They scrambled down the face of the dunes from the most inaccessible part of the beach. The boy was helping his female companion with such tender care that neither noticed me.

When they did realise they weren’t alone they averted their faces as though fearing recognition. I didn’t know them, although the trailing clouds of guilt offered a clue to what they had been about on the early morning beach.

I couldn’t help noticing the gleam of gold on the woman’s left hand. Nor was I too blind to see them climb into two cars and go their separate ways.

©️JaneJago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

Decison (noun) the tenth son

Eggieoie (noun) a person from Cornwall

Eso (noun) a pungent herb of the family pusillanimous that tastes and smells like very old mothballs

Flaiail (verb) to simultaneously pick one’s nose and play the mandolin 

Mustal (adjective) of alpacas and llamas – those few hours before a female comes into season when all the males trail round behind her dribbling

Ploker (noun) one who constantly grasps his genitalia whilst in conversation with the opposite sex

Puch (verb) ride a very old moped slowly and with a wobbly trajectory

Soudned (adverb) of sleeping. Being so fast asleep that one can only be awoken with the aid of the Dagenham Girl Pipers

Thethe (noun) small purple-furred marsupial that subsists entirely on cups of tea and ginger biscuits

Udnerstade (verb) to sit under a lactating cow with one’s mouth open

Vumbole (noun) the sticky mess left after hawking up a swallowed fly

Weord (noun) of novelists seeking a synonym that doesn’t exist

Wirry (verb) to chew on something with one’s back teeth in the manner of a masticating sheep

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

Alternate Endings from the Historical Writers Forum

When it comes to intriguing concepts ‘what if’ is right up there with the most compelling. Alternate Endings is a collection of eight alternative history tales answering that question in in eight very different ways.
Three standouts for me were:
Michael Ross’ Remember the Ladies – postulating that the American Declaration of Independence put women on a par with men. This is beautifully written and we feel as if we are right inside the families as wife power triumphs over ingrained chauvinism.
Samantha Wilcoxon’s Tudors with a Twist – taking a sideways glance at Mary Tudor and Elizabeth. This is nicely imagined, with a harshly twisted ending that tweaks the nerves.
Salina Baker’s Act Worthy of Yourselves – looks at a lesser-known hero of the American War of Independence. What if Joseph Warren, who died at Bunker Hill, survived to become one of the founding fathers?
More generally, I would comment that the scholarship in all the stories is of high order. However, in some cases, I do feel that historical accuracy rather overpowers both the dramatis personae and the telling of the story so that what could have been rip-roaring reads are instead a little colourless.
That having been said, there is something here to interest everyone I think. Read it and argue with me!

Jane Jago

Historical Fiction Authors go Alternate

Interestingly enough most alternate history is written by writers of speculative fiction and not by those who have immersed themselves in a period for years, writing historical fiction or non-fiction about it. The extra depth of knowledge that can bring is very clear in this anthology. I think it enhances an understanding of how a change to the historical timeline by one key detail being altered, would truly impact.
From the Rome of Julius Caesar in Virginia Crow’s thought-provoking Vercingetorix’s Virgin, to 19th-Century France and the fate of Marie Antionette and her king in Marie-Thérèse Remembers by Elizabeth K. Corbett, this is a fascinating tour through history as it might have been.
The eight choices of ‘What if…?’ stories here seem a bit more unusual than many alternate history anthologies. Some are better known like the intriguing Princess of Spain by Karen Heenan, which explores what might have been if Henry VIII’s older brother Arthur had not succumbed to illness at an early age. But some are about less well-known times such as Cathie Dunn’s compellingly convincing Race Against Time set in the turmoil that followed the death of Henry I, and Sharon Bennett Connolly’s Long Live the King, which posits a dramatic possibility in which King John lives a little longer.
It is hard to have favourites. All the authors have chosen areas they clearly know intimately. The sense of era in each story is excellently realised. Even those periods I am not familiar with—like the American Revolutionary setting for Act Worthy of Yourselves by Salina Baker exploring what might have been if the highly regarded Dr Warren had not perished when he did—have beautifully grounded settings, so I found my feet in them very quickly.
But I would like to mention two stories which particularly drew me in. One was the wonderfully written Remember the Ladies in which Michael Ross imagines a United States being founded with women equally at its heart and enfranchised alongside their men and how that might have come about. It is stirring and moving and makes one wish perhaps it could have been. The other is Samantha Wilcoxon’s Tudors with a Twist which offers radically different views of the reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I. As the title suggests, there is a very well-wrought and superbly ironic twist in this tumultuous Tudor tale.
If you enjoy alternate history or are curious to see what happens when historical fiction authors get to give full rein to indulge their wishlist of how history might have been, this is a volume of short stories that you might want to check out.

