An extract from The Temptation of Dragons by Chrys Cymri.

‘Vicar arrested for drunk driving’ is not the sort of headline my bishop wants to read about his priests. So I slowed down my Ford as I saw the flashing lights of the police car ahead. An accident. I hunched low over the steering wheel, hoping to hide the tell tale sign of the dog collar around my neck. My wine-sweetened breath wafted back into my face, reminding me of the reason I must not stop to offer any assistance. I was pretty certain that I was not over the drink drive limit, but possibly very close.
I risked a guilty glance as I passed the accident site. The black Mercedes had come to rest on the hard shoulder, right up against the traffic barrier. The front was caved in, although I couldn’t see what had caused the damage. No other car was nearby, and as far as I could see none of the trees had wandered across the dual carriageway. Two people stood near the police. Neither looked injured. I let out a sigh of relief.
I pulled back into the slow lane. A moment’s inattention made me drift onto the hard shoulder. The car’s front wheels and rear wheels bumped over an obstruction which shuddered and crunched. My throat closed and my heart pounded fast and quick in my chest. I slammed to stop, pulled up the hand brake and ripped my keys from the ignition. The car lurched against the clutch. I stumbled out and hurried back, terrified that I’d run over some animal or, please God Almighty no, a human.
My foot tripped against something solid. I staggered, and my hand slapped against scaly hide. Hide? The shape solidified under and around me. A tail. I was touching the base of a tail. I looked back at the webbed red tip, the scales, the thin spines. Then I lifted my eyes to see a thick body, two legs splayed back towards me, long leathery wings flung away from the road and over the traffic barrier. I forced myself to walk towards the front legs. My mind kept trying to reject the word forcing itself into my consciousness. Dragon. I was looking at a dragon.
For some reason a sense of disappointment crawled over me. The dragon was smaller than any I’d ever held in my imagination, about twice the size of a large horse. From the amount of blood that was pooling around the heaving chest, it was dying. The blood was only a shade darker than the bright red scales.
I stopped beside the narrow head. One large eye opened and looked up at me. Even in the dying light of a summer’s evening I could see that it was reptilian, the narrow pupil black against a wide iris of shimmering green. For a moment I saw myself mirrored on the clear surface, dark hair askew around my frowning face. The jaws cracked open, and a blue tongue slithered from the rows of small sharp teeth. ‘Father?’
I swallowed against my automatic correction. This was not the time to discuss the best way to address a female priest. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m dying.’
‘I could call an ambulance…’ I stopped. Had someone slipped something into my wine? Was I really thinking of arranging medical care for a dragon?
‘No time.’ His voice was fading. ‘Father, will you hear my confession? And give me the last rites?’

Chrys in her own words: Priest by day, writer at odd times of the day and night, I live with a small green parrot called Tilly because the upkeep for a dragon is beyond my current budget. Plus I’m responsible for making good any flame damage to church property. I love ‘Doctor Who’, landscape photography, single malt whisky, and my job, in no particular order. When I’m not looking after a small parish church in the Midlands (England) I like to go on far flung adventures to places like Peru, New Zealand, the Arctic, and North Korea. 

You can find Chrys Cymri on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and her own website.

Penny is the heroine of five excellent fantasy adventures from the pen of Chrys Cymri

Question one: What made you decide that you should become a priest? And if you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing with your life?

My parents died in a car crash when I was eighteen years old. They were hit by a drink driver. I’d always vaguely believed in God, but the fact that they’d died, and the culprit walked away with just a few bruises, made me question so many things.

At my parents’ funeral, I promised them that I’d raise James, my then four year old brother. I faced a number of battles with Social Services. The local vicar, who had taken the funeral, helped me out. He and his wife had us over for meals, they came with me to meetings with social workers, and supported us through the court case against the driver.

I met Alan a year later, and we were married just before my twentieth birthday. With his assistance, I was able to finish university. And I once James started to be more independent, I thought about that vicar and wife, and how much they’d helped me. I found myself wondering if I could be ‘God with skin on’ for other people who were suffering. And that’s why I started the process which led to my ordination some years later.

