A letter from main character Jenna Kroon de Coligny to the readers of “The Cottage on The Border” and “The Farm on Nieuw Land Road”
Dear reader,
Most people would call me a troubled waif, some have even gone as far as labelling me a narcissist.
Perhaps I AM both but that’s not how I feel it myself. I’ve just had more trouble in the 22 years since I was born than I’d care to remember. My mum committed suicide when I was three years old, and I was taken in by a nice but simple and straightforward foster family. My biological dad, whom I’d never known, turned out to be one of Interpol’s a highly sought neo nazi criminals.
As my posh name may suggest I come from one of the oldest aristocratic families in Holland from my mother’s side and …well… they’re usually not the healthiest lot in the bunch: mental disorders and health issues aplenty. But they left me with at least one thing I never have to worry about: money.
The saving of me is that I have a passion: I dance. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a modern dancer and I succeeded at that. At eighteen I became the star dancer with a modern dance group in Holland. But I wanted more and am now training to become a prima ballerina in New York. Dance is all I know, all I understand and all I will ever want to do.
The freaking thing is – however – that I have problems with eating and I get too thin and my health fails. That has happened to me on two important occasions so far and I really need to stay 110 pounds to be able to do the tough regime of training six to seven hours a day and perform in the evenings. I’m not anorectic and I have a hard time explaining that too everyone all the time. I’m really fed up with the whole eating business!
I prefer leaving the labelling to professionals like my foster brother Vincent, the psychiatrist. I don’t want therapy. Dance is my therapy. I also know I’m a bit of a loner and I should socialise more. I really like Denise, the farmer at Nieuw Land Farm and her friendship is important to me. It’s the first time in my life that I actually feel close to another human being. I long to talk to her and be with her.
And then there’s Boras Mardin, that shithead hip-hop dancer from Turkey has wriggled his way under my skin as well. I don’t know what it is we have, maybe just hormones. But I sure fancy him…in a way.
But as I started off saying: my life is never trouble-free. I’m a half sort of psychic at times and scare the hell out of myself at times. And now there’s that Michael Blithe bothering me. The old man is dead and his arrival in my life could well be a bad omen.
Whatever happens to me in book 3 “The House on Broadway”, I assure you I will be dancing. I will be dancing till the day I die.
Take care & don’t forget me,
Jenna
About Hannah Warren
Hannah Warren (Paris, Fr. 1956) is a suspense writer based in The Netherlands. When she’s not writing or thinking about writing, you can find her at the paid job at the local university translating stuff and recruiting international students, experimenting with organic food in her kitchen, stretching the old bones in Yoga or exchanging WhatsApp messages with her grown-up kids.
She loves creating complex characters (mostly women), who are faced with impossible choices in life and still they crack it, whether they perish or not. Warren writes both contemporary and historical fiction and her style can be described as old school: descriptive & character-driven.
Hannah recently joined the writer’s collective 13th Sign Publishing. Apart from publishing books, they bring out a quarterly free eZine on topics they 13 authors love: healthy living, healthy eating and great reading.
Dear reader,
Most people would call me a troubled waif, some have even gone as far as labelling me a narcissist.
Perhaps I AM both but that’s not how I feel it myself. I’ve just had more trouble in the 22 years since I was born than I’d care to remember. My mum committed suicide when I was three years old, and I was taken in by a nice but simple and straightforward foster family. My biological dad, whom I’d never known, turned out to be one of Interpol’s a highly sought neo nazi criminals.
As my posh name may suggest I come from one of the oldest aristocratic families in Holland from my mother’s side and …well… they’re usually not the healthiest lot in the bunch: mental disorders and health issues aplenty. But they left me with at least one thing I never have to worry about: money.
The saving of me is that I have a passion: I dance. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a modern dancer and I succeeded at that. At eighteen I became the star dancer with a modern dance group in Holland. But I wanted more and am now training to become a prima ballerina in New York. Dance is all I know, all I understand and all I will ever want to do.
The freaking thing is – however – that I have problems with eating and I get too thin and my health fails. That has happened to me on two important occasions so far and I really need to stay 110 pounds to be able to do the tough regime of training six to seven hours a day and perform in the evenings. I’m not anorectic and I have a hard time explaining that too everyone all the time. I’m really fed up with the whole eating business!
