Aaspa and her family are to move into the Citadel. But…

The identical looks of disgust on Owl and Moonflower’s faces would have been amusing if they weren’t so deserved. The Citadel was beyond filthy. Everywhere.
“We cannot be moving into this shithole,” Owl declared vehemently.
I smiled my agreement. “Well not until it has been fumigated. Bring  as many drones as you can trust and I will assign you some fighters to ensure the lazy ones in this place shape up.”
“You mean to trust me with this undertaking?” Owl sounded amazed and a little in awe.
“I do. When we move here the household will be in your charge as it is in our present nest. I have neither the training nor the aptitude, and Moonflower will be busy acting as Papa’s hostess.”
Both females looked at me with their mouths agape.
Moonflower was the first to pull herself together. 
“Aaspa,” she said faintly, “surely you will act as The Master Hunter’s hostess.”
Before I could frame a suitable reply the sound of masculine laughter alerted me to the fact we were no longer alone. I turned my head to see my Papa and my Mate who had contained their laughter but were still grinning as if their cheeks would split. 
I put my hands on my hips. “Okay you two. What is so funny?”
Aascko took me in his arms. “You, my beloved, know precisely what is funny.”
Papa, on whom the Master Hunter’s chain of office still looked a bit like something from the imps’ dress-up box grinned unrepentantly.
“Yes Aaspa. You know as well as I do that the second civic reception you were obliged to hostess would doubtless end in a bloodbath.”
I pushed out my lip in pretended sorrow. “How can you think that of me Papa? Am I not beautiful and feminine enough to grace society. Can I not charm if I so choose?”
Both males started to look at me as if I had grown a second head, but then I spoilt the tease by laughing so hard I all but voided my bladder.
Just as I got myself together, Aascko bent his head and whispered a rude suggestion in my ear. Which got me started again. 
“See,” he said dramatically, “wholly unsuitable.”
Owl and Moonflower gave the males the stink eye, which made me laugh even more. 
“I’m a Hunter,” I said, “and not a bit inclined towards either society or domesticity. You two have the enthusiasm and the know-how. And you even like talking to assorted females.”
Moonflower’s smile was a beautiful thing to behold. “You, Mate of my son, are an inspiration to us all. You understand that everyone has their strengths and have no fear of promoting those around you to best use those strengths. In addition, you have no jealousy in your heart, and no envy in your soul. If only we could all be like you.”
I felt a flush mantle my cheeks and Aascko turned me fully into his embrace. “Truly spoken Mother of mine. The huntress who holds my heart has great virtue, not least of which is her dislike of praise.”
Owl rescued us from the morass of emotion into which we were sinking.
“This is all very admirable. But it isn’t going to get this shithole of a citadel scrubbed…”
Of course, she was right, and the shitadel, as Aascko dubbed it, took an enormous amount of concerted effort to get it clean enough to meet her exacting standards. Me? I helped a bit with bullying lazy and impolite drones, but other than that I just let Owl have her head. 
By the time the moon had turned once, she announced that the Citadel was clean but it now needed furnishing. My Papa gave her a bag of gold coins and told her to go to it. And, bless her steady little heart, she done just that.
From the shelter of the beloved nest we were about to be leaving, and which was now being turned upside down in Owl’s search for furnishings suitable for the Citadel, the imps and I watched in varying degrees of horror. Owlet was firmly of the opinion that Mama had run mad, as was Tiger. Puma and Silver were more tolerant of the upheaval. I mostly kept my own council only putting my head over the parapet when I thought Owl and Small Cat were not taking sufficient care of their health. Small Cat was sensible when reminded, but I had to sit Owl down and talk to her very seriously about her own wellbeing and that of the imps she carried under her heart before she could be brought to slow down.
