“No child of mine could ever be a vegetarian.” Father was in such a rage that he sprayed his morning blood around the dining room.

Mother coughed. “Are you suggesting that Violentis is not your child?”

“No. No of course not. But how can a vampire be a vegetarian?”

“With difficulty. But the decision is her own to make.”

Father retired behind his newspaper harrumphing.

Violentis drunk her tomato juice.

Six months later, Father was the only one in the household still drinking blood. But then he scented a profit. 

Writing ‘Vegetarianism for Vampires’ made him a very wealthy man.

©️jj 2019

I order my drink at the bar
The ice-cubes chiming in the glass
“You want a straw with that?”
Pretty plastic colours
I think what I saw
Last night on TV
An ocean choked
With plastic waste
I say no
The last straw.
Simple.
Really.
Just,
No.

E.M. Swift-Hook

You can listen to this on YouTube if you prefer.

This is a book one read under protest. One morning at breakfast one was attempting to explain to the mater that literary affection must be pure and unsullied, it must not mirror life. If it did, it would be unpleasantly sweaty and redolent of bodily fluids.

Around halfway through one’s peroration she got up from the table, temporarily abandoning a plate of greasy egg and sausage to scrabble around in the escritoire that leans drunkenly in one corner of the breakfast room. She returned to the table bringing with her a torn and dogeared paperback with which she proceeded to beat one about the head.

“This is a proper exploration of human emotion. Read it and for f***’s sake learn something. There will be questions later.”

Adjudging discretion the better part of valour. One read it.

Review:

A plain female child grows into a plain woman. Somehow she catches the eye of a man. Who turns out to be married. Then she runs away. Then she goes back

End of story.

Honestly, gentle reader, it does nothing for one. The heroine lacks romance, beauty, allure, etcetera. Although the hero is quite exciting, I suppose. But if one’s distaff parent hadn’t insisted….

Star rating. One out of five. Plus a half for a slightly sexy hero.

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 image that catapulted her to Internet stardom started out as a joke. She needed an avatar for her business – and her husband put her in one of the dresses she was attempting to sell and told her to look mean. He grinned at her from behind the camera.

“The face is brilliant, but it needs something else… I know.”

He disappeared for a moment, returning with an old chair leg adorned with some flex she recognised as coming from a broken electric iron. 

When they stopped laughing sufficiently, she posed again.

And Whiplash Fashions got its public face.

©️jj 2019

From ‘Skin Deep’ a story in Pulling the Rug II by Jane Jago. You can listen to this on YouTube too.

Llys was working in the herb garden when her mother came out of the kitchen and sat herself on a stone bench in the spring sunshine.
“We have a problem, dear heart” she said without preamble.
“Garanwys?”
“Yes. She now says she will not marry Llyd while thou art still living in this house.”
“And shall I stay here forever, then?”
“There is naught that would please me more. But. She has thy brother and thy father pixie-led.”
“I know it. So I am to go.” Llys dusted off her hands and came to sit beside her mother, who looked into her only daughter’s calm features and sighed.
“Why does she hate thee so?”
“Because Owen Smith wanted her not.”
Lyonette regarded her daughter in a puzzled manner.
“Why would he want her when he had thee?”
“All men must want her. Thou knowest that, Mother mine.”
“Aye. I do know. And should one not, it seems her spite follows him even unto death.”
“Him and his widow.”
Lyonette patted the hand that lay on Llys’ lap.
“Sadly. And now I must press thee. Thy father asks what thou wouldst do.”
“I know not, Mother. Do I have choices?”
“Thou dost. There have been two offers for thy hand in marriage. There is one offer of a place as a housekeeper. Or thou mayst have a cottage of thine own in the village.”
“But I must, indeed, leave my childhood home at the behest of a spiteful woman.”
“Thou must.”
“Then tell me of these offers.”
“The priest requires a housekeeper. The fat innkeeper offers for thy hand in matrimony, as does Aled Sheepherder.”
“I would not live alone for the rest of my days, so I must choose one of the other offers.”
“Thou must.”
“I’ll not warm the lustful priest’s bed.”