E.M. Swift-Hook

A thriller with a paradox at its heart. Behind the quiet eyes of a code-cracking geek who builds cryptic crosswords lives a modern celibate with the nerveless calm of a contract killer…

A lifetime of careful anonymity had served me well until the morning I awoke to find two men in my bedroom. One of them had a hand over my mouth, which was what woke me up, and the other was standing looking down at me.
“If my colleague takes his hand away from your mouth will you scream?”
I managed to shake my head and the hand was removed. I said nothing.
“Nothing to say?”
The man whose hand had been clamped across my mouth sounded sardonically amused. I shook my head again.
The other man, the one who looked like the romantic ideal of a Viking, and who I instinctively knew was the senior thug, raised an eyebrow. His associate subsided. The Viking prince looked at me.
“They say you are very good at puzzles.”
I nodded and dredged up a pleasingly firm voice. “I am.”
“Do I take that to mean you are going to be sensible?”
“Can you define sensible for me?”
He smiled as if my question pleased him. “Sensible means looking at a tablet. Closely. We believe it holds some secrets but nobody can find them.”
I looked at his hard, handsome face and knew I should just shut up and do as I was told. But I’ve never been sensible, and, somewhat surprisingly, I wasn’t truly afraid.
“What happens to the owner of the tablet when I find whatever is hidden?”
“Nothing.”
I must have looked as sceptical as I felt because his ice blue eyes went flatly unfriendly.
“I don’t lie.”
“Maybe you don’t. But you do appear in people’s bedrooms at three o’clock in the morning. Uninvited.” I lifted a shoulder.
His face warmed by a couple of degrees. “You have a point. So. Okay. Full disclosure. The tablet belonged to a person who got themself killed. Messily. And nobody has any idea why, or by whom. The electronics are our only hope. The police have both phone and laptop, but they missed the tablet when they searched. We’re thinking it must be important because it was carefully hidden. But nobody can figure out how.”
It didn’t seem an unreasonable request so I pulled the duvet across my chest and sat up.
“Okay. I’ll look. But I need to get dressed first.”
“Fair enough.”
But neither man moved.
“I’m not proposing to dress with an audience. At least turn your backs.”

The Celibate Choice is the latest book from multi-genre author Jane Jago and it is out today!

The cracks are there for a reason
They keep the heart intact
They show the passing seasons
And record each selfish act
On a day when the sun shines brightly
When it warms the ice-cold soul
Then a flower, gleaming whitely
Fills the crack to make us whole

JJ 2023

For as long as Rebekah could remember September had been a month of terror, with her mother growing shorter and shorter of temper as each day passed. Then Michaelmas would come and they would stand in line at The Hiring, hoping against hope that they would catch the eye of someone kindly and decent.  They almost always did, except for one memorably bad year when both mother and eight-year-old daughter toiled in the kitchens of a back-street whorehouse for little more than a hard bed and even harder words. It was only one year in the seventeen Rebekah had been alive, but the memory was strong enough to strike fear into a stronger heart than hers.