Another moon of turmoil – and some tantrums – saw us about ready to move into the forbidding grey pile of the Citadel. A dull misty morning found Aascko and I following Owl from room to room. I will admit that it all looked splendid – if not precisely homely. When we finished the tour of the grand public rooms my mate looked at our nest sister and frowned a little. 
“You have worked wonders. But I won’t be living in anything this cold and perfect.”
Owl grinned her cheekiest grin, and for a moment she looked almost pretty.
“No. Nobody has to live in this bit, it’s for public consumption. Come with me.”
She led us down a wide staircase at the bottom of which was a long corridor. It had doors on one side and a wall of windows the other. 
“This is the family wing. I’ll show you all of it later. If you are interested. But for now.” She almost ran ahead of us throwing open the penultimate pair of doors. “Me and Cat’s workplace, with sewing place and office.” She didn’t stop there, though. Throwing us a smile over her shoulder she opened the huge deeply carved doors at the end of the corridor. “Aascko and Aaspa’s new nest.”
It seemed for a moment as if we had been transported back to our  old nest except this was all on one level with huge glass doors opening into a high-walled garden. I threw my arms around Owl and gave her a huge hug.
“You are a clever girl.”
“When I saw these rooms they seemed ideal to me. Even if they do seem to me to have some sort of a bad reputation.”
“What sort of a ‘bad reputation’? Aascko was obviously intrigued.
“This was used to be something called a seraglio.” Owl’s little face crumpled with confusion. “Cat and me think it has something to do with mating, because of all the nudging and winking that went on among the older drones and the guardsmen, but we never asked. Because…” her voice trailed off.
“Because you were embarrassed,” Aascko gave her his kindest smile. “A seraglio, little mother, is the place where a ruling despot keeps his whores.”
“Whores? But the only people living here was some very old males. Though they didn’t seem like full males to me and Cat.”
Aascko spread his hands in a gesture of defeat and I took over. “Males can be whores too. Especially those who are neutered.”
Owl looked at me in dawning comprehension. “Oh,” she said and sat down plump on the floor. “Oh. Have I done a bad thing by assigning us these rooms?”
Aascko laughed. “Not by my way of thinking. The rooms are suitable so.”
“And no ladders to hinder Silver’s progress. You have done a good thing here, my sister, never think anything else.”
Owl leapt up and threw herself into my arms. “I so love you Aaspa,” she sobbed. “Nobody never had a better nest sister.”
I gave her a hug and a little shake. “I love you too. But for now how about we get moved in before the imps become impossible to handle.”
Aascko growled and Branwen arrived, almost as if it had been awaiting this signal. It carried Silver on one narrow shoulder and Owlet, Tiger and Puma trailed a little nervously in its wake. 
Predictably it was Owlet who summed up the situation. “Mother,” he said in his gruffest tones as he came to lean against my leg. “We was worried about moving here. But is just like Home. Only not got ladders.”
I bent to pick him up. “It is Home now. And I’m sure we will all live happily here.”
Puma stood in the middle of the entrance space turning slow circles as she surveyed her new home. After the third turn she smiled lighting her delicate fairylike features with impish glee.
“Owlet says true,” she declared. “Me likes.”
Tiger absentmindedly scratched at his itching wing buds and regarded his new home from beneath the beginnings of brow ridges. “Me likes too,” he declared in as deep a voice as he could manage.
Puma slapped his wrist. “Not scratch. Might damage wings.”
Sensing an imminent sibling fight I opened the door behind which common sense dictated the eating place would be. I was right, so I cocked my head at the rest of the family who followed me in – including Branwen, who looked a bit shy but was being inexorably dragged along by a determined Puma.
Inside the eating place a veritable feast awaited us, as did Small Cat, Papa, and my motley selection of brothers. 
Once the imps were provided with brimming plates of unsuitable delicacies the rest of us stood around eating snacks and drinking fermented fruit juice. 

