Excerpted from the Novel


Another excerpt from The Word Collector, which is a fabulous book you should purchase and read in its entirety. 

Petra walked through rooms stuffed with old vinyl, antique baby prams and Hull and McCoy vases. Mismatched silverware and chipped tea sets. A case full of jewelry that had once been given and received in love, and now was the final physical proof of the exchange of affection between different sets of bones in the ground. Another right after that, and she found it. 
The room was smaller than she would have liked it to be. But there was a elementary-school-library-style low stool in the corner to sit upon and books packed floor to ceiling with no apparent organization. Petra allowed herself a smile. Perfect. She preferred this. When a shop owner attempted to catalogue the books, they often muddled it all up. This way, it truly was like finding treasure; one never knew what gem might be waiting beneath the next book in a stack or behind a pile of haphazardly placed tomes.

A particularly promising red leather book with a cracked spine called out to her. Settling herself on the small metal stool, she gingerly opened the cover and saw something magic. The title. 
“Ancient Indefinable Peculiarities, published 1803” she read aloud to herself. She smiled again, and allowed her mind to drift along with the soft melodies of Edith Piaf in a faraway room, and the specific song of the turning pages of the rare book in her hands. 

Seconds, moments, minutes later, a hollow cough interrupted the rhythm of her reading. Petra glanced up, irritably, annoyed to have been so burst in upon when she was occupied. Some other obnoxious customer, no doubt, bumbling into the room searching for something interesting to put on his reproduction coffee table. She took no trouble to hide the scowl on her face when she looked up at the intruder. 

excerpted from The Word Collector by Alexandria V. Nolan, 2016, all rights reserved. 

Order your copy on Kindle or Paperback. 

Popular Posts