What Happens at the Beach by T.A. Williams. Review and Excerpt!

Enjoyed this book. Liked the characters and story flow. Fun book to read. Highly recommend. Given copy for honest review.


What Happens at the Beach…

Excerpt E

‘You know you were saying you wanted there to be some sort of treasure map, or at least talk of a treasure that the goodies and baddies in your book start investigating?’ He nodded. ‘And you wanted me to come up with an idea of where they could have found that sort of document? Well, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve got a suggestion for you: the Inquisition.’

‘The Inquisition? You mean the Spanish Inquisition? How big a part did they play in the crusade?’

‘Not really the Spanish Inquisition. That developed later, but interestingly enough, it was the crusade against the Cathars that saw the birth of the Inquisition, and the originator of it was indeed Spanish.’ He looked up in interest as she explained. ‘A saint, no less. Dominic Guzman, later to become Saint Dominic, who founded the Dominican order; it was they who became the inquisitors.’

‘Monks in a holy order actually became torturers?’ Mark sounded appalled. ‘So you’re saying they might be the source of the secret document?’

‘The inquisitors kept meticulous records. They actually supplied most of the documentation we have today about the Cathars. There are interrogations, confessions, sentences and so on. For your purposes, the records of the Inquisition could well be the source of the information about the treasure.’

‘That sounds brilliant.’ He was thinking hard. ‘Maybe my main character could be a history professor who happens upon something as he’s going through some old records and that sparks the whole thing off. The baddies get to hear about it and he finds himself on the run.’

‘Or she finds herself on the run.’ Natalie couldn’t help throwing that in for balance. He looked up in surprise.

‘Of course, that’s it. Brilliant idea, Natalie. Stuff Indiana Jones. My main character’s going to be a woman.’ He glanced across at her, a light smile on his lips. ‘In fact, she could be a tall, very beautiful, half English, half French girl with the lightest blue eyes.’

Natalie liked the sound of very beautiful, but she did her best to keep her face expressionless. ‘Of course, this being a novel, there could be no reference to real people in it, for fear of legal action? Or am I wrong?’

He was smiling more broadly now. ‘All right, she can be a five-foot-nothing brunette with hairy arms and brown eyes. Would that do?’

She was smiling back at him by now. ‘You’re the writer. You call the shots.’