Prunella teaches you how to cook like a toff!

It’s the morning after.
You stagger from bed at 6am, with a bladder like a Harrods’ carrier bag, a face like a badly folded napkin, a mouth like the bottom of Primrose’s loose box, and a headache of the sort that screams like a toddler on a sugar high.
The rest of the household still slumbers, but you know there’s no more sleep for you – although you have yet to recall quite why that is the case.
It isn’t until you are halfway down a restorative Bloody Mary that you remember today’s the day when the Hon. Rodney and his chums are to be out about the moor on a shoot. Your loathing for the man you were foolish enough to marry reaches epic proportions as you grapple with the concept of driving a Land Rover out across the frozen wastes, laden with lunch for a bunch of red-faced townies – most of whom couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo – all toting shotguns and large appetites.
Opening the refrigerator your eye falls on the obscenely naked bones of a goose, the scrag end of a once noble ham and several plastic containers of assortedly repulsive vegetables. That part of your brain which hasn’t be atrophied by three days of conversation with the wives of Rodney’s work colleagues recognises the makings of game soup, and, more immediately, a bubble and squeak breakfast.
Undaunted, you grasp the largest saucepan the kitchen can provide muttering ‘bloody soup’ as you throw every bone and scrap of unwanted meat into said receptacle and haul it over to the range. Just before you drop the whole thing onto the hot plate and walk away, your brain adjusts sufficiently to the vertical state of your body to understand that liquid of some sort may prevent a conflagration.
Water seems tame and unfestive and you remember a gallon container of truly awful red wine that some oik brought along for the festive bar. It fits the bill without a doubt and you chuck it into the pan alongside a dozen or so onions and the same number of large peeled potatoes.
Leaving that to do its worst you move swiftly onto the bubble and squeak which is comprised of every leftover vegetable you can find, shoved into grandmother’s huge cast iron frying pan and bulked out with a large packet of repulsive instant mashed potato. Add a large knob of butter and turn the vegetables over. Get a drinkie. Add more butter and turn again. Eat something or you will be too pissed to get breakfast on the table. Add more butter to the frying pan and turn some more. Stir soup pot and add any of the following that may be found in the refrigerator: cranberry sauce, gravy, fruit salad, stuffing, bread sauce. Add more butter to the frying pan and turn over the vegetables – you should by now be getting lots of nice crisp brown bits. If you aren’t. Turn on the hot plate and have a nice cry.
Stir both pans and contemplate cooking bacon. Decide you can’t be arsed and shout up the stairs to the effect that breakfast will be on the table in ten minutes.
Make neat depressions in the top of the bubble and squeak and break an egg into each depression. Liberally sprinkle with bits of whatever cheese is still lurking and shove the whole thing into the oven to cook the eggs.
When the men arrive, dump the pan on the table and let them help themselves.
Into the soup pot add a couple of handfuls of pudding rice, a tetra-pack of passata, and about half a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. Leave to simmer.

Alternatively, look in the fridge. Feel sick. Find cornflakes and milk. Surreptitiously open six cans of Baxters Game Soup.

Look out for more tips on how to cook like a toff next week!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful festive season.

Here are a few books to enjoy for FREE if you download them today!

Transgressor Trilogy – by E.M. Swift-Hook. All three parts of the first trilogy in the Fortune’s Fools series: The Fated Sky, Times of Change and Dues of Blood in one volume.

The Night Librarian – by Jane Jago. At night the books in the library awake…

The First Dai and Julia Omnibus – by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook. In a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, crime is rife. Murder, trafficking, drug smuggling and strange religious cults are just a few of the problems that Dai and Julia have to handle, whilst managing family, friendship and domestic crises.

