Two Women and Some Books
As the year turns,
An arbitrary date.
We make vows,
Give hostages to fate.
I will do this.
Or I will not do that.
I will exercise.
I will not grow fat.
We bargain,
To better our own lot.
If I keep this
I give happiness a shot.
As the year turns,
And daily we grow older
We make promises
In fear of growing colder
©️ jane jago 2017
The first thing to say is that this list is not an exclusive list of all the great Indie books out there – or even all the great indie books we have read this year. It is a well-considered recommended reading list of books we have enjoyed in the last twelve months, consciously spanning genres. So whilst this is most decidedly a list of excellence it is not claiming to be definitive or anything like.
The second thing to say is, we recommend these books wholeheartedly and if you have yet to read them you should consider doing so if they are in a genre you enjoy.
So, onto the list. This is given in alphabetical order of author name and there is no ranking. All are stonking good reads.
The Gaia Effect – Claire Buss
That rare beast, a dystopian book with a real glow of hope.
Vengeance of Snails – Chrys Cymri
It could honestly have been any or all of the Penny White novels, but this was chosen for being the darkest.
The Dying Of Mother Seed – India Emerald
This is one of those stories you can’t say much about without spoilers, just that India is the mistress of the twist in the tale.
Austism – Dwayne Fry
This story tackles prejudice face on. It’s wrenching, but humorous too.
A Time Of Need – Brent A Harris
This truly engaging ‘what if’ that takes a tilt at American history
Murder in Absentia – Assaph Mehr
A Roman-style whodunit in a world with magic.
Selia’s Promise – Christina McMullen
A truly frightening view of the future, read it and be afraid.
Hand and Talon – Melonie Purcell
Fabulous fantasy and with strong characters.
Druid’s Portal – Cindy Tomamichel
Time-travel romance back to Roman times which challenges a lot of our assumptions about the nature of history.
Zombie Turkeys – Andy Zach
Wonderful dry humour and social comment – and zombie turkeys!
And here’s to another year of great reading in 2018!
Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.
It was deep midwinter just days short of his eighth nameday when they told Edgar FitzJohn his father was believed dead. His stepmother came to his bedside in the dark of the night. She came alone, and with her glorious hair unbound. When he sat up blinking she bent to kiss his brow.
“Can you be brave?” she whispered.
“I can try.”
She reached to ruffle his straight, black hair. “Do not give up hope. If you will trust me then we can hope that all will be well in the end.” She showed him a little charm such as women wear on bracelets, in the shape of a Welsh harp. “Should anybody show you such a token as this, then you may trust them.” She pulled him into her arms and hugged him fiercely, before stealing away again.
The next morning, he awoke to a great bustle. Mother’s father and her brother had arrived from the city, and it seemed to Edgar that the place was full of big red-faced blond-bearded giants who were most efficiently taking over. He thought to question, but his stepmother’s closed face, and her visit in the darkest hours, kept him silent. His grandfather looked down at him, and smiled a wolffish smile.
“Isn’t this one about ready for fostering?” although his voice seemed casual, Edgar could sense some deep inner excitement.
“He is indeed,” Mother answered coolly. “In fact he leaves on the morrow. He goes to my lord’s sister in Lancaster.”
Grandfather chewed his lip and spluttered, but could think of no useful response. Uncle Aled moved to smooth over the situation. “Excuse our father. It is the surprise. We did not know of this.”
Mother lifted one of her smooth, white shoulders. “How should you know? The arrangement was made long since.”
On the morrow, Edgar set out, clad warmly in wool and leather, mounted on a surefooted pony, and guarded by six of his ‘grandfather’s’ surly Saxons. They rode in uncomfortable silence.
After spending the night at a wayside inn, the party entered the forest at first light. One of the Saxons shivered.
“I mislike this place,” he growled.
“It’s worse in summer,” the oldest member of his escort opined, “at least you can see what is coming to attack you when the trees are bare.”
Of course he was wrong. They saw nothing until the dark figures sprung up out of the loam. It was a brief, dirty, fight, which left four Saxons dead and two wounded, but walking. Edgar found himself pulled firmly from the back of his mount and pushed down into the dark soil. He might have fought, but his captor showed him a ring in the semblance of a Welsh harp. The dark men quickly caught the Saxons’ horses, but somehow Edgar’s pony seemed to escape them and it careered off into the forest dragging something in its wake. The least hurt of the Saxon warriors looked at the fleeing pony with something like dread in his eyes.
“Do you know who that is?” Receiving no answer he ploughed on. “That’s the grandson of Eudric the Red, that is.”
“Was,” one of the folk grunted. “Will be dead by now. If you want to stay alive, walk.”