This Michaelmas was different, though. Mother had been hired for three years running by the same man, a grim-visaged merchant with an out-thrusting paunch and a hard eye for a bargain. Rebekah didn’t much like him, but kept her thoughts to herself. At least the beds were dry and there was sufficient food.

At the start of the September after her seventeenth birthday, their employer called Mother into his narrow counting room, where the pair of them had remained closeted for a very long time.

Mother came out looking even grimmer than usual. Rebekah hunched a shoulder and awaited a tongue-lashing. To her surprise none was forthcoming. Instead, Mother beckoned her out into the tiny strip of garden they tended throughout the year. She sat down heavily on the wooden bench and patted the seat by her side.
“Daughter. I would have speech with you.”
Rebekah tried to look suitably interested and yet modest.
“Mister Brown had a proposition for me. It is one I am minded to accept, but it depends on you.”
“How is that Mother?”
“He proposes marriage to me, but he will not adopt you as his daughter.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if I accept the offer, you cannot stay here.”
“Oh. But where would I go.”
“You could go to the hiring. Or you could marry.”
“Marry?”
“You are young, and strong, and accustomed to hard work. There are always young farmers looking for girls like you.”
“You mean like a mail order bride?”
Mother nodded.
Rebekah bent her fair head, thinking hard. She turned a serene face to her mother.
“If I chose to be a mail order bride, would I have any say in which offer I accepted.”
Her mother frowned.
“You would if you wanted, but why would you want such a choice?”
“Mother. I am seventeen years old, it would not be fitting were I to find myself married to a man with children older than me. And nor would I wish to wed outside of our faith. If those are not unreasonable expectations I would choose to marry.”
Her mother regarded Rebekah with rare approval. “Not unreasonable. Sensible. Very well, child, Mister Brown and I will set things in motion. You do understand that naught will occur until after the Michaelmas Hiring.”
“I do so understand, Mother.”
Mother stood up and then bent to place a rare kiss on her daughter’s smooth cheek.
“I will make sure that your husband is kind.”
Then she was gone, leaving Rebekah to return to her duties with a calm face, but a very flustered mind.

The weeks leading up to The Hiring ran smoothly, with Mother settled and Rebekah resigned.

On the day of the Michaelmas Fair, Mother and Mister Brown went out straight after breakfast, leaving Rebekah on her honour not to leave the house. They need not have worried, as she had precious little taste for the noise and laxity of the street fair and no coin to spend had it been her wish to venture out. Instead, she brought her spinning wheel beside the kitchen fire and sat singing quietly as she worked. The only other living creature in the house was the kitchen cat who came and sat on the floor at her feet. It was about two hours before the street door opened and Mother’s voice called out.
“It is us, Rebekah, put the kettle to boil like a good child.” She sounded happy, and Rebekah hastened to move the kettle onto the hot plate atop the closed stove.

She returned her spinning wheel to the corner and quickly swept up the little bits of wool that flew from the wheel. She was just wondering what to do next when Mother and Mister Brown came into the kitchen. He regarded her sternly, and looked around the room for signs of disorder. Finding none, he so far relaxed as to smile, although no warmth reached his hard little eyes. Mother lifted her left hand, and Rebekah saw the gleam of gold. She cast down her eyes, lest anyone see her dismay.
“My felicitations Mister and Mistress Brown. May your union be long and blessed.”
She looked up to find both beaming at her. She must have said the right thing. Mister Brown even unbent enough to address her directly.
“Fairly spoken, girl,” then he coughed. “You must understand that my refusal to adopt you is no reflection on your character. For all I have seen you are a modest and hardworking female.”
Rebekah bent her head, and Mother actually chuckled.
“The child is unused to compliments.” Then she turned her attention to her daughter. “There are three offers for your hand that we deem suitable. It appears fair to both my husband and I that you should select from them for yourself. Sit at the table and read. I will make hot tea.”
Rebekah sat, feeling as if she dreamed, and her mother’s husband placed three packets at her elbow.
“We have,” he said in a surprisingly careful voice, “ascertained that these three men have a reputation for kindliness as well as being suitable in all other ways”.

