“Pashaw!” Clifford exclaimed with a surprisingly elegant flick of his wrist. “Young Davis, you does always be reading something or the other. You should know we got a low mortality rate for mothers in Barbados.”
“Yes, but…”
“Then the odds are in your favour,” interrupted Clifford. “Besides, that baby got a sturdy mother. You know full well you can’t knock down Eileen just so.”
In spite of himself, Holden grinned. “You’re right about that.”
“Baby looks like her too.”
“How do you…” Holden glanced up, his eyes widening as he saw the nurse walking toward him with a swaddled bundle in her arms.
Holden shot up out of his seat and took the tiny bundle when the nurse offered the baby to him. The smallness of the personage in his hands was jarring. The baby’s face mirrored Eileen’s with its delicate oval shape, but Holden recognized the cupid’s bow lips as his own. His heart fluttered. Seeing a hint of himself in the child stirred warmth in his chest, filling him with the most pride he had ever known. His and Eileen’s world had shifted in the past nine months to prioritize the life of someone neither of them had met but had developed an unconditional love for.
“Boy or girl?” asked Clifford, his face aglow as he stared in awe at the baby.
“A girl,” beamed the nurse.
“She’s a pretty little thing, ain’t she?” said Clifford.
The nurse nodded as though personally responsible for the child’s good looks, fussing with the blanket’s embroidered hem and stroking the child’s covered head.
The baby’s eyes had been closed up until that point. As though sensing she were the centre of attention, her little eyelids opened slowly, her sensitive eyes testing the light before she finally fixed her gaze upon her father.
Clifford peered at the child again. “What’s wrong with the eyes?”
“Hmm…” the nurse glanced at the little girl. “Oh, they will settle in the first year, but when their eyes start off with that swampy colour, the babies might end up with green eyes.”
“Green eyes?” said Clifford quizzically.
“Uh huh.” The nurse nodded and then shrugged. “Or that kinda mixed-up gold colour that they call hazel.”
Holden nodded, a knowing smile on his face. “They’ll probably be hazel…like her grandmother’s eyes.”
Behind-the-scenes details
This novel is loosely based on the still unsolved murders of five young women that rocked Barbados from 1973 to 1982. This spate of deaths became known as the Canefield Murders because most of the victims were found in cane fields. I invoked creative license and shifted the timeline in this novel and condensed that timeframe into a year, setting it in 1985.
I’ve always found the 1980s to be fascinating in terms of Barbados’ culture and history. For that reason, I decided to move up the dates of the murder timelines to coincide with other critical historical moments in Barbados. The names and circumstances of all of the victims have been changed since they don’t accurately represent the events. Only two facts have maintained: the young women were found primarily in cane fields and the clue that cracked the case was a newspaper vacancy ad.
Don’t forget to leave an Amazon review.
Hi there,
I hope you enjoyed ‘The Vanishing Girls”, the follow up to my first novel “The Girl with the Hazel Eyes’. I loved, loved, loved writing this book and I hope you enjoyed reading it.
A huge part of the reason why I relished this experience so much is because all three of the main characters (Eileen, Holden and Clifford) resemble me so much in their own way. I’m somewhat rough around the edges like Eileen, I’m definitely that uppity friend who wouldn’t want to play scrabble without vowels like Holden and I’m snarky like Clifford. It’s been so much fun sharing bits of my personality with you in this way and I look forward to hearing what you think about “The Vanishing Girls”
As a self-published author, nothing is more valuable to me than feedback and I hope you’ll be kind enough to leave an honest review on Amazon and Goodreads. Leaving feedback helps me to become better at writing and publishing so that I may enhance your reader experience. It also helps other readers make informed decisions about if they may enjoy this book.
X,
Callie
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About the Author
Callie Browning was born and raised in Barbados. She is an avid reader and has been writing since 2009. She has won awards for her short stories and her first full length novel, The Girl with the Hazel Eyes, was a finalist in the JAAWP Caribbean Emerging Writer’s Prize. She lives in Barbados with her family.
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Credits
Cover design by Ebook Launch. Special thanks to Author Annabella for her assistance with information on the preservative preparation of human remains in the Caribbean.
