Excerpt from The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"No, I'm sure. I do remember. I used to work in a theatre in the West End. You're from a musical family, aren't you? You have a very lovely…" He blushes beet, and that's when his voice stops and he leans back in his carriage seat again. "Very well." He stares for a second longer. "Probably a different boy."

"Probably."

He takes from his navy breast pocket a silver case. "Probably been sent to the front by now for all I know. Cigarette?"

The blond man sits up cautiously now, for the question is coming. He can taste it in the air.

Two men, of fighting age, neither in uniform.

What can the possibilities be?

He shakes his head softly at the cigarette case. "No thank you."

The train creaks, settling in for the night. Steam fizzes into the dusk.

But the man in navy doesn't ask about what he does for the war effort. Instead he says, "I say, how do you know that fact about Stravinsky, and the trains? That's an odd fact to know."

The blond man hesitates. It is a story he has not told for a very long time, and he does not know himself quite why he said that about Stravinsky— unless it was because he wanted to tell. And if these encounters we have with strangers—these days, these hours now with nothing to lose—are not for telling the story of the person we want to be, what are they for? What time might we have left now to tell that tale or be that person?

The blond man takes a breath. He watches his daydreams fly out of the train window and dance into the coal steam and sidings clouds, and he begins to talk.

Excerpted from The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester, published by Pegasus Books. Reprinted with permission. All other rights reserved.