I love you. But
I cringe each time you call your trousers pants
In my world pants are underwear
At which ladies should not glance

I love you. But
You eat weird orange cheese and refried beans
And cover scones with gravy
A culinary divide that means

I love you. But
Chips are chips. And a fanny’s a front bottom
And there’s many more I’m sure
So painful I’ve forgotten

I love you. But
What’s a comforter? And what’s a pacifier?
They told me you spoke English
But they were all filthy liars

I love you. But…

©️jane jago 2018

The Working Title crew bring you the exclusive opportunity to enjoy more wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica...

You can also listen to this on YouTube.

Aries. 

Be very careful this month as there is a very real possibility of leading your followers up a blind alley and being trampled to death when they panic.

Taurus.

This is not a month for locking horns with your enemies. Better to ruminate for a while before moo-ving into the attack.

Gemini.

Be very careful when crossing roads this month. Always look both ways…

Cancer.

This month the best way to deal with almost any situation is to scuttle away. Sideways.

Leo.

The new moon will see you needing to wake up and shake your golden mane in order that nobody sees how lazy you actually are.

Virgo.

Prim your mouth and pull up your sensible panties, somebody is after your cherry. Resist at all costs

Libra.

Weigh your options carefully as this month will offer many opportunities for vacillation and the refusal to make decisions.

Scorpio.

Whatever it is you are doing now, stop it. Say sorry nicely and don’t do it again.

Sagittarius.

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are out to get you this month. Hide.

Capricorn.

This is not a good month for giving way to your goatish sexuality. Celibate Capricorn’s will do well

Aquarius.

Drink plenty of water this month. 

Pisces.

This month you must swim with the tide. No going upstream to spawn. That way lies madness.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return...

It came to her that she was hopelessly lost. She had managed to find a way out of the forest, but she was now beside an unfamiliar lake. There wasn’t a house in sight and neither was there any sign of a road or track.

A lesser woman might have given up there and then but she was made of stern stuff and squared her shoulders.

‘Left hand bank’ she decided.

First, her little nose caught the scent of woodsmoke, then a hint of oatmeal. She pulled her red cloak more tightly around her and hurried towards the beckoning smells…

©️jj 2019

From Dying on the Streets the 8th Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, which you can now grab on pre-order… and followers of this blog who do can claim a FREE bonus short story! Listen to this on our YouTube channel.

Spado is a common insult in Dai and Julia’s world. Means literally ‘eunuch’, metaphorically ‘stupid fool’…

        That evening when he arrived home from work, Julia thought Dai looked weary, and she guessed at a difficult case. She was about to try and pry the problem out of him when fate intervened.
       Aelwen had picked up a word to add to ‘Dada’, ‘Mama’, ‘Dog’, and ‘Uned’. When Dai bent to pick her up she held out her little arms and carolled delightedly.
       “Spado, spado, spado.”
       Julia laughed until she all but cried and Dai wasn’t much better.
       “Where did she pick up that little gem?” he asked.
       “She and Luned were out in the garden taking the air when one of the apprentice boys fell off a ladder. He wasn’t hurt, but he fell into Cookie’s herb garden and that was about the least offensive thing she called him. They all thought Aelwen asleep. But. As you can hear. And she enunciates it so clearly. Luned and Cookie are mortified.”
       She watched the tension seep out of Dai’s shoulders and felt grateful for that, deciding to leave the thumbscrews for a later occasion. Instead, she watched indulgently as Dai and his daughter lost themselves in some rough and tumble and tickles. When she judged the baby to have had sufficient excitement she held up a hand.
       “If you and your potty-mouthed daughter are quite finished, I’ll get Cookie to serve some food.”
       Dai threw Aelwen up in the air and caught her expertly. “Lead us to it.”
       As they sat down at the table, Cookie brought bowls of savoury stew, with fresh bread, yellow butter, and sharp local cheese. Once she was sure Aelwen’s portion was properly cool, Julia put the bowl in front of her and a small spoon in one chubby hand.
       “Eat monster,” she said lovingly.
       Aelwen obliged, albeit with a lot of noise and splashing.
       “Look at her,” Dai said proudly, “not quite a year old and already feeding herself.”
       “And Merch – who is kindly cleaning the floor under her high chair.”

