The Rebirth Of Alice Chastity Parsons
by Debbie Darkin aka. Jackie Usher.
Alice Chastity Parsons is a downtrodden spinster of thirty-three, resigned to a life serving her parents and the forbidding, judgemental Flock of The Divine Shepherd – until a tatterdemalion band of hippies wafted into sleepy Washingham.
Events drive Alice into the arms of Holy Joe, a dead ringer for the Jesus in the Sunday School tracts she gives to the Little Lambs. She seeks refuge in the hippy community, where she hopes to find her runaway little sister…
The Rebirth of Alice Chastity Parsons releases Alice’s ‘butterfly within’ and her life changes from drab grey to a psychedelic dream. She experiences the Love, Sex, Fun and excitement (and hang-ups) of the Alternative Lifestyle, meeting some of the Movers and Shakers of the late Nineteen Sixties.
She hitches the length of Britain, and finally ends in 1969 at the Isle of Wight Festival. Alice, the graceful, flowing-haired hippy has at last found her true self – but does she find her sister?
We lose ourselves in books. We find ourselves there too.
–Anon.
Alice Moves On
by Debbie Darkin aka. Jackie Usher.
1975: Alice keeps her second wedding anniversary alone, for Dirk Ferris, her husband, has been missing for six months, shortly after returning to apartheid South Africa to look after his ailing mother.
At last a message reaches her that totally shatters all her hopes: Dirk was last seen being beaten and dragged into a police van…
‘Forget him’ she’s told; ‘he is most likely dead.’ She is forced out of the business they shared – a centre for refugees from South Africa.
Alice is left poor, and rudderless. Despairing, she turns to pills and regrettable sexual flings to forget her pain until compelled to find out what she can about Dirk’s fate – and how to cope without him. She journeys to Crete (through Yugoslavia on the Magic Bus.) Still she does not find him, but finds solace instead in travel.
Years pass and others offer their love – but Alice still wonders if her husband will ever return…
There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favourite book.
–Marcel Proust
A Picture All Askew
by Debbie Darkin aka. Jackie Usher.
A body is found on a towpath close to a fisherman’s public house.
‘She was a very beautiful woman’ said the landlord – but he had not known her well.
‘A Picture all Askew’ explores the character of Felicity – who was ‘all things to all men’ – and one woman: Vicky, the principal narrator.
But Vicky’s perception of Felicity was not shared by her husband, Bill – not until the very end. He kept from Vicky just how much he found Felicity alluring…
Then there are the two men who shared Felicity’s cottage: Loyal Peter, who adored her slavishly, and Tristan, who Felicity introduced as ‘my undergraduate son’, and Felicity’s daughter, Isolde. The verbal pictures they painted are all bafflingly contradictory…
Miles came closest to seeing through the many layers of Felicity to the real, hidden person. He was the only one to take direct action. Certainly her ex-husband, a retiring, barely-glimpsed peer of the realm, had merely removed himself from her life –
Whereas all the others have reasons to wish Felicity removed from theirs – Which one will be pushed into turning ‘Wish into ‘Murder’?
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
–Dr. Seuss
All Jackie’s books written under ‘Debbie Darkin’ can be purchased through Amazon, all you need to do is click on any of the book images throughout this site to link to Amazon. Extracts of each of the books can also be found on Amazon.
Jackie and Graham would like to thank the following for the use of the images on this page.
Library photo by Alexandra Kirr on Unsplash
Bookshelf photo by Alfons Morales on Unsplash
Girl peering over book photo by Maia Habegger on Unsplash
The Bookshelf with Aphrodite – taken by Graham Usher
