Rain, Steam and Speed

Owen Linton-House grows up living his parents' hopes and dreams, but when he is expelled from school, he leaves home in shame, the day before his eighteenth birthday. Living in a squat in Battersea, he rescues an Afghan Hound, becomes addicted to heroin, and ends up smuggling drugs out of Amsterdam for a Russian cartel. When MI6 make him an offer he cannot refuse, Owen starts to live out a real-life spy thriller, caught up in an international drugs network, living and working in Canada and Afghanistan, trying to find the source of the drugs, how they are brought into the country, and who is responsible. Throughout his adventure, Owen is searching for love, for his own identity, and for a measure of redemption, vowing to return home when he is thirty. It is his sister, Helen, who writes his story. Owen's adventure is framed by rain, snow and scorching heat. He is introduced to Mayakovsky's 'The Bathhouse,' to steam baths, and to steamy relationships. He is drawn into the shady world of drugs, of cannabis, heroin, ecstasy, and amphetamines. In spite of his mistakes, it is hard not to feel compassion for Owen, and 'Rain, Steam and Speed' prompts the reader to ponder if we can ever really break free from our pasts, our parents' expectations, the consequences of our poor choices, and our addictions.

Allissa Oldenberg shares many experiences with her fictional narrator, Helen Painter. She studied modern languages and literary theory at university, reads when she's not writing, loves to watch movies, listens to progressive rock, plays chess, and spends as much time as she can doing up a house in France. Married, she has two adult children, and is now a besotted grandmother.