Book Title: Darkness Dawns
Author: Zakarrie Clarke
Publisher: MLR Press
Genre/s: Contemporary/Humour/MM/Disability (Blindness)
Length: 65 000 words/150 PDF pages
Release Date: February 1, 2019
Itโs a novel with a sequel.
The first 43 chapters form Darkness Dawns; it concludes on a HFN and the sequel completes the novel. I’ve written both, but thought it best to split it, or it would be over 140 000 words long.
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Blurb
Darkness Dawns is a love story. It also tells the tale of one manโs war with himself, brought onto the battlefield of his blindness. Leo Ferrar suffers from diabetic retinopathy and lost his sight two years ago. Unable to bear the scrutiny of strangers or the impact of his blindness on those he loves, Leo has determined on shutting the world out ever since. This is the man Ben meets on his first day at work as Mr Ferrarโs care assistant.
A former heroin addict, Ben was sentenced to six months community service as punishment for his crimes by a judge entitled to condemn him to a seven-year stretch. Far too charming for his own welfare, Ben proves unaccountably brilliant at โbulldozing the blindโ.
When fate sees fit to dispatch Ben to the home of the man he has dubbed Mr Ferrarcious; it is with the words of the last five unfortunates whoโd dared darken Leoโs doorway ringing in his ears. A door that is opened by a man who might be Lord Byron himself. Drop dead gorgeous and as hot as hell, Leo Ferrar has the most beautiful eyes Ben has ever seen.
Never has an irony seemed so cruel. Nor fate so fortuitous.
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Exclusive Excerpt
Leo knew he should have opted to use the cane, instead of the arm Ben offered him for their unexpected walk. Should. Every time that word left someoneโs lips, Leo wanted to scream; fists clenched in a screech of hopeless, helpless rage. The fact that everything he should do was For-His-Own-Benefit, made it so much worse, which was as ludicrous as it was true. Independence was the only thing he had left to aspire to. So, why the fuck did should rub Leo so raw it obliterated any inclination he may have had to do whatever it prefaced? He ought to want to do the things he should. But what if he triedโฆand failed? What if Leo couldnโt master any of them? Then he would lose even the hope that he might, one day, be able to. Even more galling, that loss would be down to him, because he was so bloody useless. He did want to show Ben that he was quite capable of managingโฆdidnโt he? Very much, although why that mattered, Leo had no idea.
Why care what this latest in a long line of functioning eyeballs thought of him? It was probably more politic to say, โvisually unimpairedโ. Visually Impaired. Leo had to stifle the urge to punch people who described him thus. Impaired? Adj: weakened or damaged. Weak. Weakened. Fโfucksakes. He was still chewing that particular wasp when Ben asked for his wrist.
Does he intend to lead me by it, as if Iโm a toddler?
Leo found himself holding it out anyway. Christ knows why he was going along with all this. It was just thatโฆbeing in Benโs company was rather like sitting in the passenger seat of a snow plough driven by a drunk. Far preferable to standing in its pathโฆand yet, somehow more appealing than staying behind, wherever the hell it was off to.
Nevertheless, he was still relieved when Ben clasped the proffered wristโnot to cart Leo off as heโd fearedโbut to plant his hand on top of Benโs head. The fact that Leo could have changed the lightbulb without stretching a whole lot further, did seem to suggest heโd been addressing Benโs nipples for the last half hour.
Quite how Ben then contrived to claim fault for something that was Leoโs mistake was less clear, but this was pulled off with such disarming charm, it wouldโve been churlish to argue otherwise. Why the hell did the notion of calling Benโs bluff feel as brutal a prospect as drowning his cat? If he had one, of course. Cat? More to the pointโฆnipples?
โThank you,โ Leo managed to mumble, which was something of a result itself. Half an hour with Ben and heโd started to feel several sandwiches short of the proverbial picnic. Heโd also begun to suspect that Violet had been a sweet little old ladyโand quite saneโwhen sheโd met Ben.
So off they went. The blindingly daft leading the blind off on a stroll around Camden.
In a bid to distract himself from well, pretty much everything heโd thought for the last five minutes, Leo decided to ask Ben to describe himself. For some reason he was intrigued, not only to know what Ben looked like, but to hear the picture he drew. Leo had an inkling this would prove more unmissable than an aural tour around the National Portrait Gallery. Unmissable? It was a bloody masterpiece. There most definitely were not any renderings of Steptoeโs six-four daughter there. The last two years might have felt a damn sight less soul-destroying if Ben had voiced Leoโs DVD visual descriptions.
Walking outside had lost all its appeal when the world became a giant landmine lying in wait to blow up in Leoโs face; every step into the unknown, a potential public humiliation. Despite this, and Benโs partiality to lamp posts, they somehow arrived in Gloucester Crescent, alive and well. Even more shocking, was that Leo hadnโt fretted aboutโฆanything really, along the way. Heโd just drifted along, listening to Ben weave words too beguiling to question where embellishment waved farewell to the truth. But who the fuck would want to, when that would feel as blasphemous as punching a fist through a Picasso?
About the Author
When Zakarrie was little and dreamed big, she wanted to be a writer. Just like Enid Blyton. Or peraps not…having been most remiss on the lashings of ginger beer front. After moving to London at eighteen and flitting about for far too long, she finally settled, as blissy as can be, by the sea. When her castaway dreams resurfaced, they were believed into being by the warm words of friends who breathed life into her own. Her one wish now is that someone, somewhere, might enjoy the misadventures of her miscreants as much as she adores writing them.
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