FROGS AND THEIR PLACE IN A ROMANTIC NOVEL
Walking back from our local paper shop the other morning I found a fully grown dead frog in the road and stooped to examine him. He was perfect, undamaged, arms spread out, his little hands raised above his head. He even had little thumbs.
Made me feel quite sad and reminded me of the sad little frog in my novel NEVER SLEEP WITH A NEIGHBOUR!
In this story my protagonist is children's author Ali, whose own protagonist is a frog. Here she is, reading out her newest story to a school hall full of kids, their Mums and teachers - and the man who's driving her nuts:
"In a very large house in Edinburgh there lived a very small frog called Juan Pablo Romero Delgado de Bona Villa."
Ali looked up from her reading and waited for the giggles to cease. The hall was full to the door, pupils sitting cross legged on the floor, teachers and several mothers on chairs at the rear. Ali hadn't realised her appearance would create such interest.
"Juan Pablo Romero Delgado de Bona Villa was a long long way from home. He could still remember the brilliant colours, the heat and the sounds of the tropical rain forest where he was born and he missed them every day. He knew he was a Brazilian poison dart frog. He knew he was bright blue with black spots on his back. He knew he was quite handsome. What he didn't know was how he came to be living all on his own in a large glass tank in a house in Edinburgh. And he was lonely. So lonely that he wept at night."