You can pre-order Dying on the Streets and, as a follower of this blog, if you show us you have done so we will send you a free ebook of Dying to Make Music – a bonus Dai and Julia short story!

The day she tried her hand at romance was life changing – in the best of ways. From scratching a living and writing in snatched moments she became an ‘overnight success’ and a wealthy woman.

The publisher who picked up her second romantic novel sent their publicist to see her. He came away dejected and at a loss as to what to do.

“She’s impossible,” he said to his boss. “Sixty something, plain as a pikestaff and cripplingly shy. She isn’t even photogenic.”

Which was how the man who illustrated the book jacket drew an idealised ‘portrait’ of the author too….

©️jj 2019

You can listen to this on YouTube.

It was a ‘click’ moment.
You know what I mean, we’ve all had a ‘click’ moment. A moment when something happens in an instant that changes everything in your life forever. It might be as transformative and huge as love at first sight or as destructive and small as breaking a front tooth. It might be the moment you hear you’ve won the lottery or the one where you get that diagnosis.
But the thing with a ‘click’ moment is it changes you, your perception of who you are and your ability to deal with things in life in the way you did before.
If you fall in love you have the instant burden of another’s happiness to maintain and if you broke that tooth it’s dealing with the fact your smile is no longer so attractive and people will look at you differently and treat you differently from now on because of it.
So why am I telling you all this?
Well, because of my own most profound ‘click’ moment in life, one that changed not just how I saw myself, how I dealt with things in life but – well – everything and forever. It kind of puts all the other ‘click’ moments, you, I or anyone else ever has into perspective.
It was the moment I realised I’d met an alien…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Maire was sitting quietly watching the darting forms of the iridescent blue dragonflies as they skimmed the slow-moving waters of the lazy little stream.

Of a sudden, the dragonflies scattered and the sound of marching feet and stamping hooves came to the girl’s ears.

She slipped into the undergrowth, then climbed into the concealing branches of a venerable oak tree.

The witchfinder passed within two manlengths of her hiding place, but his long nose never so much as twitched.

Marie made a sour face. The fools passed her by and wasted their steel on harmless old fools with cats…. 

©️jj 2019

From Transgressor Trilogy : Times of Change by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Outside it was dark and the air was cold. Ralik took a moment to find his charge since Zarengor was braced against the wall, his lean body almost invisible against the rough stonework.
“Don’t you have a home to go to?” The Black Vavasor’s voice sounded weary. “I am old enough to be out on my own, you know.”
Ralik said nothing. There was nothing to say. It was easy enough to understand the level of frustration that the other man had to contend with.
“Don’t you just love these Harkerans? They think themselves so civilised and superior – regard war as unreasonable, think a man who can write poetry or design a building is of more value than one who can use a sword, they regard their women as their equals in all things and even give legal rights to their slaves and their animals.” His voice was very slightly slurred betraying the amount of alcohol he had consumed. “But when it comes to good old-fashioned affairs of the heart, they are as quick as the next man to leap to the wrong conclusions and draw their blades.”
Ralik watched a group of young Harkeran noblemen leave the inn. They were obviously looking for something, or someone and two carried lights.
“It is getting late, Honoured One,” he said carefully. Zarengor, when drinking, could be persuaded but never pushed.
“Then you go home,” the other man suggested, his voice quite friendly, “I was thinking of finding another Harkeran matron of high standing to ravish, your Castellan’s wife perhaps.”
Ralik stiffened at the insult but said nothing, knowing it was deliberate, knowing Zarengor was goading him and knowing also it was the frustration and the drink that spoke through him. The Harkerans were getting closer and the mood Zarengor was in, it could easily end with blood on the street – their blood.
“Death of the gods, Ralik, what does someone have to do to get under your skin?” Zarengor sounded amused more than irritated.
The Harkerans had heard the voice if not the words and were moving now with intent. Ralik moved closer to his charge, who seemed to notice the threat for the first time and groaned aloud.
“Oh joy, children with swords and pistols. Just what I needed to make my day complete.”
The five young men, none of whom could have seen more than twenty summers, moved to confront them, throwing the burning torches to the ground and two of them had drawn swords, a third rested his hand on the butt of a finely crafted pistol. Zarengor still rested against the wall.
“Tell them I’m not hungry, Ralik, I have eaten enough babies today.”
“I’m more a man than you are, butcher,” the ring leader called out. Zarengor laughed briefly.
“Of course you are, that’s why you have your four friends with you. Brave child, go home to your mother and suckle some more then you might grow up big and strong one day.”
The Harkeran made a sound of incoherent fury and launched himself forward. Zarengor barely seemed to move away from the wall, his sword suddenly in his hand and cutting down through the youngster’s guard, drawing blood on his shoulder. The Harkeran stepped back, but found he could not escape the blade which seemed to be everywhere. Then as his sword went flying and he tried to jump aside, Ralik’s own blade came up and caught the death cut at the last moment and moved ready to parry again as the deadly blade disengaged.
“He is only a boy!” Ralik said the words urgently and ungently, part of his mind furious at Zarengor for allowing himself to drink to the point of such judgement loss and for the rest, afraid that he himself might now become a target for the feral sword. But the Vavasor seemed to come to himself, hesitating to attack through Ralik, and the youngsters took advantage of the moment to escape, disappearing into the darkness at speed.
For a moment, the two men stood facing each other, swords in their hands. Ralik waited with the point of his own blade towards the ground in a defensive gesture. He could not afford to surrender any advantage, Zarengor, drunk or not, was by far the superior swordsman. Then the Vavasor sighed and lowered his sword slowly.
“We should find the ponies,” he said heavily, sliding the blade back into its sheath. Ralik allowed himself to relax and stepped back carefully before putting his own sword away.

