The Behind The Smile Series is the story of Lek, a bar girl in Pattaya, Thailand. Lek was born the eldest child of four in a typical rice farming family in the northern rice belt of Thailand. A catastrophe occurred out of the blue one day – her father died young with huge debts that the family knew nothing about. Lek was just twenty years of age, and the only one who could prevent the foreclosure of the family farm, and allow her younger sister and two brothers to continue their education. However, the only way she knew how was to go to work in her cousin’s bar in Pattaya.
Can a Pattaya bar girl ever go back to being a regular girlfriend or wife?
'Behind The Smile' is a look into one part of Thailand, a country known around the world as 'The Land of Smiles'.
An Exciting Future starts where volume one ends. Lek and Craig, her new ‘permanent’ boyfriend are flying back to Bangkok from Craig’s home in Wales. The holiday atmosphere continues in Pattaya for months, but then reality dawns, and they have important decisions to make such as: where are they going to live, and how are they going to make a living. They start squabbling, and both wonder whether they have done the right thing in joining forces.
They persevere, and, after many trials, tribulations and happy times, begin to settle down into, what, for them at least, could be called a normal life. One of the trio dies tragically, but gives the other two new hope. However, will the old villagers forgive Lek for going to Pattaya? And will Lek and Craig be able to adapt to rural village life after all that Lek has seen and done, and Craig being used to living in large towns? What chance do they have of really fitting in?
Genre: FICTION / Romance / ContemporaryBook sales are very good. This volume and the rest of the series are considered the classic story of Pattaya bar girls - the biggest attraction in Asia's biggest nightspot.
AN EXCITING FUTURE
1 STARTING AGAIN
As the wheels of the aircraft touched down on the runway at the new Bangkok International Airport called Suvarnabhumi, Craig knew that he was going to have his hands full with Lek. She suffered badly from travel sickness – it was her one big weakness, but she even got sick on the bus going to the market, so a flight of 11,500 kilometres and fifteen hours was always going to be a problem.
Lek had taken five of the green tablets which were her favourite anti-travel sickness pills. She always seemed to have about twenty of them in her bag. One tablet would make her appear a little drunk, but five made her seem like an escapee from a lunatic asylum. He had seen it on the outward flight. He looked at her sitting next to him; her eyes were glassy and she was humming something quietly to herself.
“Are we there yet?,” she asked, “That was quick. Have we stopped off somewhere?”
“We’re in Thailand,” he replied a little too testily.
Craig was fifty years old and had never asked a woman to marry him so far, but he thought he might like to ask this one. She was a handful, as they say, that was to be sure, but there was also something about her that he found very special.
He didn’t like her taking those pills though, but he knew how badly affected by travel-sickness she could get. She’d had to throw up in her new crocodile skin handbag once – her pride and expensive joy – because they had gone on a short bus ride and she had forgotten to transfer all her paraphernalia into the new bag. It was either be sick in her new bag or on the floor of the bus and she would rather die than do that and lose face.
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Jorge Luis Sampaio de Faria
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Author review: Jorge did a wonderful translation and formatted it well too. Very happy! |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Lauren Izquierdo
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Author review: Lauren has done a terrific job on this epic novel! |
