An extract from #WeAreAnimals #SquadPodOnTour @EwinsTim @EyeAndLightning @SquadPod3

I’m pleased to share with you an extract from the book:

Now, there are three types of clothes washers. There are those who don’t use detergent and don’t sort their socks (the slackers), there are those who do use detergent but don’t sort their socks (the half-a-jobbers), and there are those who do use detergent and do sort their socks (the jobs-worths). Jan’s Mother was of category number three, religiously. It was when she was sorting Jan’s socks that she realised something must be wrong. There were seventeen in total, twelve of which she could match. She sat on her kitchen floor with the other five surrounding her. She’d had the odd odd sock before, and could handle that, but five? Something wasn’t right. ‘What a waste of detergent,’ she thought. Then she worried about the five missing socks. She hadn’t seen them when she’d been cleaning, and she prided herself on her housekeeping. Where were those socks?

Incidentally, you will notice that there are only three types of clothes washers – not four. No one has ever not used detergent but then sorted their socks. These people simply do not exist.

When Jan’s father returned home with fish for their tea, he found Jan’s mother sitting on the kitchen floor repeatedly tying the odd socks together and then untying them again.

‘Look,’ she said as he entered. Jan’s father looked at the five socks and saw that none of them matched. He knew straight away that somewhere in the house there were five lost socks, and he knew what that would mean to his wife. He shook his head slowly, looked down and tutted.

‘What a waste of detergent,’ he said.

‘What a waste,’ Jan’s mother agreed.

‘Come on,’ Jan’s father perked up. ‘They’re only socks. At least we’ve not lost anything important.’ The very moment he said this, their son woke up, still under the bench, freezing cold and wet, and without a clue where he was.

The Blurb

A cow looks out to sea, dreaming of a life that involves grass.

Jan is also looking out to sea. He’s in Goa, dreaming of the thief who stole his heart (and his passport) forty-six years ago. Back then, fate kept bringing them together, but lately it seems to have given up.

Jan has not. In his long search he has travelled the world, tangling with murderers and pick-pockets and accidentally holding a whole Russian town at imaginary gunpoint. Now he thinks if he just waits and does nothing, fate may find it easier to reunite them – if only he can shake off an annoying teenager who won’t go away. But then, perhaps an annoying teenager is exactly what Jan needs to help him find his old flame?Featuring a menagerie of creatures, each with its own story to tell, We Are Animals is a comic Homeric odyssey with shades of Jonas Jonasson’s Hundred-Year-Old Man. A quirky, heart-warming tale of lost love, unlikely friendships and the mysteries of fate, it moves and delights in equal measure.

The Author

Tim has enjoyed an eight-year stand-up career alongside his accidental career in finance.

He has previously written for DNA Mumbai, had two short stories highly commended and published in Michael Terence Short Story Anthologies, and enjoyed a very brief acting stint (he’s in that film Bronson, somewhere in the background).

We Are Animals is his first novel.

Follow him on Instagram @timewins and @quickbooksummaries