WHAT I SAY
Two elderly London widows, Muriel and Ruby, have just arrived by coach for a seniors’ holiday break in the Scottish Highlands. They’ve never been to Scotland – or indeed out of London – before. Although they’ve been friends since childhood, they’re contrasting characters. Ruby is the more adventurous and outgoing, while Muriel, who was reluctant to come, is more withdrawn and imaginative. On arriving at the rather sinister Fairloch Hotel, Muriel has immediate misgivings. Resting in her room, she falls asleep for a moment – or maybe not – and encounters a wisecracking angel who warns her to get out of the hotel while the going’s good. When Ruby suddenly crashes back into the room, the angel vanishes. Muriel agrees to go down and join the welcome party with Ruby, but her sense of impending doom only deepens when she meets the staff, overhears some strange conversations and encounters the angel again in a different guise. Eventually, she faints and has to be helped up to bed. Next day, Muriel having persuaded her doubtful friend that they need to find somewhere else to stay, the pair lodge at a bed-and-breakfast establishment presided over by friendly local matriarch Ella. As the conversation develops, more is revealed about the Fairloch Hotel, its lack of engagement with the village and its gruesome wartime history. Ella mentions that she sees plenty of coachloads arrive there, but never seems to witness them leaving. The buses go away empty. While Ella and Ruby bond over a bottle of whisky, Muriel excuses herself and goes for a walk on the beach under the moon. This time, when the angel arrives, he takes a startlingly different form. Ella realizes her vision – if that’s what he is – is something far older and more dangerous than she thought. But dangerous to whom? There’s a reckoning coming with the forces that power the Fairloch Hotel, and by the time it’s over, Muriel will find herself utterly changed. |
WHAT OTHERS SAY
“Clare O'Brien's AIRLOC begins quietly with two old friends on a coach holiday in the Scottish Highlands, but it's not long before a deepening sense of unease slithers through the ordinary. Windows stare like insect eyes while a building squats like a spider. The cunning setup could lead the tale in many directions, but O'Brien leads us down the most unexpected path into a world where the mundane and the fantastical intertwine with the utmost ease. A story that stays with you long after the last word has been read."
- L.G. Thomson, author of memoir Modernist Dreams, Brutalist Nightmares and seven novels including tartan noir thriller Boyle's Law.
"Clare O’Brien writes with an easy fluency that underpins her strong narrative voice, one that is also stylistically flexible, supple and convincing in its attitudes and ironies - key features of her writing given the story’s trajectory. Characterisation, and narrative, frequently display deft touches of humour and insight that fix her characters in our imagination but which also engage the reader’s trust as the story flares from the mundanities of an event as ordinary as a bus tour into an epic of magic realism and the gothic before gliding on to its touching denouement. Clare O’Brien can lead you into other worlds, a journey worth the taking.
- Jon Miller, Scottish poet and winner of the The Poetry Business 2022 International Book and Pamphlet Competition for his collection Past Tense Future Imperfect.
A WORD ABOUT THE COVER
The eye-catching cover design was created by Ariana Den Bleyker of New York based press ELJ Editions, who published AIRLOC as part of their ongoing Afternoon Shorts series.
WHERE TO BUY ONE
Order your copy in paperback or e-book direct from Amazon UK or Amazon US.
The eye-catching cover design was created by Ariana Den Bleyker of New York based press ELJ Editions, who published AIRLOC as part of their ongoing Afternoon Shorts series.
WHERE TO BUY ONE
Order your copy in paperback or e-book direct from Amazon UK or Amazon US.
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