The bicycle looked somehow wounded as it lay across the path, as if thrown aside with careless cruelty.

There was evidence that something, or someone, had crashed, or been dragged, through the graceful waving foliage that bordered the forest walk. He followed, through the wrecked beauty, with every nerve and sinew braced in case rescue was needed. 

Then he heard the voices, a woman speaking softly and a man’s deep laughter.

“You so surprised me, love.”

He turned back the way he came, smiling ruefully.

When he reached the path, he propped the bicycle against a tree and walked away.

©JaneJago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

Agugust (noun) sometime between July and September when it is stinking hot and the world seems to be populated by toddlers with snotty noses and attitude

Beer mind (noun) the sudden increase in attractiveness of persons of the opposite gender often felt after pint seventeen

Craspid (adverb) of perambulation slightly sideways and with a halting gait. Often caused by one’s chums tying one’s shoelaces together as a jolly jape

Doign (noun) the sound a mattress makes during athletic sexual congress

Ehalth (noun) the persistent notion that your computer hates you

Ekkyskweek (noun) a dead mouse left in your wellington boot by next door’s cat 

Froup (noun) Facebook group populated by people with no friends in the real world

Glaffes (noun) magnifying devices used to spot giraffes and wildebeest in the local park

Humout (verb) the act of running in front of a speeding train with one’s genitalia on display

Interet (noun) stuff on the internet that bores the tits off people

Jubble (noun) possessions found stuffed behind the sofa cushions. Inevitably includes one button battery and a half sucked boiled sweet (hairy)

Lgung (noun) breathing apparatus to be used when one’s other half breaks wind in bed

Migged (verb, past participle) having had one’s possessions stolen in a drive-by conducted by pensioners in powered wheelchairs 

Purcess (verb) of cats – to use feline wiles in order to be fed treats by the gullible 

Shouold (adjective) of an elderly person – shuffling and indecisive, aware of what ought to be happening but wholly unable to force the issue

Tredberr (adjective) of training shoes – having holes in the soles but still looking cool enough to be worn by the young and stupid

Wonter (noun) the season between effing cold and not very cold

Workign (adverb) of mechanical devices, being almost fit for purpose

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

He’d been planning it for weeks, deciding what to cook and choosing a day she would be visiting anyway. It was their regular Friday evening wind down for the weekend, chilling with a box set and a bottle of wine. Usually, it was ‘order in pizza’ day, but today it’d be special – his meal, candles, flowers and the ring, of course.

He was just discovering that flower arranging was a lot harder than it looked, when the phone rang. 

“I need to tell you I’m seeing someone else…”

He put a ready meal in the microwave and ate it alone.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Take this exclusive opportunity to consult the wisdom of the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries. 

Aries is the cuddliest of star signs, which makes its affinity to horror very surprising. The Arian reader will gravitate to children’s literature or hardcore scary. Nothing in between. 

Favourite Book

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Creepiness and sheepiness 

Recommended bedtime story for your Aries child

Anything woolly and cuddly. Knitting patterns read slowly ensure peaceful rest. 

Taurus.

Taurean readers are stubbornly fond of maps. Give them an atlas or a big fat fantasy tome and they will be happy for hours.

Favourite Book

They would say Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, although most of them won’t have bothered to read it all. Closer to the truth would be The Hobbit

Recommended bedtime story for your Taurus child

Print out a route from your home to John o’Groats and read it slowly turn by turn. 

Gemini.

The astrological twins are continue to be a conundrum wrapped in a question. They are fascinated by mystery and contradiction. Never offer a Gemini reader ‘happy ever after’: they don’t believe in it.

Favourite Book

The Fated Sky by E.M. Swift-Hook or, indeed, any of the Fortunes Fools oeuvre. The sheer complexity of the imagination keeps even the Gemini cynic rapt 

Recommended bedtime story for your Gemini child

Purchase a book of mathematical problems and read them out in your most soothing tones. Even Geminis will get so bored they nod off. 

Cancer.

Cancerian readers love a book that comes at them out of left field. They spit upon the ordinary or predictable. What they desire is shell-bursting and psychedelic prose that makes them want to scuttle away and hide. If they ever get to understand a book they abandon it forever.

Favourite Books

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

Recommended bedtime story for your Cancer child

Nonsense verse, or, failing that, a cookbook that is heavy on crab recipes. They may not sleep, but the little sods will be quiet.

Leo.

Lazy Leo likes an easy read. Nothing challenging is considered. Ever

Favourite Book

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis. Or any of the Narnia Chronicles. Leos do like to see themselves as the hero 

Recommended bedtime story for your Leo child

It doesn’t matter what you read. Just replace the hero’s name with the name of your small lion and (s)he will fall asleep with a beatific smile.

Virgo.

Virgo readers like tidiness in life – and in literature. For them a book must have a beginning, a middle, and a happy end. Bonuses are awarded for good use of punctuation.

Favourite Book

Anything by Miss Austen or  E.F. Benson’s Lucia series. A little waspishness helps every Virgo reader’s day

Recommended bedtime story for your Virgo child

Anything with a strongly moralistic viewpoint. If you can find a story where the annoyingly prim and creepy child comes out on top so much the better

Libra.

Libran readers like to be puzzled and to pit their wits against both the writer and the antagonist. They get very annoyed by slipshod grammar.

Favourite Book

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle or any of Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple stories.

Recommended bedtime story for your Libra child

Nothing too trendy or humorous. We recommend reading logic problems. Slowly

Scorpio.

