James Carnarvon

If I were Dani, I would have assumed that Salvatore would tell Toto himself. That wouldn't necessarily be correct, of course.

For the next few days, Daniele carried an anxious sort of excitement about with him. During quiet moments, he replayed the memory of Saturday afternoon and the time he had spent with Giacomo. I helped him, didn’t I? He really meant it when he thanked me. Daniele didn’t know, just yet, whether he had made a new friend, but he was sure of one thing: he was a person to Giacomo now, not just a strange-looking kid on the other side of the classroom. From time to time, Daniele had to st

Ah, I understand. The ‘charade’ Leggero referred to was the police having to look like they can’t get anywhere with the case. Having looked back at the exchange, I can see the potential for confusion.

Some intriguing speculation from @Summerabbacat and @drpaladin about the extent of Ettore’s criminal activities. I don’t want to give too much away, but in the remaining nine chapters I won’t be hanging out super extensively with the villains as this is really Dani’s story. Don’t forget Enzo’s contention that the job done on Da Rossi was ‘amateurish’. There will be answers to some of these points fairly soon. Yes, it’s the same Antonio, and he is just as creepy as ever. I’d like to think I’d have coped as well as Dani did at the end of this chapter, but in reality I don’t suppose I would have. He did what he could under pressure.

It wasn’t until Friday that Daniele plucked up the courage to try talking to Giacomo about what he had seen. After the party on Wednesday night, Daniele had been too exhausted to dwell on anything for long; he had fallen asleep almost as soon as his head hit his pillow. As he drifted through school on Thursday, though, the image of Giacomo skulking along Via Trinità, peering in through everyone’s windows, came back to haunt him. The other boy had definitely been performing reconnaissan

Thanks Redwood, it's great to have you back on board. There are certainly changes ahead for Dani, which will become clearer within the next two or three chapters. I'm glad his situation rings true to you. Dani is clearly an 'odd fish' compared to his classmates, even though anyone who takes the time to notice would see what he has to offer as a friend. Your enthusiasm for my descriptive writing is flattering and it's certainly consistent. These, I believe, were your words after finishing The Summer of the Firefly: "Please continue writing and posting your work. I don't care if it's nature writing or romance, I'd read it!" I'm still chuckling over that one. Thanks again.

@Summerabbacat Thank you again for the detailed comments - they really do me a world of good. As I tried to write him in Together We Can Fly, Daniele was very 'young' in some aspects of his social development but had a rare level of emotional insight that allowed him to engage meaningfully with older characters and often get to the heart of things. This story is set more than half a year later after some important formative events, so I have matured him just a little, but I hope he still reads well as a young character. For me, the flora and fauna are an integral part of what makes the Amalfi coast so special. I've stayed in the real Ravello five times (plus one day trip from Sorrento). It's usually been the summer, but once was in May, when the spring was late getting started that year and the nights were still chilly, and once was in September when the nights were thundery. On both of those occasions, the cicadas weren't singing and something just felt missing! I'm always very much with Daniele in my impatience to hear them again. It's also good to hear the speculation from all concerned about the plot. Thanks for commenting, guys.

Daniele rose early the next morning to begin another week of school. As usual, his parents had risen first; he could hear them moving around in the kitchen diner. As was his custom, he started by prising open the shutters over his two small windows, blinking in the sudden blue glare of the April sky as he paused to take in the sea view. The sun must already have been up for at least an hour; it was almost as if he could feel the summer waiting in the wings, impatient to unleash the full ferocity

I thought I'd go for a different time of year this time, at least to start with! Chapter 2 will drop tomorrow. It's just been through its third pass of editing.

@Summerabbacat Thank you for your very kind words. No, I don’t think I’ve heard from you before, but I’m very glad you enjoyed my previous stories on those terms. ”The mundane activities of life”… I guess that’s the point of departure this time round. There will be plenty of those, of course, but there is also more of an ongoing dramatic storyline that is not born solely out of the main characters’ relationships as they go through their daily lives. I’ll leave you to decide whether it works as a contribution to the world I have created before.