Before my parents died, I’d wanted to be a palaeontologist. I’ve loved dragons from a young age, and digging up dinosaur bones seemed to be the closest I’d ever get to a real dragon. Little did I know…

Question two: Have you ever broken a Commandment? If so, which one?

Oh, dear, yes. A few years ago, I drove to Cardiff to watch the filming of Matt Smith’s first Doctor Who episode. The green near Llandaff Cathedral had been made over to look like a village green, including a fake bookshop with a rack of postcards of the village. One of the postcards found its way into my coat pocket. I’ve hidden it away in a Bible so I feel less guilty about my theft. In the same page as the Ten Commandments, actually!

Question three: If you could have three wishes for your brother’s life, what would be they be?

If I could wish for anything, it would be that our parents could have raised him. My mum and dad loved us both, and I’m certain they would have done a much better job with James than I did. Second wish would be for him to find a fulfilling career. And third would be for him to fight the right person to marry and settle down with. Which makes me sound more like his mother than his sister!

This free novella tells the back story of one of Penny’s staunchest allies.

‘Enough’ the hulking Gregorius howled. ‘I have seen enough.’
The Sharing stopped and I became aware of the vampire before me trying to bring his will to bear on my mind. I kept my voice level and even.
‘Do you accept that I did not kill your brother?’
‘I do’ he said. I could feel the lie but said nothing.
The voice from the platform spoke again. ‘We find this female innocent of any wrongdoing. She did not kill your brother. Although she would have been within her rights so to do.’
The vampire howled again.
I pitched my voice with care. ‘He doesn’t believe. And he never will. I will never know a moment of peace while he is convinced I killed his twin.’
‘Perchance not’ the voice was measured. ‘What will you, Huntress?’
‘I will fight him.’
‘Fight him?’
‘Yes Great One. Fight him. To the death.’
‘Is this truly your will?’
‘It is.’
The vampire was delighted, and I could feel him beginning to gloat. Be over confident, I thought, therein lies your downfall my friend.
‘And does your Mate permit that you meet this vampire in single combat?’ Lucifer was polite.
Aascko spoke from behind my left shoulder. ‘It is not for me to permit or forbid. My Mate is free and equal. All I will say is that she has my love and support.’
‘Very well’ Gabriel’s discordant tones reverberated in my head. ‘It is agreed. You will begin on my count. Ready yourselves.’
Even as he spoke, the vampire brought the full weight of his mind to bear on me and leapt forward with his fangs exposed. I stood still for a second, as if pinned by his glamour. Then I made my move jumping towards the foul creature and butting his perfect nose with the bony ridge under my crest. Done properly, and believe me this was done extremely properly, such a move drives the bone in the nose right up into the opponent’s brain. As Gregorius fell like a huge rotten tree I reached into my weapon belt for a yew wood stake. I drove the stake into his heart and he crumbled into dust. There came a wind from behind me and the pile of dust was blown out of the vaulted space into eternity.
The disembodied voice from the platform spoke with deep contempt. ‘The vampire deserved to die. Probably more slowly than he did. He attacked foully, and was killed in fairness. Who is his Master?’
‘Raziel’ Lucifer bowed.
‘Summon him then.’
There came a sound like clashing cymbals and rattling drums, and a Dark Archangel walked carefully into the place. He bowed to the throne.
‘Almighty. What would you of me?’
‘Two vampires. One killed hell-hounds and almost killed a Helper. Then one Gregorius accused this female of killing his child. She agreed to fight him and he attacked before time. However the Huntress triumphed. I will have your word that this is where it ends.’
The Archangel bowed. ‘May I speak to the Huntress?’
‘You may. Politely.’

Excerpt from Aaspa's Eyes by Jane Jago.

Read the rest of the story for only 99p/c in the upcoming Working Title Mayday Madness book sale. Watch this space!!

Twinkle, twinkle someone said
How many stars out there are dead
How many suns have crashed and burned
While our little lives have turned
We lift our eyes and try to find
Constellations in our minds
Where is the archer, where the goat
Where the virgin’s milk-white throat
Celestial bodies overhead
Ain’t it a shame that most are dead

© jane jago 2016

Sometimes you trip over a book by chance and thus it was for me with this one.

