People who have read my books sometimes ask if the story continues after the end – sometimes they mean, am I going to write a sequel. Apart from my Radwinter novels, I haven’t published any sequels, but I usually find that when I’ve reached the end, the story does go on in my imagination. Sometimes I actually write it down, with no intention of ever making it into a complete book – although sometimes the bones of the plot are the structure for something completely different.
I’ve been looking through various jottings, and came across several characters from ‘The Stalking of Rosa Czekov’ which I continued to write about – and even though I published it twelve years ago, I still have their stories running in me head.
Don’t read on if you think you might want to read the book and find what happened to the main characters!!
Here’s a part of a story about Rudi, some time after the dramatic events happened, who is returning to his home after being away for several months:
The small black car stopped on the gravel at the front of the house and after a moment the door opened and Rudi got out. He looked tall, severe in the long black coat and… and different. Luca had known him all his life, his best friend, mate, his almost brother, and yet for a moment he wondered if it really was Rudi.
But of course it was, it was just that his hair was longer, looser, different, and his usually bland, blank expression seemed cold… but maybe he was cold, the sky was leaden, the wind sharp, autumn seemed to be lurking.
Luka was standing back from the window but wondered if Rudi could see him as he strode towards the front door. But of course he shouldn’t lurk here as if timid and nervous, he should go and greet his friend as he always would have done in the past. And that was it, their friendship was in the past.
Luka scurried into the hall and flung open the door as Rudi stepped up, his hand reaching for the handle.
“Rudi! Hi!”
But Rudi said nothing, merely stared at him as if at a stranger and moved forwards so Luka stepped back to let him in.
But of course this was Rudi’s house, Luka was the visitor even though over the years, ever since Rudi and Estelle had bought it, he had been so familiar with it In fact, over the last few, difficult lonely years he’d spent whole periods of time here – one of the spare rooms was even called “Luka’s” room.
If you’re interested, a few more excerpts will follow for the next several days. Will it turn into a separate story, maybe with name changes for the characters? Perhaps!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/STALKING-ROSA-CZEKOV-Lois-Elsden/dp/B08M7J3SZG
Lois Elsden 