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

December MDCCLXXXII Anno Diocletiani

It had been raining for days now, and the junior Llewellyns were beginning to get antsy. Julia reckoned they had, at best, one more day before there was an explosion. As it turned out, she had been rather too optimistic.
Aelwen looked across the table to where her brother was absorbing soft boiled egg and making a noise like a boiling kettle at the same time.
“Rhodri Llewellyn is a very irritating little boy,” she said.
Julia winced ‘irritating’ and ‘boy’ wouldn’t pierce Rhodri’s armour at all. But ‘little’ was pretty well guaranteed to provoke a reaction as Miss Aelwen perfectly well knew.
Rhodri didn’t disappoint, he shouted something unintelligible, but in his mind no doubt deeply insulting, and threw a lump of eggy bread at his sister. She ducked, and, loading her spoon with a dollop of porridge she fired it right into the centre of her brother’s furious face. He yelled and tried to pick up his plate, but Julia was ahead of him.
“We don’t throw plates.”
“But. Mam. ‘Wen throws powwidge.”
“So she did. But didn’t you throw bread first?”
He grinned and nodded. Then, quick as a flash, grabbed the whole boiled egg from its cup and threw it at Aelwen. Because she was no longer concentrating she didn’t duck and the egg hit her on top of her head. The bright yolk ran down over her face and she snarled.
Grabbing her father’s large spoon from his unresisting hand she fired another blob of porridge with just the same devastating accuracy as the first.
Julia removed the honey, butter and spiced milk from their reach, then sat back and let them have at it, stopping Dai from intervening with an upraised hand.
“Let them be, love, they’ve got cabin fever.”
He shrugged and sat back. They had some very simple rules of shared parenting and one was that mealtimes were Julia’s domain.
Freed from restraint the children went at it with vigour. Aelwen’s throwing was much the more accurate, but Rhodri was fuelled by fury and he didn’t mind getting his hands a bit sticky so the fight soon wound down to an honourable draw.
Aelwen was the first to give in, grinning at Rhodri’s red-faced fury.
“Sorry Dri. You are an irritating big boy.”
He stopped scrabbling for something else to throw and his grin nearly split his cheeks.
“Sowwy ‘Wen.”
They turned identical Llewellyn blue eyes on their parents and awaited a verdict on the throwing of breakfast at siblings.
Dai clamped his mouth shut, and Julia realised he was far too close to laughter to be of any help at all. So she beat down the desire to giggle and looked as stern as she was able.

 Dying for a Present by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago is free to download today 24 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow for our big festive celebration!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

Holly dragged a couple of very heavy bags out of the back of the Land Rover and hauled them into the kitchen. She went back for a second load, and as she was passing the staircase Alan’s voice floated down.
“Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Bring it here and let me see it before you wrap it up.”
“As soon as I’ve finished hauling groceries.”
There was the sound of movement overhead and for one delirious moment Holly actually thought he was coming down to help. But then she heard a door slam. Her slender shoulders drooped, and she soldiered on alone.
Some half an hour later, she trudged up the stairs holding a small box in her left hand. Walking into Alan’s office she placed it carefully on the desk in front of him. He looked up from his computer screen.
“At last. Knowing how much I want to see this, I’d have thought you could have brought it to me before now.”
“I could. But then the groceries wouldn’t have been put away before the twins get home from school.”
He opened his mouth to make a scathing retort, but his wife was already on her way out of the room. Instead, he opened the box and looked gloatingly at the heavy gold bangle in its layers of tissue paper. It had cost a great deal of money and meant he wouldn’t be buying his wife or his twin sons Christmas presents this year, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. All he could see in his mind’s eye was the image of his daughter with the bangle clasped around one slender wrist. She was going to love it.
Downstairs Holly got on with preparing the evening meal, presenting the world with her usual face of calm good sense. Inside, however, she was far from being serene and happy. Not for the first time in the ten years of her marriage, she wondered what maggot had entered Alan’s brain. How could a man who was constantly bewailing his own poverty possibly justify spending four thousand pounds on a bracelet? She allowed herself one small kitten-like snarl, before popping a huge shepherd’s pie in the oven. She was just putting the kettle on when the back door slammed.
“Paddy, Sean, shoes,” she shouted. “And before anyone considers arguing, I have fresh doughnuts.”
There was the sound of masculine laughter, and a couple of minutes later the kitchen door opened and two huge young men all but fell in. They surrounded her and subjected her to a certain amount or good natured rumpling, before sitting down at the scarred wooden table.
“You are,” Sean said, “very possibly the nicest stepmother in the world.”
“She is,” his twin concurred. “Which begs the question of how the miserable miser upstairs ever persuaded her to marry him.”
“Behave, you pair,” Holly couldn’t help laughing, as she put a huge mug of very strong tea in front of each and a plate of doughnuts between them.
While they were eating, Holly looked at their broad, good natured features and did her own wondering. She wondered exactly how two such self-centred people as Alan and Corinne, came to have produced a matched pair of nice sons. Paddy grinned at her.
“Stop frowning Stepmama, you’ll put wrinkles in your pretty forehead.”
She smiled at him, and he shoved a whole doughnut in his mouth.
“He’s been practicing,” Sean explained with simple pride. “That’s school over until January. So what now?”
“Tomorrow. Nothing. Unless you’d like to go shooting.”
“We would,” the boys chorused. “How did you swing that?”
“I have my methods.”
“And after tomorrow? What are you softening us up for?” Sean was the quicker on the uptake of the duo, although Paddy was the leader.
“Sunday your mother arrives.”The boys groaned. “And what else?”
“Christmas Eve, Anna and Christabel will be here. Staying until the day after Boxing Day.”
“Oh won’t that be fun. The two ex-wives at each other’s throats except for when they join forces to have a go at you. Plus the most spoilt young woman on the planet, Daddy’s darling Christabel, expecting to be waited on hand and foot.” Paddy looked at Holly. “I dunno how you stick it. And don’t say it’s for love of our despicable father, because you aren’t that stupid.”
“I stick it because I promised myself I’d be here for you two until you were old enough to leave home. When that happens…”
The boys looked at her with round eyes before getting up from the table and enveloping her in a group hug.
“I’d give a great deal,” Sean said, “to know what the old bastard has done that’s gotten you rattled enough to admit that.”
Holly waved her hands distractedly. “I shouldn’t have said it. And I don’t want you two to be thinking about it…”
“Okay. We won’t.”