Mumsie had been redecorating her retiring room and stacked her broken-spined monstrosities of literature in the hall. Since she was not entirely sober, these leaning towers had shed volumes across the parquet and I missed my footing on one that had fallen open.

Nursing a twisted ankle and a bruised derriere I retrieved the offending tome with every intention of feeding it to the flames in retribution. But the cover caught my eye, and instead, I rescued it from being re-interred within the maternal parent’s bookshelf and started reading.

Dune by Frank Herbert

A family with names that seemed to me highly inappropriate for science fiction (Paul, Jessica, Duncan and Wellington), move to a desert planet which is full of worms. This family seem to be very unpopular and almost all of them get killed off by another family, who have much more genre appropriate names (Glossu, Vladimir and Feyd-Rautha).

Paul survives and goes on to become the hero of the book. He gets to wear a wetsuit which works in reverse, take drugs and ride one of the worms. Oh, there are also some very strange women who go around torturing children and speaking in enigmatic phrases such as ‘fear is the little death’ and other meaningless nonsense.

The best thing about this book is its length. It is fat enough to be perfect for wedging the door of my writing sanctuary closed.

2 stars for such excellent utility!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Adoring Fans can join my Facebook Group

You are old, and your manners these days
Seem screwed up in every way
Last week on twitter
You called me a shitter
And on Facebook, you’re turning me grey

© jane jago 2017

This was not a pregnant pause. The sense of expectation was something altogether more profound and powerful. For most watching, it was like the moment when a giant firework screams upwards into the midnight sky at New Year, drawing every eye and inspiring the mind to speculate upon what exciting and marvellous spectacle of explosive beauty could follow in the moments to come.

There was a preternatural hush. The unsound of every breath held in anticipation, and for a few scant seconds, time was suspended into tableau. From forth movement, activity and life there was birthed a stillness which transformed the instant to a photograph captured by the camera of every eye present. Something wonderful was about to happen, a culmination and catharsis which was both long expected and yet in the moment surprising.

Standing alone in the middle of this captivated audience I felt only clammy nausea. The cold, sickening churning of dread in my stomach, seemed to drop like lead as if I was in a high-speed lift going down fast. This was akin to standing before the darkened radar screen of an air traffic control room and watching two points of light merge into one, flaring more brilliant, the second before it blinked out forever.

But, as everyone else there present, in that moment I only had eyes for Roxanne.

She looked ethereal in profile, like an antique watercolour. Her hair the living copper shades that Titian craved, her face damask, skin with the softened radiance of fine porcelain or bone china. I could not see her eyes, they were not fixed on me, but I knew they would be as compelling as the sea, the colour of the Mediterranean, neither blue nor green but some special tone that ascended beyond those both and was all her own.

She wore white, a symbol of purity, innocence – and sacrifice. For a moment, when the red fell against it in a liquid splash of violent colour, I felt as if a blade had slid into my own throat and I couldn’t breathe from the pain.

Then she spoke and time returned.

Roxanne was smiling. People sighed, words broke the mirror of silence and there was even clapping as she lifted her hand to show the ring and cup the ruby pendant her fiance had just slipped around her neck,  so she could see it better. In seconds she was surrounded by a thicket of family – mostly female – and friends – exclusively female.

The sea of well-wishers, oblivious to my presence, washed around me like an incoming tide and my isolation deepened. It took me a while to realise that I was still breathing, that the world was still turning and that the painful constriction in my throat and the cold knot in my stomach were invisible to everyone.  I became aware that for someone in that moment the centre of the universe was not Roxanne. Someone was watching me.

I did not need to shift my vision very far. He was close, very close, to where Roxanne was holding her impromptu court. Her fiance. His lips were addressing words to her fawning father whose broad back was towards me, but his chilling blue gaze rested on me.

They held no trace of triumph, no gloating superiority – in fact, no real emotion at all. All they contained was the cold dispassion of menace – a statement not a threat. This was not a battle lost, a campaign defeated. This was the end of the war. I had lost everything and had no hope. Life itself was without meaning. I was nothing now and despair settled into me, it’s vulture’s beak ripping the soul-flesh from my heart. Then, abruptly, the ice blue eyes shifted away from me and, dismissed, I turned, left the room and walked out of my own life.

