Seeing Stars

Witness Leonard Burbridge, a quiet man, a man who likes to keep himself to himself, a man with a hobby. But, in a dystopian future where the Teevee is the opiate of the masses and where the Guardians and the State Police clamp down ruthlessly on all forms of dissent and subversion, even the most innocent of pastimes can bring a man into conflict with the authorities.THE HEALING PLACE Clare NonhebelSYNOPSISFranz Kane has invested time, money and energy into setting up The Healing Place, a state-of-the-art building with superb facilities, offering an impressive range of holistic therapies and mind-enriching courses to city-dwellers eager to escape the stresses of life.Running such an enterprise has stresses of its own, and not only lighter-hearted errors such as locating Primal Scream Therapy in the next room to Silent Meditation; some serious concerns are beginning to surface. Although Franz promotes inclusive acceptance of every person and every shade of belief, barring religion and obvious cults, there are few people he genuinely trusts. Now two of them - his girlfriend Ella and the psychic, Sharma, a mainstay of The Healing Place - have some challenging questions for Franz.Cracks are beginning to appear in the fabric of the building, and in the persona of Franz himself. He experiences first an outburst of rage against a local vicar, then fear of a sinister stranger who mirrors Franz's own dismissal of moral imperatives, and finally a near-violent impulse against Ella, newly pregnant with his baby.Despite Ella's and Sharma's warnings and encouragement, Franz clings to his image as 'the man with no yesterday,' avoiding every question about his past. But when Sharma takes time out from The Healing Place - in response to a request from local police to help find two kidnapped boys - circumstances begin to force Franz to face himself and his own history.When he makes a sudden decision to go to Ireland, he invites Ella to come with him, on the condition that she asks no questions of him. Trusting his integrity but struggling with fears for Franz and for the future of their unborn Ella begins to find some answers when they visit a convent nursing home where a frail and elderly Catholic priest is dying.But just as they both begin to uncover the past, the future is jeopardised: The Healing Place faces its own baptism of fire, apparently an arson attack by someone who wishes Franz harm.Sharma, who challenged Franz to stop pretending to accept every version of truth as equally valid and to confront his own beliefs and prejudices, is struggling to remain calm as he moves nearer to discovering what has happened to the abducted children. His own children, meanwhile, who had been taken abroad when their mother left him are returning home with an overwhelming need of their own - to be their father's main priority.Reviewing his own priorities, and more aware now of his motivation for founding The Healing Place, Franz has to confront the question of whether the remedies it offers are actually healing anyone.An unexpected source of enlightenment turns up in the form of childhood friend, Patrick, now working in London, who has been looking for Franz under his original name, and a young doctor, Jake. Their shared vision for a new project begins to absorb Franz as well, if he can learn to trust again and work with them as a team.Patrick, who grew up with Franz and knows his extraordinary history, and Ella who until recently only knew him in his recent role as director of The Healing Place, hold between them the key to Franz's own healing.But before they can all move forward, there are still two frightened children to be found, and in the process of standing in for Sharma in one of his classes, Franz begins to understand something of the strange path that Sharma himself has chosen and the hazards he is going through in tracing the abducted boys.At the same time, the vicar and the sinister figure both move into the spotlight and will each make their indelible imprint on the future of The Healing Place, on Franz and Ella and the generation to come.