He broke her heart when she was seventeen, and crowed about it in the pub until her brother broke his nose.

Ten years later he sent her a Facebook friend request. She ignored him, so he posted ten-year-old pictures of her naked body alongside a pretty crude dismissal of her performance in bed.

But he was a fool, because she unearthed the poem she wrote the day after he left her. It went viral, as every teenage girl in the world downloaded a copy for her bedroom wall.

And him?

Oh, nobody noticed him, except as a deceiver.

©jj 2019

…. or ‘How To Speak Typo’ by Jane Jago

buson (noun) – heavily armoured brassiere 

cadgiran (noun) – warm woolly, worn by unreliable gentleman

chils (noun) – small person with a perpetually runny nose

digsust (noun) – assistant gardener

ebhind (noun) – a person with a Bambi fixation

fiendr (noun) – false friend

giggkes (noun) – chuckles that end in hiccoughs

moom (noun) – elongated female parent

nomran (adjective) – of architecture, seldom perpendicular 

rokcet (noun) – salad leaf whose flavour is vaguely reminiscent of elderly  training shoes

sumb (noun) – a column of numbers that comes to a different total every time you add it up

sytaighforward (adverb) – of gait denoting having the chest poked forward and the ass cheeks pressed as far back as possible

tuhmb (noun) – the sound a cat makes just prior to vomiting

usueful (adverb) – of teaching not entirely successful but well-intentioned

waelse (noun) – the offspring of a marsupial and a garden chair

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

About his feet the little people quaked and cried. He curled his lip in scorn. 

He felt a strong desire to cook the soldiers in their metal cuirasses but chivalry demanded that he kill only where necessary so he reined in his fury.

Instead, he turned his face on the invading king and allowed himself one roar of rage.

The man fell to his knees and covered his eyes.

“Die infidel.”

As the king grovelled, a ballista twanged thickly and the iron bolt buried itself in Draco’s noble heart.

His dying flame razed a swathe of death a mile long.  

©jj 2019

Inspired by the brilliant work of the multi-talented Ian Bristow

From Mistrust and Treason by E.M. Swift-Hook which is a Fortune’s Fools book and opens  Iconoclast Trilogy, the third and final trilogy in the series. You can listen to this on YouTube.

The music started up again and there was a tap at the door. Distracted, he turned smiling, knowing who it would be.
“I grabbed a drink. Thought you’d like one too.”
This was the reason he had taken that retirement two years ago. Vexana. Nearly sixteen years old now, Legacy raised and the perfect age to become willing cannon-fodder for them. He was trying hard to convince her that there were other, better, ways to serve the cause, ways that could achieve just as much — more — and not cost you your life. So far he wasn’t sure he had succeeded, but it was a work in progress.
Torbalen hoped she would, one day, be able to learn the kind of skills needed to do his job here, or maybe she would move on to something different, better and safer. It would be folly to assume he could ever persuade her to step away from The Legacy. Much as he wanted her to do exactly that, he couldn’t deny her the same right as he had to serve the cause for which her parents had died. But he could, and would, do his best to ensure the way she served that cause was one that would never place her in the same kind of extreme hazard her parents had so willingly undertaken.
He accepted the drink she offered and sipped at it as Vexana dropped into the only other chair available.
“So you think these two are any good?” She gestured vaguely in the direction the music was coming from.
“Not bad. They have that raw edge you kids seem to like.”
The girl rolled her eyes.
“You kids? Sheesh!”
Torbalen hid his smile.
“Sorry. You young adults. Let me try it again. This duo has the kind of unconstrained spontaneity that young adults seem to find inspiring. Is that better?”
The girl’s eyes narrowed slightly. He felt she was judging his very soul and finding it wanting. It was a court with no facility for appeal, but it was also a judge who could be merciful and accept age as a mitigating factor. She looked away and glanced at a screen, firing off a couple of quick, texted, messages before deigning to give him her attention again.
“She was back there today.”
Torbalen tried to make that comment fit into the landscape of the world he shared with his granddaughter. He failed.
“Who was back where?”
The slight impatient sigh told him he had made some mistake by not knowing.
“At the dojo? That new girl I told you about? She’s good. You should come see her. She was talking politics with some of the others too.”
He felt a lurch of concern at those last few words. He owned the building the dojo occupied, it was one of the main places he had people keeping an eye out for potential recruits. One of the first things many of those angry and hate-filled kids wanted to do when they got here from whatever war zone hell-hole they had fled, was to learn how to defend themselves. They believed if they did they would never feel so vulnerable again. So, it made good sense to have his people there ready to listen to their woes and alert him to any who might be more useful.
In terms of recruitment, it was right on the front-line and the people he had doing it there were all well trained and experienced.
His grand-daughter didn’t know any of that. She was simply passionate about martial arts as a sport. Vexana trained there and she also helped out a couple of hours each day after school assisting in teaching the children’s classes. Torbalen had complete trust that his people would watch over her there with as much care as he did himself. Although of course, Vexana had no idea of his real role here on Skapandir. She knew he owned the dojo and maybe even believed she was the only one bringing him word of what happened there. But she was also not naive and would have worked out by now that there was some kind of Legacy connection with the place.
“Vexy, you know you mustn’t get into that kind of conversation with anyone.”
She glared at him.
“I just said she was talking with some of the others.”
“Good. Because it is really not — ”
“Not what?” Vexana snapped. “Not appropriate? Not my business? My parents died because of it so I think that makes it my business.”
She was brittle and defensive. He said the wrong thing, as he always did.
“My son and daughter-in-law died because of it, Vexy, and I would rather my granddaughter did not and I have the suspicion that they would’ve felt the same.”
“They died. You didn’t.”
He sighed heavily. It was an old argument and he had never yet won.
“I have given my life to The Leg— ”
“Really? How is that? You were just running a shipping business.” The girl almost spat with contempt. “How did that help anyone?”
“I was doing other things too.”
“Like what? Making a donation now and then? How very noble and heroic.”
“It wasn’t like that. We’ve been over this before. You know I can’t tell you exactly what I was — ”
Vexana made a sound that was a half-growl, half-groan of frustration and threw herself out of the chair, back towards the door. In a moment she would slam it hard and he would hear her feet thump down the small staircase.
He hated that.
Each time it happened he was left with the chill of fear that this might be the time it had gone too far and she might do something rash.
“Tell me then,” he said quickly, breaking the usual script of their ongoing melodrama. “Tell me about this new girl.”

