Rosalind Minett

In the historical series, A Relative Invasion, the theme of bullying – psychological bullying – runs throughout.

In the third book, Impact, normal adolescent angst and severe post-war austerity lend tensions to the toxic relationship between Bill and his devious cousin, Kenneth, but the tipping point is the sense of ownership, the removal of control. Kenneth intrudes too shockingly, just too far.

Bill is not perfect, but readers rally to his defence because most of us can easily see how an originally unfair position may be tolerated over and again until one strategic act – touching the secret locus of control – causes a disastrous explosion.

At the end of the war, Bill must now share his home, even his bedroom, with a cousin who has spent his life invading Bill’s personal space. Kenneth has sought to take over Bill’s friends, won favour with his grandparents, charmed his parents and younger sister. All this has happened by the end of Book Two but in Bill’s mind, his parents and sister, his home and his own bedroom will be ahead to fill his future. That outcome is horribly changed, but he still tries to adapt and make the best of things.

Settling back after five years in evacuation and with an increased household causes a lot of work : constant queuing for the family food, and with Bill’s father not yet demobbed, learning to mend things and manage practical task. Kenneth does little or nothing. He draws and paints beautifully, sings and says all the right things, so avoids all hardships. He has gained a scholarship to an excellent school; Bill had no encouragement or support when he took the eleven-plus, and now Kenneth scorns Bill’s basic curriculum while he lounges on the most comfortable chair learning Latin declensions or Wordsworth poems.

This is just the background to the boys’ relationship. Naturally Bill seeks his own supports and escape activities and keeps these secret. It is when these are invaded by Kenneth and directly threatened that the climax of this series comes.

The fall-out is dramatic and pervasive. My aim was to make the reader keep thinking about the dilemma each one of the many characters now finds themself in, not to mention the future plans Kenneth and Bill must now consider.

A Relative Invasion is an apt title for the three books in this series, but in the planning of a Book Four, the two cousins now adult and war well over, “invasion” ends and “retribution” is more appropriate. The promise of personal and career success cannot blind the reader to a more sinister note trailing like smoke in the distance. And isn’t that true after war “ends”?

UNCOMMON RELATIONS

Yes, the most tortuous crimes have no police detective and occur in the home.

Resigned, Terry thinks, to a dull, predictable life and occasional fantasies of a shinier future, he suddenly spots his double on the metro. Thrilled, he follows to discover who he is then rushes home with the news.

His wife appears uninterested, almost to block discussion, so he starts an identity seach in secret. Nothing is simple, what could be predicted? His life becomes increasingly complex and bizarre. The Pandora’s Box can’t be closed once opened and maybe Terry will have serious regrets. Who is in for a shock? Who’s at fault? Can’t he trust anyone…even himself?

In print and all ebook platforms. Enjoy the many colourful characters and the traps and dilemmas they find themselves caught in.

Available at Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and paperback.

TRY PART ONE HERE when you join my Readers List. You’ll get occasional Newsletters with inside information, offers and insights.

Part 4 WHY SHOULD THEY …? (awaiting the right warning word) ..is in preparation. Read more about what is in story under Work in Progress.

Themes: Identity, family, illusion, dark secrets, misrepresentation, ethical dilemmas, disillusion, personal growth and the craziness of human beings.

Trapped in the small bedroom hearing unspeakable revelations, Terry now faces the mess of his own actions…and their effect on his dearest ones.

I enjoy writing dilemmas, the events leading up to them and then those chapters where characters face the drama of their own reactions.

First it was WHO SHOULD BE FORGIVEN? Then it was WHAT SHOULD BE FORGOTTEN? And now it’s WHEN SHOULD THEY BE TOLD?

Part 3 of this compelling series is available on Pre-Order, fledging February 25th.

Part 3 of my psychological suspense series explores the fall-out from the drama in Part 2. It’s been fun, writing dilemmas from other characters’ points of view.

Whose dilemma is worst in this psychological drama?

Pre-order has begun. Uncommon Relations Part 3: When should they be told?

In this coming-of-age trilogy, A Relative Invasion, two young cousins meet in 1937. Their developing relationship mirrors the emotions that brought Hitler’s rise to power – envy of strength, desire for new territory.

Readers who like a long read now have the three books of the trilogy: Intrusion, Infiltration and Impact in the one volume.
With war rumbling on the horizon, two boy cousins meet and their fateful rivalry is born. Lonely little Billy Wilson is initially excited to learn his cousin is to move nearby, but devious Kenneth proves to be a nightmare. Smaller and frail, but older, this psychological bully envies Billy’s superior strength and home comforts and sets out to threaten both.

After war, evacuation, hardships and loss, the cousins share an even closer psychological space. With adolescence, competing talents in the setting of post-war austerity, tensions rise to breaking point.

The fall-out is dramatic and makes for a thought-provoking read. There’s an unpredictable if logical conclusion. But how long the arm of retribution?

After I’d had these three books out a while, I decided to make a version with all three books in the one volume, plus an introduction.

The INTRODUCTION explains how the trilogy came about including the only contact I had with a person who had lived through the war and experienced evacuation.

The paperback is good to have on your bookshelf. These books have been praised for their historical accuracy by Historical Novel Society, where you can read their reviews.

Wikipedia doesn’t always get things right but its explanation of psychological fiction can hardly be bettered.

“In literature, psychological fiction is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of the characters. The mode of narration examines the reasons for the behaviors of the character, which propel the plot and explain the story.”

There are some faces that immediately intrigue, like the photograph above, and “what’s going on” tends to mean “inside his/her head” rather than “round the corner” or “in the kitchen”. You can experience this when you visit the BP Portrait Award exhibition. Many paintings you merely admire, but one or two arrest you, perhaps disturbingly, and of course no answer is offered against the painting for “What’s going on?” It’s online, so I invite you to see what I mean and I deliberately haven’t chosen one for you.

In a novel, it may be an odd behaviour rather than the look on a character’s face. In one of my Curious Men stories, I have a man organising tractor components onto the embossed flowers of a banquet cloth on the lawn. Mending a tractor may be commonplace, but what kind of man, and what thought processes have led him to this situation?

Psychological fiction can be found in different genres. I have written crime short stories, satire, historical and contemporary fiction, and I’d class all as psychological fiction because they are character-driven stories, the plot only emerging as characters develop and create situations. And as in real life, there is humour, sometimes, as well as drama. TV offerings appear to assume that murders are all that counts.