The two Saxons walked, and nobody moved until they had gone out of sight and earshot.
After that things happened so fast that Edgar could only remain quiet and allow himself to be borne along on a human tide.
Back at Castle Borso, the chatelaine shut herself in her rooms to mourn the death of her husband and his son, whilst her father and brother dug themselves firmly into position as the castellan and master at arms.
This matters stood a full twelvemonth later, when the Castellan intercepted a letter addressed to his daughter. He read it and hissed his displeasure. Aled looked up from where he sprawled on the hearthrug in company with his wolfhounds.
“What?”
The old man threw the letter into his lap. “We are to make ready for visitors.”
“Visitors indeed. Now I suggest you seal this up and have it delivered to my sister. We don’t want her to be able to tell the Queen’s Majesty that she did not receive it.”
His father grunted, but obeyed.
What the Queen’s letter neglected to mention was that she was bringing John FitzJohn with her to reclaim his property. Those Saxons who survived the purge were turned, naked into the cold with prices on their heads.
As the castle prepared for a joyous Yuletide, the lady looked into her husband’s deep dark eyes and smiled a secret smile.
“Will you come for a ride?”
He looked puzzled but readily agreed. They set out with only two trusted guards, one of whom led a laden packhorse.
John quirked a mobile brow, and his lady laughed, high and clear.
“These are people to whom we owe a debt.” Then she closed her mouth firmly and urged her mare to a canter. They followed a rough track up out of the fertile valley and onto the springy moorland turf.
It was about an hour’s ride in the crisp winter air until they came to an isolated farmstead. In the yard a dog barked, and a broad-shouldered tow-headed man came to the gate. Seeing who it was, he relaxed, and bowed before opening up to admit his visitors. He whistled two notes and a tall dark-haired youngster came charging out of the house. John stared for a second, then all but fell from his saddle. In an instant, he had the boy in his arms and was laughing and crying at the same time.
“They told me you were dead.”
“Aye. And they told us you were dead, Father. But Mother didn’t trust them. So she hid me.”
John turned to his wife. She dimpled demurely.
“I told you I had a Yuletide gift for you, my love.”
©️ Jane Jago 2017
I am old, and today my bones ache
And I’m sloughing my skin like a snake
My wrinkles are saggy
My arse very baggy
I think I’ll just stay home and bake
© jane jago 2017
#87: Christmas
Ah. Christmas the time of cheery carollers, sleigh bells, and happy families. Or, looking at it less romantically, the time of burnt dinners, family fights, and divorce.
That first Christmas together. That’s the one that sets the pattern for all the others. Do not go to his mother’s. Or yours. Ideally, see no one and do a lot of sex.
Given that that isn’t happening, here are a few ground rules.
1. Do not be cozened into buying them tins of mixed sweeties. There will be at least two thirds that nobody likes. You will be reduced to feeding them to the dog in August.
2. Booze. Do not buy eggy stuff. It looks like snot and it tastes like snot, and nobody will drink it. If granny likes a Snowball. Buy a couple of ready made ones in pouches. She will only go to sleep with her face in the sprouts if you give her proper booze.
3. The Turkey. You do not need something the size of a Shetland Pony to feed you, your husband, and granny. Small is beautiful. After all nobody really likes turkey anyway.
4. Cooking. There’s a lot of rot talked about Christmas dinner. Do plenty of roast potatoes and a ton of them little sausages wrapped in bacon, because that’s all anybody eats.
5 Most importantly. The Punch. It should be very strong. And to begin with it should taste nice. After The Queen’s Speech it pretty much stops mattering. By that time people will drink meths.
And that is the secret of Christmas in a nutshell (NB do not buy nuts somebody – usually your new husband’s cousin from Reading – will inevitably display the symptoms of anaphylactic shock if you do).
Granny’s Punch
1 litre brandy
1 litre vodka
1 bottle ginger wine
1 litre pineapple juice
1 litre ginger ale
1 net of baby oranges
1 large tin pineapple chunks
Loads of glacé cherries
Punch bowl/clean plastic bucket/WHY
Ice
Cut the oranges in halves, then throw everything in the punch bowl. Drink much of it yourself.
It was just about dusk on Christmas Eve when an army of cleaners, decorators and caterers moved out of the old farmhouse on the edge of Exmoor. They piled into their respective vans and headed home. As it turned out, they were not a moment too early. The nose of a silver Bentley poked its way onto the slightly rutted drive as the last white Ford Transit pulled out.
The woman in the passenger seat of the big car pulled a sour face.
‘I hope that was the last of them, they had strict instructions to be gone before we were due to arrive.’
Her companion patted her leg. ‘We are early, darling’ he said consolingly.
