Accursed Love: A Genre-Bender Soap Saga

By Anthony North

This is Anthony North's second outing for a new style of genre-bending formula novel. Crime, Romance, Satire ... oh, and a Curse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony North
• Release date: Apr 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005000189

Anthony North

Thinker & Storyteller****7,453 Words to Save the UK and I,Writer are now FREE. Scroll down to find them.*****1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). ‘Twas the best of times ... (Oh well).I was actually born in the year of Einstein's death, close to Scrooge's Counting House. It doesn't mean anything but it sounds good. As for my education, I left school at 15 and have had no formal education since. Hence, I'm self-taught.****From a family of newsagents, at 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realized my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I’ve suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.Indeed, as I realized that no expert could tell me what was wrong with me, I began my quest to find out why. Little did I realize it would last decades and take me through the entire history of knowledge, leaving me with the certainty that our knowledge systems are inadequate.****My non-fiction is based on P-ology, a thought process I devised to work with patterns of knowledge, and designed to be a bedfellow to specialization. A form of Rational Holism, it seeks out areas the specialist may have missed. I work from encyclopaedias and introductory volumes in order to gain a grasp of many subjects and am not an expert in anything, but those patterns keep forming. Hence, I do not deal in truth, but ideas, and cover everything from politics to the paranormal.When reading my work I ask only: do I make sense? Of course, an expert would say: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree. And an expert has so little knowledge of everything.I also write novels and Flash Fiction in all genres.

Book preview

Accursed Love:

A Genre-Bender Soap Saga

By Anthony North

Copyright: Anthony North 2021

Cover image copyright: Yvonne North, 2021

Smashwords Edition

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission

Other books by Anthony North

In 2019 I began publishing 14 volumes of my fiction, inc 7 novels in most genres, & 21 works of non-fiction covering cults, politics, conspiracies, religion, disasters, science, philosophy, warfare, crime, psychology, new age, green issues & all areas of the unexplained, inc ufology, lost worlds and the paranormal. Hopefully appearing at the rate of one a month, check out the latest launch at my bookstore at http://anthonynorth.com or buy direct from Smashwords for all devices at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth

In addition to the above, you may like my ‘I’ Series – 8 volumes of flash fiction (horror, sci fi, romance, adventure, crime), 4 volumes of poetry & 5 volumes of short essays from politics to the unexplained. Available from same links as above. Also check out my bookstore for news of my books out in paperback.

CONTENTS

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

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

About the Author

Connect With Anthony

Chapter One

It didn’t seem far as he looked at the countryside from behind the bars. It was just a short sprint to the trees, and then freedom. Well, maybe not. It was inevitable he would soon be missed, even in an open prison, and then the manhunt would be on.

Could a simple phone call generate such thoughts? Could a simple phone call change his plans so permanently? Well, Billy Lennox now knew that it could. Just a simple phone call and everything was changed.

Maybe he would be out in a year or two. Okay, it was a big robbery, and yes he did refuse to name the others involved. But Billy Lennox had served quite a few years now, and he had been so well behaved that six months ago he was moved here, to an open prison. That MUST mean he only had a year or two left to serve. But with what he was planning now, he could say goodbye to freedom for decades; if, that is, he was caught.

Irrelevant, he knew. The phone call changed everything; and now, he had a little package to collect.

Hans looked over his own patch of countryside. It wasn’t as big as the panoramic view Billy Lennox saw. Rather, it was a little patch of paradise surviving the spread of the town. And really, it wasn’t his - it belonged to his employer, Bob Ormerod – but over the weeks he had been here, he had come to think of it as his own.

He wiped the sweat from his brow as he momentarily stopped digging. His thick blonde hair stuck to his forehead, and his beard was encrusted with dirt. But as an archaeologist, he had come to love the grime of the job, immersing himself in the ground and the secrets it could disclose.

Hans had a secret of his own. German by birth, he had come to the UK many years ago, and quickly realized his name was a burden. Some thirty years of age, even so long after the war, people were suspicious of a man called Goebbels. Hence, he shortened his name to Hans Ball. But he never quite got the joke.

He turned his head, away from the little patch of countryside, and feasted himself on the house. Ancient and derelict for so long, it had belonged to the Ormerod family for centuries – until, that is, Bob Ormerod’s father had lost it, along with a vast fortune. And it was only recently that it had come back into the family’s possession.

Hans was thankful of this, for the family was determined to restore the house to its former glory. But as is often the case, when you begin knocking this down and digging that up in such a place, you find more than you bargained for. You find artifacts, and you find treasure. And it wasn’t long before they needed an archaeologist to scout ahead of the builders, making sure nothing was lost to the world.

Billy Lennox was twenty five years of age, and baby faced with spiky hair. So small that the extra half inch was always used in giving his height, it was as if he had not grown since the job.

He spent many hours thinking about what he did. He wasn’t much more than a kid, whereas his two accomplices were men. Maybe that’s why he didn’t get a really serious sentence. The judge and jury didn’t know who the other two were, but it was obvious they felt Lennox had been duped into the job. And to be frank that was quite true.

He sat in his cell thinking, now, about what he would do after he had … escaped. His accomplices came into his mind. He hadn’t thought about them for such a long time – at least, not with malice. But after the phone call, maybe that malice had returned. He had told himself so often that it wasn’t their fault. He knew what he was doing and agreed to the job himself. No one pushed him. No one conned him. But with the thought of seeing them again, he began to change his appreciation of history once more. Yea, he thought, I was only a kid. They didn’t have to lead me on like that.

And malice, once bred, is a frightful thought to have.

Hans Ball looked up to the refreshing sun, drank thirstily from his water bottle and got down on his haunches. Break-time over, he thought; and at that, he picked up his trowel and began delicately moving earth once more from the trench.

‘So what do you expect to find?’ asked Bob Ormerod when Hans had first turned up at the house.

‘Hard to say,’ Hans had said in his German accent. ‘The site has been occupied for hundreds of years – possibly thousands. There could be artifacts of all kinds. We could discover foundations of old buildings.’

‘Will you be digging everywhere?’

‘Wherever the ground radar or contours suggest it is worthwhile.’

Hans never realized, at the time, the hint of worry on Bob Ormerod’s face. It had become clear to him that the man didn’t want him there, but the National Trust had insisted. It was only later that Hans began to realize there might be something Bob didn’t want him to find. And now, as Hans moved the trowel once more, his first thought was that he had found it.

The skeletal hand seemed to appear out of a brown nothingness as the dirt was disturbed …

Chapter Two

Danny Jones stood in front of the mirror and looked himself over. As usual, his suit was immaculate and his hair suitably combed. And even a mild hangover could only puncture the image of perfection fleetingly. In his mid-forties Danny had worn well, but he felt depressed with the first hint of grey and natural thinning on top. And even his regular exercise was losing the battle around the waist. For a moment he considered a future of wigs and corsets, but that only depressed him further.

‘Danny, will you get a move on.’

Susan’s voice filtered through the bedroom door from downstairs. ‘Yes, dear,’ said Danny, nonchalantly. Then he sighed.

Life had been good to Danny Jones - a decent sales job, a more than adequate salary, a nice house, a boost to his income just a few years ago, and, most importantly, an attractive, but compliant wife. But how he wished she would stop nagging. How he wished she would accept her lot. But deep down he knew it was not to be.

He left the bedroom and walked downstairs. His breakfast was ready on the table. He kissed