You can read the full adventures of Aaspa and her imps in Aaspa’s Eyes and Aaspa’s Imps by Jane Jago.

Forthcoming
Spring bounds
Leaping
Loping
Loving

Life returning
Spring sounds
Singing
Ringing
Bringing

Rain Falling
Spring pounds
Soaking
Blowing
Growing

Sun shining
Spring grounds
Bursting
Thrusting
Blooming

E.M. Swift-Hook

I received a copy of this book almost a decade ago the first and only birthday present I got from my father after he left us for a better place (Bermuda as it happens). He had scribbled in the front of it: “I wanted to send you Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ but they didn’t have a copy at the airport – this is almost as good. Life lessons, son, life lessons…” and then a scrawled initial.

For a time I used the voluminous volume to support my bedside lamp which was at an awkward height otherwise, its brilliance was shining directly into my eyes when I lay back on my pillows. The trusty tome did sterling service until I replaced the lamp. Then I read it, curious as to what precisely those life lessons might be.

My Review

A loving family adopts a litter of wolf pups then is torn apart and mostly murdered. Self-seeking wins out over altruism. Lots of nasty things happen to nice people.

Highly recommended for being such a good bedside lampstand for so many years, hence four stars. 

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

The gnomes were fascinated. What could the biggers be up to now? The builders arrived early one morning, they scrabbled and scrooged and poured liquid rock into a hole in the lawn. They set poles in the stuff and built an open-sided house in which they put a water pond. It was high and tall, and it made steam and bubbles.
There’s always one idiot around, and Harvey Gnome was it. He jumped into the foaming wetness, promptly sinking. When they dragged him out all his paint had come off and he stood naked and screaming in the moonlight.

Jane Jago

…for a moment the silence was blissful. Then the screaming started…
Writing team Leo and Mike Johnson have their day disturbed when a body turns up near their house.

Leo and Mike would have quite liked to forget the body in the river, and the teenagers with the weird women, but life wasn’t going to let them do that.
The first intimation of this came when they had a visit from a very smooth operator with an educated Transatlantic accent rendered oddly theatrical by more than a whiff of trailer trash in his vowels. He looked like everyone’s mental image of the archetypal WASP from his smooth blonde hair to his horn-rimmed spectacles, and his Brooks Brothers brogues. He introduced himself as the Reverend Amos Summersby, and stated his reason for visiting was to thank them for their care of the girls. But it didn’t ring true. While he drank tea and ate Ro’s excellent fruit cake Mike could feel him watching her from the corners of his eyes. It was a feeling she didn’t much relish. It wasn’t to go on for long, though, because Leo put a stop to it with uncompromising savagery.
‘Keep your eyes off my woman’ he snarled ‘or I’ll pull them out and make you eat them.’
Summersby recoiled in genuine surprise. ‘That is not what I have come to expect from an English gentleman’ he said in a voice of gentle reproof. Leo was scathing.
‘I’m neither English nor a gentleman. And I don’t make idle threats. So just say whatever it is you came here to say and leave while you still have the use of your legs.’
Summersby’s fear appeared to Mike to be the first genuine thing in his visit; all the colour left his cheeks and he floundered about in a morass of half-sentences.
‘Hurry up, man. You are wearing my patience thin.’
‘Very well. I was simply instructed to find out what those naughty little girls may have said about their school.’
‘To us. Nothing’ Leo bit the words off sharply. ‘We noticed they didn’t much care for their keepers but that was just ordinary observation.’
‘And yet the police wouldn’t let the girls return to school in the minibus?’
‘I would suspect that is standard procedure. They had, after all, just discovered themselves to be swimming with a dead body. I’m sure that’s exactly what a group of teenage girls needs to make a camping trip complete.’ Leo’s sarcasm was biting.
The ‘reverend’ stared into Leo’s angry eyes, then sighed. ‘I fear we have been misinformed. Will you accept my apology?’
Leo looked at Mike, who shook her head. ‘No. Now we’d very much appreciate the air you are using.’
Ro appeared as if she had been listening at the door (which she probably had) and escorted the uninvited visitor to where his car waited in the street.

From Shall we gather at the river? a hard hitting murder mystery thriller by Jane Jago which is available for 0.99.