“Quiet child. He is a celibate” Lyonette spoke sharply, then looked into her daughter’s intelligent eyes and lifted a work-worn hand to her cheek. “Or perchance not…”
“Not,” Llys was scornful. “Remember, I lived beside his house while Owen and I were man and wife. So.” She wrinkled her smooth forehead. “I’ll not take the fat innkeeper neither. He has already worked three wives into their graves. But I like Aled Sheepherder, he was a friend of Owen and he is a kind, good man. Will thou tell my father I will take his offer gladly.”
“Gladly?”
“Aye. I will do it with a glad heart and grudge my husband naught. You might also tell Father that I neither cried nor bemoaned my lot. He could have spoken with me himself.”
Lyonette smiled sadly.
“Not so dear heart. The hurt in thy eyes would have made him uncomfortable.” Then she heaved herself onto her feet and made her way back into the house.
Llys returned to her weeding.

Jane Jago

He was the youngest of six. There was Brutal Brian, Bestial Brendan, Bitchy Barbara, Boisterous Bill, Beautiful Belinda – and Bashful Bernard.

He was a kind shortsighted chap who blushed and stammered whenever he caught the scent of a stranger.

In desperation, his parents signed him up for a course of Shark Speed Dating.

“How does this work?” he asked the perky female on the door.

She smiled toothily. “If a female doesn’t try to eat your face you are compatible.”

Bernard joined the queue, behind a handsome fellow called Graham.

An hour later they swam off together, fin in fin.

©️jj 2019

Excerpt from Aaspa’s Eyes by Jane Jago. You can listen to this on YouTube too.

We all slept like the dead, and I don’t know when I would have awoken if it wasn’t for Owlet’s bladder. Even then it was a long time after dawn when he blew in my ear.
‘Mother. Owlet needs to piss.’
I sat up.
‘Okay. You go behind that tree there.’
He scrambled out of our warm bed and made a dash, returning quite quickly with a broad grin.
‘Better. Now Owlet hungry.’
‘There’s a surprise. Let Mother see what she can do.’
I got up and ambled over to the cook fire, which had smouldered all night. I fed it till it blazed nicely, and I was just wondering what to cook when one of the female trolls came out of the cave with a covered basket on her arm. She bowed respectfully and proffered the basket. I lifted the cover to find it contained fresh flat troll bread, several pats of butter, and a smaller basket of eggs.
‘Thank you sister’ I smiled, being very careful not to show my teeth.
‘Is little. Big Club is awake and himself again. Small thanks.’
I found a suitable pot and melted some butter.
‘Owlet’ I said ‘can you wake everyone? Politely. I’m making scrumbled egg.’
He leapt out of bed and went around tapping shoulders and whispering. By the time I had fried some alliums and fungus, I had quite an audience. Aanma and Aanda appointed themselves my assistants and buttered slices of flatbread. I tipped the eggs into my pot and they took but a minute to cook. Everybody was served quickly, and I was pleased to note that, with the exception of the tiny fae babe, who was being fed by Owlet, the former prisoners were all feeding themselves and looking much better. One of the adult fae came and sat beside me.
‘Where did you get bread and eggs? I was expecting porridge again. Would have been welcome. But this is tastier.’
‘A present from the trolls.’
She looked surprised, and I laughed.
‘Trolls’ I explained ‘don’t eat meat.’
‘You sure? We are taught that they are cannibalistic. Also, they are supposed to pull faery wings off, and keep the maimed fae in their larders to eat later.’
I laughed and shook my head. ‘I know trolls look brutish, but they really aren’t. They are actually pacifists. The clubs are for show, and self defence if they are really pushed. They eat only vegetables and dairy. Incidentally, they make the best butter and cheese of any species.’

Jane Jago.

