{"id":2629,"date":"2026-01-03T22:40:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/shetland-island-03-red-bones-cleeves-ann\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T22:40:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T22:40:27","slug":"shetland-island-03-red-bones-cleeves-ann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/shetland-island-03-red-bones-cleeves-ann\/","title":{"rendered":"Shetland Island 03 – Red Bones – Cleeves, Ann"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n

Anna opened her eyes and saw a pair of hands, streaked and shiny with blood. No face. In her ears a piercing squeal. At first she thought she was at Utra and Ronald was helping Joseph to kill another pig. That would explain the blood, the red hands and the terrible high-pitched sound. Then she realized the noise was her own voice screaming.<\/span><\/p>\n

Someone rested a dry hand on her forehead and murmured words she didn\u2019t understand. She spat out an obscenity at him.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what it is to die.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The drug must be wearing off because she had a sudden burst of clarity as she opened her eyes again to bright, artificial light.<\/span><\/p>\n

No, this is what it is to give birth.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Where\u2019s my baby?\u2019 She could hear the words slightly blurred by the pethidine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018He was having problems breathing on his own. We\u2019ve just given him some oxygen. He\u2019s fine.\u2019 A woman\u2019s voice. A Shetlander, slightly patronizing, but convincing, and that mattered most.<\/span><\/p>\n

Further away a man with blood to his elbow grinned awkwardly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Sorry,\u2019 he said. \u2018Retained placenta. Better to get it out here than take you to theatre. I thought you wouldn\u2019t want that after a forceps delivery, but it can\u2019t have been very comfortable.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

She thought of Joseph again, the hill ewes lambing, the ravens flying off with placenta in their beaks and on their claws. This hadn\u2019t been what she\u2019d been expecting. She hadn\u2019t thought childbirth would be so violent or so raw. She turned and saw Ronald; he was still holding her hand.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview Anna opened her eyes and saw a pair of hands, streaked and shiny with blood. No face. In her ears a piercing squeal. At first she thought she was at Utra and Ronald was helping Joseph to kill another pig. That would explain the blood, the red hands and the terrible high-pitched sound. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-2629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ann-cleeves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}