Jenny Twist

Jenny Twist was born in York and brought up in the West Yorkshire mill town of Heckmondwike, the eldest grandchild of a huge extended family.
She left school at fifteen and went to work in an asbestos factory. After working in various jobs, including bacon-packer and escapologist’s assistant (she was The Lovely Tanya), she returned to full-time education and did a BA in history, at Manchester and post-graduate studies at Oxford.
She stayed in Oxford working as a recruitment consultant for many years and it was there that she met and married her husband, Vic.
In 2001 they retired and moved to Southern Spain where they live with their rather eccentric dogs and cat. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, knitting and attempting to do fiendishly difficult logic puzzles.
In July 2018 she won the Author Show TOP FEMALE AUTHOR Fantasy/Horror/Paranormal/Science Fiction award.

When Angela turns up in a remote Spanish mountain village, she is so tall and so thin and so pale that everyone thinks she is a ghost or a fairy or the dreadful mantequero that comes in the night and sucks the fat from your bones. 
But Domingo knows better. “Soy Angela,” she said to him when they met – “I am an angel.” Only later did he realise that she was telling him her name and by then it was too late and everyone knew her as Domingo’s Angel. 
This is the story of their love affair. But it is also the story of the people of the tiny mountain village – the indomitable Rosalba - shopkeeper, doctor, midwife and wise woman, who makes it her business to know everything that goes on in the village; Guillermo, the mayor, whose delusions of grandeur are rooted in his impoverished childhood; and Salva the Baker, who risked his life and liberty to give bread to the starving children.
The events in this story are based on the real experiences of the people of the White Villages in Southern Spain and their struggle to keep their communities alive through the years of war and the oppression of Franco’s rule. 


Domingo's Angel

In her back kitchen, Rosalba was also remembering. It was as if the wedding dress had opened a window in her head. She had begun to remember the things she had made herself forget for so long, and now it seemed she could not stop the process. Oddly, she welcomed it. It had remained hidden too long. It was time to let the past return.


She remembered the day the strangers had come to the village and hanged the priest. Carlos had made her hide in the cellar with the boys until it was all over. Afterwards, Marcia José had come to tell her that her father had been shot and she had followed her out of the house and into the square. The memory came back sharp and vivid as a series of images. The rope hanging from the church roof, black against the sun, the cut end swaying slightly in the breeze. Four blanketed shapes lying at the bottom of the church steps. Blood on the tiles in great splashes, turning black in the heat of the sun. 


Chapter 29