Snowgirls

James Clark

Description

After destructive tsunamis and volcanic eruptions play havoc with the world's environment, several women emerge as leaders. Snowed in, Heather in a North Yorkshire dale uses her bizarre windfall to everyone's advantage until finally defeated by unrelenting arctic conditions, she makes an epic journey over land and frozen sea on an old tractor. On the French Riviera, Michelle survives the invasion of starving European refugees to feed them and continue as a music teacher. Driven from inundated Brisbane, Nina and Amy rise to be refugee camp leaders. A novel of ill-suited love, shattered families and political corruption. A novel of courage and determination overcoming catastrophe.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 28 juin 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528965323
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Snowgirls
Clark James
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-06-28
Snowgirls About the Author About the Book Copyright Information Other Books by Clark James Foreword Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five
About the Author
Clark James has had a diverse working life coupled with art and writing, including the six-volume historical New Zealand novel  Wind from the West  and now the four-volume series beginning with  Snowgirls. Recently published is his story of lure and lucre : The Castaway Hat. Other novels including Earth’s Revenge  and  The Consequence are environmental/political.
Clark is widely travelled and places characters into settings he is familiar with. He also has been involved in various organisations: scouting, politics, ratepayers, performing arts, painting and writing groups. Married twice, he has several adult children, step-children, grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
About the Book
After destructive tsunamis and volcanic eruptions play havoc with the world’s environment, several women emerge as leaders. Snowed in, Heather in a North Yorkshire dale uses her bizarre windfall to everyone’s advantage until finally defeated by unrelenting arctic conditions, she makes an epic journey over land and frozen sea on an old tractor. On the French Riviera, Michelle survives the invasion of starving European refugees to feed them and continue as a music teacher. Driven from inundated Brisbane, Nina and Amy rise to be refugee camp leaders.
A novel of ill-suited love, shattered families and political corruption. A novel of courage and determination overcoming catastrophe.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Clark James (2019)
The right of Clark James to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528928076 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528965323 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Other Books by Clark James
Wind from the West series:
Book One – Moon over the Manukau
Book Two – Neap Tide
Book Three – Storm & Stress
Book Four – Waves on the Waitemata
Book Five – Spring Tide
Book Six – Setting of the Sun
Fish, Chips and Rachmaninoff
Plantation (Earth’s Revenge)
The Consequence
The Castaway Hat
How to Fix a Sick Planet
Restored: A Northern Sequel to Snowgirls
With Rewa Walia; Laxmi – Odyssey of a Dancer
Foreword
Two massive Pacific tectonic plate subductions, three volcanic eruptions send 30–40m tsunamis on to unsuspecting shores in the early hours of the morning. Pacific islands obliterated, the east coasts of New Zealand and Australia annihilated. Ash fills the skies, grounds planes. Temperatures plummet. It snows and continues to snow, for two years. World production of food and goods comes to a devastating halt.
In Brisbane two now homeless women inspire their refugee camp. As perpetual snow falls in the Yorkshire Dales a stoic girl turns the local pub into a haven, of sorts. St Raphael on the French Riviera is a scene of riches to rags. Families self-destruct as millions abandon the deprivation of snowbound Europe.
You will be shocked. You’ll be intrigued, because volcanic eruptions and earthquakes have played havoc in the past, so why not in the future? Why not tomorrow? How much warning was there of the infamous Boxing Day tsunami or Fukushima, which claimed thousands of lives?
Due to the various locations imperial and metric measurements are used.
C. J.
June 2018
Chapter One
The temperature was already in the high-twenties when Adam walked the half kilometre from the station to his job as a hospitality tutor at TAFE Queensland Brisbane.
Across Queensland the day’s heat increased to over forty degrees Celsius.
Adam in Brisbane was homeward bound on the train when there was a vivid flash, bright enough in the evening light to startle commuters. The train shuddered to a stop, throwing passengers forward. Acrid smoke drifted through the carriage. Passengers groped for safety, clawing over each other for doors. Nature had welded those doors shut. They could not be forced open. Someone smashed a window, and Adam pushed a dazed, smartly dressed lady through the jagged aperture. He followed her, and together they stumbled down an embankment, collapsing on their hands and knees. They looked at each other as if wondering how they had got there.
