Loren

By Naa Shalman

Loren’s sweet soul was scorched by tragedy when she watched her family die in a fire as a child. As an adult, she floats through life under a heavy cloud of sadness. Her unexpected new life with a man who loves her beyond reason is almost too good to be true. Gerald is not only her lover but her tenuous link to happiness and life. When Gerald witnesses a mysterious event and questions her love for him, her new secure life disintegrates into ashes and smoke.
Loren is once again exposed and lost. She realises that her fate lies only in her own hands, and no man can protect her heart from the cruelty of the world. Will Gerald reach Loren in time to recapture her heart and convince her that he can be her saviour or will a fate stronger than his resolve take her away forever?'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naa Shalman
• Release date: May 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9789988149772

Naa Shalman

I think that throughout my life I have been storing experiences for a purpose. My birth and early childhood in Ghana, the transition to a new life in England, my education that has culminated (so far) in a degree in Education and Community Development and a Master’s in Public Administration. The birth of my three children and everything in between –all of these wonderful experiences have been used to fulfil my life-long desire - to become a writer. My passion for writing about relationships is equalled by my passion for reading about them and although I enjoy reading anything and everything; my favourite novels will always be those that reflect real life. I have been asked many times why I read and write so much and my answer is always the same - to escape. I can create an entire world in my head where I live with many fictional couples, suffering their trials and experiencing their triumphs. Like them our life journey is never carefree and rosy, but it is real and every challenge along the journey that we have taken was ours to accept and ours to overcome. I believe that every experience in life provides an opportunity to re-mould ourselves and our spirits; my experiences have certainly been so and I look forward to a future filled with more of them. My characters’ situations are not smoothed by privilege and luxury; rather, they are defined by the unique challenges and routine obstacles of life. Like me, my heroes and heroines find meaningful victory in the power of love, faith and perseverance. As a writer I hope my words will build a bridge across the cultural lacuna that grows deeper as our world continues to shrink. I want to share stories from other continents through characters steeped in centuries old traditions and beliefs as they make their way through our modern-day global community. My aim is to make my stories reflect real life experience, while retaining the subtle promise of a fairy tale. I look forward to my future as a successful author in which my readers are continually exposed to different cultures and some new and old social issues. Most of all, I want my writing to evoke a real sense of emotion in my readers, making them fume at injustice, share in sadness, understand and relate to new perspectives, laugh in appreciation of human nature and where possible end with a smile.

Book preview

LOREN

By

Naa Shalman

Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 by Naa Shalman

All rights reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical including, but not limited to, photocopying, recording or taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher and author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations and dialogue in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

ISBN#:

Cover Design by Eli Blyden – CTG

Photographs by [e-mail]

http://www.naashalman.com

Dedication.

To my sisters Naa Adjeley Allan, Naa Ajorkor Asirifi and Gladys Ativor. You taught me that my strength lies within my character and faith and not in the hands of any other human being as we are all prone to err.

Chapter 1

The clock radio burst to life at 7am. Instead of eliciting the usual groggy slap on the snooze bar, today it brought Gerald rushing in from the long corridor leading from his modern stainless steel kitchen. Already dressed, his silk tie perfectly knotted, he swiftly turned the alarm off, careful not to wake the beautiful woman miraculously still slumbering across the left side of his bed.

He let his gaze hover over her peaceful form. The soft cadence of her breaths caused his lungs to seize with emotion. He loved this woman! She had completed him and at times like this he wondered how he had ever existed without her.

Gerald reached down to let his finger trace the soft, fair skin on her shoulder and play with a silky strand of hair gently curling down from behind her left earlobe. Bending closer, he inhaled her scent. He never ceased to marvel at how she smelled more feminine, more alluring when she was sleeping. Before waking her, he indulged in the poignant memory of their first meeting eighteen months ago...

After a particularly volatile day with the stock market, he had escaped his financial office to enjoy an evening of raucous good times with friends. He had never expected to meet such a fragile flower or to have his heart so completely consumed by her tragic history. She was a software programmer who as a child had lost her entire family in a disastrous fire that swept through their house, leaving nothing but the smouldering skeleton of her childhood home, entombing