No one knew where Mad Mungo Munroe had come from, but everyone knew where he was going – straight to hell in a coffin lined with playing cards and stinking of whiskey.
But not today. Today he was where he’d always be found – at a table in the Sideways Saloon playing poker and winning.
“You’re a cheat!”
The whole bar froze as the loser drew a gun, finger tightening.
Munroe stared him down
“Never cheated at cards in my life, fella.”
“You’re a dirty liar, I’ll…”
Munroe’s gun fired under the table and the man folded.
“I just cheat at life…”

E.M. Swift-Hook

“Jessica! Jess!”
Roald. She could not see him but his voice was close by. It did not sound like an: ‘I’ve just spotted you’ attention grabbing shout, more of a call in the hope that she might hear and answer.
“Jessica! I know you are going to be frightened, but it’s alright. I can protect you. Come to me, my princess, I’ll keep you safe.”
It was strange though, that his voice carried over the noise of the fairground music, the sirens that wailed about the start and end of the rides, the thunder of the machinery itself and the cheerful shrieks of the crowd. But despite the noise, his voice sounded clear to her. Almost as if she was wearing an earpiece. Then he was there. Right in front of her and she froze.
His skin looked grey in the stroboscopic brilliance and his eyes were sunk deep into his skull, mere points of reflected light, flickering like a candle just before it might gutter and blow out. And his skull itself seemed to be barely covered by flesh at all. The soft parts of the face, like the cheeks which connected the jaw to the rest of the skull, were fallen in. The outline of his teeth could be seen. His lips had blackened and looked withered, his nose sharp and beak-like. Only his hair seemed to retain its magnificence, long and lustrous.
Jessica felt her mouth open into a silent O. The same sense of paralysis that had gripped her when she encountered the youths by their fire, now seemed to seize her again. As if knowing she would not move, Annis let go of her hand and stepped in front of her. For a moment she thought Roald was actually recoiling from the child. Then he seemed to gather himself and stood his ground.
“There is a human woman here, she is mine. Have you seen her?”
Annis shook her head.
“Not yours.
“Well, she’s not much use to you, is she?” Roald sounded almost contemptuous. “This place is very clever, I’ll give you that.But -”
“You go. Old One smell you. Blood Eater comes.”
Roald looked sharply to one side as if he had heard a specific sound over the noise of the fairground rides. Then he laughed, only it sounded more like the grating of sandpaper than his usual rich baritone laugh.
“You are lying. That thing is just a myth to scare the neonates. The Old Ones are long gone, or hiding deep in the earth. And you have seen the woman I can smell her on you. She is not what she seems – don’t be fooled by her looks, she has an ancient power rooted in her soul, enough to flambe you and your unfunny friends here.”
It was obvious, then, to Jess that in this dream, she was invisible to Roald. It made no sense, but then what dreamlogic ever did?
“Then why you want?” Annis was asking.
The creature called Roald smiled and a row of shark-sharp fangs could be seen as the withered. Black lips pulled back.
“I have an old debt to repay,” he said, the breath condensing from his mouth as if it was clouding into freezing air. One bony hand reached out and grabbed at Annis.“Now, tell me where – “
The cats had not been there and then they were, ears flattened, low growls and calls. Roald stepped back quickly.
“I don’t need your help anyway. She’s only human, she can’t hide in a place like this for long.”
“You go,” Annis said again, almost sounding urgent, as if she truly feared for him. “Old One find you. Blood Eater comes.”
“There is no -”
Somewhere below the earth something moved. Jessica could feel it through her feet, like a shock wave passing up through her body.
“No!” Roald said again, only this time in a very different tone, like a man waking from nightmare to find he’d dreamed true.
Then the world erupted around her and Jessica found herself falling.

From Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Jenry chuckled a fat chuckle that went with his snowy beard and generous belly.
“Sup big man?”
“Them lot is looking for aliens. Again.”
“But they don’t see us?”
“They ain’t yet and we been here since before they crawled out of the fragging water.”
Jenry’s wife put aside her knitting. “Do we want them to notice us?”
“Well… I guess…”
“It’d be a lot of work, calling home planet and all that stuff, and I haven’t nearly finished this jumper.”
“You’re right missis. Better to be thought of as garden gnomes than to communicate with the horrid pink things.”

