Summer Reads, Sneaky Peek: Rip Current by Amanda James

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 BLURB 
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DI Bryony Marshall has been on the tail of Kenny Ransom for two years. He’s involved in prostitution and trafficking, but there’s never been any real proof. To complicate matters further, Bryony’s best friend from childhood is his daughter Imogen. 
Bryony worries about admitting the fact that she is trying to put Imogen’s dad away, but unexpectedly, Imogen turns on her father and helps the police. Kenny finds out and swears he’ll get his revenge.
Sick of being in the police force, Bryony visits her mother in Cornwall and considers starting a new life.
While in Cornwall, Bryony saves the life of a man caught up in a rip current in the sea.
But who is this stranger? And is Kenny really bent on revenge? 
Rip Current explores the relationships between families and friends and asks who can you ever really trust.

Author Bio:
Amanda grew up in Sheffield but now has realised her lifelong dream of living in Cornwall and her writing is inspired every day by the dramatic coastline near her home. She has sketched out many stories in her head while walking the cliff paths. Five of her mystery/suspense novels are set there, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, Summer in Tintagel and the Behind the Lie, Another Mother and Rip Current - the last two both published with Bloodhound Books this year. A third book also published this year by Bombshell Books - The Calico Cat, a coming of age family drama, is also set there.
Amanda, known to many as Mandy, spends far more time than is good for her on social media and has turned procrastination to a fine art. She can also usually be found playing on the beach with her family, or walking the cliff paths planning her next book.

Rip Current Sneaky Peek 
Anya’s hand trembles so much that the eyeliner becomes a charcoal mess under her lashes. She reaches for a box of tissues next to the dressing table mirror, but then lets her hand fall.
What is the point? The men that come to her room barely look at her face. Three men have been in her room today.
Three men have been inside her today.
Anya had tried to shut down her mind, switch off her senses while they shoved, panted, pawed, their stinking breath on her face, slobbering mouths on her skin. It hadn’t worked. A silent scream filled her head; a spear of shame pierced her heart.
The fingers holding the eyeliner grip so hard that she thinks the plastic will snap. How has she allowed this to happen? She looks at her reflection again and hardly recognises the pale, thin face, haunted grey eyes and the desperation behind them. Marta always tells her she must look her best. Men pay more for pretty women. If she doesn’t try to please them, Jozef will make sure she pays. Marta laughs when she tells her this. Gold teeth in a wide savage mouth assert her status.
‘Jozef has big fists and you have a small face, remember that,’ she said last night. Marta says this most nights, in fact any time that Anya even hints at refusing to do her bidding.
As if she needs reminding.
She thinks about the way Marta’s bright blue eyes narrow to ice chips; the way, intoxicated by power, her lips quiver around each word before sending them to Anya’s ears. Little drops of poison – lethal to pride, murderers of hope.
Hope is a very dangerous thing to hold on to. People always say that where there is life, there is hope. Anya used to believe it, at least for the first few weeks. Cruelly used, held against her will. She used to think that somehow she would escape, get back home to the life she once knew. But now, more than six months on, Anya knows hope is a luxury she can’t afford. She has learned this well. Jozef’s fists, days without food, naked and chained in a freezing cellar are all excellent teachers. Anya shakes her head. Survival is better.
Survival is all she has.
In the mirror she watches a ghost of herself brush out her long blonde hair. Anya runs a few strands through her fingers and thinks it has lost its lustre. When she was little, her grandmother used to say that her hair looked like spun gold. Anya’s thoughts leap on the memories of those days, like starving dogs. There she is now on her grandparents’ farm; she draws sustenance from the images of where she spent her school holidays. The days of hiding in the whispering cornfield with a good book. The days of endless blue skies and the flattest verdant landscapes, the days before—
‘Anya, you have a gentleman caller in five minutes, be ready!’ Marta’s voice calls up the stairwell.
Inside her head, the screaming starts.

Connect with Amanada



Twitter - @akjames61

Facebook mandy.james.33


The Calico Cat (Bombshell/Bloodhound Books June 2018)
Another Mother (Bloodhound Books April 2018)
Behind the Lie (HQ Digital HarperCollins April 2017)
Summer in Tintagel (Urbane Publications July 2016)

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