She shut her mouth with a snap, and anyone less infatuated might have seen a resemblance to a rat trap in the way her even white teeth closed together.
The Bentley rounded a bend in the drive and the occupants could see the long, low house. Every window was picked out with lights, a big tree in the front garden stood garlanded with sparkling icicles, and the smoking chimneys betokened traditional welcome. The driver held his breath for a second, before his passenger made a small sound of satisfaction rather like a pleased cat.
‘Oh yes’ she purred ‘it’s perfect isn’t it. Our American friends will be so impressed, won’t they?’
The man was bright enough to recognise a rhetorical question when he heard one, and contented himself with a covert study of her perfect profile.
As the car slid to a halt, the woman leapt out tripped up the steps, and put her hand on the big oak front door. She pushed it wide and walked into a massive flagstoned entrance hall. Inhaling deeply, she could smell cloves, cinnamon, ginger and the subtle scent of the evergreen garlands twined around the beams. She turned to face her husband as he came into the house.
‘Aren’t I a clever girl’ she gloated.
‘Oh. You are. Shall we look at the rest of the place?’
They wandered from room to room, admiring the decorations and the carefully prepared welcome. If the man swallowed uncomfortably when he saw his ex-wife’s treasured family heirlooms tastefully arranged on the huge Christmas tree, he said nothing.
As the house came without staff, the kitchen had to be visited – fortunately all was carefully arranged in readiness, even down to a punchbowl and glasses, which awaited the mulled wine sitting warming gently on the back of the Aga, and a folder of neatly typed instructions ensured that all would go without a hitch.
The man’s phone bleeped and his companion removed it from his pocket. She looked at the readout, and deleted the call with a flick of one perfectly manicured finger. He wondered briefly who he wasn’t to be allowed to speak to, but his young wife inhaled deeply and the creamy slopes of her breasts distracted his attention. He put a hand on her ass, and she smacked it away pettishly.
‘Not now….’ Her phone jingled festively and she looked at the screen.
‘Our guests have left Exeter. They will be here in just over an hour.’
She smiled, a smile of completely self-absorbed satisfaction, before turning her attention back to her spouse. He didn’t smile back, resentful that she had slapped away his questing hand. Catching on quickly, she patted his jowly and slightly pouting face before running the tip of a pink tongue over a pair of plump and glossy lips.
‘That gives us just enough time…’ she breathed.
Taking the end of his tie in one dainty hand, she led him towards the master bedroom: a fatuously smiling lamb to the slaughter.
By the time a luxurious minibus full of American visitors rolled up the drive it was full dark, and every window of the long low house blazed a welcome. The front door stood open, and the six occupants of the bus climbed out onto the centuries old cobbles.
One of the women spoke. ‘Gee, this is some place.’
‘Ain’t it just, honey.’
Their hostess came down the two worn steps to greet them.
‘Come in. Come in. We have mulled wine and mince pies to thaw you out.’
The Americans dropped their coats on an oak settle in the passage and followed their hostess’ undulating buttocks into a sitting room where a log fire blazed in an enormous inglenook fireplace and a sparkling Christmas tree reached to the ceiling.
‘Oh, isn’t this just quaint.’
The sound of wheels on flagstones announced the arrival of their host, pushing a trolley with a bowl of steaming mulled wine and a big dish of mince pies. When everyone was served, the men took station in front of the big log fire while the women poked around the room. The quartet stopped in front of the Christmas tree.
‘Gee. Those trimmings are real unusual.’
‘They are mostly Victorian, heirlooms in my husband’s family. We treasure them. The string of soldiers is handmade from wooden clothespins, the baubles are all hand-blown glass, the silver bird candle holders came from Asprey’s just before the turn of the century, and the angel has a porcelain head, and real feather wings.’
‘Isn’t that just lovely.’
As the women wandered back towards the fire, anyone who was bothering to notice might have seen that their host suddenly looked uncomfortable and shuffled his feet. But nobody looked, and nobody cared. A fat man in his middle fifties who actually marries the twenty-three-year-old ‘glamour model’ who has been warming his bed forfeits the right to be noticed – except as an object of derision.
An hour later hunger called, and the members of the house party were all bundled into coats and boots, and ready to tramp along the footpath leading to the village with its welcoming pub. Behind them the farmhouse remained ablaze with festive lights.
In the sitting room a gruff voice spoke from somewhere in the vicinity of the Christmas tree. It was one of the clothespin soldiers.
‘It ain’t right.’
‘What ain’t right?’ His left-hand neighbour asked.
‘Heirlooms in my husband’s family’ the voice was scornful. ‘Since when did we belong to that fat bastard or the overpainted tart?’
‘Since never.’
