Deviance. London Psychic Book 3
Page 18
The new Mayor, Amanda Masters, had opened her first week by giving Cross Bones Graveyard to the people of Southwark and providing new funding to the Kitchen. The community rallied, and together they were making this a sanctuary for those outcast in life as well as death. Magda and O were leading the development team and Jamie would join them in the next week. It was time she used her skills to build and nurture instead of clean up the aftermath of violence. It felt good to be part of something new, something vibrant.
Magda walked up and kissed Jamie on the cheek, her smile wide as she surveyed the happy crowd.
"Thank you for coming, Jamie. We really couldn't have done this without you." She put her arms around O, pulling her tight against her body. O giggled and nuzzled against her. "And I might have lost Olivia without you."
"Get a room," Jamie laughed, pushing them away, and they skipped back to the reel.
"Fancy a dance?" The voice caught her by surprise and she turned quickly.
Blake stood there, holding a bunch of purple tulips. He ran a gloved hand nervously over his buzzcut.
"I … I hope it's OK that I came. I brought flowers for the memorial."
"They're gorgeous," Jamie said.
She reached out and touched his arm, her fingers caressing his caramel skin before linking her arm with his. He smelled of pine forests after rain.
"I thought you were going north for a trip," Jamie said. "Did you change your mind?"
"That can wait," Blake said, his voice soft. "I have more important things to focus on here."
Jamie looked up and met his eyes. She saw a promise there, something they could build upon, a new beginning.
"We can lay the flowers together," she said.
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Author's Note
As with all my books, this one is based on real places and then spun off into a new direction for the story. For images relating to the book, check out the Deviance Pinterest board.
Cross Bones Graveyard
Cross Bones is a post-medieval burial ground, that much is true, since excavations found an overcrowded graveyard during the construction of the London Underground Jubilee Line.
John Constable, a Southwark writer, is responsible for the interpretation of it as an unconsecrated graveyard for the Outcast Dead, women who were licensed by the church to work as prostitutes and their children, their sin used to fund the lifestyle and buildings of the clergy. John is an urban shaman under the name John Crow, who also channeled a Winchester Goose to write The Southwark Mysteries. He also leads walks around the borough. You can find more about his work here at SouthwarkMysteries.co.uk.
The character of Magda Raven was influenced by John Constable/John Crow, and also by the book Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber.
When I first started writing the book, Cross Bones Graveyard was under the threat of development by Transport for London, but in Jan 2015, Bankside Open Spaces Trust was given temporary planning permission and a three-year lease for a memorial garden.
You can find videos and more information at Crossbones.org.uk
Tattoos
If you want to know more about the meaning of tattoos and body modification, then check out Pagan Fleshworks: The Alchemy of Body Modification by Maureen Mercury.
You can see tattoos I love on the Pinterest board and yes, I am intending to get ink!
Octopus
The scene that Blake reads in O's pendant is from my own scuba diving experience at the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand years ago. A huge octopus swam by, stopping for a moment to hang in the water and check me out before swimming on. I've seen a lot of octopi in holes and crevices but this is the only one I've seen in open water. I had the sense of something so alien, yet also intelligent. I've seen the same look in the eyes of dolphins when swimming wild with them.
This fascination with octopi led to the emergence of O's tattoo in Desecration, so I wanted to write about its origin story here.
Sex trade in London
It's fascinating how much of London is shaped by the history of the sex trade. The main books used for my research were City of Sin by Catharine Arnold and The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital by Dan Cruickshank
Other books by J.F.Penn (Amazon)
I hope you enjoyed the story. There are lots more books if you'd like to continue reading.
London Psychic series
Desecration #1
Delirium #2
Deviance #3
ARKANE action adventure series
Stone of Fire #1
Crypt of Bone #2
Ark of Blood #3
One Day In Budapest #4
Day of the Vikings #5
Gates of Hell #6
One Day in New York #7
Plus, A Thousand Fiendish Angels: Short stories based on Dante's Inferno
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About J.F.Penn
Joanna Penn is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers on the edge. Joanna has a Master’s degree in Theology from the University of Oxford, Mansfield College and a Graduate Diploma in Psychology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
She lives in London, England but spent eleven years in Australia and New Zealand. Joanna worked for thirteen years as an international business consultant within the IT industry, but is now a full-time author-entrepreneur. She is the author of the ARKANE series as well as other thrillers, crime and horror.
Joanna is a PADI Divemaster and enjoys traveling as often as possible. She is obsessed with religion and psychology and loves to read, drink Pinot Noir and soak up European culture through art, architecture and food.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jonathan, for joining me on sex tours of Southwark and indulging my weird obsessions at the Tattoo Convention.
Thanks to Jen Blood, my fantastic editor, to Wendy Janes for proofreading and thanks to Jane Dixon Smith for cover design and interior print formatting. Thanks also to Dan Holloway for beta reading.
Copyright page
Copyright © J.F. Penn (2015). All rights reserved.
www.JFPenn.com
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.