Blog Tour - The Long Fall by Julia Crouch

Hi Everyone! I was really thrilled to be asked to take part in this blog tour - The Long Fall by Julia Crouch.  I'm currently reading the book attached to the tour, I'm about half way through and the book is excellent. It seems fully of mystery, tension and the main character is quite complex, which is what I really like in a book.

For my stop of the tour I have an extract from the Long Fall, but first I'll give you the book details and synopsis.

 The Long Fall by Julia Crouch

Released: 19th June 2014
Publisher: Headline
Series: No
Find at:  Goodreads | Amazon UK

Author Site: Julia Crouch

Goodreads Synopsis:
How far would you go to protect your secrets?
Greece, 1980
Emma takes part in a shattering, violent event. An event to which she is anything but an innocent bystander.She is only eighteen, but this marks her fall from innocence.It will haunt her for the rest of her life.
London, now

Kate has the perfect existence: a glossy image, a glamorous home, a perfect family.But there are cracks.All is not what it seems.

And now the two worlds are about to collide.Somebody's out for revenge.Someone who has been waiting thirty years..

Extract from The Long Fall                                     

EMMA

23 July 1980, 9 p.m. Marseille. Youth Hostel.

Today is the worst day of my life.

Something worse than anything I ever thought would happen to me has happened.

To me. The bright girl with the brilliant future.

To me. The fucking stupid girl.

I’m on my own in the youth hostel girls’ dorm. The laughter of Hans the warden and the German boys in the big hall downstairs jumbles with the Jimi Hendrix, echoing up the stone stairs and travelling down the corridors to tangle in my ears.

They bought wine and cooked up some moules and invited me to eat with them.

But I can’t.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what to do.

I can’t believe it really.

To make sure it actually happened, I’m going to write it all down, even though it’s going to hurt, every detail I can remember.

So, after my late lunch and a stretch out on the beach, I get the bus back up from town and take the pretty, grassy footpath that runs from the bus stop to the youth hostel, between the high stone wall of the old chateau and the high metal-fenced boundary of another large property. It’s quiet, late afternoon, still light. The wind has dropped and the sky sings with blue.

I’m happy.

I was happy.

A thickset man is up about a hundred yards ahead of me, walking in the same direction. I think nothing of it. I only even frown slightly when he reaches the end of the path, turns and starts walking back towards me.

I think perhaps he’s forgotten something. As he gets closer, I notice he’s got sunglasses on and this red cotton scarf tied around the lower part of his face, like a cowboy. I look away, keep moving. But I wrap the strap of my day bag around my hand, ready to swipe if I need to.

Even then I think I’m being stupid. I still have the chance to turn and run, but I don’t do it.

You see, I thought at the time that it would have been insulting. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Just because he was a thickset man with a scarf over his face didn’t necessarily mean he was going to be a danger to me.               

But.

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