Team Holly by Jane Jago is free to download today 23 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

A collaborative effort between two authors – E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago – and a brilliant illustrator, Ian Bristow. This is a story in rhyme that is perfect for reading out loud to children of all ages over the festive season.

 A Christmas Tail is free to download today 22 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

“Mensi, we’ve captured strange trespassers.”
A low, gritty voice reached Madelyn’s ears. She was sat, bound at the hands and feet and her head was throbbing. Thankful that her captors hadn’t removed her helmet, which housed the built-in translator, she opened her eyes and tried to locate the speaker without making any unnecessary movements. But a full sweep of her visual range without turning her head revealed nothing but the blank expanses of a canvas wall across the dirt floor she was sitting on, leading her to assume she was in some sort of tent-like enclosure. The voice spoke again.
“They seem to have some kind of magic, just like Calitari predicted.”
“How many were there?” The replying voice, which Madelyn guessed belonged to Mensi, carried an unmistakable note of arrogance.
“We didn’t get an exact count, but we killed the aggressive ones—at a somewhat significant loss of our own—and captured four… Three escaped.”
Madelyn’s heart skipped a beat. Three of the others had gotten away.
“Escaped? Neza, I task you with keeping threats out of our great lands and you allow three unknown magic wielders to escape? This is not your first or even second blunder in recent times. Your persistent failure is intolerable.”
“I will personally see to it they are—”
The sound of something swiping through air cut Neza’s words short, and hopeless gurgling noises replaced them, followed by the sound of dead weight crumpling to the ground.
Horrified, Madelyn realized she had just heard Neza die for allowing three of her companions to escape. Such brutality toward one of his own did not bode well for how this Mensi figure might treat her and the others.
“Lintu,” Mensi yelled.
“Yes, lord.”
“Come here. Your services are required.”
Chancing a small movement, Madelyn peered to her left and saw a Xantarian running toward the enclosure through a break in its flap-covered doorway. One of the flaps swooshed open and light poured in, stabbing at her pupils. Her head pounded in revolt and she closed her eyes.
“Three others like these four are out on our lands somewhere,” Mensi said.
These four? For the first time, Madelyn had reason to believe she was not alone in the tent. Whoever else had been captured were here as well.
“They are magic wielders, so you will need to be cautious in your hunt. Use the Manori if you need to. I want them returned here alive if at all possible. I believe they might have answers about the moving stars.”
“Your will is mine,” Lintu said.
The sound of multiple footsteps faded away, and she risked a more revealing look through the open flap. No one was standing there. Now feeling it was safe to do so, she wriggled around and found Lexi, Cameron, and Mitzu all huddled nearby, which meant Chiara, Charlene and Peter had escaped.
“Have they gone?” Lexi whispered.
“I think so,” Madelyn said, looking around again.
Her vision fell to Neza’s body a few yards away. Lifeless eyes and a deep wound across the throat spoke of the cruel fate this creature had suffered. She couldn’t be sure if it was a male or female, but its body looked similar to that of the one Hodgson had called a male during the briefing in Liverpool. That day could have been a lifetime ago now. She could still remember her growing excitement and Jonathan’s encouraging expressions as the mission started to sound more and more accessible.
Jonathan.
His smiling face materialized in her mind and tears surfaced. Her fate was now less certain than ever before in the field. If she died, all her worries and fears would come to an abrupt end, but Jonathan would be left to mourn, surely questioning if her death was his fault. Feeling like he had encouraged her to do something that ultimately resulted in her passing would destroy him.
The tears were flowing freely now.
“Maddie…”

From Contact (Instinct Theory #1) by Ian Bristow that is free to download today 21 December 2022. 

