by Andy Conway
‘What?’
‘My Dad and my Nan. They don’t know me!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Something’s happened!’ she screamed. ‘They don’t know who I am! I don’t exist!’
Jessica pushed her way to the front door, shouting ‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’ She saw Rachel, looked her up and down with disgust. ‘Oh my god,’ she laughed. ‘It’s not some gypo woman selling pegs is it? Tell her to bugger off, whoever she is!’
She flounced back inside. Danny stared in shock.
‘What’s happened?’ whimpered Rachel.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
She punched him.
‘What have you done! What have you done!’
‘I don’t know!’
‘It’s her. She’s changed it all. You stopped her dying, and now I don’t exist. It’s her!’
She was backing away down the path, a sudden gleam of venom in her eyes.
‘What do you mean?’ said Danny.
‘She was supposed to die, Danny!’
She ran off up the street and he knew she was heading for St Mary’s.
— 29 —
She reached the gravestone, heart pounding, doubled over, wheezing for breath. She looked all around to check she was alone and reached out to touch the spot.
Her fingers burned and the lights went out. There was a roaring in her ears. She stumbled around, blinded, tripping over a mound in the grass, falling to her knees. The roaring sound became an eerie drone and an insane wailing. She blinked at the darkness and peered up at the sky. A sudden beam of light flashed across the blackness and she saw that she was still in the churchyard but it was night. She stumbled to her feet and gazed up in awe.
The droning sound that split her ears was coming from the flotilla of German bombers sailing across the black sky, lit by searchlights. The wailing sound was an air raid siren. There was a continual crump crump crump of Ack-Ack guns, and somewhere beyond the village the ding ling ling of fire engines in the distance. The searchlights strafing the blackness and the red glow of a hundred fires illuminating the night sky lit up the great barrage balloons floating above the city.
Rachel reeled with shock, dizzy, unable to take it all in. The noise of explosions nearby was deafening, bombs falling dangerously close and closer.
‘Rachel!’
She wheeled round, trying to locate the voice. A man was standing at the wrought-iron gate. He was wearing a lieutenant’s uniform with a trenchcoat. She stared, dumbfounded. He seemed surprised that she didn’t recognise him. He must have thought it was the uniform because he swiped his hat off. But she knew she’d never seen him before.
‘Rachel! It’s me, Charlie!’ he shouted. ‘You told me to meet you here, remember?’
She wanted to respond but her lips wouldn’t move. She could only stare, frozen with shock.
There was a sudden ear-splitting whistle of a bomb falling overhead. The soldier looked up in panic. She remembered he seemed to have a kind face and wondered if he was an an
gel. It screamed down on them and there was a moment of peace when she knew she was going to die, before the whistle erupted in an almighty explosion and everything went black.
* * *
Thank you…
… for buying and reading Touchstone.
If you liked it, please take a minute or two to give it a short review on Amazon.
Reviews really make a difference to writers like me — they help promote the book and ensure more readers, and that ensures more Touchstone books.
The Touchstone story continues in the next episode, Family at War…
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Now get the complete first season of Touchstone...
“I believe it’s one of the best series of its kind.”
“If you haven’t read this series yet — you simply must! But beware — you will be hooked!!”
“Had me hooked from start to finish... It’s a magnificent story.”
Touchstone Season One - Complete eBook Box Set. All six novels in one ebook collection! Over the course of six adventures, and an entire century of local history, Touchstone Season 1 builds into a moving coming-of-age saga that has won plaudits from young and old readers alike with its intelligent blend of time travel adventure, science fiction, historical romance and urban fantasy. What starts out as a simple teenage time travel adventure series becomes something much deeper, darker, more complex, till it climaxes in a mindbending Gods-Amongst-Us saga on an epic scale.
This Ebook Box Set edition contains all six novels in Touchstone Season 1, comprising over a quarter of a million words, and 1,000 pages in the original paperback editions.
Buy Touchstone Season 1 now at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Or continue the adventure with the individual books...
Touchstone (2. Family at War). Continuing the adventures of Rachel and Danny, a pair of mismatched History students who stumble upon an old gravestone that catapults them back in time.
Dealing with the catastrophic fallout of their previous encounter with Amy Parker in 1912, they now race to locate Amy during the 1940 Blitz and become caught up in the nightly German bombings of Birmingham and their chilling aftermath.
“I enjoyed this book. I have read a few time travel books but this one really got to me. I thought it was going to be a typical teenage romance but it certainly wasn’t. I had to buy the second book and can’t wait for the third. Absolutely gripping …”
Buy Touchstone 2 now at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Touchstone parts 1 and 2 are also available in a single volume paperback edition.
Touchstone (3. All the Time in the World). Rachel, lost and alone in 2012, travels back to 1966 to repair her lost timeline with the help of Charlie, now 50 years old but still in love with her. The Swinging Sixties are in full flow, Birmingham is being rebuilt and England are hosting the football World Cup. The temptation to stay there and live with Charlie is overwhelming, but Danny is there too, and the World Cup betting sting he’s carrying out on the city’s bookies brings them all to the attention of a local gangster, a corrupt politician, a cop with a grudge and a cabal of mysterious time travellers who are determined to prevent the past being changed. In the end it’s hard to care about correcting the past when you’re in danger of becoming the foundations for a new high rise.
“Great continuation of the series. He turned my preconceptions of the swinging sixties upside down a couple of times. …”
Buy it now on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Touchstone 3 is also available in a single volume paperback edition.
Touchstone (4. Station at the End of Time). A haunted train station in 1959, a freight train with a mysterious cargo and a young woman determined to throw herself in front of it...