E.M. Swift-Hook

You shake your head and look so smug
You vow to breathe it never
That little word you overheard
That makes you feel so clever
Your neighbour’s secret, feeble lies
Are now laid bare before your eyes
To grasp them to your bosom close
Just makes you feel so warm
To hold a secret in your hands
So capable of harm
Your smirking smile, your baleful face
Bode ill for someone, spell disgrace
But as you whisper as you hint
And slyly lift the lid
You ought to hope that your own sins
Are rather better hid
© jane jago 2016

Cassiopeia is an evil wish in humanoid form who finds herself falling for the one she is supposed to bring harm to...

I come to and all I can see is black. I blink my eyes twice to make sure they aren’t still closed. Moving my hands around, all I can feel are tiles. Am I still in the gym? Am I even still at the school?
I crawl on my hands and knees until I am met with a door. Palming it, I search for a handle. When I find it, I try to turn it desperately, but to no avail. I’m locked in here. My heartbeat picks up. I knew something bad was going to happen today.
I try to control my breathing. Leaning up against the door, I close my eyes. I hear closing doors. I’m still in the gym! Oh, thank goodness. That rules out one scenario, I haven’t been kidnapped. But who did this to me?
There’s no more sounds on the other side of the door. Just me and darkness. I can feel it tugging at my feet. It’s trying to consume me, trying to swallow me whole.
I take in big gasps of air. Stay calm Cassiopeia, stay calm. Think. Do you have your phone with you? That’s right my phone! I dig into my pockets and pull out nothing. They took my phone! I hear it ringing outside the door. That’s my ringtone.
Clawing at the door, I silently beg it to open. I fall up against the door again. That’s when it dawns on me that I have powers. I go to use them on the door, but the warm feeling I usually feel is gone.
Dread and realization hit me all at once. That was probably the chill I felt this morning, someone has locked my powers. The first thing that comes to mind is Headmother. Was this one of her tactics?
I shake my head and push that to the back of my mind. It is a mess right now and I can feel the panic setting in. The same door that I heard close, flies open.
“Robin!” Adair yells.
“Adair!” I rasp, which makes me realize how long I have been in here.
I bang on the door so he’ll know where I am. I hear his feet pound over to the door. He tries to open the door, but it seems to be locked from that side too.
“I can’t open it. So I’m going to force my way in. Stand back!” He instructs.
I stumble back, and he kicks open the door. The light pierces my eyes, but I don’t care. I run blindly into the wall of light and into his arms. He holds me tightly and I grip him with all my strength. He picks me up and I wrap my legs around his waist.
“Robin.” He whispers.
Some of his hair has sloppily come out of his typical bun. I can feel his heart pounding and he smells like sweat. He rubs the back of my head and I wince when his hand runs over the base of my head. His hand freezes and he pulls away.

Camille Caliman is the author of Nefarious Creatures and The Quest for Óg.

Question 1: What is your favourite supernatural being in fiction and why?

Ugh, this is such a hard question! I love them all. The first thing that comes to mind is a fairy. They’re strong and powerful, while being delicate and pretty at the same time. They have a myriad of magical abilities and they can be mischievous or pure-hearted

Question 2: Where in the world would you most like to live and why?

This sounds cheesy, but wherever my family and boyfriend are is where I’d like to be. It just wouldn’t feel like home without them. Although, anywhere cold all year round wouldn’t be able to work. I like all my seasons!

Question 3: Cookies or cupcakes and why?

COOKIES!!! I love cookies. Sometimes the icing on cupcakes can be too sweet, but there is no such thing as too sweet chocolate chip cookies. At least none that I’ve had

Camille Caliman is a YA indie author residing in the Midwest. Currently, she has written two fantasy novels, Nefarious Creatures and The Quest for Óg. Being an author has always been her dream, and she extremely happy that she gets to create worlds for a living. She also runs a blog called Rainy Day Cafe, where she writes poetry and short stories.her books can also be purchased from Barnes and Noble.

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