“Thank you,” she gasped. “Thank you, so much.”
They unsteadily rose to their feet, and she stood as if disorientated. Adam’s longs were torn at the knees, while the lady’s knees had come directly into contact with the rough ground, and blood oozed from several scrapes.
Other escapees tumbled beside them.
Adam was at first intent on making his way from the scene, when he again looked at the paralysed woman. He was about to take her elbow when a second flash illuminated another carriage and a muffled explosion diverted his attention back to the train. Instead of assisting her he scrambled up the embankment to help more passengers from the scorched carriage.
Several minutes later he slithered down the bank to see the first woman still standing at almost the same spot. She was statuesque and reminded Adam of his wife. His wife! What was he thinking of, admiring another lady? “Are you okay?” was his lame comment.
She was far from okay, with her palms grazed and droplets of blood running from knees down her legs. She stared at him without appraisal, her mind blank. “Where are we?” Where they were was irrelevant; what had occurred was not.
Adam wasn’t sure himself. They had passed Canon Hill on the eastern Cleveland Line, but he wasn’t momentarily sure where they were now. Anyway, it did not really matter. They were both alive, which was more than could be said of some of their fellow passengers.
“Let’s move away.” He courteously reached for her arm, wondering if in this day and age such decency would be appreciated, or regarded as sexual assault! He need not have worried. She acquiesced silently and the two stumbled across a strip of rough ground to a street unknown to Adam.
The lady looked about her, parted her lips as if to say something, and Adam could see that she was without her handbag.
“Have you lost your bag?”
She only nodded.
“I’m sure they’ll find it and return it to you.”
He glanced back at the train, partially to see if her handbag was on the ground, but milling passengers prevented any such sighting.
She dabbed her bloodied hands with a tissue, while Adam only had a reasonably clean handkerchief to wipe her knees. As he did so, he asked, “Where do you live? How far were you from home?” Adam sensed that she had no more idea of her exact location than he did. However, once they had reached a main road he knew he’d get his bearings, so it was not a problem. The trouble was, he couldn’t recall there being a main road nearby. There was no direct route to his place unless they walked along either the railway line or adjacent Port motorway. They would have to thread their way through an industrial area then cross the Gateway Motorway for a start. They began walking, she limping, with others through the gathering onlookers, but not emergency personnel. They did look out of place: a well-dressed couple attempting to take a short-cut across the flood plain, to discover the only way across the Bulimba Creek, where it was bridged by the railway and the Port motorway.
A more sinister worry. The seemingly ever-darkening sky was surely about to burst in a deluge. And darkness would soon be complete as day turned to night.
In truth, the lady found Adam’s presence comforting, and although he apologised, she was not angry he had forcibly ejected her from the crippled train. Far from now being offended by his hand on her elbow, she had, when he attempted to remove it, placed her other hand securely on his until she was satisfied he was not going to draw it away, and possibly draw away from her altogether. She seemed oblivious to her injuries and did not think it odd she should be comforted by a complete stranger. She did not think of anything in particular: as if part of her brain had ceased to function, and the only active cells were those which controlled her legs. She was at peace. The lightning strike might not have happened, and she was strolling along a suburban road, with no need of a handbag.
Emergency services were already stretched. Firemen battling numerous blazes: in homes, businesses and bush. Ambulance staff were tending victims: some beyond help, others severely burnt when home appliances had exploded into flame.
A newly built skyscraper with composite cladding lit the gloom: flames cascading downward until the entire building was sheathed in the inferno. Its ashen occupants scurried from the solitary entrance. Those first out free of flames, but within minutes burning evacuees tumbled through the door, to collapse before reaching safety. Those following tripped and sprawled over them, and the sole exit became blocked.
In a room just four floors up a man and two women were trapped, unless