Blazing, maddened, scarlet eyes turned to focus on Grace out of the depths of black wrinkles. The sclerae of the gorilla soldier’s eyes were a brilliant red, his irises a deep, dark brown. His pupils were enormous. Grace knew immediately that this soldier had been exposed to trifluoroquinthiomataze, a gaseous weapon used in biological warfare which, when inhaled, caused psychosis, paranoia, eventual blindness, and ultimately, death.

Grace was suddenly shoved flat to the ground, her right cheek bouncing hard off of the rough floor. The enraged gorilla soldier dove over top of her, like a rocket whizzing by. She realized that this delusional gorilla soldier had probably just been brought in from a battlefield where Tri-FQ had been released. In his gas-induced psychosis, there was no telling what he was seeing or thinking. He desperately needed the antidote.

The torn chains flapping from his limbs clearly indicated that he had broken the restraints that had been for his own safety, as well as others. Grace suspected the medics had run out of the antidote for Tri-FQ in the field. They were always prepared for its possible release. Unfortunately, this powerful gorilla soldier had managed to tear himself loose in his madness. Space only knew what was going on in the soldier’s mind. The bright red sclerae indicated that the gorilla soldier was heading rapidly down the road towards insanity and irreversible disease.

It was paramount that Grace get the antidote into him as quickly as possible.

“Get me a syringe full of 100 milligrams of Antiquint along with 1 gram of Stilzine, stat!” Grace screamed at a silver android, standing off to one side of the engagement, just as the two tiger soldiers leaped on top of the infuriated gorilla soldier and attempted to hold him down. They were both flung away, as if they were mere insects, and the Tri-FQ poisoned gorilla again made a charge straight for Grace.

‘Why me?’ a little voice in Grace’s head wailed, as she watched the enraged gorilla soldier stampede straight towards her. All she could focus on were the reds of the combat soldier’s eyes, as she tensed for the inevitable impact. A split second before he slammed into her, the grizzly bear sergeant leaped into the gorilla soldier’s path and threw a right hook that Grace thought would have crumpled a space shuttle.

The gas-crazed gorilla soldier just shook off the punch and threw one of his own. The sergeant grunted with the impact but stood his ground. Grace gawked as the two titans began swinging their massive fists, striking each other with punishing blows. Grace was then struck in her abdomen by a diving wolfman, who tackled her out of the way, just as the grizzly bear sergeant was forced backwards by the advancing gorilla. The sergeant stomped onto the spot Grace had just vacated.

The two genetically modified soldiers, grizzly bear versus gorilla, roared deafeningly at each other. They continued rapidly launching lethal punches, kicks, and blocks, inhumanly and powerfully fast. Staccato-like, the impacts of those furious assaults rang out loudly in the Receiving Bay. Grace could barely see the movement of their swinging limbs, they flew so fast. She knew that any one of those punches, connecting with her body, would have left her in a puddle of broken bones.

Skidding across the floor, wrapped within the wolfman’s arms, Grace finally came to rest at the feet of the silver android. Silently and gracefully, it bent down and offered her a filled syringe with a long, large bore needle. On the side of it was neatly printed Antiquint and Stilzine, with the accompanying milligram dosages. It was enough drug to fell a creature twenty times Grace’s size and weight. With no time to thank the android, Grace found herself air-born again, her right hand clutching the syringe tightly. Tossed from the wolfman to the orangutan soldier, who then whipped her up over his shoulder—almost making her drop the syringe!—she was carried up the side of the space shuttle.

Quick on the orangutan’s heels was the gorilla, who had managed to throw his grizzly bear opponent out of the way. Grace stared directly into maddened, blood red eyes, as the gorilla soldier shrieked his frustration, lunging after her. She saw the two tigers then leap onto the crazed gorilla’s back, grabbing an arm each, while the wolf dove to wrap his arms around the gorilla’s legs. The grizzly bear sergeant then rushed up between the two tigers and locked his great arms around the drug-crazed soldier’s chest, pinning the gorilla’s arms in a tight bear hug from behind. The sergeant began slowly squeezing the chest of the huge gorilla soldier while the other three men held on, anchoring him in place. The psychotic gorilla struggled, but the grizzly bear’s arms held firm, the sergeant’s face etched with strain.

“Hold him tight,” ordered Grace, in a loud, commanding voice. “And put me down!” she hollered at the orangutan. The apeman released Grace so suddenly, she slid off the side of the space shuttle and almost fell to her knees. Cursing, she raised the precious syringe high in the air to protect it.

