World Prose – serie

Eilidh, bright, headstrong and feisty, gets sparkling exam results that confirm her university place. Her boyfriend reveals he has deceived her. In the ensuing argument she is knocked unconscious. She arrives in 1984, in an Ethiopian refugee camp, where she nurses a dying child, then a wounded aid worker before wakening back home in present-day Scotland. Three days later, at an isolated beauty spot trying to come to terms with her ex boyfriend’s betrayal and her experience in Ethiopia, she encounters Walter, who is in the early stages of dementia. He is there because of a tattoo on his wrist that simply states the date and location of the beauty spot. Eilidh recognizes Walter’s symptoms, takes him home and contacts his niece to come and collect him.

Over the following 48-hour period Eilidh finds herself transported to various locations in Europe and North America, and time periods from the previous fifty years. Each episode draws her further into an unexpected and unconventional romance. Eventually she travels to WW2 blitzed Liverpool and meets a fellow time-traveler who explains that Eilidh faces a decision with life and death consequences.

Evie knows she must put the good of the community before all else—that is the only way to fix the problems that led to the Great Flood. But when she is sent as a spy to a society less restrictive than her own, she must choose between loyalty to all she knows, and freedom in the world outside. Many years later, Evie’s name has become a symbol of revolution. But Bertram uncovers a secret that changes everything he thought he knew. He must decide whether to reveal the truth, or protect the fragile peace of his society. In his journey, he encounters time-travelling historians intent on preventing apocalypse by communicating with Laura, a woman from before the Great Flood. Laura is convinced her newborn baby speaks to her, and must decide whether to trust herself, or the doctors telling her she is crazy. Through these three intertwined stories, The Red Hairband explores the inhumanity that is brought about when we are too certain of our beliefs.

When Samson Johnson feels pushed over the edge from news reports of another U.S. mass shooting, he comes up with the bi-partisan ‘Save Lives, Save Guns’ plan. If shootings could be made non-lethal, killings would be stopped, the insurance companies would still profit and nobody would have their guns taken away. From town hall meetings in Oklahoma, to a Pride Centre in Vermont, from sunny California, to the prairies of South Dakota, Samson’s sleepless effort to end mass shootings forever covers the breadth of the country. Yet as the campaign goes viral on social media and funds begin to pour in by the millions, Samson is confronted with the realities of his plan. Voices across the country begin to riddle him with doubt: that his policy may be misguided and stand to do more harm than good. Can Samson put a stop to his misguided plan in time? Or is the ‘Believe America’ movement a Frankenstein’s monster ‘too big to fail’? A biting satire on American exceptionalism, gun ownership and violence, #BelieveAmerica gets to the core of how hard it will be to change these attitudes and to bring sanity back into the debate.