Chapter 13: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the 13th chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 13

Check back on the 2nd for Chapter 14!

Chapter 12: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the 12th chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 12

Check back on the 31st for Chapter 13!

Chapter 11: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the 11th chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 11

Check back on the 26th for Chapter 12!

Chapter 10: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

As promised, here is Chapter 10:

Click here to read chapter 10

Check back on the 24th for Chapter 11.

Chapter 9: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the 9th chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 9

Check back in two days for chapter 10.

Chapter 8: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the 8th chapter, and the beginning of section 2 in the book:

Click here to read Chapter 8

Check back on Tuesday the 17th for Chapter 9.

Chapter 7: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the seventh chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 7

You'll find Chapter 8 here on the 12th of August.

Chapter 6: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the sixth chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 6

Sorry for the delay. Check back on Tuesday for Chapter 7.

Chapter 5: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

As promised here is the 5th chapter:

Click here to read Chapter 5

Check back on August 5th for chapter 6.

Chapter 4: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the fourth chapter of Summer Love - Jealous Winter:

Click here to read Chapter 4

Check back here on Tuesday August 3rd for Chapter 5.

Chapter 3: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

Here is the third chapter of Summer Love - Jealous Winter:

Click here to read Chapter 3

From now on chapters will be released twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Chapter 2: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

You can find the second chapter of Summer Love - Jealous Winter here:

Click here to read Chapter 2

Be sure to check back here next Monday for chapter 3.

Chapter 1: Summer Love - Jealous Winter

You can find the first chapter of Summer Love - Jealous Winter here:

Click here to read Chapter 1

Be sure to check back here next Monday for Chapter 2!

Serializing Summer Love - Jealous Winter

For those of you who like to read at your computers, I'm going to start releasing Summer Love - Jealous Winter in a series of blog posts. The first chapter coming soon!

For now, here's something to whet your appetite:

What others are saying about

Africa’s Snow White
Summer Love - Jealous Winter

“A delightful read. It evoked in me memories of my own teenage years, growing up in Cape Town. My father was from the Free State Province of South Africa and went to St. Andrew’s School in Bloemfontein in the early 1920’s as a boarder. When we later went back to Bloemfontein as a family in the mid-1960’s, my father was Chairperson of the St. Andrew’s Old Boys’ Association and I got to know the school well, although I never attended St. Andrew’s. I am sure my father would have enjoyed the passages about the school and the typical schoolboy pranks. I now serve the people of South Africa as Ambassador to Panama and have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know the author. I look forward to reading Jonathan’s sequel to this book, as I am sure there will be one.”
—Ambassador Leslie Manley, Ambassador from South Africa to Panamá, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Perú

“As the title suggests, Summer Love - Jealous Winter is a story of innocence and treachery. On one level there is pure, innocent teenage love in a simpler time, but underneath, controlling even the innocent, is the conniving manipulation of the antagonist. From the start, I was curious to discover how the innocence and treachery would mesh. Well, I was not disappointed. The tension mounts; the suspense is gripping. This seemingly gentle novel became a page turner that threatened to keep me up all night! Eloff has cleverly woven the diver¬gent threads into a powerful ending.”
—Margaret Wolf, High School English Teacher, Alberta, Canada

“This fact-fiction fairytale is the beginnings of an amazing love story intricately woven against the backdrop of South Africa. It is textured and spirited and manages to lure the reader into its pages. I expect to see great things from this young, new writer and am looking forward to the sequel.”
—Geraldine Cilliers, Qualified Librarian and Book Reviewer (worked for Rootz Magazine in South Africa)

“Jonathan Eloff beautifully weaves together true life events of romance, heartbreak, betrayal, and suspense all the while describing South Africa’s natural landscape and daily life at the end of the Apartheid.”
—Jody Hussey, ESL Teacher, B.A. in History from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

“Tender, hilarious, captivating . . .”
—Sue Merralls, Special Events Organizer, Alberta, Canada

Walmart Clown Commercial (Hilarious!)

Good for a laugh if you haven't already seen it. Make sure you have your sound turned up!

Impressions of Twilight (the novel)

Genre: fantasy/gothic romance
My rating: 4/5
Content rating: Very Clean: no swearing, no graphic violence, no sex
Comment: A surprisingly good read.

For those of you who haven't read the books, or watched the movies, I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but if you haven't either read or watched Twilight, you should know that I used to be in your camp, and probably for the same reason--I didn't think I'd like it.

