Tag: Fiction

Chanette Paul Guest Posts at Crime Thriller Hound

Chanette Paul’s newest release, the continent and era spanning thriller Sacrificed was featured as the book of the week at the site Crime Thriller Hound, a site promoting “the best in crime and thriller fiction.” She was also invited to write a guest post for the site on her experiences of writing and place.

Some highlights:

On writing about Belgium:

Once I started writing, it dawned on me that I wasn’t so much a novelist attempting to set a story in a foreign European country, but rather a novelist from Africa writing from an African perspective.

On bridging the gap between South African and foreign readers:

The historic and political context needed clarification to an international audience without stunting the flow of the story –which is difficult enough – but I also had to avoid boring my South African readers.

On writing about her home:

I learned to look through intercontinental eyes and rediscover the mystery and uniqueness of the continent I live on and love.

Head over to Crime Thriller Hound to read her full essay

Excerpt from Chanette Paul’s Novel Sacrificed

In Chanette Paul’s US debut, Sacrificed, we meet Caz Colijn, a woman whose quiet and secluded life is interrupted by new discoveries from her troubled past. Many thanks to Books Live for featuring this excerpt:

Prologue
17 January 1961
Katanga, Congo

The night air reeked of savanna dust, sweat and fear. Of betrayal, greed and the thirst for power. A stench Ammie knew well.

César’s left hand gripped her arm. The right hand was clenched around her jaw.

“Watch, bitch,” he hissed in her ear. “Watch!”

Elijah stood under an acacia, a hare in the headlights. It was new moon. At the fringes of the pale smudge between somewhere and nowhere loomed the vague shapes of more trees. Somewhere to the left something rustled in the tall grass. A jackal howled in the distance, its mate echoing the mournful cry.

A command rang out, followed by the distinct sound of four rifles being cocked. She wanted to close her eyes but she kept staring as if her eyelids were starched.

Elijah coughed and spat out a gob of bloody mucus. His vest, once white, was smeared with soil, sweat, saliva, blood. One shoe was missing. He wasn’t looking at the soldiers with their rifles. From behind the lopsided spectacles on his battered face his eyes searched out her own. The glare on the lenses made it impossible to read the expression in his eyes.
Another command. Rifles raised to shoulders.

Read the rest at Books Live