The Serpent's Skin by Erina Reddan (top 5 books to read .txt) 📕

at our neighbour’s house, and dropped the straightener, then sprang after it, perhaps more anxious about seeing Rosie than he would admit. ‘We should check on Sean and Rosie.’

Maybe he was sick of me staring at his injured lip.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, organisations, events or locales is coincidental.

First published in 2021 by Pantera Press Pty Limited

www.PanteraPress.com

Text copyright © Erina Reddan, 2021

Erina Reddan has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

Design and typography copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2021

® Pantera Press, three-slashes colophon device, and sparking imagination, conversation & change are registered trademarks of Pantera Press Pty Limited. Lost the Plot is a trademark of Pantera Press Pty Limited

This work is copyright, and all rights are reserved. Apart from any use permitted under Copyright legislation, no part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing. We welcome your support of the author’s rights, so please only buy authorised editions.

Thank you to the literary estates of Audre Lorde, Katherine Anne Porter and Nadine Gordimer for the use of their words in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984), Ship of Fools (1962) and ‘A Bolter and the Invincible Summer’, London Magazine (May 1963).

Please send all permission queries to:

Pantera Press, P.O. Box 1989, Neutral Bay, NSW, Australia 2089 or [email protected]

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this work is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 978-1-925700-73-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-925700-74-9 (eBook)

Cover Design: Alissa Dinallo

Cover Images: Holii Carmody/Creative Market, Fleckstone/Shutterstock,

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Publisher: Lex Hirst

Project Editor: Lucy Bell

Editor: Kate O’Donnell

Proofreader: Rebecca Starford

Typesetting: Kirby Jones

Author Photo: Jacqui Henshaw

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Table of Contents

About the book

Title Page

Contents

Epigraph

Dedication

Part 1 Buried 1968

The Beginning

The Thing She Left Behind

The Story Jack Tells

What Mrs Nolan Knows

The Thing that Shouldn’t Be There

The World Without Her

Almost Proof

A Definite Lie

What JJ Owes Jack

A Clue at Last

The More that Doesn’t Add Up

Mrs Tyler’s Suspicion

It’s Got to End

Part 2 Unburied 1982

Another Beginning?

Marking Time

Proof

Jack Skids Away

What Tessa Knows

What’s Jack Scared of?

That Missing Thing

Order Into Chaos

The Missing Pages

Tim’s Lead

What Nancy Really Knew

Philly’s Puzzle Piece

What Jack Admits

The Size of Truth

The Mop Up

An Unexpected Clue

Setting the Trap

Caught

Appreciation

Book Club Questions

About the Author

Torched Sample chapter

Prologue

Imprint