Rachel miraculously finds herself back at home in the present with her father but suffering a recurring nightmare of being trapped on Kings Heath station in 1959, trying to prevent her maternal grandmother, Deirdre Foster, committing suicide. As more and more characters from her time-travelling past intrude on both her too perfect waking world and her nightmares, she begins to wonder which world is real... leading to a terrifying battle to hold onto her own sanity.
This edition also contains bonus short story The Reluctant Time-Traveller, a creepy, spine-tingling investigation into the truth behind the Touchstone stories.
“An eerie ghost story with a couple of great twists to keep you on your toes once you think you’ve worked it out. It oozes atmosphere, reminiscent of old TV shows like Sapphire and Steel or the Twilight Zone… a cracking read which never really stops for breath, exactly like the freight train bearing down on the protaganist's grandmother… Also comes with a bonus short story which is a real head-wrecker. Worth the price for that alone…”
Buy it now on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Touchstone 4 is also available in a single volume paperback edition.
Touchstone (5. Let’s Fall in Love for the Last Time). Rachel finds herself in 1934, where she must help Charlie stage a concert featuring renowned Jewish crooner Benny Orphan and an all-black swing orchestra. But Danny is there too, seemingly intent on sabotaging things. And a group of murderous Blackshirts are determined to make sure the concert doesn’t happen. As swing fans, nazis, communists and time travellers do battle on the dance floor, Rachel finds that it’s not always clear who’s an ally and who’s an enemy. Especially when disturbing new powers emerging from both her and Danny threaten to tear the city apart.
A gripping tale of love versus hate in the Depression, set to a backdrop of beautiful swing tunes.
“I am a huge fan of anything time travel related, and this had me hooked from book number one. It's a series where you finish the first book and you're immediately signing back onto Amazon to find book 2, 3 and onwards. A totally enjoyable read and hoping there are more to come.”
Buy it now on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Touchstone 5 is also available in a single volume paperback edition.
Touchstone (6. Fade to Grey) concludes the time travel saga exploring the city of Birmingham through a century of change. Rachel makes a final journey to the past to make sure her mother, Lorna Foster, and father, Martyn Hines, have their fateful first kiss at a sweaty Ultravox gig in 1980. But Esther Parker is also making a play for Martyn, and if their romance is kindled, Rachel will never be born. She’s also up against Danny and Kath, two enemies with growing superpowers, and Rachel’s own disturbing inner fire threatens to cut her off from her old life forever. Can she be the simple village girl she longs to be, or must she accept that she might be a goddess? It’s all set for an epic battle with destiny... both ends burning.
Buy it now on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Touchstone 6 is also available in a single volume paperback edition.
Also by Andy Conway for Kindle
What happens when you fall in love with a woman who died before you were born? The Very Thought of You is a timeslip ghost story novella about a young man’s obsession with Amy, the dead wife of an old man he visits. Community visitor Jez is assigned Harold, a cantankerous old codger who takes a venomous delight in confrontation and lives in a house that is falling down around him. But when Jez starts to see Amy’s ghost and finds himself propelled into the house’s secret past, his obsession with her threatens his hold on the present. A moving, evocative meditation on love and betrayal and the persistence of memory.
'I am quite a fan of suspense, mystery, intrigue and supernatural elements in stories, and this delivers on all aspects… I couldn’t put it down! Finished it in almost one sitting.'
Buy The Very Thought of You now at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Three women spend Christmas in a remote cottage on Dartmoor to escape problems at home, but their long hike across the moor turns tragic as old ghosts return for vengeance....
“Dartmoor at Christmastime. What a spine-tinglingly perfect setting for a ghost story. The three women with a complicated past could take the book into a dreary (for me) chicklit direction, but it actually gives the ghost story its bite. It might arguably be described as a present-day M.R. James as thoroughly malevolent ghosts wreak havoc on our heroines... It's a cracking little ghost story.”
“Glad I read this in the morning - at least I got my sleep in first. I shall think twice about going to Devon again.”
Buy it now on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Acknowledgements
Touchstone was first conceived in 2005 as a television drama serial and a good many people discussed its premise, various script drafts and contributed to its development here as a novel.
Paul Woolf, a TV developer of some genius and, luckily for me, a flatmate of several years, read the earliest draft and discussed it keenly, offering many suggestions that allowed me to hone the story. Francois Gandolfi and Elisabeth Pinto were involved in the earliest attempts to develop the property as a drama series, and later Pip Piper also explored the possibilities. Two friends read early drafts and were sufficiently excited about Rachel and Danny's time travel adventures for me to pursue the story: namely screenwriter Jason Arnopp and TV reviewer James Donaghy, both of whom offered constructive criticism and great ideas, the best of which I will always claim were my own. And more recently screenwriter Jack Turner took time off from writing Hollywood blockbuster action scripts to cast his eye over the first draft of this novel and give it a hearty stamp of approval.
Without their input, and above all excitement, Touchstone would not be where it is today, setting out on the long journey to serialised publication.
If you find yourself enjoying the Touchstone story as much as I have writing it, pop along to my site and discuss it.
About the Author
Andy Conway is a prolific novelist, screenwriter and self-publisher who secretly time travels to mine story ideas for his Touchstone series. His first feature film, Arjun & Alison, a campus revenge thriller, toured film festivals around the world and was released in UK cinemas in spring 2014. His second, Long Dead Road, another revenge thriller, is currently in pre-production and was released as a novel in 2014.
Read more at andyconway.net join his Facebook page and follow him on Twitter.
Copyright Notice
The right of Andy Conway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and patent Act, 1988 © Andy Conway 2000.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by any way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Pete Bradbury at Digit64
First published: 2011
Read more at andyconway.net
Table of Contents
About This Book
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To Norah
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Thank you…
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Now get the complete first season of Touchstone...
Or continue the adventure with the individual books...
Also by Andy Conway for Kindle
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright Notice
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