Whilst on this journey of discovery, the two of them meet and make a new friend - Alexis. A young woman with a hidden and secretive past, and a mystery surrounding the relationship she has - or has had - with a renowned business entrepreneur who begins to integrate himself into Samantha's life, unknown to any of them whether he has done it for him, or for her … or for Alexis, being the mysterious link from his past
Bonus Extract: Total Freedom
(TOTAL FREEDOM SERIES - BOOK #1)
By Ann M Pratley
The Drabs, that's what we had been known as, as a band in our home town of Dunedin, New Zealand. We weren't the greatest band and only played a couple of original songs, but we were happy doing what we were doing and over time the crowds did seem to come to love us. That was back in the days of what seemed to be equally the best and worst time of my life. Things have changed so much since then.
When I was 14 years old I attended high school like any other 14 year old, I dressed like any other 14 year old, and I got abused like any other overweight 14 year old - and like too many 14 year olds, I couldn't handle the abuse and as a result I let myself go and believed every word of what I was told. No friends, fat, ugly and totally useless - that's what I was told by people all around me and that was what I became.
Even as a teenager I was well aware of the concept of nutrition and weight maintenance, but day after day everything just felt painful, like just getting through each day was work for me. Like no matter how hard I searched, I just couldn't find where or who I was meant to be. And I became used to using food as my therapy - when I ate, I felt a comfort, like it was the one thing that never hurt me.
Through that period I fell into a comfort zone visiting a local café that sold a wide plethora of foods - nutritious and not so nutritious, but I naturally veered toward the latter. Friends were non-existent to me - in my universe I was a nobody who no-one else ever even noticed.
But one day, walking into my favourite café, something changed. Sitting in there was someone who I noticed and who immediately captured my attention because they were also alone, and looking like they were as miserable as I was day after day. Immediately my feelings didn't seem quite so important - but his did.
Approaching him I didn't feel the usual nervousness or anxiety that I did when contemplating saying hello to someone new. This person had such a look of despair and unhappiness that it actually felt natural for me to approach him and ask if I could sit with him. When he looked up he had such a look of surprise, but stammered out a quiet 'okay'.
After I sat down in front of him, I could see that he wasn't far away from my own age, but I had never seen him before. He looked at me with such intensity in his eyes, periodically removing his eyes from my gaze as if he were not only shy but also extremely uncomfortable talking to people.
"Are you okay?" I asked him, without even introducing myself. "You look … unhappy."
He looked utterly confused, like it was a completely new experience, having someone ask him anything. But he then seemed to find some core strength as I saw him take a deep breath, as if summoning a hidden inner confidence, and hold out his hand.
"I'm Craig," his quiet voice said with a level of doubt in it that made me think that it was a natural thing for him to expect someone at this point to turn and walk away.
I held my hand out and shook his briefly, suddenly feeling strange at this new thing happening - someone was shaking my hand? I couldn't remember when even either of my parents had touched me.
"I'm Debbie," I replied, embracing this moment of physical connection with another human being, and not rushing to remove my hand.
We looked at each other, not saying anything, perhaps both understanding in that moment that we were enough alike - enough able to understand exactly where each other was right in this moment in our thinking and our lives - that a friendship was about to be formed. Something we both were so unfamiliar with.
Upcoming Release: Total New Beginnings
(TOTAL FREEDOM SERIES - BOOK #2)
By Ann M Pratley
She made a choice when she was young - a choice that she went on to question throughout her adult life to date. Twenty years on, the opportunity to revisit that decision appears before her and she is left to consider what is right.
But in and around this opportunity for decision review, she learns things about her husband that push her to question the soundness of his mind, and wonder why he had ever married her.
A chance to start over, choosing this time to go down the path previously unselected … if we could go back and do it over, would we really make the different choice after all?
Bonus Extract: Drab to Sex Goddess in 365 Days
By Ann M Pratley
May 1st
My name is Sarah. I am a wife and I am a mother, and I live in a small city on the eastern coast of the US. I am 42 years old, and will turn 43 in a couple of weeks. I find myself wondering more and more if I am happy in my life, or if I am letting the days churn by, making sure everyone else is happy, while I myself sit on the sidelines. I am not unhappy and yet I find myself trying to analyse and work out if I am in any way content, or if there is a big hole somewhere.
I am well aware of the 'grass is greener' concept - where we sometimes look at other people and we wish we could have aspects of their lives that we don't have ourselves. I understand how easy it is to fall victim to this thinking, so I don't want to do anything rash that might end up not being real and honest, but rather a green-grass move.
