Sarnia de la Maré FRSA Author, Musician, Artist

About the author SARNIA. DE LA MARE  https://share.google/Aw3KqzHkoM9CGcHLQ 💋 The Velvet Listener. A Contemporary Mills & Swoon Short by Sarnia de la Maré. Mara Lane had been the late-night voice of Heartline FM for three years, dispensing warm advice to strangers while living a private life that was anything but romantic. The truth was that Mara had become rather accomplished at helping other people fall in love precisely because she had stopped trying it herself. She had stopped dressing up and going out. She avoided dinner parties with friends who were forever trying to matchmake her with basically any man who happened to be single. The studio lights were low enough to be flattering in the way dim lamps flatter tired women. Her producer, Jay, waved through the glass: Caller on line four. “Heartline FM,” she purred. “You’re live with Mara.” She had perfected a sexy sultry voice that her fans loved. Little did they know, privately she had long given up any ideas of falling in...

Penelope Fairlie had never faltered. 'Faltering is for amateurs and the mentally ill', she would say.  At fifty-two, she was the embodiment of composure. That rare breed of Englishwoman who moved through life as if time itself obeyed her schedule. She was a beacon of virtue and as disappointing as a soggy digestive, though no one would ever tell her due to her ability to petrify anyone within her orbit, even other people's dogs in Hyde Park. She lived in a tall, ordered house in Belgravia with her husband, Charles, a respected tax barrister, and their Pomeranian, Bertie, whose coiffure was definitely worse than his bark, styled by an expensive personal dog groomer from Hampstead. There were no children, a fate that had become a new normal many years before. If one dared to asked Judge Penelope Fairlie when she last felt the surge of a carnal wave, she would probably tell you it was when she saw Julio Iglesias in concert for her twenty-first birthday Charles Fairlie was a ...

“The Fitting” is a darkly comic short story about vanity, reinvention, and the voice inside your head that just won’t shut up. Steve’s new hairpiece promises him youth and sex appeal — but Ego has other plans. 'Have you come for a fitting today, Mr. Jones?' The girl was pretty. All hairdressers are beautiful, thought Steve. But then, everyone under 30 was beautiful, once you reach fifty. The effortless beauty of youth walked the streets unabated for the pleasure of the old. 'Yes, that's right, but please call me Steve.' Did I blush, he wondered? I bet I did. 'You did, you are a dick, she wouldn't touch you with a bargepole, or a dead salmon.' The pretty girl told Steve to wait and that his personal hair consultant would be out presently.  'Hello, Steve! So good to see you, let's pop into the fitting studio.' Arabella was glorious. She was all woman, every inch of her beckoned attention. Peachy breasts peeped from a beautician's uniform a...

✍️  “The Riverbank” is a gothic family story of resentment, revelation, and reconciliation. A narrator discovers the hidden tragedy of Great Aunt Katherine’s youth — and with it, a new tenderness that bridges the gap between past and present. Great Aunt Katherine had been seemingly on her last legs for about thirty years. Since I could remember she had been shrinking and creaking and swaying in the wind. Finally, she was gone and was currently residing in a casket for public viewing before burial later in the day. We had never gotten along. She was caustic and bitter and complained about everything. She irked me to the core. None of us liked her and we seldom got in touch. Mum had fallen out with her years back and the connections rusted and corroded like old batteries. Damage had been done with emotional weaponry and unrepentant intent. But in death people rally together to do their duty and triumphantly, one hopes, they ignore the fallout from the battleground. The undertaker...