You can pick up Welcome to the Madhouse first book in The Grace Lord Series by Sharon Sasaki for free!

Q1: What is your favourite breed of dog?

Q2: What foodstuffs are you most nostalgic for from your childhood?

Q3: A new planet is discovered where a human colony can be built – you win the lottery to name it. What name would you choose?

About Sharon Sasaki
I am a third generation Japanese Canadian. From a very young age, I wanted to be a writer and artist. I carried a pad and pencil everywhere, but my parents told me I would 'starve as a writer/artist'. They told me I had to be a doctor or a Ph.D. I went into research and was in a Ph.D. program at the University of Toronto in the Neuroscience field. I published papers in the Journal of Cell Biology and Brain Research but I found that research was just not for me. I went into medical school and became a family doctor. After practicing as a solo GP in a small rural town for over twenty years, having raised two beautiful children with my chiropractor husband, I became 'burnt out' and switched to surgical assisting. It was then that I began to write again. I had feared that the stories in my head had gone forever, but they’ve slowly returned and I attempt to do them justice. I have begun painting again and I create collages with Japanese papers. Whether I become a ‘successful writer’ or not is inconsequential. If I can share my stories with a small group of readers and make them laugh and yell, “Oh!” or “You bastard!” out loud, I will be pleased.

My first science fiction novel is about a medical space station and is titled ‘Welcome to the Madhouse’. It received an excellent review from Kirkus Reviews - ’A layered debut that sings odes to the grandmasters of sci-fi’ - and was featured in their September 2015 magazine. The sequel, ‘Bud by the Grace of God’ also received an excellent review - ‘Both a paean to the sci-fi genre and a captivating return to a space station in a complex universe.’ It was featured in the September 2016 Kirkus Reviews magazine in the Indie section. The third book in The Grace Lord Series is titled ‘Amazing Grace’ and will hopefully be published before Christmas.

If you are interested in checking out my visual artwork, you can go to my website.

In the master bedroom, a woman shut the door between herself and the scores of well-meaning friends and relations who filled the house with their hustle and bustle. She sat down in front of her mirror and began making herself ready to face the hardest day of her life. She worked carefully, taking each step of the ritual slowly, and attempting to brace herself with the simple fact of its familiarity. It was a routine in which each item on her dressing table had its allotted place, and was to be used at its allotted time.

She noticed dispassionately how sorrow and lack of sleep had wreaked havoc with her face, and dabbled random snatches of grey into her cap of mouse-brown hair. Even the softly flattering antique mirror she had inherited from her mother’s grandmother couldn’t make her seem anything but old, and sad, and somehow diminished on this particular morning. ‘You look a proper hag’ she said to her reflection, before gently putting her hairbrush in its accustomed place. She picked up her rings from the little glass bowl beside her, where they always lived when she wasn’t wearing them. After sliding them onto her fingers, she closed her eyes while she threaded gold hoops into the holes in her earlobes.

Feeling the warm weight of two hands on her shoulders, she opened her eyes and managed a half smile for the man who stood behind her.
‘You all right?’
‘No. But I will be.’
‘Good girl.’
She looked down at the rings on her left hand for a moment before saying what was at the very front of her mind.
‘It occurs to me that if I believed in the resurrection and the light, and the possibility of eternal life in the hands of a loving God, today might be a comfort to me…’
‘It might indeed. But as you don’t, not even a little bit, it will be just one more thing to be endured.’
Being so completely understood was like balm to her shredded nerve endings and she put the hand she had been so carefully studying on top of the big square one on her left shoulder.
‘Oh I do love you’ she said with almost childlike simplicity ‘I just don’t tell you enough.’
‘That’s all right’ he replied, in the deep imperturbable voice that had been her lodestone for more than forty years ‘I know. I’ve always known.’
She allowed herself the luxury of leaning back and resting her head against the solid wall of his chest. Closing her eyes she let the tears run unchecked down her cheeks.
‘Don’t cry, love.’
‘Am not. Much.’
Then she felt him bend and rest his cheek against her hair. They stayed like that for a long time, each drawing courage from the other as they had done so many times before. When he finally lifted his head, their eyes met in the silvery depths of the mirror.
‘I just wish…’

But she was never to hear what he wished as there came a tap on the door and her sister’s worried face peeped around the panels.
‘Are you ready? It’s just that the cars are here.’
She stood up and squared her shoulders. ‘Yes. Coming now.’

