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Excerpt
Thank you so much to Jasmine at Jazzy Book Reviews for the opportunity to share an extract from my anthology A Little Hotel in Cornwall (Books 1-8). It’s a lighthearted romance series about the adventures of Maisie Clark, an aspiring novelist who finds inspiration at a quirky seaside hotel. The following scene is from book five in the series, A Train from Penzance to Paris. It finds Maisie away from her beloved Cornish hotel as she temporarily pursues her writing dreams elsewhere, finding support from an amateur writer’s group who shares similar struggles in their quest to put the right words on the page.

 The writing class had invited me to meet them at a pizza parlor near one of the city's metro stations. They did this once a month, Emily had explained, with everyone buying their own slice and having a good natter about anything and everything related to life and writing. As the newbie, I was welcome to join them if I wanted to.

Eight o' clock, at the table in the back. No pressure to come, and no reading aloud one's work.

When I exited the station, it was raining a little. I snapped open my pocket umbrella as I crossed the street in the direction of the restaurant, and reached for the door at the same moment as Cyrus.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said, in a terrible flirtatious-joking tone of voice. "You alone this evening?"

"Hardly," I answered. In the back, I could see Delia's neon hair and the two mums leaning over the same tablet screen, and Tonya doing her nails on the opposite side of the table.

Delia turned around and waved at us as we came nearer. "We haven't ordered yet," she said.

"They haven't sent the waitress 'round yet, have they?" said Sandy, dryly. "Honestly, we only come here because that poor boy is trying to work his way through university by playing here —"

"He is your best friend's son," said Emily. "And the food's all right."

They must be talking about the young pianist who was supposed to be entertaining the customers, but whose version of 'Stardust' didn't quite fit the atmosphere. Tonya was filming him playing on her phone, and Cyrus took off like a rocket in her direction, claiming the seat closest to hers at the table.

"Sorry I'm late." Brad joined us now. "I had a phone consultation with Doctor Hennessey about an obscure passage in my latest work. Bit empty in here tonight, isn't it? I do think you should try the Chinese place instead."

"We only meet here because it's the stop closest to your flat, and you won't come otherwise," said Sandy.

"Oh. Well, I suppose."

He chose the seat on the opposite side of Tonya from Cyrus, and the smile he gave her revealed the surprising truth that he was equally besotted with her.

I sat down across from Emily. "Where's Michael?" I asked. I had planned to tell him how much I liked his story, especially the parts that had begun to take the shape of a narrative. But everyone from class was here but him and our professor, it seemed.

"He never comes," said Sandy. "I think the spices give him a bit of digestive trouble. Usually Cyrus doesn't come either, but when a certain someone said she'd be there —"

"All right, let the poor beggar alone, Sandy," said Emily, chuckling. "Look at him — I think he might be feeling Brad's advantage tonight." Brad was showing Tonya photos of a flashy-looking car on his mobile, while Cyrus squirmed and made sarcastic remarks about it, feigning boredom.

I hid my smile. "You said no reading, so I didn't bring any chapters with me tonight that were my own," I said. "Just a copy of a very sad novel about an empty house." It was my mom's birthday gift to me, the intriguing tale of a house's life and decline from its own perspective. Here's a new dark and glorious house for you, she had written on its flyleaf. "I've come prepared to forget about writing."

"We said no reading, we didn't say anything about not talking about writing," said Sandy. "We all gather here to commiserate. Not just about writing, of course, but it comes up often enough."

"Sandy's just trying to forget about Petra's tongue piercing," said Emily, quietly.

"Is that new?" I couldn't believe Sandy would say 'yes' to that, so I imagined it was a covert operation on Petra's part.

"Please, I really would prefer not to discuss it," said Sandy, wincing. "I'm still boiling with a fair rage inside. Do you know what the side effects are for the drugs that treat a tongue infection? Let me put it this way — I spent all of this morning cleaning my car's passenger seat and floor."

"Ugh," said Delia. "It was probably dirty, the needle they used. I had mine pierced, no problem. Of course, I let it close up again when they offered me an office job at National Health, so there's only a scar now. But I'm thinking about putting it in a poem."

"National Health Service?" said Emily.

"No, the piercing — it was a friendship pact with this girl I don't speak with anymore. I could weave that into it and really capture the decay of it all with that metaphor."

Sandy made a face. "I can't say a metaphor involving a pierced tongue would enthrall me, love. But I suppose that's why I don't read much poetry."

Brad the pretentious was rolling his eyes at Sandy's remark, although he tried to hide it. When he talked poetry, it took on shades of Nietzsche and Immanuel Kant, and all of his listeners floated somewhere between mystified and bored. During that part of the evening, Emily excused herself to go call her babysitter, and Cyrus, huffing loudly, went to play one of the video game machines — he promised Tonya he'd buy her an ice cream if he won and she peeled herself away from the table, much to Brad's disappointment.

Author Bio –

Laura Briggs is the author of several feel-good romance reads, including the Top 100 Amazon UK seller 'A Wedding in Cornwall'. She has a fondness for vintage style dresses (especially ones with polka dots), and reads everything from Jane Austen to modern day mysteries. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, caring for her pets, gardening, and seeing the occasional movie or play.

Social Media Links –

Author Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/1JjeMoI

Twitter page: http://bit.ly/1ME9ivJ

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