Susie Reynolds
Novel - Dangerous Angel
Number of words: 74,888
Market Focus: Over 18
Key words: supernatural stalker, shapeshifting madness, exorcism ect treatment. distress, rape, convent, paris, muslim lover, pregnancy, infanticide, prostitution, suicide
Synopsis
The novel is set in the fifties, at the time of the sexual repression of women by male hierarchies. The main character, Cecilia, formerly Jane, a young nun, is driven mad after being entrapped by a supernatural stalker in the Carmelite convent where she identifies with Saint Theresa. The initial seduction in a garden appeals to her dramatic imagination. Later, after being raped in a frenzied attack in the crypt she was left confused and disoriented. This leads to a terrifying exorcism by priests and her complete breakdown. Committed to an asylum she is treated with E.C.T. but her tormentor has followed her there in her nightmares.
The story begins in Paris where she has fled, hoping to start a new life. Her experiences in the convent are recorded in secret note-books which she is deciphering to try and make sense of her ordeal.
She meets a Moroccan Business man called Assis who satisfies her cultural and physical needs but is, unfortunately, married with children. Throughout their relationship she is harassed and abused by her supernatural stalker who shapeshifts to draw her into an hallucinatory world where he continues to dominate her.
After finding herself pregnant with Assis’s child she leaves for Annecy in the foothills of the French Alps for her confinement. She meets a kindly landlady and her elderly tenant, Gerard who befriend her in a fatherly way. Crazy with jealousy the demon takes on the role of father figure, lover, leaving her a set of French dolls as a present. She descends into a paranoid state and is taken to hospital to “rest’ and have her baby. Her baby son is snatched by Assis who has received damning evidence from the convent about her past conduct.
Jane leaves Gerard and returns to Paris in search of her child. She denies her faith to a priest who visits her offering advice Letters arrive from the convent which contain startling information about her pregnancy there and her subsequent infanticide. Fantasy and reality are beginning to merge. She becomes a prostitute but she fails to charge the clients to punish herself. Once again, deluded by the succubus she ‘joins him’ by jumping to her death from her apartment window.
About me
Susie is the Prose editor of a Literary Magazine called Chimera. She is a drama teacher by profession. Susie's short stories have been published in Literary Magazines in the UK including Ambit, Frogmore Papers, Sol Dent and others. Her poems have been published in journals and an Anthology, The Medusa.
Susie worked with a graphic Designer to produce an exhibition, 'Eyelash' of their combined work in a gallery in Colchester, UK.
Susie's poems and prose were selected to be performed by actors at 'The Key Theatre' in Sudbury, UK. Other work won a competition to be performed as a combined Arts Production. She performed a story accompanied by a musician and poems were performed by actors at The Eastwood Theatre in Essex, UK.
Susie's has read her stories for Ambit magazine at The Princess Louise in London and at Shakespeare and Co's in Paris. She have also read at The Poetry Café, Covent Gardens London Susie has helped to organise several Literary Events in The UK and Paris.
This website, © 2004-2008 Chimera Magazine.
