HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON to our friends and supporters.
We hope you enjoy these brief excerpts from our two new novels, as well as excerpts from our two previous novels: “FOREVER VIOLET: from Stony Hill to Broadway,” and “FRED: Buffalo Building of Dreams.”
NOVEL EXCERPTS
From “FRED II: Timeless Tenant Tales: Buffalo West Side Stories:
In a sense my tenants have become my children. Together we’re a family. I’ve been there for them through the best and worst of times. Like all families, each has experienced its joys and sorrows, and each has a story to tell. If you would indulge me, I’d like to relate several to you. In most cases, I will let you hear them in their own words, exactly as I heard them.
Except for the occasional echo of slamming doors in my hallways, things had been quiet since the drummer and the accordion player moved out. I suppose it was early afternoon three days after Catherine arrived when I heard sobbing coming from her apartment. When I looked inside, I saw her reclining on the couch with her arm folded over her eyes. The lights were low and the radio was playing soft music. Of course I couldn’t know what her trouble was and could only wait until circumstances changed.
ACCIDENTAL VIRGIN: a psychological novel.
“I gave Bryan my address and said goodbye three different times before he finally let me go. I stood a moment beside the phone, feeling an odd sense of excitement I hadn’t known before. Or did I just forget? Sometimes it’s hard to remember the past, especially when you spend so much time trying to forget it. The sound of Bryan’s voice, warm and intimate, still lingered in my memory. The way— How foolish I am! Lisa’s right, I barely know him. I should have broken it off right then and there, ended it before—”
“Driving home, I felt elated as I relived the afternoon with Carly. I passed over the uncomfortable memory of our little confrontation and concentrated on our kiss, not that I could really think of anything else. She didn’t resist me, not for a second. Sure, at the end, she had to break away; we couldn’t stand there all evening looking at each other. But the way her arms encircled me— well, that told me she was not only willing to kiss me, but she welcomed it, as well, unplanned as it was. Now the icy wall she put between us was shattered forever. That single kiss thawed the miles of frozen tundra separating us. I could still taste the sweetness of her breath, feel the moist warmth of her lips. I only wished I knew how deeply she’d been affected.”
FRED: Buffalo Building of Dreams (2021)
“Death knocks at everyone’s door sometime during a lifetime. I’m a building that can listen, observe, and become emotionally attached to my tenants. They taught me over and over what it’s like to be human. They are all survivors, and I am, too. I’ll never have the right to vote, but my twin suffragettes will.”
On September 4, 1944, at about 11:39 p.m., my building shook from top to bottom, and I thought I’d come crashing down. My tenants’ walls were shaking, and everything hanging on the walls either crashed to the floor or hung crookedly. Everyone ran out onto the street. We thought we were being attacked. For a moment I worried about Benedict being killed in the war. I wondered if he had the time to feel the fear of impending death.
FOREVER VIOLET: From Stony Hill to Broadway (2023)
“Annie was Cowboy’s wife and my mother, but you couldn’t prove it by me. Whenever my friends mentioned their mothers, I always ducked away from them. I was ashamed to admit that this woman everyone in town knew as Crazy Annie was my mother. I felt the same about Cowboy, my father, the town drunk. I don’t remember when they first began going at it together, the two of them, but I know that it was often and awful. The neighbors could hear their screaming matches a mile away.”
The car weaved and jerked, slowed down and sped up as he kept hitting the gas and the brake. He steered the car with one hand while the other fingered the knife on his lap. I knew I had to get out, and do it before this nut killed me. I felt for the door handle behind me. If I had to jump I would, even if the car was going fifty.
All novels are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and additional online sites, located on francesrschmidt.com
Best,
Frances Schmidt
James A. Costa, Jr.