Jane Jago

What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted…

When the final invitee eventually arrived it was not a face familiar to Grim, but he had a feeling it probably should have been. She was a woman in late middle age with the precision presentation of someone used to living her life perpetually exposed to media scrutiny and in the ferocious glare of public life. Grim could see her as the kind of person who always went about pre-armed with a deadly sound-bite, ready to deliver it to camera at a moment’s notice. In other words: a politician.
Jecks greeted her with something a shade or two more familiar than pure formality. They might not be friends, Grim decided, but they were obviously used to working together. Once she had taken her seat beside Jecks the lighting shifted slightly and it was finally show time.
Sitting back in his seat, Grim started wondering why he had been included. For him to be given an invite to this kind of high-powered party, there had to be some tie in somewhere to his past cases, his present skill-set or his known interests. So, as much as taking in the information, he was sifting through it for clues as to why he was here.
He knew the two people they were being told about. Chola and Baldrik. Well, he knew of them. Anyone who had lived or operated in or around the milieu of Thuringen’s Starcity — the criminal capital so infamous it was just ‘the ‘City’ — in recent years would have heard of them. These were both men you’d have found in a ‘City listing for the criminal aristocracy, if such a thing had ever existed.
One was a crime syndicate leader, or what they called a Name in the ‘City. A powermonger, controlling the wealth and lives of those who lived and worked in the geographical area he claimed for his own. The other was his Head of Security, the man he employed to do violence on his behalf — usually not so much the general of his armies as the terroriser of his troops.
Theirs were the two faces placed on either side of the images of the horrific murder. Genuine ‘City celebrities. Except that Grim was not into romanticising such things or giving criminals any slight hint of status. To him, the ‘City was a sewer and these two were rats. One was a sly, manipulative, criminal ringleader and the other, a particularly vicious and dangerous thug.
After the initial shock of the mutilated body, they were shown a large number of historical images and the data nerd droned on. It was depressingly vague as usual. All the important stuff like names, places, dates and details were flashed up beside the images so fast no one could absorb it all. Fortunately, it would all no doubt be tagged onto some document cluttering up the inbox of his work link-profile, together with reams of statistics on everything from the two men’s social networks to their eating patterns, so he would have to spend the next few days trying to unscramble all that into something he could actually make sense of and use.
The data chasers seemed convinced that any kind of analysis — indeed anything other than the most basic of facts — would be simply beyond the wit of regular CSF operatives like himself. The information was so dumbed down that it became an effort to focus on the droning voice to see if there was anything he didn’t already know being offered in the narration.
“Durban Chola. Arrived in the ‘City four years ago. No previous record. Not so surprising as he came from an ultra low-tech non-Coalition, Periphery world, which is presently under a cultural protection order. The day he arrived, he moved in on the Shame Cullen group, the largest and most successful of the criminal organisations then operating in the ‘City. Chola shut that down almost immediately, then soon after outmanoeuvred and replaced Sarnai Altan, one of the two Cullen successors, taking over her holdings.”
How? No one bothered explaining. They were more concerned with the what than the why. But random strangers didn’t just arrive in the ‘City and overthrow the existing order. That was bizarre. And the place he came from? Grim could think of somewhere he knew that would fit that description. And for a lot of very personal reasons, he hoped he was wrong.

From Iconoclast: Mistrust and Treason a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook – which is only 0.99 to buy for a limited period.

Spring was getting going which meant The Owners took longer walks so Bowzer and Bubbles could too.
Bowzer checked the peemails on the oaktree which he hadn’t got to visit since the end of summer.
“Ohhh, Daisy had another litter,” he told Bubbles.
“Anything from Old Pogle?”
Bowzer sniffed.
“Nothing in a while.”
“Guess that means…”
“Mebbe.”
They trotted on, lost in sad speculation. Pogle had lived the other side of Muddy Wood, they’d only met on long walk days.
“Pogle liked spring.”
“I’ll miss him.”
“Wait!”
Bowzer caught a familiar scent on the breeze and ran forward barking happily.

E.M. Swift-Hook