The Beginning - volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile
The Beginning - volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile

Lek – The Beginning – Review

The Beginning - volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile
The Beginning – volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile

The Beginning

Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya

(volume 7)

by Owen Jones

Review by Barry Boy

The Beginning is volume seven in the much-liked series Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya by Owen Jones.

Volume One in the series began when Lek was twenty-two and already working in Daddy’s Hobby in Pattaya, Volume Seven goes back to before she was even born – just before, to the days when her mother was young and working in the ‘na’ or rice fields.

Even nowadays, life as a Thai rice-farmer is hard, but for many, there is some mechanisation, but, then, in the early Seventies, it was mostly manual labour.

Pang and her husband, Maar, lived with Pang’s parents and worked their land. They all got on well, and worked for a better future for their family. One day, Pang announces that she is pregnant with their first child, and their lives change, as it always has done in all families around the world.

Lek has a happy childhood on the exterior, but she has her internal dialogue about her fears and insecurities. Ayr and Goong, her best friends, are there to help, but they drift apart for a while when Lek is forced to leave school at the age of twelve.

The stigma is to remain with her all her life.

The Beginning is written in the third person and the cover is apposite, being the same, except in title and colour, as the previous six. It is instantly recognisable in pink, being a diluted form of the colour of Volume One, which is red.

The Beginning: Behind The Smile -The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya (volume 7) will be published on December 26th, 2017 for $3.99, but the price will rice on January 1st to $4.99. However, you can pre-order it now for $2.99 at a discount of up to 45% and have it delivered to your device on Boxing Day, while you are recovering from a hectic Christmas Day.

What could be better?

Pre-order here:

Smashwords: http://smarturl.it/lek7?IQid=mps

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/lek7am?IQid=mps

Kobo: http://smarturl.it/lek7kobo?IQid=mps

It also gives you 25 days to catch up on any Lek Books that you haven’t read yet.

See the full list here: http://smarturl.it/my-books?IQid=mps

That makes two of the volumes that are NaNoWriMo Winners!

The Beginning - Lek 7
NaNo-2017-Winner!

All the best,

and enjoy December despite the rush,

Owen

Podcast: Lek – The Beginning

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Owen

Owen Jones, Amazon Best-Selling Author from Barry, Wales, has lived in several countries and travelled in many more. While studying Russian in the USSR in the '70's, he hobnobbed with spies on a regular basis; in Suriname, he got caught up in the 1982 coup; and while a company director, he joined the crew of four as the galley slave to sail from Barry to Gibraltar a home-made concrete yacht, which was almost rammed by a Russian oil tanker and an American aircraft carrier.
“I am a Celt, and we are romantic”, he said when asked about his writing style, “and I firmly believe in reincarnation, Karma and Fate, so, sayings like 'Do unto another...', and 'What goes round comes around' are central to my life and reflected in my work. I write about what I see, or think I see, or dream... and, in the end it is all the same really”. He speaks seven languages and is learning Thai, since he lives in Thailand with his Thai wife of fifteen years.
His first novel, Daddy's Hobby is from the seven-part series 'Behind The Smile: The Story of Lek, a Bar Girl in Pattaya', but his largest collection is 'The Megan Series', twenty-three novelettes on the psychic development of a teenage girl, the subtitle of which, 'A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!' sums them up nicely. He has written fifty novels and novelettes, including: Dead Centre; Andropov's Cuckoo; Fate Twister; The Disallowed (a philosophical comedy); Tiger Lily of Bangkok; and A Night in Annwn (Annwn being the ancient Welsh word for Heaven). Many have been translated into foreign languages and narrated into audio books.
Owen Jones writes stories set in Wales, Spain and Thailand, where he now lives. He is a life-long Spiritualist, and this belief is interwoven, in a very realistic way, into many of his books and storylines. If you like a touch of the 'supernatural', try his books
He sums his life up thus: “Born in the Land of Song, Living in the Land of Smiles”.

Articles: 595

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