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

Minna was sitting on her grandfather’s lap. They had eaten supper and now they were watching the sky spit shards of ice onto the frozen fields.
“Gramps,” she asked softly, “what’s a white Christmas?”
“A white Christmas is one where there is snow on the ground.”
“Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“No, I have never. I’m eighty-four years old and I’ve only seen snow twice in my life.”
Minna thought for a long time, then asked. “What’s snow?”
Gramps grunted as he marshalled his thoughts. “It’s frozen rain.”
“Like hail and ice storms?”
“No. Not a bit like that. It’s white and it’s soft and it makes everything look beautiful.”
“I wish I could see that.”
Gramps rested his chin on her head. “I wish you could see it too.”
They were quiet for a long moment then he lifted his head and spoke again. “There’s another thing we have to talk about.”
Minna looked into his worried eyes.
“It’s about Father isn’t it? Father has to choose a new wife.”
“Where did you hear that missy?”
“Father came and sat on my bed the last time he was home and we talked.”
Gramps looked amazed and Minna giggled.
“It’s our secret, Gramps.  Big strong Hunters aren’t supposed to talk to little girls. But Father said I could tell you because you would understand.”
Gramps gave Minna a big hug then he smiled down at her.
“Oh yes. I understand. I used to have secret talks with your Mama when she was a little girl. Now tell me what you think about Father marrying again.”
Minna wrinkled her forehead. “Does it matter what I think? If it doesn’t matter whether or not Father wants a wife, why would anybody care what I think?”
For a long time Gramps didn’t answer. When he did speak his voice was slow and sad. “It matters to me what you think. And I’m sure it matters to your Father.”
“It’s all right Gramps. Just as long as Father chooses well it will be all right.”

From ‘White Christmas’ one of the Twelve Tales of Christmas, by Jane Jago that is free to download today 20 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

December MDCCLXXVII

It was the longest night and the fires in the sacred grove turned the oiled muscles of the naked young men to liquid fire. The old men watched from under their wrinkled eyelids as the goddess made flesh walked among them. She was beautiful and in the firelight something more than mere beauty with her red-gold hair cloaking her nakedness and the stag horns that seemed to grow from her forehead. She touched each young man with a delicate forefinger and whenever one pleased her they lay down in the loam together as the goddess and the god. The young men not deemed fit to serve watched in envy, save for the one who filmed covertly smiling to himself as he did so…

I

In another place, not far away geographically, but a million miles from the rites of the Druids in terms of intent, Julia Llewellyn was also naked in the the firelight. She was lying in her husband’s arms, noticing how her own mediterranean olive complexion looked golden in the warming glow and tracing the pink patterns the flames made on her man’s white Celtic skin.
“How does anybody even get to be so pale? You look like one of the marble statues in the forum. Just stick a helmet on your head and you’d be a dead ringer for any of the minor gods or messengers.”
Dai moved swiftly, pinning his giggling wife under him and tickling her ribs.
“Minor god, is it?”
“Is,” she said firmly, “the likes of Jupiter and Vulcan are always depicted as old men with big beards.”
He laughed down at her and she wriggled out from under him pushing against his broad chest with one small hand. He rolled on his back and she straddled him, grinning cheekily. 
“You look a bit happier now. So? Are you going to tell me what chapped your arse today?”
“How come you always know?”
“I have eyes, lovely boy. Now spill.”
Dai sat up, so that his wife straddled his lap and rested his chin on the top of her head.  Julia, being Julia, couldn’t resist a naughty wriggle. He pulled her closer and sighed.
“Smooshing my nose Llewelyn. And I really do need to know what upset you.” 
“It’s that moecha Cariad. It’s been playing on my mind all day. I think she’s up to something.”
“And that’s surprising because?”
He snuffled out a reluctant half-laugh.
“It’s not. What is surprising though is that I find I mind on behalf of Caudinus. He’s actually a decent man. Not just decent for a Roman Magistratus, just plain decent. And he obviously loves her, blindly and absolutely. But she is equally obviously bored and discontented.” He gave Julia a brief, twisted smile. “When we were there for dinner and gift giving the other day, she was walking a thin line. First there were those pointed comments over dinner, then we had the Game of Truth. Everyone else was being light and flippant, but it was as if she was trying to dig out the most excruciatingly inappropriate incidents she could think of. Asking you where – and when – you lost your virginity. Making me confess the embarrassing donation I made in the name of science during my academy days, though she knows how much I hate being reminded of that. Dragging out the personal humiliation of poor Caudinus when he was falsely accused of sleeping with his boss’s wife. And then lying in her teeth about her own dalliances. Manufacturing a blush.” His voice shifted to mimic Cariad’s sultry tone. “‘One before my dear husband…’”
Julia quirked an eyebrow.
“I know of at least a dozen” Dai said wryly.” She was and possibly still is, as randy as a mare on heat. But that isn’t my worry. I’m afraid she’s getting fed up with him. She was so mean to him about his Saturnalia gift to her and he tries so hard. I keep seeing the hurt in his eyes.”
Julia took his face between her palms.
“Dai bach, from where I was standing it was obvious that she was fed up with him on the day of their nuptials.”
He gaped at her and she couldn’t help loving him for his naïveté along with his more potent charms.
“So why did she marry him?”
“I’m guessing the lure of being queen of Viriconium was too strong to be resisted.”
Julia felt the sigh her husband heaved and put her arms around him, kissing his chest as that was the nearest bit of him.
“Promise you won’t ever get fed up with me, Julia fach.”
“I think you are pretty safe there, lovely boy. Aren’t you the other half of my soul?”
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him rather seriously.

