My New Book,Love Hangover, is Now Available.
Eleven short stories exploring hedonism, intrigue, violence and Barry Manilow.
Being a late starter at writing - I am ‘in my fifties’ - does not worry me. I have been through the phase of regretting life choices and ‘what-if’ wonderings because those ‘what-ifs’ never existed and everything I have done has contributed to what I am writing. And I’ve done a lot: I was a dancer and choreographer, I owned businesses in Spain, France and the US, I travelled the world on cruise ships and learnt to speak four languages and I have lived in six countries. I represented the Walt Disney Company on TV and radio and was the first person to carry out Disney training in both North Africa and Russia - experiences that, at the time, I took for granted. But there I was, on a frozen pier in St Petersburg with the sea in front of me a sheet of white ice, discussing with a General in the Russian security service that I wanted to offer Disney Cruise Line Guests a photo opportunity with Mickey Mouse.
At 2:30am on a summer’s night in a small French village I was manning the bar at the hotel we owned. We were hosting an evening for the local Gendarmerie who had been steadily drinking since 7:30pm. A cadet had an epaulette removed and thrown around the room always out of his reach before it ended up in a beer glass. Then somebody thought it would be fun to play the same game with a gun. This was not fun or exciting until much later when the whole group had been ordered to leave by their Commanding Officer who bundled them into a white van and drove them back to their barracks. They took the epaulette and the gun with them.
My new collection of 11 short stories entitled Love Hangover is out now and I would love you to read the book.
Some of these stories are flash fiction and some are several thousand words. The characters include ‘70s British Airways Cabin Stewards, Cold War spies, a London gangster, an Irish horse trainer and cocaine dealer, a female assassin with a big problem, a man who loves Barry Manilow and a female detective dealing with a woman who hates raisins.
The settings take you from Studio 54 to the White House cabinet room and the suite of a West End hotel to the set of Celebrity Big Brother with a stop in the New Forest to deal with a problem.
I started writing fiction seriously last year and took several creative writing course including with the excellent Irish Writers’ Centre. I also entered contests and submitted for literary magazines in order to receive feedback on my work. This month I also have a flash fiction piece published in samfiftyfour_literary (check it out in issue X HERE) and am working on the second draft of a full length crime novel.
These are the stories you can enjoy in Love Hangover:
TWO KILOMETRES OUT
We discover why Farrah, who is dressed in a short black dress and high heels is meeting a client in a suite at London’s Regan Hotel.
28 MORE MINUTES
Do you have a close friend who subscribes to Web MD?
I HAVE A TALENT - THE STORY OF DENNIS
Dennis is an old school London gangster who has a problem to fix.
EVEN HEAT (With Apologies to Barry Manilow)
Larry Bannerstein writes advertising jingles until his love for Manilow inspires him.
HIGH AIR
Cruise Line Executive Frank Williams is alone in his country house writing an acceptance speech for a lifetime award. But someone is bringing back is past to haunt and taunt him.
THE BARCHETTA BABE
What is the huge revelation that Celebrity Big Brother is about to make about one of the housemates?
CUT AND RUN
A young man is drawn into a world of espionage and discovers a different version of one of the Cold War’s most infamous episodes.
LOVE HANGOVER
A former British Airways Cabin Steward tells how he was part of the group that took a white horse into Studio 54 - and how it changed his life forever.
WILDERNESS LODGE
The front door of the house on the Old Goldmine Road is hidden.
OPERATION APOCRITA
How did a British traitor trick the CIA and nearly precipitate World War Three?
RAISINS
Mrs Newman has had enough.
The ebook is available to download from Lulu with this link
Download Love Hangover Here
Or you can take out a paid subscription to my Substack to read the whole book right here.
I would love to know your thoughts and feedback along with offers to turn any of the stories into a major Netflix series. And here’s a quick taster of the first story, Two Kilometres Out.
Love Hangover and Other Stories by Jason Ward
Two Kilometres Out
CHAPTER ONE London 2024
A white flash whipped across the CCTV screen. It was afternoon spring sunshine reflected from the intensely polished revolving door as a blonde woman in a dark full-length coat stepped into London’s Regan Hotel. The time stamp on the recording showed it was at 1332hrs and further analysis of the video together with witness statements revealed that the woman was wearing black leather gloves and carrying a dark bag that may have been by Gucci.
Nobody thought the woman out of place as her Louboutin heels clicked across the oval of beige marble in the hotel’s grand lobby and were then silenced by the deep red carpet on the stairs to the first floor which she climbed with the physical confidence of a classical dancer. Two young guys in tight pants and loafers with perfect hair passed her on their way out of the hotel for a cigarette. They had assumed that she was heading into the Luv Ur Artistry’ all day seminar hosted by make-up influencer ‘Bee-You-Tee’. “Great hair” one of the men had reportedly commented afterwards while both commented on her lip colour choice (‘a liner would definitely have lifted it’) and her shoes (‘oh yeah-definitely real!)
Farrah was running through her checklist of what she needed to do on this visit. A client was waiting for her in room 51124: the Beauchamp Suite. His name was James Coburn, he was a 29-year-old financier who the agency described as ‘unthreatening.’ He had contacted Platinum Angels two weeks ago and requested ‘a blonde with a Mediterranean complexion, in a black dress with stockings and black underwear.’ Farrah had ensured that she matched the physical description perfectly. She had prepared well for this appointment; she was experienced, and she had been well briefed about what was needed.
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