I prefer leaving the labelling to professionals like my foster brother Vincent, the psychiatrist. I don’t want therapy. Dance is my therapy. I also know I’m a bit of a loner and I should socialise more. I really like Denise, the farmer at Nieuw Land Farm and her friendship is important to me. It’s the first time in my life that I actually feel close to another human being. I long to talk to her and be with her.
And then there’s Boras Mardin, that shithead hip-hop dancer from Turkey has wriggled his way under my skin as well. I don’t know what it is we have, maybe just hormones. But I sure fancy him…in a way.
But as I started off saying: my life is never trouble-free. I’m a half sort of psychic at times and scare the hell out of myself at times. And now there’s that Michael Blithe bothering me. The old man is dead and his arrival in my life could well be a bad omen.
Whatever happens to me in book 3 “The House on Broadway”, I assure you I will be dancing. I will be dancing till the day I die.
Take care & don’t forget me,
Jenna
About Hannah Warren
She loves creating complex characters (mostly women), who are faced with impossible choices in life and still they crack it, whether they perish or not. Warren writes both contemporary and historical fiction and her style can be described as old school: descriptive & character-driven.
Hannah recently joined the writer’s collective 13th Sign Publishing. Apart from publishing books, they bring out a quarterly free eZine on topics they 13 authors love: healthy living, healthy eating and great reading.
Get in touch with Hannah —
Website - http://www.hannahwarrenauthor.com
Facebook Author page - https://www.facebook.com/HannahWarrenAuthor
Twitter - https://twitter.com/hannah_war
Instagram - https://instagram.com/hannahaudreywarren
Amazon Author page - http://amzn.to/2daIzx3
Jenna's earliest memory is of her mother's feet dangling in dust motes, as a three year old left orphaned while her mother's corpse hung from a beam. Her mother committed suicide, that's how she escaped and freed herself. When her own life falls apart Jenna's earliest memory becomes her anchor, she too wants to be free.
Vincent Van Son is Jenna's adopted brother, her psychiatrist, perhaps her only friend. He takes her to the Cottage for recovery, determined to rescue his sister from herself after her failed suicide attempt. The cottage on the border is at Oud Land, and is the location of many dark secrets.
Jenna's close call with death leaves her open to the psychic world, and in this cottage in the onset of a misty winter, Jenna hears them, the voices of the past, memories of what happened on the border. It becomes a journey to herself. She has to listen, to witness, she has no choice. Their stories are her story, and it is a long heritage of murder, deceit, ethnic discourse and betrayal.
Perspective returns to the introspective prima ballerina, she has learned the truth of her family, of this cottage of psychic confessions. She alone emerges from the rubble of six decades of troubled family history, a lone phoenix.
The Cottage on The Border is a tale of murder, mystery, intrigue, familial despair, heartbreak, and spiritual resurrection.
The Cottage on the Border is available for Free until Saturday on Amazon
Pre-order book 2 of the Jenna Kroon series The Farm on Nieuw Land Road
Jenna’s greatest passion is dance. Nothing else matters, not even her health. No one else matters, except her dog Mauritius. And yet, erratic as Jenna is, she leaves him behind in Holland to pursue a Broadway career in New York. All alone in the Big Apple, she tries to survive.
Boras is her dance partner, but she doesn’t allow him in, and yet when she collapses, Boras is the only one close enough to save her. Jenna becomes too ill to dance and must make new choices. She must find herself, for knowing herself is the key to restoring her health, to restoring her dance career.
On the brink of eternal despair, she returns home to the cottage on the Belgian border, a place filled with terrible memories. Also there she is alone. Not even Mauritius is there to greet her, tail wagging.
Up the road is Nieuw Land Farm and the owner becomes Jenna’s saviour. Denise was a nurse and now breeds horses and she takes Jenna into her care, but Denise too has a past she seeks to escape. Her past will find her, in the form of her husband Carlos.
The two women connect to lean on each other and the stories they unveil weave together to form a tale of friendship, of family, of hope and of finding strength, of new choices and ultimately of seeking a new future.
Thank you so much for this wonderful blogpost, Rachel! It looks wonderful!! XX
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic! Love that Jenna speaks out :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Elaina! :-)
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