 E.M. Swift-Hook 

She had never considered herself any more than passably attractive, thinking of her fellow debutantes as beautiful butterflies to her own pale moth. She watched the social whirl with a gentle smile, finding herself no more than mildly amused by the gyrations of her peers.

And then she met Him.

He was tall and wide-shouldered and even the sound of his voice in another room was enough to set her stomach fluttering like a captive bird.

He bowed over her hand and looked down into her eyes.

“Dance with me, beautiful.”

From that night she was beautiful – and beloved

©️jj 2019

The Rabid Readers Review Tempest Blades: The Withered King by Ricardo Victoria

The Withered King is a rollercoaster of a blockbuster. It starts fast and keeps right on coming at helter-skelter pace.
Fionn is an old-style heroic hero, the reclusive wielder of a Tempest Blade, and just about too old and too world-weary for another battle. But despite his reluctance, he comes to understand that figures from his past are reaching into the future and he has no option but to stand up and be counted.
He collects around him an oddly assorted group of friends and helpers (and the most wonderful airship) and together they go forth to face whatever fate has in store. Which is plenty.
This is on one side of the coin a traditional swashbuckling story of derring-do. On the other side, it collects together so many influences from mythology, to steampunk, to manga, to video gaming, that it becomes something entirely more complex.
I loved the breakneck pace and the fresh feel of the storytelling.
I was less happy with the sheer number of ideas crammed into one novel, at times I felt as if I was being bombarded by an overactive imagination and I wanted to shout ‘slow down’.
Taking the rough with the smooth though, this is an excellent read and I’d highly recommend it, both as a jolt to the system and as an involving piece of escapism.

Jane Jago

Final Fantasy Meets Science Fantasy

Fionn is a hero from another age and he has a lot of baggage around using his power and his magical blade even in the best cause. In the past, he has seen them bring him only sorrow, guilt and regret. But when a new adventure opens up he realises he can’t ignore what he is, who he is and he finds a new generation of ‘Gifted’ who need his help to master their skills.

What I really enjoyed:
The Pace. This is a book which seems to pack a page and a half of happenings on just about every page. It powers along and once you get into the story it is page-turning.
The Setting. This has the feel of a world the author knows well. A world that is never over-described, but has the sense of solidity that only great worldbuilding can provide.
The Plot. Complex, twisty and coming at you from all angles. The one thing it’s not is predictable or dull.

What I struggled with:
Two things, but both are purely personal gripes – taste not substance and between them, I’d maybe dock a half star.
The Banter. I am not big on this kind of stuff in the most ideal of situations but when our heroes take time out in the middle of a battle to stop and score verbal points off each other, I struggle to maintain any measure of disbelief.
The Lack of Realism. Even allowing for the fact this was a fantasy, I struggled in places to believe in the events as described. It was so much like anime it was, at times, as if all the rules of reality went out the window.