Thank you both! Some challenges I faced while writing this story: Switching genres: Moving from romance to adventure while maintaining some tonal consistency with other stories in the series. Plotting: I could no longer outline the story solely on the progress of a single central relationship. I have a central driving plot that had to be overlaid with scenes that serve the various characters involved and tether the story to the world I've developed before. Characterisation: How to find the inner monologue and 'voice' of a younger main character and write it consistently; how to turn Dani from idealised supporting character into main protagonist. Description: How to describe those same locations yet again without boring everybody to tears! Scope: Doing justice to everything and everyone involved. You'll find that familiar faces come and go as the story requires; to some extent I depend on your prior knowledge and sympathy for those characters. Not all of them have an 'ending' here. As such, I don't know if it's going to be my best work? But I enjoyed the challenge of writing it! I hope you enjoy the rest. I'll probably follow the 'one chapter every two days' pattern I followed with my last story. P.S.: 'Dani the Hero' was originally just my working title, but it stuck!

Daniele Ferrero crept along the narrow concrete wall beside the little road, his arms thrown out for balance. He kept his eyes forward, doing his best to ignore the drop of several metres to the terraced lemon plantations below. A hero wouldn’t fall, he thought. A slight young boy of twelve (but almost thirteen), Daniele wasn’t that tall, but he would have told you that he wasn’t that small either. To his own eyes, he was totally average. Others might have told you differently. Wi

A novel in twelve chapters. It’s springtime in the Italian mountain town of Ravello, and the community is just starting to wake up for the new tourist season. But something isn’t quite right: businesses are being attacked, and the police are nowhere to be seen. Into the midst of all this comes twelve-year-old Daniele Ferrero, a kind and gentle boy who dreams of being a hero but really just wants a friend his own age. One night, when he follows a boy he sort of likes, he gets caught up in a dangerous game that will test his faith in humanity.

I’ve finished reading now, and I’m not entirely sure what to think. Your cover image is a powerful one, and the way it’s inspired you to write this piece is plain to see. It shows you have a true writer’s desire to tell meaningful stories. At the same time, I would have liked to see this story developed in much more depth. I think there was enough dramatic potential here for a short novel - a true story of Timothy‘s step-by-step recovery as he slowly built a relationship with his new father. In fact, I think the horrific nature of the original attack demands that kind of careful follow-up. Significant emotional moments and plot developments were passed over in narration; at times I felt I was reading a plot outline rather than a finished story. You didn’t really sell the father/son relationship to me until Timothy’s speech in the epilogue (which was a lovely way to wrap things up, by the way), because until then we had barely seen them speak to one other. There were still great moments. Once again, I really enjoyed your atmospheric depiction of the island as it provided Timothy and Bax with a moment of privacy and peace. I would have liked to understand all the main characters’ feelings and thought processes a lot better. I can see you have an anxiety about developing characters through dialogue, but I urge you not to shy away from it and to keep trying. I think it will really help you take the next step as a storyteller. Thank you for pointing me in this story’s direction all the same. I’m writing again myself, now, which limits my time for reading, but I’ll be back to check out more of your work in future if you keep working at it. I smell potential…

Daunting, isn’t it? Writing the first chat between Gianni and Angelo in ‘The Summer of the Firefly’ left me stuck for about half an hour. I felt as awkward as Gianni at that moment. But, with luck, the characters soon find their voices and it gets easier. If you don’t know what your characters should say to each other at first, then maybe they don’t, either? That might be a valid writing response!

'Reverend' McCallister sounds more like the Devil incarnate to me! I hope he meets his own fiery end. You're delivering the story well enough, but I'd like to spend a bit more time with the characters. Let's have some more dialogue. 🙂

Shades of Stephen King and The X-Files in this vision of small-town America as a hotbed of prejudice and bestial violence. Is this set in the present day or in the late 20th Century? I did't quite catch that from the prologue, with its references to the post-war period. I hope Effr and his family can provide a safe harbour for Rabbit.

Sets the scene well enough. I have a pretty good picture of the town. Now bring me the characters!

I thought you guys might like to know that I'm writing again (I can't seem to stop these days?). There will be another Ravello story, but it will be different this time. Not a love story, more of a plot-driven adventure. I've been busily planning it out for a while, and I've made a start with the actual writing tonight, but I probably won't be doing most of the work until the autumn/fall... so it'll be a while!