So she left that place of sanctuary, and went downstairs. Down to where people wore black clothes and sombre faces, and where the hearse bearing her husband’s coffin waited in the street.

© Jane Jago 2017

The road ahead seems long, but with you by my side
I will not feel the miles, I’ll take them in my stride.

And if the path grows steep, I’ll not the low-road seek,
But strengthened by your arm, I will scale the peak.

When night falls into dark and all about is cold,
Your words will keep me warm, your presence make me bold.

And then at journey’s end, whenever that might be
I’ll settle down to sleep and know that you’re with me.

E.M. Swift-hook.

Review by Jane Jago.

Murder in Absentia introduces us to Felix the Fox and his world.

Felix is the son of a bankrupt suicide who makes his living solving mysteries. He lives in Egretia – which is not Rome.

I choose to emphasise not Rome because Egretia is the author’s own creation. It is a world based on ancient Rome but with its own life and its own particular ideas and ideals. This is an interesting and complex notion, that is handled with some skill. The world Felix inhabits quickly takes life, and the sounds, smells and geography are very well portrayed. Felix himself feels as if he is a handsome devil, who could well know he is attractive to women, but is not written as smug or vain. In the end, I liked him even if it took a while. He is well drawn, but I could wish for a little more meat on the bones of the other characters, especially the females. As an aside here, on character development, the person, aside from Felix, we come to know best is dead when we meet him.

Now to the story. In its essence it’s a simple whodunnit. A young man dies and our hero is tasked with finding out how, why, and who is responsible. I don’t think it is in any way a spoiler to say that this is no ordinary death, there is no poison, and no fatal wound. So what killed Caeso?  Finding out is a dangerous and complex business, and one that draws the reader deep into Egretia and the world in which it sits.

This is a cracking story and a guaranteed page turner although I felt it took a few chapters to get properly into its stride. It’s an excellent read, and is twisty enough for the most dedicated of mystery readers, complex enough for lovers of fantasy, and scholarly enough to feed the interest of alternative history buffs.

I shall hope to meet Felix again.

4.5 stars rounded to 5

Review by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Rara avis.

‘Our city may be named after the regal birds that grace our shores, but our people march on squid.’

Egretia is Ancient Rome, but Ancient Rome in a parallel universe where magic is real. This is historical urban fantasy at its best and it will appeal to all who have enjoyed the works of Lindsey Davis, Rosemary Rowe, Steven Saylor, David Wishart, Ruth Downie, Jane Finnis and a handful of other authors who have set their whodunit solving heroes lose in a Roman setting. But Assaph Mehr‘s hero, Felix the Fox, has both the advantage and the disadvantage of living in a world where magic is real. He has some small command over it himself, but he is up against those who know much more powerful spells than he does.

Then story opens with Felix being asked to look into the strange death of a local official’s son. It turns out an ancient and powerful magic had to be involved and Felix has to call on the knowledge, skill and ability of several friends and enemies to try to get some idea of what is going on. Secret cabals and ancient manuscripts, death curses and pretty actresses, sea voyages and gladiatorial games, mysterious prophecies and mythical beasts that are real in his world, all play their part in helping Felix track down the reason the young man died.

‘I am not usually afflicted by bouts of honour and disposing of the bodies in the nearest sewer would have been quicker, but I have seen enough vengeful shades of the dead not to want one associated with my home.’

This is a well-written book with a well developed and believable world. The author has clearly spent a lot of time researching into Ancient Rome and then taking the history and using it as a brilliant raw resource to craft his own landscape of an alternative Ancient Mediterranean world. It is not only Ancient Rome we see on display in Egretia, but Ancient Greece (Hellica) and Egypt (Mitzrana) as well. The characters are very well painted into the background scenery, even those we only meet in passing like Crassitius, the lanista who hires Felix a bodyguard gladiator, have their own personalities well shaped and on show, the result is a very solid and totally credible world.

The pace is well managed, a little slow perhaps at the beginning due to some scene setting, but quickly picking up to a pleasing clip which is then maintained throughout the rest of the book. The story has some extremely intriguing twists and turns and I would be telling fibs if I were to try to claim that I saw the final denouement coming in advance. To make the whole even more of a delight, the book is lightly garnished with touches of humour.

‘She tried to snatch her hand back, but found it bound to the table with the shimmering tracery holding her wrist tight.’

