10 Quotes from "Before The Blood: Henry Matthews"

When we were getting ready to release Bryony back in 2011, my daughter Sarah (who did a lot of the marketing for me) suggested I pull thirty teaser quotes from the book that she could post on Facebook, one each day.

We did the same for the second book, Visage, which is also part of the BryonySeries.

But for some reason, I never did the same for another book.

So now I am catching up.

Here is the synopsis and chapter headings for Lycanthropic Summer, folloed by thirteen quotes, one from each chapter.

Here is the synopsis and chapter headings for the fourth installment of the BryonySeries prequel Before The Blood, followed by 10 quotes, one from each chapter.

"Before the Blood" is a five-novel prequel to the BryonySeries "drop of blood" trilogy. Told in multiple points of view with Faustian elements, "Before the Blood" centers on the lives of four key characters and the choices that ultimately lead to a tragic ending. In Book Four, read how Henry Matthews goes from rags to riches and what he sacrifices to serve the riches.

And look - Blogger kept the book font intact!

Enjoy!

HENRY MATTHEWS

CHAPTER 1: EATING CAKE.

He heard the squalling as he neared the door. The woman next door, a fat old hag that smelled like yesterday's garlic, was wrapping something in a dirty blanket.

Harold gazed down at the wheezy blue face.

Finally, he thought, a son to help with the work.

CHAPTER 2: THE GYPSY

Once upon a time there lived a very small boy not well enough to join the happy shouts of the other children when they played Kick the Can in the alley and King of the Hill off the top of the public privy and too weak to be useful inside whatever current rat hole they called home.

Useless, he was, except to be petted by the females ruling it, and amuse them with his illustrations and yarns.

The little boy, named Henry at birth and never addressed with that name except by his mother, rarely left the sagging four walls except to move to another set of sagging four walls whenever someone announced an angry landlord was on his way.

Now Henry had never actually met a landlord, but he imagined him to be quite villainous. 

            "Men! Don your armor! The landlord approacheth!"

            (All shiver with fear).

CHAPTER 3: DEADLY NIGHTSHADE

Bess and Henry's sisters, except Lizzie who was folding shirts into a large burlap sack, ducked over their sewing. Roaches skittered along the walls, heedless of the girls' work and the parents' pleasure. Lizzie was occupied; her broom leaned against the corner; to the insects, nothing else mattered. Henry could almost hear their leader cry, "Freedom, mates!"

CHAPTER 4: REST FROM THEIR LABORS

Ott was Mrs. Variola's "guard dog." This homeless man had appeared on her doorstep one rainy night, unkempt, soaked, and begging for shelter. Ott couldn't hear, and his bark was feeble, but he had the strength of Cratus and was fiercely protective of Mrs. Variola and anything she held dear. Only a halfwit aroused Ott's fury.

CHAPTER 5: MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

Newspaper sales were brisk the rest of the week, but neither Henry's nor Major's heart was in them, not with the unexpected bludgeoning of Henry's small run of fame. The only person who benefitted was Harold, as he now had a drinking partner in his son.

CHAPTER 6: HAUTE COUTURE

But it was the conversation Henry had overheard between his uncle and Dr. Stone that established his fate.

He was snipping the roses, lips puckered in concentration and scarcely aware of the two men meandering through the greenhouse until he heard Dr. Stone comment on Henry's "natural style."        

Lawrence said something Henry couldn't ascertain, but Dr. Stone's next remarks were unmistakable: "Mark my words, Girard. He'll be quite the charmer someday."

CHAPTER 7: SHOT IN THE HEART

Once out of town, they traversed the mile more quickly than Henry wished, a full moon illumining their way toward a bleak ending. Felled trees scattered the earth; a night breeze swished through bean and potato fields. Against the backdrop, shadowy farmhouses watched them pass, a glint from the glass and gone. With each hoof step, Henry's trepidation grew.

Neither man spoke until they perceived the outline of the Platt farm.

"Ever see a corpse?" Donovan asked.

CHAPTER 8: WHEN THE PURPLE ROSE BLOOMS

By the third Saturday, Bryony had the hang of "sitting still," and Henry did quite a bit of painting.

The silence and rhythm of the brush strokes muted his passionate impressions of the subject in the rocking chair and returned him to sanity. He felt a little sheepish that a little girl had rattled him.

Art, Henry told himself. This was all about the art.

CHAPTER 9: SEWING OATS

Henry waited until the shows began before slipping into the nearly full theater. He endured the fiddler, the juggler, the can-can girls, the lewd carnival-style vocalist/pianist who kept the audience laughing with his lyrics, and a male impersonator in a regency wig who actually had talent.

Finally, a tipsy man with a Cockney accent announced John. Half-hearted applause ensued. And then Henry heard something he never expected to hear again in his life.

He forgot his cheap whiskey, he forgot pen and pad. He sat mesmerized while Seymour Cassidy's majestic and powerful music teleported him back to Arcadia's north parlor, when Henry heard a piano and a true master for the first time.

This was despite the cheapness of the instrument and the tinny sound it produced. A musical genius. A master of melodies. In lower Manhattan. When the man could be running one of New York's most paramount companies. Unbelievable. 

CHAPTER 10: MEETING AT THE CROSSROADS

They sat under moonlight and counted shooting stars. They walked as one through Central Park, a Sunday lull to the grind and twirl.