The Waterfall
by
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...make up a lunch for us. As usual, they prepared enough for the Marine Corps. What do you say to having a quick bite and a beer before we start out? We can polish off the rest when we get back from the Falls." "That’s the most sensible idea I’ve heard all day. I’m famished." They quickly found the foot path and Tyler, with Sarah close at his heels, led the way into the rain forest. Once in the embrace of the canopy of towering trees the young woman halted, too awestruck to continue. Breathing deeply she slowly pivoted, examining everything in sight, her mind busily storing the scene for future reference. Then she stooped down and exclaimed over a tiny flower partially hidden under a fern. To Tyler’s amazement, she seemed to know the Latin names of several species of bromelaids, the herbaceous plants that called this gloomy catacomb of nature home. "Where’d you learn all this stuff?" he asked admiringly. "I had a crush on my Botany teacher sophomore year in college. While most of my classmates were into pot and Sylvia Plath, I was memorizing the Latin names of the plants he spoke of in class. I wanted to impress him. A hopeless cause, as I discovered later. Betty Symington, another girl in my class, was doing the same thing and she was a lot prettier and sexier than I. Betty made no bones about her yen for Mr. Peale. You know, I’ve often wondered if he ever screwed her?" "Listen, if I were surrounded by a bunch of females even half as attractive as you, I’d have opened a harem. Come on. Let’s get moving. We have a way to go." She didn’t utter a single complaint as they stepped along a forest floor made thick and slippery with a coating of mold and wet leaves, navigated rocks hazardous with lichen and moss, vines and branches that malevolently lashed their at bodies. As they started to move upland, away from the sheltering forest, he turned to her, "Stop for a minute, Sarah. I need to tell you something."
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About the Book
The setting is a lush idyllic island in the Caribbean Sea. Tyler Scranton, an attractive American who has spent half a lifetime dodging painful memories, eagerly accepts a new job at the hotel Belle Jours only to discover that ‘neath the tropical sun, a viper’s nest of turmoil is waiting to uncoil. Scranton soon becomes enmeshed in the colorful lives and passions of the hotel staff, its guests and its owner, a mysterious woman with a tarnished past. On a solitary excursion across the island, he discovers Watu Kai, the Waterfall, and falls under the spell of its tragic history. Eventually, the Waterfall becomes the site of the most dramatic and heart-wrenching moments of Tyler’s life. Lust and Revenge . . . Malice and Love . . . primal emotions eloquently illuminated in this captivating work of fiction.
About the Author
The author lived for "ten gloriously happy years" on the island of Barbados in the West Indies, returning to the United States in the mid-90s. It was the her love and appreciation of her former island home that spurred her to write THE WATERFALL. "I wanted," she says, "the freedom which fiction gives you to paint with words a broader, more colourful canvas, to be able to ‘borrow’ the sights and sounds from several Caribbean islands and blend them into one site. Numerous articles and interviews focusing on the West Indies have appeared under her byline. CONSTANTINE, her recently published children’s book, is also set on an island. She now resides in the Durham, North Carolina, but returns to the Caribbean often.