Overall Thoughts.
If you love anime style fantasy then this book is a must. The experience of reading it is unique in capturing that feel. 

E.M. Swift-Hook

She was as thin and frail as an autumn leaf and as she sat in the window the sunlight almost shone through her. It couldn’t, he knew, be long before she was called to her rest and his heart felt leaden in his chest.

She laid her face against his one last time, and he felt the life leave her body.

Almost blinded by tears, he picked her up and held her to his chest, walking carefully to where he knew the last portal awaited her. 

He should have put her down, but he walked on through.

He never returned…

©jj 2019

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. If you missed previous episodes you can start reading from the beginning. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Dai pulled the man out of the computer chair. Njord might be big-boned but he clearly was not one to keep himself much in shape.
“The domina is asking you a polite question, Torkel. I am not quite so polite. I want to know how a virus that affects your security surveillance on two separate occasions could have got onto your system without you knowing about it.”
The blond man’s face had turned red as Dai’s grip tightened.
“I don’t know,” he gasped. “I told you. I didn’t even know it was a virus the first time. Even your people didn’t find that. I only found it after the second outage.”
Dai decided that as he was getting some degree of cooperation he could be generous and let go. Njord dropped back onto his chair again.
“So how could it happen?”
The blond man started pulling up information in streams that meant very little to Dai, but he could see Julia scanning it rapidly, her expression focused.
“Here,” Njord said and pushed a finger at a line of random numerals.
Dai tried to look as though he had some idea what it meant, but it was Julia who asked:
“So where is that? Have you a plan of the arena – a schematic to show where that is geographically?”
Dai saw the refusal form on the blond man’s lips.
“Torkel,” he cautioned, “I don’t need to remind you to be polite to the domina, do I?”
The blue eyes glared at him with hatred, but Njord pulled up a 3D schemata for the complex and stabbed his finger at a small flashing pixel on the lowest below-ground level. 
“It’s there,” he said.
“What’s there?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s a blank wall.”
“So someone uploaded this whilst standing in that corridor,” Dai pointed to two clearly marked cameras even he could identify as such. “If we have the recordings from these for that time we -”
“You misunderstand,” Njord said. “If I am right and this is the signal that did it, then it was not uploaded from somewhere beside the wall – it was uploaded from somewhere inside the wall.”

The tunnel was an old one, dating back to the days they had fed people to the lions in the arena for denying the godhood of the divine Diocletian. When that had ceased to be a crime during the Enlightenment, the menagerie had become a place for keeping all the exotic animals a lanista might desire to put on interesting displays. But the animal fights had finally been outlawed throughout the Empire, along with slavery and discrimination on grounds of race or gender, a few years before Dai had been born. At which point the menagerie became a place to take your children to see the animals. The only deliberate deaths you could expect to witness in the arena nowadays were the public executions of traitors and murderers.
There was a popular joke that made much of the fact it was easier to get yourself accused of treason than murder. Even if you killed someone in front of witnesses you could get away with your life. But the slightest hint you might be involved in any anti-Roman activities and you would be arrested, tried and executed within the week. That was the usual job of the men Decimus had allocated to work with Julia and Dai, uncovering and arresting potential anti-Roman agitators, and Dai found it gave him an uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades every time he turned his back on them.
But it was their technology and their brawn which first found and then broke into the tunnel behind the wall and tracked along it in one direction to a manhole cover on the edge of the arena’s playing field and in the other to the menagerie.
At the menagerie end, it finished in a solid metal door. Whilst the Praetorians sent out for the appropriate equipment to break through. Dai and Julia left them to it and headed to the menagerie overground.

Part IX will be here next Sunday. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

He thought she would always be there, no matter what he said. Or did. He thought himself the centre of her world and he took her care for his comfort as no more than his due.

He left the house one rainy November morning unmoved by the tears in her eyes and the tremor in her hands.

He came home late, tired and hungry.

To an empty house.

There was a single word scrawled across the mirror in the hallway.

‘Asshole’ written in the bright red lipstick that his mistress used.

He never saw his wife again in this life…

©jj 2019

I stand in the supermart aisle
The trolly beside me half-full
A fractious and petulant child
Keeps giving my one hand a pull
Whilst I try to decide what to buy
And the emphasis there is on ‘try’

The choice set before me is vast
With strawberry, apple and peach
Avacado, or fresh lemongrass
And blueberry just out of reach
Cocoa or vanilla or plum
The choice is just making me glum.

What? Rosemary mixed in with quince?
Or would I like kiwi and pear?
I’m sure that would make a good drink
But which is best for my hair?
Would it be too much to ask, to
Have a little less food in shampoo?

E.M. Swift-Hook