Clouded Vision (7 page)
She’d drifted off during a TV wildlife special. It was something about the rain forests. She’d never been all that interested in the rain forests.
Only a few minutes into sleep, Winona Simpson woke with a start.
Her heart was pounding. She reached under the various necklaces she always wore and put her palm between her breasts, to feel the rapid beating.
That was some nightmare.
It was so real, so frightening.
No, she thought, it was not a nightmare.
It was something else.
She’d had a vision. That was the way they often came to her – as she slept.
Winona blinked a couple of times, trying to bring into focus the images in her head.
She drew in a sharp breath.
‘Oh, Keisha,’ she said. ‘What on earth have you done?’
Books in the Quick Reads series
| 101 Ways to get your Child to Read | Patience Thomson |
| All These Lonely People | Gervase Phinn |
| Black-Eyed Devils | Catrin Collier |
| Bloody Valentine | James Patterson |
| Buster Fleabags | Rolf Harris |
| The Cave | Kate Mosse |
| Chickenfeed | Minette Walters |
| Cleanskin | Val McDermid |
| Clouded Vision | Linwood Barclay |
| A Cool Head | Ian Rankin |
| Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe | Danny Wallace |
| The Dare | John Boyne |
| Doctor Who: Code of the Krillitanes | Justin Richards |
| Doctor Who: I Am a Dalek | Gareth Roberts |
| Doctor Who: Made of Steel | Terrance Dicks |
| Doctor Who: Revenge of the Judoon | Terrance Dicks |
| Doctor Who: The Sontaran Games | Jacqueline Rayner |
| Dragons' Den: Your Road to Success | |
| A Dream Come True | Maureen Lee |
| Follow Me | Sheila O’Flanagan |
| Girl on the Platform | Josephine Cox |
| The Grey Man | Andy McNab |
| The Hardest Test | Scott Quinnell |
| Hell Island | Matthew Reilly |
| Hello Mum | Bernardine Evaristo |
| How to Change Your Life in 7 Steps | John Bird |
| Humble Pie | Gordon Ramsay |
| Jack and Jill | Lucy Cavendish |
| Kung Fu Trip | Benjamin Zephaniah |
| Last Night Another Soldier | Andy McNab |
| Life’s New Hurdles | Colin Jackson |
| Life’s Too Short | Val McDermid, Editor |
| Lily | Adèle Geras |
| Men at Work | Mike Gayle |
| Money Magic | Alvin Hall |
| My Dad’s a Policeman | Cathy Glass |
| One Good Turn | Chris Ryan |
| The Perfect Holiday | Cathy Kelly |
| The Perfect Murder | Peter James |
| RaW Voices: True Stories of Hardship | Vanessa Feltz |
| Reaching for the Stars | Lola Jaye |
| Reading My Arse! | Ricky Tomlinson |
| Star Sullivan | Maeve Binchy |
| Strangers on the 14:02 | Priya Basil |
| The Sun Book of Short Stories | |
| Survive the Worst and Aim for the Best | Kerry Katona |
| The 10 Keys to Success | John Bird |
| Tackling Life | Charlie Oatway |
| The Tannery | Sherrie Hewson |
| Traitors of the Tower | Alison Weir |
| Trouble on the Heath | Terry Jones |
| Twenty Tales of the War Zone | John Simpson |
| We Won the Lottery | Danny Buckland |
Quick Reads
Great stories, great writers, great entertainment
Quick Reads are brilliantly written short new books by bestselling authors and celebrities. Whether you’re an avid reader who wants a quick fix or haven’t picked up a book since school, sit back, relax and let Quick Reads inspire you.
We would like to thank all our partners in the Quick Reads project for their help and support:
Arts Council England
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
NIACE
unionlearn
National Book Tokens
The Reading Agency
National Literacy Trust
Welsh Books Council
Basic Skills Cymru, Welsh Assembly Government
The Big Plus Scotland
DELNI
NALA
Quick Reads would also like to thank the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; Arts Council England and World Book Day for their sponsorship and NIACE for their outreach work.
Quick Reads is a World Book Day initiative.
Quick Reads
Great stories, great writers, great entertainment
Follow Me
Sheila O’Flanagan
Headline Review
The romantic tale of a career girl, a handsome stranger and chips
Pippa Jones is 20-something and single. She likes chips, country music and her cat. She also loves her career as number one sales rep for a computer firm. The only thing she hasn’t got time for is men. Broken-hearted last time round, Pippa is sticking to girlfriends – and winning a dream trip to New York.
However, life isn’t that simple. A rival firm is stealing her clients, and a tall, fair stranger is following her everywhere. He’s in the bar, at dinner, even at her meetings. Is he a stalker? Whoever he is, he’s about to turn Pippa’s world upside down.
Quick Reads
Great stories, great writers, great entertainment
Kung Fu Trip
Benjamin Zephaniah
Bloomsbury
A crazy martial arts adventure
From the moment Benjamin Zephaniah meets the ‘kissy kissy’ woman in his Chinese hotel, you know this isn’t going to be an ordinary tourist story. Benjamin visits master Iron Breath to learn the secrets of Kung Fu – but it’s not going to be easy, or cheap. Is he going to be ripped off? Would it be better to see Fat Thumb and his Smelly Finger? Why does everyone want him to sing like Eddy Grant? One thing’s for sure, it’s all a lot different to home.
Kung Fu Trip
is a little bit daft and a whole lot of fun.
Quick Reads
Great stories, great writers, great entertainment
Bloody Valentine
James Patterson
Arrow
This year Valentine’s Day isn’t for romance.
It’s for murder
Mega-rich restaurant owner Jack Barnes and his second wife Zee are very much in love. However, their plans for Valentine’s Day are about to be torn apart by the most violent murder. Who is the strange figure plotting this sick crime? Who hates Jack that much? There are plenty of suspects living in Jack’s fancy block of flats. Is it them, or could it be the work of an outsider with a twisted mind? One thing’s for sure, the police have got their work cut out solving this bloody mess.
This gory murder mystery will make you feel weak at the knees.
Quick Reads
Great stories, great writers, great entertainment
Jack and Jill
Lucy Cavendish
Penguin
The disturbing tale of a young boy and his devoted sister
Jill loves her little brother, Jack. She understands what he’s thinking, which is just as well because Jack won’t speak.
There are plenty of things Jill doesn’t understand though. Why is her mum dumping her and Jack in the country? Why did her dad leave and she’s not allowed to talk about it? She doesn’t know why her aunt and uncle give her and Jack strange looks, or why they’re being talked about in the village.
With a local country boy Jill decides to find out what’s going on and uncovers the appalling truth behind brother Jack’s silence.