So I went into reading this book with a lot of preconceptions, in fact, expecting to be disappointed and confused by the book's popularity. As a writer, however, I felt duty bound to read what everybody else is reading, and at least try to relate to their fascination. Now, upon finishing the book, I'm happy to report that I may now be counted among Twilight's fans.

It is by no means a classical romance, and if you can't appreciate fantasy, you probably won't appreciate this series either. Despite being Gothic Fiction, there was nothing unusually dark about this book. There were no references to Satanism, other than perhaps to occasionally allude to vampires as "demons," but in this story, the vampires are just like anyone else in their propensity for good or evil, except that they start at a deficit, because on a physiological level they crave to kill (for obvious reasons). The “good” vampires found a creative solution to this problem, which almost everyone should be able to relate to. The bad ones just embraced the whole serial killer thing.

If you still think that vampires and romance don't go together, you should probably know that Stephenie Meyer carefully crafted them to be everyone's ideal in terms of physical attributes, and once you get to know a few of them, you might begin to suspect that these "monsters" represent ideals of conscience and morality, too. Moreover, the story taps into the recent superhero craze that has catapulted Marvel movies into the blockbuster category more often than not. Faster than a speeding bullet, invincible, immortal, strong as Superman, agile as Spiderman . . . even with a few of the wilder abilities of the Jedi from Star Wars, these vampires make Dracula look pretty pale by comparison (not literally, since they're all white as ghosts). And then, to cater just a little bit more to the female audience, the heroine, Isabella, is every girl. Literally, I think she embodies every girl's fantasies, fears, and realities. She's described as pretty ordinary, but everyone in the book finds her extraordinary. She has just the right mixture of modesty, shyness, and hidden potential that makes her an easy character to relate to. Personally, I found myself relating more to the vampire hero, but that was probably just a desperate attempt to hold on to my masculinity (the books are written in the first-person, from the heroine's point of view, so she gets to say things like "I love you, Edward," and then when I'm reading it, it sounds like she's putting words in my mouth--no offence Edward, but you're really not my type).

Despite the fact that the books and movies appeal primarily to a female audience, I found that I was still able to relate to and enjoy the story--occasionally I even stopped noticing that my gender had been summarily changed. So, without giving too much away, if you haven't read the books or watched the movies yet (and the more rational part of your mind doesn't object too much to superheroes with superpowers), I'd recommend you stow your preconceptions long enough to do one or the other. I think you'll find the story is surprisingly good.

On the Road

Streetlights flashing by, glowing vermilion, like candles in the dark.

Not really sure where I'm going,
Only aware that it's not enough to be on the road,
If I don't know where to get off.

The heater’s broken and the ice outside is creeping in.

Passing streets and passing towns,
Nothing to set one apart from the other.
Not really sure what I'm looking for,
Only aware that I haven't found it yet.

Streetlights flashing by—if only there was some warmth in that light to melt the ice.

Eventually I'll have to stop,
But if I only stop when I reach the end of the road,
Where will that leave me?

Copyright © 2008 by Jonathan Eloff

Broken Glass

 

All the tears I never let myself cry,
Turn to broken glass when they dry.

You might think you know me,
But we all keep our worst where others can't see.

When I think of all the things I could have done,
It just makes the anger come.

Hold on to yourself.
You never know when you might change.
Before you know it someone else is walking in your shoes,
And all the choices you would have made are no longer yours to choose.

Copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Eloff

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is where I will be
When you look on and say
That yesterday is not quite where
You want for me to stay.

Move on, move on Let the past, be past.
Move on, move on Let the past, stay past.

Tomorrow is where you’ll see
The waking roses bloom.
Yesterday isn’t what you thought.

Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan Eloff

Where am I?

Head down.
Feet planted.
Ready now.
Don't bother looking behind you,
Because I'm already ahead.
It just depends which way you're facing.
Where am I?

If you want to see, then look,
If you want to hear, then listen,
If you want to run, then catch your breath,
And if you want to write . . . find a pen.
Where am I?

A blank page.
A whistling wind.
Life all around me, yet I can't look.
There's no time to delay or I'll miss my flight,
But if you want to stay, I won't fight.
Where am I?

Hands shaking.
Mind reeling.
Not ready yet.
I look behind me, but no one's there,
Because you're already ahead.
It just depends which way I'm facing.
Where am I?

I'm with you.

Copyright © 2007 by Jonathan Eloff