The soldiers grumbled amongst themselves for some time before they were interrupted by an ice-cold cut-glass voice from the apex of the tree.
‘This place displeases me. Why are we here?’
Nobody spoke for a while, then one of the silver birds found its voice. ‘We awoke once, to find ourselves lifted in the claws of that female. We thought she was about to dash us to the ground when another human spoke. It told her we were too valuable to destroy. Then it said if she wanted to cause hurt to our own lady she should keep us.’
There was another silence then a strangely echoing voice piped in.
‘Permission to speak ma’am?’
‘We do not know your voice. Who are you?’
‘We are the silver stars around your feet. We have seen this before. The fat male has repudiated your lady and taken the plastic one as his mate. In this world they call it a divorce.’
The angel hissed.
‘This is unsupportable.’
‘It is, ma’am’ the others spoke as one.
‘What are we prepared to do about it?’
‘Whatever it takes.’
‘Be silent then, and let me think.’
There was a pregnant silence, then the angel spoke again.
‘Are there candles in your claws, silver birds?’
‘Yes ma’am. There are.’
‘Very well. Wait.’
It was late, exceedingly late, when eight humans, in various states of inebriation, returned to the old house and rolled into bed. Nobody switched out the Christmas lights, and nobody bothered to put a guard around the blazing logs in the inglenook.
In a very short time the household was silent once more, except for a couple of very sonorous snores. Outside, the frost sparkled on the grass and the house lights blazed against the dark sky.
The cold cut-glass tones from the treetop spoke one word and the soldiers set to work.
Three hours later the frost still sparkled on the grass, but the lights that blazed against the sky now were the blue flashing lights on the roofs of fire engines.
A man in a yellow helmet shook his head sorrowfully.
‘No survivors?’
His colleague nodded.
‘None.’
Those with very sharp ears, and open minds, might have heard derisive laughter in crystal clear tones, high, wild bird song, and marching feet in perfect unison. But the firefighters were too busy to hear, and nobody else cared…
© jane jago 2016
I dream this night
Of snowflakes white
And frost that bites
I smell the smell
Of pine as well
Whereat I dwell
In my mind’s eye
The Christmas pie
Goes dancing by
I dream today
Of games to play
And words to say
Oh Christmas Muse
Whose shiny shoes
Give one the blues
I dream of thee
Incessantly
Along with Street of Quality.
Dear Reader Who Writes,
It is that time of year again when tinsel and fake snow are seen liberally strewn over windows and every house in the neighbourhood is illuminated by thousands of watts worth of multicoloured flashing bulbs. Giant inflatable Santas bend at the waist as they slowly prolapse onto the lawn and herds of plastic reindeer can be found grazing on every municipal greensward.
Ah yes, Christmas!
The time every writer remembers the magic as a child of seeing the Christmas tree lit up after hearing swearing coming from the front room for an hour. Or the apparently endless amounts of food on a groaning board, whilst relatives are sitting, groaning, bored and picking fights for the sake of it. Or the sound of carols through the shopping-mall loudspeakers being interrupted by non-sequitur advertisements and announcements. Or the excitement of unwrapping presents so quickly replaced by the despair as another Christmas jumper hand knitted by Great Aunt Tracey is revealed beneath the gaudy paper or a pair of thermal, odour-reducing socks in vibrant tartan from Mumsie.
This, dear RWW, is the very magic you need to ensure you capture on the tip of your quill and then spread in decorative loops and swirls of language to fill the pages of that essential for every aspiring author – the Seasonal Short.
To be honest, a wise beginner will start with the lesser festivals of the writing calendar. Maybe a little romantic flash fiction for Valentine’s, working through to a Halloween Horror so that by the time you reach the height of over-played, sentimentalism that is Christmas literature, you will have the technique somewhat practised.
But fear not, mes petites, even if you have not been preparing, even if you have never set pen to paper or finger to keyboard in a literary endeavour afore this moment, follow my three golden rules and you will be in with as much of a chance as the most famous author.
Do not stop at soppy and sentimental, instead toboggan through the more flaccid emotions and pitch straight into the point where Merry marries Melancholy and keeps up an affair on the side with Nostalgia.
This is Christmas. Your reader will be well sozzled, exhausted from family rows and trying to avoid the Queen’s speech. Their attention span will not be long. A novella is too long.
Use lots of words like ‘sparkle’, ‘glitter’, ‘glow,’ ‘luminescence’, ‘coruscation’, ‘shimmer’, ‘gleam’ and ‘twinkle’.
So there, in a Nutcracker Suite, dear Reader Who Writes, is my Christmas gift to you. Use it wisely and every future festive season will bring you joyous prosperity from your literary endeavours.
Happy Christmas.
