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Fiction aimed at the heart

and the head...

Published by Caffeine Nights Publishing 2013

Copyright © Ruth Jacobs 2013

Ruth Jacobs has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be identified as the author of this work.

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CONDITIONS OF SALE

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

This book has been sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Published in Great Britain by Caffeine Nights Publishing.

www.caffeine-nights.com

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-907565-36-6

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Cover design by

Mark (Wills) Williams

Everything else by

Default, Luck and Accident

Acknowledgements

I am eternally grateful for, and would like to thank, my brave and generous friends from the 1990s who, being call girls at the time, participated in my research into prostitution. To the many exited women and to the women currently in the sex trade I am in contact with and for whom I have much respect and admiration, I am sending you love. Yet we know this story is fiction, we also know how very real this is with many women in the life having suffered multiple rapes.

I owe so much to my Grandma Clara and my dear friend, Q, who are no longer alive, but who have played a large part in my writing this novel. To my wonderful sons, thank you for believing in me - sending you hugs. Thank you to my mother who was my very first reader, my father, and to my sister, Chloe, who told me I was writing a bestseller. For her never-ending care and encouragement, love and thanks to my mother-in-law (without a marriage), Elizabeth Sees. Thank you to my favourite Uncle David for never judging me and always loving me for who I am, and thank you to his fiancée, Bobie. Although no longer alive, I must thank my favourite Great Auntie Raie for her unconditional love, and my Grandpa Abe, and my Grandma Raie and my Grandpa Archie.

Massive thanks to Sharon Murphy who saved my life in my mid-twenties, and also to the many other special people who have pulled me from the wreckage in which I have found myself way too often. Thank you to Simon Birke for restoring me to sanity whenever I have lost it over the recent years. Huge thanks to Claire Meadows, Jane Frankland and Emma Roberts for their help, inspiration and support. Thank you to Estelle Longcroft, Natasha Sandy, Deborah Malyon, Jamie Easterman, Jayne Rogers, Laura Schulman and Avril Harker for their proofreading and encouragement. Thank you to Tabitha Rosen for always having my back and to Melanie Murphy-Fowle for always being there whenever I’ve needed her. To my friend, Katie Bridgit O'Brien, thank you for my very first radio interview on your show. Brian Parsons, thank you so much for allowing me to use your beautiful and powerful song, Just Us and Justice, for my trailer, and for making it for me too. Although I haven’t known her long, I must thank Missy, who is an angel I hope stays in my life - from the US, she’s managed to be an amazing support to me. Thank you to Pete Sortwell and Kat O’Dea - you both know how you’ve played a part in this. And thank you to Clayton Dean for your excellent timing. For inside information, thank you to Richard Godly, and for her anecdotes, thanks to Jane Sibley. And a huge thank you to all my other friends, both new and old, who have helped and supported me so generously in numerous ways.

Thank you so much to Darren Laws at Caffeine Nights who believed in me and my debut novel, and special thanks to Sandra Mangan for editing, and Mark (Will) Williams for designing the cover.

For taking the time to help an aspiring novelist with research, thank you to Paula McColgan from The Lanesborough; James Kerman from Winkworth’s, Ladbroke Grove; Lesley Atkinson from Holborn Library; The Magdala, Hampstead; Sandling Fireworks, Gloucestershire; UCAS; Metropolitan Police; Hertfordshire Police.

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Soul Destruction: Unforgivable is dedicated to Q, the most beautiful soul and so impossible to forget. May she rest in peace, reunited with her babies in heaven.

Soul Destruction: Unforgivable

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1. The Dead John

2. An Alternative Reality

3. The Stranger, the Coke Can and the Futuristic Street Installation 

4. Damaged Goods

5. The Party

6. More Than One Kind of Dead

7. That Palaver with the Blindfold

8. Surviving Life

9. Keeping Secrets

10. Seething with Loathing

11. Art, Lying and Riding

12. Pain That Feeds On the Soul

13. Not the Order Life Should Take

14. Asking For Help

15. Paying For It

16. A Game of Waiting

17. Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

18. Covering Up

19. Take Me to Your Dealer

20. Stolen Goods

21. Sick Leave

22. Shutting Down

24. The Revelation

25. Estate Agency Business

26. The Meet

27. Moving On

28. The Boxer and the Quidnunc

29. Unhappy Birthday

30. Little Policemen

31. Never-Ending Benders

32. Impossible Proposal

33. The Missed Turning

34. In the Twilight

35. Not Again

36. Darkness

37. A New Day

38. The Search

39. Dressing Up

40. The Gun

41. Going in Circles

42. Keep Quiet

43. Coming Clean

44. Altering Reality

45. Meanwhile Gardens

46. Smackhead Kitchen Klepto

47. Getting the Sack

48. Audacity

49. A Not So Different Generation

50. An Explanation

51. Never Too Late To Learn

52. Pilgrim’s Lane

53. The Ripple Effect

54. The Uninvited Guest