#Excerpt week finale – SPRITE NIGHT by Deborah Jay #UrbanFantasy #ecology #fracking

March 15, 2015March 16, 2015 / Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 8 Comments

Here is my last contribution to excerpt week – and a fun and informative week it has been 😀

This little offering is from a short story that has not yet been released – maybe next month if I can find the time, once I have the anthology (excerpt here) all sorted.

Back to Urban Fantasy today, and a bit more of Cassie, the Caledonian Sprite, who has a tendency to get tangled up in ecological issues, seeing as they have potentially devastating implications for her element.

This story takes place just after DESPRITE MEASURES, (excerpts here and here), and finds our sassy sprite involved in a fracking protest near Stirling, Scotland.

NOTE: there are live links scattered throughout the Caledonian Sprite stories, taking readers who choose to follow them to informative pages and photographs of all things quintessentially Scottish. My stab at a (slightly) interactive experience.

Excerpt from SPRITE NIGHT

The inn was typical of its type; old, creaky and in need of renovation, but warm with hospitality and a reputation for excellent food and choice of single malts. It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of my human body that consuming food or alcohol is a futile exercise; I can eat, but solid food needs disposing of—let’s not go there—and alcohol, whilst I can take pleasure in the taste, has no affect on me.

Companionship though—that I can, and do, enjoy.

I pushed open the swing doors to the lounge and glanced around. Most of the crowd were locals I’d come to know over the past few weeks, but a rather delectable-looking stranger sat in the snug beside the chimney. My body perked up with interest.

Right now, my DNA stores were high, and harvesting more would be an indulgence, but this guy had the makings of a pleasing dalliance, with or without extra benefits. His shaggy brown hair melded into a luxuriant beard, above which shone a pair of the brightest blue eyes I’d seen in a long while. He was dressed in a heavy woollen sweater, with a thick, quilted jacket and thermal beanie discarded beside him on the bench. Continue reading →

Excerpt from CH 5 of Swamp Ghosts

March 14, 2015March 16, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 13 Comments

Kind of quiet tonight, so here’s a longish one from Swamp Ghosts. (Thought I’d show you that I do know how to write scenes that aren’t totally weird and disturbing.) Gunnar Wolfe is a wildlife photographer who has hired Maggie Devlin to guide him into some pretty inaccessible backwater areas, in search of rare birds and animals. He’s never set foot in a canoe before, and denies he’s afraid of boats, but he admits he does not want to end up in that black, black water. This is his first canoe lesson with Maggie, who was raised on the river, and knows it like the back of her hand. So far, she’s less than impressed with Gunn, immense size and Norwegian good looks notwithstanding.

*****

SUNDAY MORNING arrived looking like a picture out of a travel brochure. A buttery yellow sun beamed down from a cloudless swath of blue sky, and the trees along the river were that jewel-like shade of green you only see in early summer. I watched Gunn as he surveyed the boat launch. “You sure you don’t want to do a dry run on land first?”

“Maggie, I’d feel silly standing over there under a tree, getting in and out of the canoe, instead of just launching it here, like anyone else. I’m sure I can do this.”

“Okay, Thor. Your funeral,” I muttered.

Gunn’s eyes widened. “Excuse me? Thor? Did you just call me Thor?”

I looked up from the cooler I was arranging in the stern of the canoe in order to offset his weight in the front. “Oh, please don’t tell me I’m the only one to ever call you that.”

He was put out. More so than I expected, though to be honest, I had been trying to get a rise out of him. His perpetual good humor was getting on my nerves this early in the morning.

“Actually, you are.” Now he had a definite scowl on his face.

“You’re kidding, right? I mean, look at you.”

He was growing redder, and his smile was ancient history, now. Hmmm. This was a different, and unexpected, side to Gunnar Wolfe.

“I beg your pardon? Look at me? What are you talking about?”

“Gunn, for Pete’s sake. You look just like the guy. You know? The guy from the Avenger movies?” Continue reading →

#Excerpt from #SF short story PERFECT FIT by Deborah Jay #readers #books

March 14, 2015 / Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 12 Comments

Excerpt week continues!

Today, a little snippet from my forthcoming contribution to the SFF multi-author anthology edited by Chris Butler, THE WORLD AND THE STARS, that I will be publishing next month.

You are the first people to see the cover!

I trained originally in life sciences, with specialised interest in genetics, so developments in gene-splicing and genetic modification (GM) are of particular interest to me, and that’s how this story came about.

Roz is a technician in the gene-splicing lab on board a worldship, travelling to set up a new colony. Unfortunately their arrival is long overdue, and the inhabitants are getting restless.

Excerpt from PERFECT FIT, a science fiction short story

Roz sidled in at the back of the crowded meeting hall and slid onto a chair in the hope that nobody would notice her arrival. The wooden seat creaked a protest as she perched on its front edge, and she drew a couple of deep breaths to settle her pounding heart. Accustomed to the sterile atmosphere in the lab, she almost choked on air thick with the smells of so many bodies.

