Isabel: Tales From The Bookcase

By Bronn Francis

With the Reprisals finally ended, Isabel had focused her attention on her career. Since her marriage appeared to be doomed.

 

When her husband had his lawyer serve her with separation papers she decided to fight back. And win.

 

Then she went to visit her sister and lick her wounds. Only to find what she had definitely not been looking for!.

 

What a glorious surprise that was. Particularly when it came with one bonus that would completely change her life.

 

This story is set in the 2050's so it could happen

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonarma Publishing
• Release date: Sep 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201869618

Bronn Francis

Bronn Francis is an empty nester who lives with her husband and spoiled moggy cat in the Eastern part of the State of Victoria in Australia. When Covid 19 came and made everyone do things differently, Bronn and a couple of friends decided that they would stop being just readers and try their our hands at being authors too. One of their small group had been playing at creating a world for his stories to be located in. When Bronn asked to be allowed to use the world her friend has created, she was told to "go for it". As long as she agreed to let the others in the group use her characters in cameo roles. Bronn agreed in a flash. Bronn is a woman of a certain age, as they say in books. Bronn and the other group members wanted to publish as many books as possible which led to a group decision to focus on writing short stories.That way Bronn and her friends could get more stories written and published for you to read. Maybe some novellas will appear over time.. Bronn loves to read romances with a HEA so she's sticking to writing them for a while. When she's not writing Bronn loves to go and photograph interesting places in the bush. Then try painting them. Some are recognisable. If you enjoy Bronn's stories, do please tell your friends. If you don't, Please tell Bronn. So she can learn from her mistakes.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Isabel sat in her home office idly checking through stock market reports that were scrolling on the screen in front of her. Beside her the small stack of mail that had been delivered this morning sat unopened. Plenty of time for that she thought. Now that she had officially retired from her high-pressure position as a senior client adviser in one of the prestigious stockbroking firms, she had plenty of time to do whatever she felt like doing. Right now, that wasn’t much.

Last night, Roger had been behaving most oddly. It was if he wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out. Her husband enjoyed being in the limelight. He’d worked hard to earn himself one of the corner offices in the same firm she had been part of. That had probably been the only thing they had in common. Isabel had only spoken to her clients when they needed her advice. She preferred to spend her time reviewing reports on the activities of the companies that she recommended to clients. Roger on the other hand always tried to be the life of the party. For him discussing whether a client should buy or sell seem to find itself buried amongst the social trivia of meetings.

Isabel knew something was up, she just didn’t know what. She knew that Roger occasionally like to play away. He thought he was discreet but there were always signs that were obvious to the one who did the laundry. She assumed that whatever Roger had wanted to talk about last night was something about him needing to visit one of their broking house’s offices in one of the other capital cities. Something that she knew was code for a bit of away playing. She thought about that for a while and wondered whether Roger’s new PA was his target this time? Not that she cared one way or the other.

Or did she? Care? Not really, she decided. She wanted children of her own. Roger didn’t. Had told her so more than once. Isabel wanted to be like her sister Millie. Millie had four grown-up daughters and now the lucky thing was again a mother to year-old twins. She and her partner Connor were blissfully happy together raising their little ones. Millie at forty-nine was ten years older than she was so there was still time if she could convince Roger.

Rising to her feet Isabel picked up her mail wandered into the kitchen and flicked on the switch to start the coffee maker. Only four letters this morning. Two were obviously advertisements of some sort so they went into the trash unopened. One was her brokerage statement. This one she put aside to have a look at later. Even though she reviewed all of her personal share trading activities online she still preferred to get a hard copy at the end of every month. Call her old fashioned she thought but having it in writing somehow made more official. That left the fourth letter. She looked the address but didn’t recognise the sender. Some legal firm on the other side of the city from where she was. Maybe they needed some information about one of her clients. Ex-clients now she thought. I’m retired.

Reaching into the drawer beneath the sink she took out a knife. Used it to slit open the envelope and removed the several pages it contained. Glancing at the name of the firm who had sent her all this paperwork she saw that it specialised in divorce law. That still didn’t increase her level of interest. They probably want confirmation of stocks and bonds held by one of her former clients. It wasn’t until she read the