My main criticism of the book is in the earlier pages when the amount of information delivered almost turns into a lecture. Correction, it does turn into a lecture at a couple of points. A slightly less heavy hand would have created a better impression from the off, but I have to say it is swiftly forgotten once the book gets going. The other issue I feel which was skated close to, but never quite breached, was the limits on the magic Felix could command. On a couple of occasions, it did brush very lightly against being a bit too convenient that he just happened to have a spell that could do what was needed.

Overall, I loved this book. Anyone who, like me, has hunted out just about every author of Roman whodunits or who loves urban fantasy with an alternative historical twist, will want to read this.

5 Stars

You can find out more about Assaph, Felix the Fox and the world of Egretia – including the soon to be released second book in the series ‘In Numina’ on the Egretia Website.

Can science create proper life?
Will Frankenstein make him a wife?
Can a sentient soul
Be grown in a bowl?
Or is mankind just heading for strife?

© jane jago 2017

From Dying as a Druid – the latest Dai and Julia Mystery which is out today.

After a final blessing, the doors of the sanctuary were closed behind the shivering priests, who scuttled inside bearing with them the expensive offerings of a grateful city.

“Thank you so much for doing that, Julia, especially with it being so cold. I do have to think the Divine Diocletian didn’t have in mind that we should stand freezing in his honour when these festivities were first added to Saturnalia,” Caudinus observed as they made their way back across the atrium. “But then I don’t suppose it gets quite so cold in Spalatum in December as it does here in Cornovii so it was prob-”

“Magistratus!”

Their escort had move smartly to come between Caudinus and the two men who suddenly appeared from the dispersing crowd, shepherding a smaller cloak-wrapped figure between them.

Caudinus frowned and made a frustrated tutting sound as they came to a halt in the middle of the atrium.

“I am Mot Fionn, dominus. This is my father Kalgo and my only child Megan.”

Julia realised with a slight shock of surprise that she recognised the name. Dai had told her how this time last year, well before he had even met Julia, Hywel had tried to match-make Megan and Dai on a blind date. The Fionns were neighbours to the Llewellyn lands, such close neighbours that their land wrapped around a strip of Hywel’s. Megan was the heiress to the Fionn lands and it had seemed a good idea to both families if an alliance could be arranged. But, it had not gone well, by Dai’s account and had finished with him returning an unhappy and rather drunk Megan home whilst not being exactly sober himself.

Dai had told her Megan was a young woman but had not said how young. Julia could see she was still really a child, maybe seventeen and beneath the hood of her cloak her face looked pinched and miserable.

“Please, Magistratus, I demand justice for my child,” Mot called out. “She has been treated badly and left in a sorry state.”

Caudinus gestured to his guards to let the trio approach.

“This is not the time or place, Fionn, but tell me the thrust of it quickly and then put the details in an email. When we get back to business after the festival I will see you have your justice.”

The two men were glaring at him with cold antipathy. Julia glanced at Megan, but she had her head lowered as if protecting something she was holding under the cloak.

“So? What is this? Speak up. I am willing to hear you, but not to freeze whilst you take your time thinking of what to say.”

“My apologies, dominus,” Kalgo said, bobbing his head respectfully. “It is just – I – well, we – are afraid to speak.”

Caudinus was frowning now.

“Unless you need to admit to some crime, you have no need to be afraid to speak. Just tell me what this is about.”

“With the greatest respect, dominus,” Mot said, his tone obsequious, “there is always peril is speaking truth to power. You are known to be a just and fair man, but when matters touch one’s own family – justice can be lost.”

“Oh for -” Caudinus snapped his mouth shut and drew a breath. “Part of being ‘just and fair’ is not favouring any. Now, please state your problem so we can all get into the warm.”

“Then I state here before witnesses that Dai Llewellyn fathered a child on my daughter and abandoned them both to marry another.” As he spoke he pulled open Megan’s cloak to show the dark-haired infant she held. Julia found the air she was breathing had no oxygen. An odd, detached and lightheaded sensation pulsed behind her eyes. For a moment she even thought she might faint.

Caudinus raised a hand to silence the sudden low buzz of speculation.

“You can’t just walk up to someone and make accusations like that, Fionn. This is not the time or the place – this is a temple on a sacred holiday, not a family court session.”

But Mot was pushing Megan forward, so much that she staggered a couple of paces, clutching the infant to her. Julia put out an instinctive hand to stop the girl stumbling and her face looked up in abject misery.