She glanced from side to side to check who else was there, and met a pair of beautiful velvet brown eyes, almond-shaped above sculpted cheek bones. Sam’s lips curved up, and her stomach flip-flopped. She’d met him at her second meeting, and they’d made an instant connection, though under normal circumstances their paths would never have crossed. As a gardener, Sam’s was not a profession normally found in the social circle of a lab tech, but these secretive gatherings defied the usual conventions, and for that, she was glad. Their relationship was blossoming fast, and even as Sam smiled at her, Roz’s mind was darting ahead, imagining how his unique, fuzzy-tipped fingers might feel against her bare flesh. The tech side of her brain speculated what genes might have produced the specialised modification that allowed Sam to pollinate plants with just his finger tips.

Just then, Garth, the huge man responsible for instigating the budding revolution, rose to his feet at the front of the hall, towering over everyone else, even those still on their feet. Roz’s face snapped forward, severing the delicious promise in Sam’s gaze. The assembly—several hundred, by Roz’s reckoning—settled into reverent silence, overawed by the spectacle that was their leader. With the dense double muscling of his bovine GM bulging beneath his skin, Garth looked like he could take on the world and win. Charolais genes, a mutation that had proven fortuitous for the beef industry, supplied the tech side of Roz’s mind. Sometimes she wished she could switch it off.

She’d seen countless modifications, but few as visually impressive as Garth’s. Specially designed for heavy lifting, his super-manly physique had quite swept her off her feet when they’d first met, but things had not gone so well thereafter. She crossed her legs and squeezed her thighs together, recalling their embarrassing attempt at sex.

She’d heard all the jokes about ‘size matters’, but she didn’t think that was quite what they meant.

Excerpt #4 from Summer Magic

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 / Marcia Meara / Leave a comment

One more short one before heading to bed, perchance to READ! Summer Magic is divided into two parts. The first part is called “Mac At Ten,” and the poems involve MacKenzie Cole from Wake-Robin Ridge, when he was a boy of ten, and spent his summers camping on the Ridge, with his dad. This is the poem that gives the collection its name, and is the very essence of the little boy Mac was at that point in his life. Enjoy!

***

Summer Magic

Crawling quietly from his tent,
His dad still lost in slumber within,
He sits down alone on the granite slab,
Coltish legs drawn up to his chin,
And arms wrapped around skinny knees.
He gazes toward the pale horizon,
Watching the sleeping valley below.
With breath held in anticipation,
He waits for the magic
He knows will come.

There! A thin curve of molten red!
A far away sliver of fiery light
Breaks the horizon.
Rising slowly,
It bathes the tops of the rolling hills
In a brilliant spill of gold.
Mother-of-pearl dawn
Gives way to butter yellow
Morning light.

In front of his wide, blue eyes,
The world awakens.
Magic arrives and
Day is born,
Again.
He smiles to himself and wraps
His arms more tightly
Around his knees,
Shivering in private delight, and
Holding the beauty
Close within,
Having already learned
Some magic is
Secret.

Summer Magic: Poems of Life & Love

#Excerpt 2 from DESPRITE MEASURES, a Caledonian Sprite novel #UrbanFantasy #ecology #LGBT

March 13, 2015March 14, 2015 / Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 7 Comments

Anyone up for a little more elemental mischief?

Yesterday I shared the opening page from DESPRITE MEASURES – a Caledonian Sprite novel. If you missed it, you can find it here.

Today I thought I’d give you a bit from the thick of the action, towards the end of the book, so without further ado

Excerpt 2

“Come on, Wynter, get a grip and get me in there!”

The witch fell to her knees, and for a horrible moment I thought she was going to blubber, but then I noticed the implements on the ground: a small cauldron, some pouches of who-knew-what. The remains of a fire.

Wynter’s hands shook as she tried to re-kindle the fire. For one ironic moment, I wished for Gloria. She’d have lit the charred sticks in an instant.

A tiny puff of smoke wisped upward and Wynter sprinkled dried grass around it, blowing delicately as she coaxed the infant flame. I stopped breathing.

“Find something to burn!” she ordered, and I scanned the hillside, grateful my vision was not as poor as human eyesight in the gloom. I located a cluster of twigs beneath a sheltering gorse bush and scooped them up.

“This do?”

“It’ll have to,” Wynter said, and now I heard steel in her voice. She sounded well pissed off. Finding out that your lover is using you can have that effect.

She poured a portion of oil into the cauldron and set it on a tripod above the little fire. Then she emptied out the contents of her pouches, muttering as she did so. I didn’t listen; I wanted nothing to do with human magic. I stared with laser beam eyes at the invisible spell shield, trying to burn a hole through it. The twined aromas of thyme and lavender swirled around me.