E.M. Swift-Hook.

Angie’s whoring years were coming to a close. Every morning she looked at the lines on her face with something like despair, and every evening she slipped into something slinky and slapped on a smile. 

The jobs still came, but they were mostly half-hour quickies with guys too mean to leave a tip.

The cowboy had about a yard of shoulders, and big, hard hands. All the girls sat up a bit straighter but he saw only Angie.

“Ma’am,” he said in his slow Texan drawl. “Would you?”

Thirty years later, he could still melt her with a smile.

©️jj 2019

The Rabid Readers Review ‘Last Fight of the Old Hound (Lost Dogs Book 1) by Nils Ödlund

Lycanthrope cage fighters, blood and, ultimately, death. Only that isn’t really what this book is about at all. It’s about decency being forced to bend the knee to corporate ambition.

One man and his wolf expected to throw their last fight.

What we have here is an exploration of duality, and of the twisting of decency to serve the purpose of expediency.

It’s handled with sensitivity and a certain good humour, making it easy reading.

A solid four stars.

Jane Jago

Science Fantasy Meets WWE

Roy van Waldenberger is an entertainer – but he entertains by fighting. He is also a therianthrope – a werewolf. But unlike the traditional idea of a lycanthrope he is very much in control of his wolf – most of the time. Roy is looking forward to winning a last big title then retiring. but then he learns that he is expected to throw the fight and that runs completely against the grain for the fighter once known as The Honest Man.

What I Really Enjoyed:
This is a fully a realised science fantasy setting and the feeling of depth and breadth is there right from the start when Roy wanders into a local bazaar. It is not over described it is carefully and cleverly woven into the story as part of a seamless fabric.
The characters are very convincing and well drawn. Roy is someone it is easy to empathise with and the relationship between himself and Jen is one of the most realistically presented cross-gender friendships I have ever read.
The author very cleverly introduces the way therianthropes are and how they fit into the world as a whole. These are not classic lycanthropes. Instead, it seems more of a symbiosis between the animal spirit and the human. I really liked this fresh take on an old notion.

What I Struggled With:
Two things – one a technical issue the other a bit of a story issue. One: the author had the bad habit of building tension brilliantly then putting in a paragraph of something that completely shattered the moment. Two: the possible responses to Roy being told to throw the fight were presented as a binary option when even I could think of at least three other ways the problem could have been tackled within the context of the story. Considering the amount of time Roy spent thinking about it and discussing it, and how incredibly significant it was to find some solution, I found that very hard to believe that no other ideas were even mooted.

Overall thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book and want to know how the story goes on. It had that feeling of real people caught up in a difficult situation with high stakes, set in a solid and fascinating world. If you enjoy well-written spec fic of any shade, I think this might well appeal. 4.5 stars, rounded up.

E.M. Swift-Hook