' A Callous Land' only £2.25 on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Callous-Land-designed-Stephen-Williams-ebook/dp/B07ZCDKCGV/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=A+callous+land+susan+williams&qid=1581288008&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

A Short Extract from this Novel

Isabella placed the mirror face down on the bed and walked over to the dressing table and poured herself a glass of sherry which she downed in one, and then another and then another, until, she felt numb enough to face what was to come. She pulled her long brown hair up off her face and fastened it with a clip that she had found on the dressing table. Then she sat on the bed and picked the mirror up.

First, she looked at her forehead, there were a few small scars but nothing serious and they didn’t distract from her beauty. Then she looked at her eyes and nose. Her face didn’t look as good as she’d hoped it would. One of her eyes had a huge scar that went diagonally across her face and on the other eye, a huge fragment by the side of her eye had been gouged out. Then she looked down at her lips, fortunately, if you could call it that, there were just a few scars over the top of them. Then she looked down at her neck. She had a large red scar around it.

There were no words that could describe how she felt and as she put the mirror down on the bed, a stream of tears escaped from her eyes. Silent, knowing tears that she had no control over. But she felt no more pain than she already did. The black void within her just filled up with more excruciating hollowness.

She’d endured everything that was humanly possible and survived, and for that she knew she should be grateful, but she wasn’t. She had no life and nothing to look forward to and now she understood why Tyak, the first man she had ever loved, had been repulsed by her and in that moment, she was no longer afraid, because death would be a welcome release for her.