Later, as they lay in bed under the goose down comforter, Dai pulled Julia so she lay across his chest.
“What do I have to wear at this gods-forsaken function tomorrow? I’m dreading it, the annual temple turn out for the birthday of the Divine Diocletian I mean. Outside? December? Toga?”
Julia smiled down at him. 
“No. Tunic and trews and a good warm cloak. You have new trews and tunic in fine cashmere wool. You’ll be fine. You should rather have pity on me, as women are not allowed to wear trousers in the temple precinct. But I do have some thick woollen stockings that make my legs look really fat.”
He laughed and they drifted off to sleep in happy intimacy.

The next morning they had to be up well before dawn. Julia had just got in the bath and Dai was shaving when there came an urgent trill from Dai’s wristphone which he had left beside the bed. Dai wrapped a towel around his waist and went to see what was afoot, carefully closing the bathroom door behind him. Julia had a bad feeling about someone calling before it was properly light so she jumped out of the warm water and towelled herself briskly. Before she had finished dressing Dai was back. With his work face on.
“Sorry love, looks like I get to miss the ceremonials. Message from the landlord of the Dragon and Leek on the Ynys Mon road. A bit garbled, because the place is deep in a valley in the woods and the comms are merda, but something about a fine lady gone missing and two dead Roman outriders. I’ve roused Bryn and the posse.”

You can keep reading Dying as a Druid by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago for free if you download it today 19 December.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

Moose Crossing was the kind of a place that aspires to be a one-horse town without much hope of success. It had a packed-dirt street lined with chinked log buildings, a livery stable with smallish corral for visiting livestock, and a tented settlement of prospectors whose population was as fluid as the freezing stream off the mountains that provided the town with drinking water.
It was September, and there was enough bite in the wind to keep the mosquitoes at home, although the sky was still a faded denim blue and the trails were hard and relatively easy to travel.
A big Conestoga wagon breasted the rise just at the edge of town and drew to a halt to give the team a breather. The eight horses steamed in the bright cool air, and the female driver jumped down with a leather water bucket – giving each animal a drink and a word of thanks.
This being the obvious place to shake-down newcomers, there were already covetous glances being cast on the wagon and its team of big, strongly-built horses.
The the owner of one pair of greedy eyes decided that now would be a good time to stake his claim to the wagon, its contents, the woman and the horses.
He swaggered over, with a hand hovering above the fancy pearl-handled Colt that hung low on his right leg.
“Well, little lady,” he sneered, “there’s a toll to be paid if’n you wants to get this hyar wagon into town unmolested.”
The woman hawked and spat, and gobbet of something landed on the ground between the would-be hard man’s feet. He was fool enough to lose his temper. Grabbing for the gun on his hip he snarled a vile insult. Even as his hand closed on the Colt he realised he wasn’t fast enough – as he found himself looking down the wide barrels of a shotgun which were pointing somewhere around his midriff.
“Put ‘em up, mister less’n you wants a square of turf on Boot Hill.”
He raised his hands, managing to keep a poker face as two of his confederates crept towards the wagon. The first would-be robber slipped into the back of the wagon, while the second made for the horses.
Both men started screaming at about the same time. The one by the horses was down on the ground with a set of long yellow teeth snapping at his throat, while the other was forcibly ejected from the wagon by the boot of a man who looked like he wrestled grizzlies for a hobby.