Rebekah read the three letters carefully.

Jane Jago.

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

Dumbfounded.
Such a good word, Ginny decided. It was almost onomatopoeic as a descriptor for the way she was feeling.
“But, vampires aren’t real,” she protested at last when she saw from the expressions of the two women sitting at the table with her that they really weren’t joking. They genuinely believed what they were telling her. 
And there was the minor fact she was alive and uninjured after that terrible incident in the church with the vicar.
Memory of which suddenly pushed even the ludicrous idea that she was now a vampire out of her mind for a moment.
“The vicar,” she said, “was a giant rabbit.” 
Em just nodded as if it was the most natural thing in the world to have a giant rabbit as your local clergyman.
“Oh yes,” Agnes said. “A wererabbit as it turns out though I had a side bet with Lilian that he’d be a wererat. Would have suited him much better, in my opinion.”
Ginny gave a brittle laugh which she could hear had a distinct edge of hysteria to it. “Oh it all makes so much sense now. We women are vampires and the vicar was a wererabbit. Silly me.” She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a sudden sob.
Em reached over the table and squeezed her hand.
“It is a bit much to take on board all at once. Normally we’d have a careful selection and interview process for a new Sister, but it was something of an emergency in your case.” She wore a bright encouraging smile, as if willing Ginny to perk up. “I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions. Agnes and I can answer some now, but you don’t need to tackle this all at once. You have plenty of time.”
Plenty of time.
Of course.
Vampires were immortal.
Weren’t they?
Ginny suddenly found a slew of questions overwhelming the mixed up emotions, all pushing forward to be answered first. It must have shown in her face, because Agnes stood up quickly.
“I’ll make coffee, you’d better take Ginny up to the Office.”
“Good idea.” Em got to her feet and Ginny followed her back upstairs, along the landing from the bedroom she had been in and into a bijou study with walls lined with bookshelves and just enough room for a desk facing the window, which commanded a view over the churchyard. Ginny was wondering where she should sit and taking in the range of Em’s literary tastes – Jane Austin sitting next to JK Rowling, and James Joyce jostled in beside EL James – when Em pulled a large, leather bound tome (could it really be a Bible?) slightly forwards, and one of the shelf units swung back to show a modern looking teak and steel spiral staircase going up.
“I always wanted one of those,” Ginny admitted as she stepped into the attic area which turned out to be a spacious and comfortable room.
“What? A spiral staircase? A pain to clean I can tell you.”
“No. A secret door in a bookcase.”
Em laughed.
“So did I. It’s why I had that one put in.”
Ginny took a seat and found herself staring at a large map of the village pinned to the wall. Each house had a small label stuck onto it with just two or three words. Things like ‘arrogant wanker’, ‘spiteful gossip’ and ‘mostly harmless’. She found herself looking for her own little cottage and just before Em blocked her view by sitting in front of it, she was almost sure she read ‘wet hen’.
“Ask away then,” Em said, leaning back in her chair.
Ginny decided to start with the obvious.
“This whole blood-drinking thing, do I…?”
“You can survive very well on regular food most of the time, but we need blood to support the extras of being a vampire – heightened perceptions, healing, that kind of thing. And go too long without and you will become quite ill.”
“So I have to…to…bite people?” Ginny struggled to even think it let alone say it.
Em waved a dismissive hand and smiled.
“Oh goodness me, no. We don’t live in the Middle Ages any more. We get deliveries from the local blood bank. So even your vegetarian ethics shouldn’t be too offended as those were donations made freely by people who wanted to help others.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t quite what they had in mind when they went to give blood.”
“Probably not. But they all wanted to save lives and they are helping to do that. Besides which, we purchase what we get so we’re not stealing from the system.”
It was a rather loose ethical take on the situation, but Ginny decided it was a lot better than the alternative.
“So with the blood drinking, am I – er – are we immortal?”
Em considered for a moment before she replied.
“That depends what you mean by ‘immortal’. We can be killed by most things that would kill a regular human, like accidental beheading, being run over by a combine harvester or whatever, but we are immune to human illness, we heal much faster and we don’t age. Oh and we are fine in sunlight as long as it’s not for too long or too intense.”
“As long as we have enough blood?”
Em smiled warmly
“You’re getting it.”

