can’t say the typical American family as I wouldn’t know, I don’t live there).
I can’t wait to read on you are an inspiration.
I’d be a little more economic in my sentence structure, why not “stylish navy and salmon color suit”. I’d get rid of the “which was all the style right now”. Less wordy
“Would-be fair skin” does not sound right. ”Sun-kissed tones of her normally pale skin.” Actually, this sentence could use some playing around with
” her bags, something,” leave out “something”, you’ve got enough information in this sentence to segue to the man helping her
“Certainly not back home in Antioch a little town of less than 5,000 people”. Drop the rest of the sentence. Use a little more economy in your prose.
I’m noticing something I saw in another review. While these flashbacks are revealing traits of Angel’s character, they make me more anxious for the story to continue. You’ve given her a good biography—now see if you can condense it and get on with the story. I’m finding I want to know what’s going on in the presence.
You almost could have based your first chapter on Angel and her biography to introduce her to the reader, then moved on to what is going on at the airport. With the way you’ve introduced the airport scense an Kassim, I was anxious to find out what was going on—especially since there didn’t seem to be an explanation as to the why?
Then I would have put her in the airport and let the scene start rolling. The chapter seemed out of balance, though you do give good introductions to your characters. I just wish it would have moved a little faster. Angel is interesting--maybe--but the biography seemed to drag.
Lots of potential, though. HA—me saying that to a journalist!
So, I’m not going to go over any of the punctuation or sentence by sentence stuff, since your other two reviewers already did. This is probably going to be pretty short in relation to the amount of writing you did.
While I understand that this chapter is meant to establish the character of Angel, it’s almost like an info dump. A vast majority of the chapter is spent with Angel thinking backwards and going over her past and how she ended up at the airport. I think if you had saved some of the things you said about Angel in this chapter for later in the book you could have used the same space to introduce Karim.
As it stands Karim, to me, sounds more Italian in appearance than Arabic, but that may just be me. In your criteria you ask if Karim sounds like a good guy rather than a real terrorist. For this first chapter there is no indication that he’s there for any other reason to watch the silly Italians fight over plane tickets, pick up chicks, and irritate Angel. I don’t pick up that he’s a good guy at all and he comes across, to me, more like a wolf hunting an airport’s worth of Little Red Riding Hoods.
Also, the formatting is a little hard to read. As someone mentioned before there is an over-use of ellipses in this chapter. Usually they’re used to represent an omission in quoted material. Since you almost specifically used them at the end of finished thoughts, I think a single period would do you just fine in place of most of them and fix the flow of the read a bit. Along with this goes all the italics. You don’t really stick to using italics for one particular thing. When you first present your first set of italics you’re using them to imply thought, from that point on you switch back and forth between that use and using them for emphasis. Not only are you using them for two purposes, but you’re also using them to emphasis whole phrases rather than single words, which makes it confusing at first when you read an italicized portion because you don’t know if it’s a thought or an emphatic phrase. I’d keep the italics just for thought and the emphasizing of single words and find other ways to point out the severity of phrases.
Otherwise, this is a very good establishing chapter, if a bit fact-heavy, and I think you portrayed the chaos of Italian aiports pretty well haha. It’s nothing like that in Japan. Other people’s airports constantly amaze me.
Really it’s a good start with very few mistakes. Just go over it with a fine toothed comb. Like on page two she looked far better than she should have for someone who had jussed passed the night on a chair in the airport lobby. It just needs to be cleaned up a little bit along with a few others. Like I said before it’s a good story and will be much better when commas and other grammatical errors are fixed. it will make the story smoother. Post the next chapters!
I expected it to be picking up more where you left off with actions. I’ve been wandering about Karim for a while. It seems like a long duration without him. Again this is good and there is a really solid story here. There are these patches where you seem to get bogged down with description or talking about things that don’t seem very pertinent. The action really picks up after the initial scenes and becomes more of a page turner- not so much because there were weapons and threats of violence and edginess, but because there was a perceived conflict and forward moving action towards that end.
I took some notes for what I think could help the slower parts of the section along:
( … Seduce my mind first…) (… Lines… And most) (Darcy to his Elizabeth…)
Ellipses are out of control here.
(Usually they were…to be invited.)
I like this line as a casual insight.
(what Ruthie really got in return for)
It feels like “how Ruthie benefited from” would work better here.
(her appearance, just so)
Between “appearance” and “just” should probably be a new sentence. It feels lengthy and running on after that point.
(Except husband number one, who had left something behind—little John Tallie, Jr. was now six years old, from what Angel could deduce, Ruth Ann rarely benefited in the long run from all her efforts.)
This sentence feels like it should be reworked. Possibly something like this: With the exception of her first husband, who had left something behind (little John Tallie Jr. was now six years old) she rarely benefited from her efforts. I know you love your long sentences, but there are extraneous parts that can be cut from a few.
(slow, and)
New sentence.
(time, and)
New sentence, and in the following sentence “had been” should be replaced with was. She’d seen= she saw.
(which she could barely remember before coming to live with Grandma and Grandpa,)
While this is good information, it seems to really slow down the sentence and the thought may be better conveyed without it.
(Daddy had hit Momma)
Had doesn’t seem necessary for the thought.
(Well, Ruth Ann had gotten)
Cut both “well” and “gotten.” It seems like “well” interjects a narrator personality that hasn’t been present so far.
(always did have)
always had
(when her attention was seized again)
her attention was seized. It isn’t happening again, and when adds needless perspective.
(which lent a certain dourness to the Tennessee mountain people, unlike the gregarious charm of their fellow southerners)
This bit is too much for the sentence.
(Her interest heightened as) (Angel’s anxiety increased) (Finally exasperated)
Maybe a brow raise or a deep breath. This is something to be shown.
(This was the …final word.)
All of these are great ideas that feel like they need to be worded in a more concise way.
(Like the time they’d sent her to the pound when that roaming hound of Uncle John’s had been picked )
I’m getting the feeling that not all of these traits are essential to the plot.
(Or just last September)
If these can’t be included in the forward moving plot they should be examined a bit.
It feels like the story picks up after getting through Angel’s back stories.
Again, I like the way it starts to flow into the action.
To cut the scene you would probably miss out on a good bit of information, but currently it feels lengthy to get through. I think a good possible fix for this would be a side story with another immediate conflict within the airport. With some sort of impending struggle which is loosely attached to the main story, your points and background may flow in a smoother manner. She could be trapped in an uncomfortable situation, or have her bags needlessly searched.
(more than enough to reduce an airliner to shrapnel.)
An airliner? I don’t know about that. It’s certainly enough to kill a lot of people on the airliner.
The reason Karim’s part seems more exciting isn’t the nature of the action or personal preference, but rather that actions are happening. If Angels back story could be conveyed with more forward moving action it would work better.
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