Roxanne married Hans at her father’s behest. He was a talented artist, with the ear of the Elector and a house in the best part of the city.

He turned out to be a passionate lover and a kind husband, although she was never sure what she meant to him beyond a housekeeper and a vessel for his seed.

A picture of a woman reading was wanted. Roxanne sat for Hans to paint her.

When she saw the result, and how beautiful he had made her, she smiled.

“You do love me a little.”

“No. I love you a lot.”

©️jj 2019

From Iconoclast: Mistrust and Treason by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube too.

The woman on the chair beside him looked the lean, mean and hungry kind – the only doubt being exactly where that hunger was focused. She was presently focused on whatever personal screens held her attention, but he had a strong feeling they were not going to be ones about her favourite esport celebrities.
Whatever it was she was looking at must have been pretty attention-grabbing though, as her top teeth were visible, pressing hard into her bottom lip as she concentrated. Then she moved her arm and he saw the slight bulk of a wrist slot analysis device, no doubt the source of her screens. It also answered all his questions: she was on a power climb – a woman literally wired to her work. Which made her exactly the kind of person he would choose to swim a shark-filled river in full spate to avoid.
The other four people in the room could have had ‘Specialist Data Nerd’ stamped on their faces and it would not have made that fact any more obvious than it already was. These were the elite of the Coalition Security Force – masters of the virtual universe – no doubt self-labelling as crime-fighting heroes to a man and woman. But then they knew they were the most effective fighters of crime in the service, with clear-up rates that made the rest of the CSF look like slouches and shirkers. Armed with their forensic accounting suites, specialist link-predictive policing packages, and anti-hacking inoculation protocols, they could identify, isolate and neutralise almost any link-based fraudster or financial criminal. Usually, they had their perpetrator fingered within moments of the crime, sometimes even before the crime was committed, but if not they could always fearlessly hunt the evildoers down in the information jungles of the Coalition link networks, then analyse them into submission.
Very. Scary. People.
Not.
In his experience, they were never happy when asked to dirty their hands to provide reports on the sort of research their more reality-oriented colleagues might require: things about the messy side of life with real blood, real violence, real emotions. It was only when someone very senior was holding a briefing these people were ever in evidence. Had Jecks not been running this, there would have been a single junior techie, remote linking poor quality information packages someone had knocked together on their lunch break. But with the head of the CSF involved, every department manager had made it a point to turn up in person just to be seen.
Even so, they were all looking put upon and focused more on their own screens than on what was happening in the room, glancing up now and then as if worried they might have missed the start of the briefing, then ploughing their attention back into their virtual worlds. Clearly, as far as they were concerned, there were much better uses for their valuable time. And they were probably right. No doubt they should be off tagging some new virus or breaching a criminal firewall in the depths of the underlink networks. But, instead, because this was Jecks’ personal show, they were having to be here in the flesh, parading themselves so they could give whatever briefing this was some skeleton of fact. Presumably, Jecks himself was bringing the flesh to hang on it, but if so the only people here to be briefed so far were himself and…
He looked at the woman sitting beside him again, a mix of dread and certainty spawning in his guts. He closed his eyes for a moment, consciously banishing the notion as far from his thoughts as he could send it, then opened them again to find it had not gone away, any more than she had. He had been wrong about such things before. He would have to hope he was wrong this time too.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The wallet was fat, with notes and plastic cards. Frankie picked it up and opened it riffling through the money with a grimy thumb.

“That’d buy us plenty.”

“And it’d also get us in plenty of trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Yeah. Frankie, you are a numpty. Did you never see who dropped it?”

“Nah. Why’d I care who drops it?”

“Because it was MadDog Newton.”

Frankie dropped the wallet like it bit him.

Minnie picked it up and sprinted after MadDog’s shiny head.

She came back grinning, with a fifty in one hand.

“C’mon Frankie. Mister Newton is gonna buy us breakfast.”

©️jj 2019