Part 19 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

“Why does a handsome young man like you need a love potion?”

He blushed until his face was the colour of brick.

“She don’t want me. Says I don’t have enough money nor prospects.”

The witch held out a grubby hand into which he dropped a copper penny.

“Three days.”

He collected the bottle and went on his way. Whistling. 

As he made his way home it was as if the scales fell from his eyes. He turned away from the cold one, back into the waiting arms of his childhood sweetheart. 

There’s more than one sort of love potion…

Jane Jago

Admirable advice from Madame Pendulica’s mystic moggy!

As the feline companion of a world-famous astrologer, one is in a unique position to offer help and solace to the hapless humanity who visit one’s human with their sad little problems.
Stops for a while to lick anal sphincter (or rear leg if we are being prudish).
Ah yes, where was I? Human problems, as solved by the wisdom of cat.
‘My husband doesn’t love me any more.’ This cri de coeur from Mona of Winchester elicited an outpouring of the usual wishy-washy claptrap about the incompatibility of certain star signs from she who floats round in bits of handprinted cheesecloth. None of which is any help to anyone – least of all a sad woman who appears as if she owns a lot of pairs of nude court shoes and too many rubber gloves.
Had she turned her guileless orbs towards the source of true wisdom, oneself, the poor, silly human might have been a little bit surprised by the answer.
The unloved Mona’s tale of woe and protestations of wifely perfection leaned heavily on how well she keeps his house, how she serves drinks and snacks to his friends when they visit, and how she never fails to do her marital duty every Friday night.
Even a neutered feline (more of which cause for hatred later) can see that this is precisely not how to keep a human male interested.
One’s own advice would be rather more realistic…
Take off your apron, Mona, and stop equating cleaning with affection. When the male returns from work, pour both of you a big glass of wine and order in a takeaway. When his mates come to watch football, leave a crate of Budweiser and a bucket of snacks and take yourself to see a male stripper. And when he wants a Friday night special tie him up and whip his pink bottom.
You might find out that, indeed, he no longer loves you. You might even find out you no longer love him.
Whatever the outcome, you’ll have had a bit of fun along the way.
Ambles off in search of tuna…

Ailuros the Mystic’s Mog predicts she will be offering more advice sometime in the future!

The music, provided by a string quartet, quivered on the air as much an accompaniment to the meal as the fine red wine. Standing at the door as if surveying a conquered city, the last diner arriving embarrassingly late, his hawk-like expression seemingly oblivious to it.

Between the tables, like supply ships visiting islands, waiters moved silently over the plush depths of the carpet. One detached himself from the flotilla to speak to the dark-haired gentleman , with an almost obsequious haste. Lydia decided this must be the mysterious Colonel Jermaine about whom everyone seemed to have so much to say, but apparently only behind their hands not to his face. She watched, curiously as the waiter led him across the dining room, then lost sight of them both as the table next to her was served.

Each table, discreetly placed to appear neither isolated nor too close to its neighbour, glinted and sparkled as the light of the crystal candelabra reflected on the silver service, the exquisite glassware and the plentiful and prominent jewellery worn by the ladies. From her lonely seat in the corner, Lydia noticed the conversation seemed to be sparkling too, causing short barks of manly laughter and softer feminine mirth.

“I see this seat is not taken.” The tone was matter-of-fact and definitely not a question.

Lydia looked up into the tiercel eyes of the dark-haired man and suddenly wished with fervour that she had accepted the offer of the Forsythes’ to attend another of their dreadful dinner parties that evening.

E.M. Swift-Hook