The Burnt Roses

<p><strong>LONELINESS IS A KILLER so people have said... and Martha is lonely even though a neurological quirk makes her see familiar faces everywhere. To the extent that she has to hold down tricky conversations with jostling self-important dollar bills go lip-to-lip with a Hollywood icon and ride a warhorse with a stiff and spectacular General all within the same square mile.</strong></p><p><br></p><p>Neil Baker doesn't even have quirks to break through his monotonous existence but don't let us the readers be guilty of overlooking him too. Though exhaustion makes his soul invisible.</p><p><br></p><p>Martha and Neil don't meet. But they have a common denominator in Aaron a quiet sensitive and ardently faithful boy who doesn't fit in either - despite his loving family and his prayers - and who feels the full force of the dramas that encircle him.</p><p>In this the very first novel he committed to paper and now being published for the first time Jon Ferguson paints a transatlantic era-crossing world of pain and humour that has a lot in common with classics such as <em>Under Milkwood</em> and <em>Ulysses</em> while retaining his modern American voice. Imagine Holden Caulfield writing <em>To the Lighthouse</em>.A stretch too far? Open this book and let it take you there.</p>