As a mother to offspring who have finished high school and are beginning their own journey, I have to allow for the possibility that I am starting to approach the 'empty nest' part of life, and it is this that is bringing forward my questioning about how my life passes each day. As a mother I am proud and often I have internal stress, worrying about my offspring, but must concede that watching them now start to make their own decisions and change tracks on this road of life, has lessened my stress considerably.
Now I turn my attention back to me. I find more and more that I am ready to start being out of the house more and away from my husband more. He is a good man and he has never done anything to hurt me or given me reason to end our relationship. We have been together for 18 years, married for ten, and he is one of those men who happily steps up to do things around the house. He does not complain about doing dishes or cooking a proper meal; he will change the sheets and take pride in making the bed every day; and since the one time he came home after drinking, and I told him I didn't want alcohol or anyone using alcohol in our family home, he hasn't come home again in that state. Even I cannot fault him in anything, as far as being a husband goes.
And yet, day to day I look at him and I no longer feel content there. It feels like something is missing, and I must be honest with myself and admit that I find myself thinking about being with someone new. Not someone I already know - my thoughts have ventured to somewhere that we are all victim to now, with technology so available and easy to use. I have been thinking about the possibility of using the Internet to go online and find myself a lover.
This isn't something that I could take lightly, or something that I would rush into. But the thought is there. I see myself having three options. I can stay exactly where I am and continue to feel as I feel. I can end my marriage to my husband and leave, to become a single woman again. Or I can find a person who I can spend time with only now and then, who would be my ongoing lover over an extended period of time. Sounds harsh and cold hearted, doesn't it. I know it does - and I know it is. And is it a grass is greener idea? Of course I have to allow for the strong possibility that it is.
Inside my body has been growing something different in my hormones. I have not seen a doctor about it because the feelings I have - an awakening in me - I don't really know that I want to go away. In some ways, yes - my days seem to be spent daydreaming of long, sensual afternoons with a skilled lover, pushing me over the edge in my sexuality - but in some ways no - I actua
lly enjoy the physical feeling of being turned on. I have to be open and admit that - my body feels like I am on heat all the time, and I enjoy that feeling very much.
But what do I do about it? My husband is here, and I know that if I initiate sex he will light up like the lights on a Christmas tree - even in this he is always eager to please and will drop what he is doing for an opportunity to get naked with me. I am not a neglected woman. And yet, somehow knowing that to him I am desirable and sexy, does not fulfil me. It isn't his sexual manoeuvres that are lacking - but what I find myself thinking about is that I know his lips, his hands and every other part of his body too well. There is no longer any anticipation or surprise. And that is what I find myself daydreaming about - getting to know a new body, new lips, new hands … going back to that anticipation of wondering how someone will kiss me and touch me.
It is such a selfish thought, the idea of taking a lover, but it plays on my mind as a distinct possibility. Then I look in the mirror and I see how overweight I have let myself become and I start to feel ugly and fat, and wonder what I am thinking because it cannot be that any man other than my husband could look at this vessel I have become, and find it in any way attractive. I am 5ft 3in short and I am now past the 200lb mark on the scales. This is the heaviest I have ever been in my life - since sitting down when I first became pregnant, somewhere along the way I forgot to stand up again and keep focusing on my health, and I feel like I am now a blob. I see no good in the mirror - a double chin, 'back fat' and 'spare tyre'. I am ashamed to have let myself get here, not even just because of how I look, so much as how I've played roulette with my health.
So far my health has not suffered too much - regular medical checkups have kept reporting to me that I am okay. But I am not - I cannot be - and this makes me saddest of all. I was 15 years old when my own mother died and I have been telling myself I am determined to not leave my own offspring so soon. Just words, they are - I have not lived up to them.
So here I am, assessing my life, and wondering what to do to turn a few things around - in particular my thinking and view on things. And from this assessment I have made the decision that I am going to use one year of my life to put in the hard yards. Over the next 365 days I am going to do what it takes to go through a transformation - to become a sex goddess. Yes, you heard correctly. One year to change my body, change my thinking, and if need be, change my situation. My first commitment to be tested will be me getting up earlier every morning, before everyone else gets up, to simply take time to consider my experiences, my successes and my failures. Come with me on my journey.
Introducing: Cruising Through to Fulfilment
By Ann M Pratley
When a young woman from a small town in New Zealand travels to Vancouver to see the sights and go on a luxury cruise through the waters of Alaska, all she wishes for is that - a holiday.
On board the Glacial Sun, Tanya meets new friends, one of whom will become more, using his charm and good looks to win her heart. But once on land the discovery of a dead body close to her hotel will make her question the goodness of the person she has let herself trust, and wonder if there is a darker side to him.
All she wants is to find is long term love and life fulfilment. How hard can that be?
About The Author
Ann M Pratley has a great passion for writing and words, and enjoys writing fiction where the characters take on a life of their own through the writing process.
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