“Tell them, girl,” Mot demanded, “tell them who is the father of your child. Swear it before the gods and the people.”

“Dai Llewellyn is the father of my child,” she said the words in little more than a whisper.

“And?” Kalgo growled as if prompting her in a lesson.

“And I do swear it before the gods and the people.”

That was enough, more than enough, to set flame to the tinder of crowd gossip and Caudinus had to shout this time to get attention. Julia fought down the impulse to scream and run. With her head pounding and her heart lead in her breast, she drew on her years of military training to stand erect and proud.

“That is enough, Fionn!” Caudinus was saying. “Get your daughter and her baby into the warm and make a proper presentation of your claim in due legal manner. And if I find this is an accusation without proof -”

“We have proof, dominus,” Kalgo told him, face twisting in a grimace. “We have DNA test results. And don’t worry we’ll put it all in legal writing and send it to you like you ask.” He jerked his head and Mot almost pulled Megan over, as he seized her arm and strode off. In Megan’s arms, the baby started crying and the wails seemed to transfix the people in the temple precincts until the Fionn family had walked back out through the gate.

Dying as a Druid is the fourth in the Dai and Julia mysteries by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

When launching a book don’t get corny
And don’t let your hero be horny
Even if slags
Are your natural bag
You can’t make a whodunnit porny

© jane jago 2017

She pushed the buggy briskly, half listening to the twins yakking away about whatever, and half making a shopping list in her head. That double concentration must have been why she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. She certainly never felt the stunning blow to the back of her head. She dropped like a stone, but it can only have been moments before she found herself looking into a pair of concerned eyes. She tried to sit up, but the world began spinning and she felt very sick.
“The children,” she managed to whisper, “are the twins okay?”
“What children? There are no children here.”
She managed to push the nausea back far enough to scramble into a seated position and grab her saviour by the arm.
“The twins. Eli and Ahab.” She could hear her own voice skirling up towards hysteria. “They are in their buggy. I was taking them to the supermarket. They love the supermarket.”
The man who knelt beside her turned his attention to the rapidly growing crowd.
“Anybody seen any children?”
“The place is lousy with ‘em,” a coarse voice replied. “What children?”
“Twins,” the man said, “twins in a buggy.”
“What. Them weird kids? I seen them just now, with a bloke in running gear pushing the buggy. I just fort they ‘ad a new nanny. They gets a new one about every month.”
The man looked down at the obviously concussed girl and smiled reassuringly.
“The police are on their way. We called them when it became obvious you had been attacked.”
As if the very words had summoned her, a young policewoman pushed through the knot of onlookers to crouch at the injured girl’s side.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“The children. Somebody took the children…”
“Your children?”
“No. I’m their nanny. But what does it matter who… You need to find them.”

On the other side of the park, a Lycra-clad figure pushed a double buggy out through the ornate wrought iron gates onto the street. He turned left and crossed the road via a blinking and bleeping pedestrian crossing. Five minutes later, man and buggy were in a multi-storey car park riding the lift towards the top floor.

When the lift doors opened a man’s body flopped onto the floor, half in and half out of the cabin. The doors attempted to close, but finding an obstruction remained half open. The two women awaiting the lift reacted in very different ways. One screamed and fainted, the other called nine-nine-nine.

Although the police arrived with commendable quickness, a knot of onlookers had gathered by the time two constables jumped out of their car. One went to the side of the woman who had fainted, while the other shouldered his way to the lift doors.
“Oh, shit” he said. “Oh very, very shit.”
His companion looked at his suddenly pale face.
“If you are going to throw up can you move away from the crime scene” she recommended serenely before uncurling from her crouch and going to look for herself. She was made of sterner stuff than her companion, but even so she didn’t look for long.
“Victor, bravo, delta to control. We seem to have an unexplained death here. One body, and a lift awash with blood and various internal organs. Also in the lift one upended buggy fitting the description from the incident in the park.”
She listened for a moment.
“Have I been inside the lift? No. And you couldn’t pay me enough to go in there.”
She listened again.
“Yes. We can secure the area and wait.”

Under the upturned buggy the twins eyed each other in silent congratulation. They could wait for rescue now….

© jane jago 2017

Mnemonics contain all the wisdom of men,
So every good boy deserves favour again.
Without them how could we know it was true
The year when Columbus sailed the ocean blue?
Unravelling the wonders of Taxonomy,
King Philip cut open five green snakes you see.
And the rainbow remembers the war and the pain
When Richard of York, gave battle in vain…