“Cassie, I need your help. Please?”

“What? You know I can’t do magic.” Continue reading →

Excerpt: Prologue from A Boy Named Rabbit

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 2 Comments

I love all the characters I write about, even the bad ones, in a perverse sort of way, but I love Rabbit most of all. This plucky little boy was so much fun to bring to life, and his journey out of the wilderness and into Sarah and Mac’s cozy life spoke to my heart every step of the way. Rabbit looks at life with a unique perspective, and I hope readers will find him as adorable, clever, and completely compelling as I did. He has a lot to share with all of us, including the most important lesson of all: giving and receiving profound love is always, always worth the risk. Here’s the prologue to Book 2 of my Wake-Robin Ridge series, A Boy Named Rabbit.

***

TUESDAY
FEBRUARY 26, 2013
DEEP IN THE NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS

“Gran? Gran, wake up. Wake up, please?”

The little boy reached out a timid hand and shook the bony arm of the woman on the cot. “Please, Gran? I got tea here. I made it the way you like, an’ all. With honey.”

“I’m awake, Boy. Stop shakin’ me, now. Help me up.”

He set the tea on the apple crate, and pulled his grandmother into a sitting position. She was growing more and more frail every day, weighing hardly more than he did. That wasn’t a good thing. She was a grown up. Grown up women should be much bigger than he was.

Propping her up on the cot, he wrapped a worn army blanket around her narrow shoulders, as the wracking coughs started again. This was the longest spell yet, and when she choked to a stop, the sound of her wheezing scared him.

“I wish Grampa was back.” He handed her the mug of hot tea, being careful not to spill it .

“Wishin’ won’t make it so. You know that.”

“But we need him. He’s bringin’ some of that stuff what makes you feel better.”

“He’ll be here directly, don’t fret, Boy. I’ll be okay ‘til then, good Lord willin’.”

She took a sip of tea. “Perfect. You done good.”

The boy’s straight, black brows lifted, and some of the fear left his enormous, dark blue eyes. “You need to get better, Gran. Grampa says we gotta move camp, ‘fore the weather gets any colder.”

“He’s right. Mild winter, so far, but worse is on the way. We done fished this little stream ‘bout out, anyway. Maybe time to head back to the caves.” Continue reading →

#Excerpt from #UrbanFantasy DESPRITE MEASURES (The Caledonian Sprite) by Deborah Jay

March 12, 2015 / Deborah Jay / Debby Lush / 1 Comment

And now for something completely different…

I have so far shared excerpts from my Epic Fantasy, THE PRINCE’S MAN, here and here.

Today it’s the turn of my Urban Fantasy, DESPRITE MEASURES. And no, that’s not a typo.

Here’s short blurb, so you know what you’re letting yourself in for:

Scottish water sprite, Cassie, lives a quiet life in human guise, along with her selkie boyfriend, until a magician tries to force her to power his crazy experiment.

Escape is only Cassie’s first challenge; she falls for her dangerous fellow captive, fire elemental Gloria, and somehow becomes the prize in a contest between rival covens.

Struggling to stay one step ahead of it all, her life and loves spiral dangerously out of control.

A unique eco-urban fantasy

Excerpt from Desprite Measures

It’s just as well I’m not claustrophobic.

Even so, being held captive in a bottle was not how I’d planned to spend my weekend.

It was also one of the most undignified positions I’ve ever been in; a water sprite can be squished down pretty small, but it doesn’t mean we enjoy the process.

Rainbows played across the clear glass walls of my prison, refracting through the swirling liquid of my elemental form. Taking a deep breath, metaphorically speaking, I tried to slow my agitated motion, in danger of over-heating. If someone would uncap my bottle, I’d be able to let off steam.

I prowled the confined space. It stood around ten inches tall, or should that be twenty-five centimetres? I can’t keep up with the speed humans alter things. My existence had flowed serenely through the millennia without need for change until the human race invented plumbing.

I’d known there might be drawbacks to living in human form but, after one too many close encounters with the local sewage farm, I’d taken the risk. It had its upsides. Elementals are solitary by nature, but I’d found that I liked having friends—not to mention the thrill of experiencing human emotions.

I don’t understand them all yet, but I’m learning.

Perhaps I should also have considered potential pit-falls, but I was still quite new to all this, and when Alison had come to me for support I’d wanted to help. Replaying the fateful conversation in my mind, I realised I should’ve smelled something fishy from the outset.

“I know it’s not your kind of thing, but will you come with me, Cassie? Please say you will,” Alison pleaded.

I considered my flame haired friend for a millisecond before committing. “Aye, of course I will, as long as you’re certain it’s what you want.”

She frowned. “What, to become a witch or go to this meeting?”

