Title: Oddbird
Author: Ellie Goforth
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 04/12/2022
Pairing: Female/Female
Length: 64300
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, contemporary, romance, lesbian, British, Scandinavia, friends to lovers, action/adventure, coming out, family drama, death, grieving, pet companion, violence
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Description
Katerina’s small, safe life in London is upended on Christmas Eve when her beloved mum passes away. Two days later, she sees her boyfriend of five years kissing the local librarian. Kat goes to bed and pulls the covers over her head, convinced she will never recover from these losses.
To Kat’s great surprise, her mum has left her four letters to guide her through her grief and an air ticket to Swedish Lapland for a wild adventure. Before Kat knows it, she’s at the top of the world with a backpack and her headstrong French bulldog, Olive.
On the challenging, exhilarating eight-day trek, Kat learns she can come to terms with her mum’s death. She also encounters Anna, lanky and gorgeous, who invites her to Stockholm for a weekend of passion.
The three days they share awakens Kat to her truth. It leads the way to her desires, including a long ambition to open a small bookshop in her London neighborhood. But how can she do that and follow her heart with her new love? Will the dangers and complications that face both her and Anna force her hand?
Oddbird
Ellie Goforth © 2022
All Rights Reserved
Kat and Olive are emptied out by the time they begin the trek down the other side of the pass.
They walk in silence, picking their way between the rocks in the path, which are too small to boulder-hop and too big to ignore. It slows them way down.
Kat has got to have a cup of tea and a bite of whatever is left of her dwindling supply of crispbread if she’s going to make it, and Olive needs a substantial meal.
Halfway down, they stop a little way off the path alongside a fast-moving river that races down to join the big river below.
Kat knows from her guidebook that it’s best to collect water from a fast-flowing part of a river.
To do that, she must get down on her knees and lean in to get the kettle into the flow.
It’s only then that she understands how fierce and fast the current is, but she’s nearly there, just a little farther out.
And a little more.
She’s aware of Olive on the bank behind her, but the roar of the water means she does not hear the dog move to the river’s edge on her right.
It happens so fast that, later, Kat can barely recall the sequence of events.
Water is pounding into her kettle when she glimpses movement out of the corner of her eye.
She sees Olive trying to reach the water, then slip, and vanish into the rapids.
And she is gone.
Kat drops the kettle.
There is no sign of Olive in the water, only foam and a rush of deadly current.
The spasm in her chest bends Kat over with its power.
Then she runs. Jumps. Flies alongside the torrent. She can’t really see, nor hear, nor feel—blind with panic and filled up with dread.
And then she falls sideways into the gap between two boulders and lies there, stunned.
It’s only a few minutes, but it feels like hours before she can move again. She does so gingerly; there’s a sharp pain in her side where she hit the rock.
She limps downriver, but she has no real idea why, or where, or what.
A woman walks towards her along the bank, but she can’t see who it is.
She rubs her eyes.
Is it her? The roommate with the red hair?
Is she carrying something in her arms?
Is it?
Could it be Olive?
She runs.
And as she gets close, she sees that it is indeed the willowy redhead and that she does have Olive in her arms.
Kat stumbles towards them, then stops—suddenly stricken. Is Ollie dead?
As if she’s read Kat’s mind, the redhead calls out, “She’s okay. Maybe a little cold. But no injuries that I can see.”
“Oh, thank God,” says Kat. “Oh, you gave me quite a scare, Ollie.” She buries her face in Olive’s pelt. The dog whines.
Kat gently tucks her hands under Olive’s chest and lifts her away from her rescuer and into her arms, but her rib hurts like hell. She curls down on her haunches to get a grip.
The redhead looks at her with some concern.
Kat begins to shiver uncontrollably; her teeth chatter, her hands shake. This is shock, she knows that. And she feels bad because it’s the redhead who should be shivering and shaking.
Instead, she kneels beside Kat, and her green, warm, smell—salty and wild—fills Kat’s nostrils and slows her panic.
“Are you hurt?” she asks Kat.
“I fell. I’m fine,” Kat says. “But you’re soaked.”
“Yeah.”
“Did your pack get wet? I can give you something to wear.”
The redhead smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t think your clothes will fit me.”
Kat blushes—not her elf clothes, not on this lean, long, silverfish. “But do you have something dry to change into?”
“I do.”
“Better get that on.”
She nods, but she doesn’t move.
Kat, too, stays where she is. She’s aware that the redhead is waiting to see if she is all right. That she’s tuning in to how she really is.
It makes Kat think of gentle water ebbing around her, holding her up.
“You okay?” asks the silverfish.
“Think so…”
Kat can’t bring herself to say anything more. She’s afraid that if she opens her mouth, she’ll never shut it again. It would all tumble out: How Olive came to her, how Mum died, and, maybe, what happened with Ryan. Oh, and Kisi, who has been her best friend since they were six. She’d tell her about Margot and Dan and George with a baby on the way. But most of all, she’d talk about the bookshop she’s going to open in London when she gets back. She’d tell her how she’s always wanted to do that, and why not, now that there is nothing in her way.
Yes, the bookshop.
And for some reason, that makes Kat blush, again, from her collarbone to the top of her head.
The redhead notices Kat’s sudden awkwardness, and she smiles. Then, as if she hasn’t just been a superhero to both Olive and Kat, she gets up and casually says, “See you in Singi or Kebnekaise if you are going that way.”
And then she turns to go.
Kat stands up to stop her and says the first thing that comes into her head, “What kind of name is Kebnekaise?”
The redhead looks back.
“I mean, bloody hell, what kind of a name is that?”
“It’s Swedish,” she says.
“Right.”
“Like me.”
Kat looks at her, and she sees that she is meant to be here, that she is made of whatever these rocks and grasses are made of, that she is the water that seeps through it all. It makes her beautiful beyond belief.
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Ellie loves the natural world, and that’s why her books often include travel to wild places. She also loves her cocker spaniel, Emily. Ellie lives in London. She reads all the time and loves to go to her cabin in the mountains in Scotland as often as she can. Ellie cooks, with gusto, wherever she is.