@Rhythminthemind, I'd like to echo the others in thanking you for a unique and memorable read! It seems the characters in your tale don't often catch a break; I was very saddened by the way things ended with James and Charlie. I've read almost nothing else on GA for several weeks, so I'm going to jump off here for the moment, I think. In due course, I may come back to read the interlude arc Hunt, and again when you've put up a bit more content for book two. I sort of wish you had published this as "Book One" from the beginning; then you could have marked Book One as complete and we could have written some reviews for you. I've prepared a review of Book One anyway, which I've appended below. ___________________ Touch: A Survival Story is Rhythminthemind’s sprawling (and ongoing) magnum opus. Book one alone, which is all I’m covering with this review, runs to nearly 100 chapters. Touch purports to be the story of James Toranaga, a twelve-year-old boy dealing with the aftermath of a sexual assault. As he tries to deal with his trauma, he also faces the first suggestions of his own emerging sexuality. Meanwhile, he discovers that he has the power to fly. Sounds simple enough, but Touch is actually a massive ensemble piece. Sometimes, our hero James drives the action but, just as often, he is marginalised as we follow the story’s other teenage protagonists, which include Tasha, a girl with super strength; Casper, a vulnerable empath; and, later on, Caleb, an enslaved hunter with a wide variety of powers. There is also an (ever expanding) array of supporting characters and assorted villains, who also take the storytelling focus from time to time. With so many characters to follow, I frequently found myself feeling impatient to get back to James to see how he was doing. The first few chapters of Touch are a more focused affair with a cool urban feel: we deal with the immediate aftermath of James’ assault, including the impact on his family and the beginning of his friendship with the empath Casper, who is drawn to James’ new, troubled emotional state. As he befriends Casper, James also encounters Tasha, and begins to get dragged into the dangerous vigilante world she inhabits. These early, character-focused chapters were probably the part of the story that I enjoyed the most, although there are many other shining moments of character work scattered throughout the rest of the piece which I found equally enjoyable. Those were the parts of the tale I looked forward to the most as the main storyline began to take chaotic turn after chaotic turn. After the first few chapters, the scope of the story begins to expand exponentially, and not always in a good way. First, we are introduced to a weird child exploitation cult and their sinister ‘Father’, who look like they will be the major enemy of the piece; but then they get slightly forgotten about as we move on to meet a variety of hunters and agents of mysterious competing factions. Eventually, the story enters the realms of all-out fantasy with witches, mages, elves, goblins, elementals and goodness knows what else tearing up the streets of New York, the snowy wastes of Scandinavia and eventually other worlds entirely. Whole chapters or story arcs are devoted to a series of spectacular battles, escapes and rescues. These are vividly described, with tremendous imagination; but the characters – and, believe me, there are many memorable and likeable characters to be found here – tend to get lost amidst the sound and fury. It’s an enjoyable ride, but the story moves a long way away from the initial premise and it can become quite hard to keep track of all the different characters and forces in play. I get the impression that, while the author may have had a rough plan to follow, they were making a lot of the detail up as they went along. It’s a credit to Rhythminthemind’s skill with characters that there are some good running themes to be had here despite the structural confusion, with communication (or, specifically, the lack of it) being a major driver of the ever-escalating events, at least for the first half of Book One. In Rhythminthemind, we clearly have an author who is absolutely bursting with ideas. However, if I can offer the author any advice it would be this: avoid throwing all your ideas at a single story. Touch is bursting at the seams with loose ends and unresolved storylines. Many of them have great potential and could have been developed in more detail with a more pared-down and focused approach. Make a clear plan and stick to it, ensuring that the character beats and exciting action are delivered in equal measure. My advice to potential readers: Touch is definitely a journey worth taking, but you’ll need to commit a good deal of time to it. I’m certain that Rhythminthemind is a talent worth watching. Rating: *** for structure; **** for characters

It seems there's hope for Charlie, surprisingly thanks to the Whale. Where's James got to? Maybe he's searching in vain for some clothes... I mean, he did go elemental before they came here. 😉

Oh, wow. Poor James. Poor Charlie! A powerful way to end this arc. I hope James can find a way to reach his friend; to bring him back somehow.

“I don’t care if you’re attracted to this boy, James. You’re not allowed to dictate who he talks to. That’s exactly the kind of rash decision making that proves you shouldn’t-” “Jiji!” James snapped, his voice pitching rapidly towards a squeak. “He can hear you!” Aah, the embarrassing grandparents! 😆 Poor James, though; Charlie's just not into guys. I'm glad everyone is talking. Let's hope the rescue goes smoothly...

Loved James' conversation with his inner self - very funny stuff.

James' inability to curse properly - even in the privacy of his own head - is charming, if a little unlikely! I'm enjoying the character work at the moment; the wisdom of James' grandparents helping to keep his rash heroic impulses in check.