Thursday, April 17, 2014

Guest Post by Chantal Bellehumeur



Welcome to Ryukage Brainwork, where today, the Shadow Dragon's imagination takes this blog post off. For your reading pleasure, please dive into the alternate reality world created by Chantal Bellehumeur and her feel good novel: "Not Alone". 


Story Summary:
  


Harmony Goodhumor didn’t always get along with her younger sister Katherine, but the girls became close after their mother’s death.  When Harmony moved to another city for university, she missed Katherine very much.

The girls tried to be there for one another as best as they could whenever a personal problem would occur, but there was only so much they could do for each other.  

There came a time when Harmony started feeling depressed and alone.

One summer, Harmony decided to go visit Katherine in her new home.  During her short trip to Moncton, New Brunswick, Harmony did more than just spend time with her sister and something unexpected happened during an excursion.  

When Harmony returned home, she started missing Katherine again as well as other loved ones.  But, during her moment of blues she makes the realisation that she is not as alone as she feels.


   

Excerpt:  


Not Alone
by Chantal Bellehumeur


Excerpt from Part one

Hi.  My name is Harmony Goodhumor.  Before you ask like most people I meet, yes I like to live in harmony with others and am generally in a good mood.  However, as I am human and therefore not perfect, I don’t always live up to my name definition.  From time to time I am in an unpleasant mood and sometimes get made fun of because of it.
I will admit that I had problems living harmoniously with one particular person in my youth.  Wow!  The last part of my statement just made me feel really old!  I actually just celebrated my thirty second birthday and hope to live until I am about triple my current age.
Anyways, my younger sister Katherine and I did not always get along when we were kids.  In fact, we argued a lot.  Most of our arguments were about movie rental selections, and the uncleanliness of our playroom or the small bedroom we shared.  Sometimes we would cause scenes over stupid things, like the fact that one of us looked in the other’s window during a long car ride or even went over the invisible line of the middle car seat that separated our sides.  I always sat on the left and Katherine sat on the right.  We shared the middle seat and were pretty anal about our spaces.  Not even our toys or books could go over the other’s side without us arguing.  We would also annoy each other by placing the tips of our fingers close to the other’s face.  When we would yell out “Stop touching me!” the other would say matter of factly “I am not touching you.”  We drove our parents nuts.  Of course, they always told me to show the example because I was the oldest and it irritated me.  My sister seemed to find it amusing and always stuck out her tongue at me. 

As we grew older though, Katherine and I started appreciating each other’s company and became closer to one another. 
I think the fact that our mother died when we were children made us realise how important it was not to take your family for granted.  I was fourteen and my sister eleven years of age when we found out that our mom had cancer.  It was a complete shock to us both, and to our father as well.  My mom just went to a doctor’s appointment and came home with the bad news.  We all thought that she would fight it, but the disease had already spread too much by the time it was discovered so the chemotherapy treatments didn’t do anything to improve her well-being.  It seemed to just make her sicker and lose all her beautiful long black hair. 
My mother died six months after her diagnosis, at the age of forty-five.  I was holding her hand in the hospital when she took her last breath.  I don’t remember ever crying so much in my life.  I don’t think I ever saw my sister cry so much either, and she used to be a real cry-baby.  My father tried to be more discreet about it, but he wasn’t fast enough in wiping his first tears.  Katherine and I told him it was okay for him to cry in front of us, something we had never seen him do.  He ended up crying a river just like us.



The novel can be purchased on Amazon in eBook or paperback:
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Alone-Chantal-Bellehumeur/dp/1496055608

For other titles by Chantal Bellehumeur please check her website here: 
http://author-chantal-bellehumeur.webnode.com/

Also like her author page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chantal-Bellehumeur-public-author-page/347446362035640