From ‘What Happened at Moose Crossing‘ a story in Winter Warmers: Festivals and Festivities Reimagined by Jane Jago that is free to download today 18 December 2022.

Come back tomorrow to collect your next free gift!

We here at the Working Title Blog think that as things have been pretty gloomy and expensive lately we can cheer everyone up with a FREE GIFT every day until Christmas!

So break out the hot chocolate, the mulled wine or the festive spirit of your choice, find a comfortable place to curl up and start reading today’s free gift – then click the link at the bottom to download the entire book for free and keep reading.

Have a fabulous festive season!

It was like walking around with a bomb in your head.
That wasn’t such an unfamiliar feeling for someone like Jazatar Baldrik who had served time in the Special Legion. There they plumbed a direct link into your brain and set it so that you had to keep connected to the data network lattice or it would fry out and kill you. Even if you made it through the five years of hell so you could qualify for release from the convict unit, as very few ever did, the device had a bad effect on the brain tissue it was implanted in and would kill you eventually anyway. Jaz had personal experience of that too. He had recently lost a friend that way. A man he had once considered as close as a brother.
But this was different.
Different because this bomb wasn’t going to go off and kill himself. When it went off, it was going to kill one of the very few people he actually cared about. Getting that news had been the most unexpected event of the day. But still only one in series of unexpected events. and that in a place where the unexpected was so rare it never happened. 
For the past two cycles Jaz had been effectively imprisoned. Initially against his will and now with a kind of grudging acceptance, he was held in a secure clinic run by the terrorist organisation known as The Legacy. It was the kind of place where today was the same as yesterday and tomorrow wouldn’t be too much changed from that. Running to its own quiet, pre-planned patterns, nothing was allowed to penetrate which might risk breaking the steady rhythm of daily life. It was the sort of protected and predictable environment Jaz had never known any time in his forty-two years of life. He had even begun to feel safe.
Which was a mistake.
When they told him he had a visitor, he’d been a bit puzzled, but mostly just curious. It wasn’t like anyone he knew had any idea he was even here. So he didn’t expect it to be the kind of visitor most of the other inmates of this place got now and then. 
It wasn’t going to be some family member who would look all concerned. Or even an awkward work colleague, checking up on how he was doing because someone had to and they had drawn the short straw at the office. Jaz had seen those kinds of people in the reception area sometimes, waiting to be taken through to see one of the inmates – or guests as the staff smilingly called them. There was even an elderly couple standing there now, the look of worried parents clear on their faces. Obviously distracted, they didn’t even notice him. He walked right in front of them and into one of the therapy rooms.
It took him a moment to realise who his visitor was and when he did, his first reaction was to turn himself around and walk right out again. He had to use some real willpower to make himself stand still and not do that.
Car Torbalen.
The man ultimately responsible for Jaz being put in this place and being taken very much out of circulation. Even thinking that was enough to make Jaz tense up all over. But, in a place where yesterday and tomorrow were both so much the same, he was curious enough about this sudden shift to see what it might be about. 
Torbalen greeted him with a slight smile, holding out his hand like some formal event.
“Jaz. I was delighted to get your message that you wanted to see me today. Let’s go for that walk you suggested, eh?”
Something was wrong. 
Jaz was more than sure he’d sent no such message. Even if he had the faintest idea on how he might have set about trying to get in touch with Torbalen, he would never have been inviting him over for a cosy one-to-one, walking in the grounds.
This man had effectively betrayed him. But the fact was Torbalen was standing there and knew that. He must also know he wasn’t going to make it on to Jaz’s link list in any conceivable future. Which made Jaz wonder enough that he didn’t deny or challenge what Torbalen had said. 
There was nothing to read in the pleasant smile, because Torbalen was an operator with a lot of skill, but there had to be something important behind this. For him to step away from his so-busy life drawing in ever more fanatics for The Legacy, there had to be something pretty big on his mind. So Jaz took the offered hand briefly in a firm grip and said nothing. Then he went through the door which Torbalen had opened and walked out into the secure grounds around the clinic.

Not To Be by E.M. Swift-Hook is free to download today 17 December 2022.

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