“The meeting, dear heart. I have no problem with you trying out witchcraft; all that communing with nature is so you. I’m just none too sure about this group.”

We both studied the website on Alison’s laptop.

“Look at this list of events.” I pointed to one corner of the screen. “Like this one: ‘Self-development through equine partnership’. What’s that all about?”

“But that’s only one thing,” Alison protested. “Look at the rest. Crystal dowsing, aura reading, herbalism, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Okay, okay! Of course I’ll come with you. It can’t hurt to go to one meeting, can it?”

How wrong could I have been? I know that at the first whiff of strong magic I should have run in the opposite direction. But no, that whiff had been so enticing: aromas of strawberries and cream and chocolate all rolled into one. Someone had studied the Facebook group I’d set up for my gym clients, and discovered exactly what would make me hesitate just that fraction of a second too long.

* * * * * * *

And the Answer IS…Until Sunday Night!

March 12, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 4 Comments

The question, naturally, is “How long does Excerpt Week last?” Of course, if you’ve been paying close attention here…you HAVE been, haven’t you?…you are probably already aware that I encourage folks to leave excerpts of their work any time they wish. So if you miss the “Official” deadline for Excerpt Week, you can still post one. Pretty much whenever. But we are building momentum here, and posting by Sunday night might bring you more sharing results. So…you’ve still got three days to take care of that, plus the rest of today, of course. Get posting, folks!

Excerpt: Pack Princess by Aimee Easterling

March 12, 2015March 12, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 1 Comment

I am posting on behalf of Aimee Easterling who is under the weather, currently. This is from Chapter 1 of her latest novel, Pack Princess, Book 2 in her Wolf Rampant werewolf series. Enjoy!

***

…When I set off for my afternoon run, the whole forest smelled like my mate. Pine needles and leaf mold and that tinge of something extra that said “powerful male werewolf .” Which is why I was smiling in a tongue-lolling canine fashion… right up until the moment when a huge wolf came barreling out from behind a bush and sent me spinning head over heels to land with a thud against the trunk of a tulip poplar.

Werewolves are pretty rough-and-ready, so it wasn’t the crack on my skull that had me shaking my head in a daze as I scrambled back to my feet. Nope, it was just plain surprise. From the moment when I’d first stepped into my father’s metaphorical shoes, I expected to have to face down power-hungry uncles and cousins in order to maintain my place as alpha of our current pack. But as days stretched into months without a challenge in sight, I’d slowly relaxed my guard. As a result , I now realized that it had been weeks since I’d bothered to peer at the inner wolf of each shifter around me, attempting to seek out insurrections before they had time to spark into flame. And I certainly wasn’t expecting to be attacked here, deep in the heart of pack territory , where there were unlikely to be werewolves from other clans trying to slip past our defenses. So what the heck was going on?

Even as these bewildered thoughts tumbled through my mind, I was spinning on my heel, ruff raised to make me appear larger as I curled my upper lip back into a lupine snarl. But then I paused, even more confused, as I recognized my father’s grizzled muzzle.

Chief Wilder had been the bane of my existence growing up, and he was also the primary reason I’d fled Haven in the first place to eke out a lonely existence in the human world. Yet, since then, my father had manipulated me back into our shared pack, and he’d recently seemed quite willing to let his sole surviving daughter take over leadership of clan Wilder . So what was with this out-of-the-blue attack? Could Crazy Wilder’s nickname have become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps my father wasn’t simply stuck in wolf form. Maybe now, he was truly cracked.

Pack Princess

An excerpt from ‘Humor at the Speed of Life’ by Ned Hickson

March 12, 2015March 13, 2015 / Ned's Blog / 19 Comments

I believe some introductions are in order. And by that, I mean the introduction in my book, which seems like a good place to start. Given that Humor at the Speed of Life is a collection of my newspaper columns, I felt the need to give readers a little background as a jumping off point. Hoping, of course, that they weren’t reading it while perched on the ledge of a building…

***

THIS JUST IN…

After 15 years as a humor columnist, it finally hit me. And by that I mean my editor’s stapler. She had been threatening to throw it since 2004, when I first discovered the secret candy drawer she had cleverly labeled: Extra Work for Reporters. For the past nine years she had been warning me, “If you don’t stay out of my candy drawer, I am going to set this thing for ‘stun’ and hurl it at you!”

As I sat there, blurry-eyed and rubbing the back of my head, I came to an important and potentially life-changing realization:

I really need to publish this book now, before she gets a new stapler.

Once my editor replenished her candy stash, there was a good chance another direct hit would result in serious brain damage, ending my career as a journalist and leaving me to write for daytime television. The truth is, readers have been asking me for years to compile a book of columns. As one reader from Gwynette, GA., wrote in, “If you ever come here for a book signing, you better have pastries or something.” Continue reading →