Scorpio readers are intelligent, short-tempered and easily bored. A book has one page to catch the interest of a Scorpio or (s)he is not going to bother. They like complexity of plot and deep meaning to discern.

Favourite Books

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman or Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse stories. Sweeping fantasy always does it. That or sexy vampires 

Recommended bedtime story for your Scorpio child

Just read them whatever soft porn their father is currently into. They will feel special and slightly smug, and they might even go to sleep 

Sagittarius.

Sagittarian readers are hard to please, being intelligent, principled, and a tad dour. Do not expect a Sagittarius to read erotica with anything other than a moue of distaste. They do, however, like evil to get a good thrashing.

Favourite Books

The Redwall Chronicles by Brian Jacques

Recommended bedtime story for your Sagittarius child

The lives of saints and martyrs have the right moralistic and self-satisfied tone. Practice reading unemotionally

Capricorn.

Amiable, clever and organised. Capricorn tends not to read fiction. They like logic, explanation, and hard facts. And diagrams…

Favourite Books

Instruction manuals. Yes. Capricorn is the sign that reads the instructions first!

Recommended bedtime story for your Capricorn child

Do not ever read to Capricorn children. They are far too bright, and they are perfectionists. Be warned. Having your pronunciation corrected by a toddler is a chastening experience 

Aquarius.

Most Aquarian’s will tell you they are too busy to read. Then they will sneak off somewhere with a favourite book and be gone for hours. They like light reading, with defined characters. 

Favourite Book 

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome or The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Or anything about water….

Recommended bedtime story for your Aquarius child

Purchase a copy of their business statistics from your local water company. They will be enthralled.

Pisces.

There are two kinds of Pisces readers. Those who like a nice light romance or warm children’s tales. And those who want psychological horror of the most harrowing description. We are looking at Lovecraft or Barbara Cartland. Often in the same person. Odd…

Favourite Book 

The complete HP Lovecraft or The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson or Bolded Hearts by Jane Jago. Nothing between the two poles will do

Recommended bedtime story for your Pisces child

There is no perfect Pisces story. The best you can do is read from a random book, and if the child argues read more loudly.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

After the equinox, before Halloween
October falls in that strange place between
And has become a time that means much to me
After the equinox, before Halloween.

The last month of long days before the clocks change
The last month for warm sunshine afore colder ways
The high month of autumn and her golden sheen
After the equinox, before Halloween.

But for me October holds some special glow
For of all the people I have come to know
October is when the birthdays seem to be
Of those friends I most cherish, who mean most to me.

So I think there’s a magic in October’s span
Something quite precious that makes me a huge fan
Of that enchanted time that falls in between
After the equinox, before Halloween.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The Dai and Julia Mysteries are set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules…

They were having a fine day out on the hills. Felix had mastered the rudiments of riding quickly and today he was managing to control his stubborn little mount so well that Caudinus had abandoned the leading rein. Having eaten the lunch Cookie packed for them, Felix was running around playing at being a legionary soldier whilst his father and Dai shared a half-bottle of local wine and the ponies chomped contentedly at the grass nearby.
The land here was bleak but beautiful, with ridges of rock, mantled in greenery, jutting into the sky and limiting the horizon from roughly rolling hills. A brisk breeze ruffled hair, lifting the heat of an unclouded sun and somewhere above them a bird keened as it traced an invisible circle overhead. Scant sign of human habitation disturbed Dai’s view, aside from the odd isolated dwelling, little more than drystone shacks with crude slating culled from local stone where crofter families lived. Their sheep, made small by distance were puffs of grey, like dandelion seed heads, against the scrub. This was the hinterland of Britannia, never one of the richer or more developed provinces, at its most primal.
“I’m sorry to spoil the day.” Caudinus voice broke into Dai’s thoughts. “But this wasn’t only about taking Felix for a riding lesson.”
Dai was not too surprised. He had caught the note of significance in the older man’s voice when he had called yesterday suggesting he brought his family over to Villa Papaverus and that the three of them should go for a ride.
“So what’s up?”
Caudinus shifted his position on the rough wool blanket they had thrown over the grass and thistles.
“I’m not sure it is anything, but it might be and I didn’t want to worry Cariad or Julia so this seemed the best way we could talk without either of them realising we had been.”
“I can see that,” Dai agreed. The last thing he would want for Julia, so close to her due date now, was anything to worry about. “What’s the problem?”
“I have had a couple of anonymous threats delivered to my admin staff in the last few days. Unpleasant things – one found their cat mutilated and a message attached to it saying they should tell me to back the right people. Then night before last another was jumped by two masked men and told to tell me that I shouldn’t get in the way of progress.” He broke off. “I might even have some idea who might be involved. A man called Aled Blaenau. He came to see me at the end of last month on behalf of some clients of his, he said. He was hinting heavily that he would be willing to bribe me to nod through a substantial transaction on some potentially contaminated land for his backers. He never actually came out and said so, of course, or I’d have nailed him for it and he denied that was what he meant when I threw it back in his face. I sent him away in no doubt that his efforts were more likely to be counter-productive than anything. At the time I thought he was just a lobbyist who had been over enthusiastic, but now…”
“You didn’t report any of this to Bryn?”
Caudinus shook his head. “I wanted to bring it to you rather than do anything official. As I said, I don’t want our families to become alarmed.”
The sunny day seemed to grow darker and Dai felt a cloud pass over his soul.
“Alright I’ll get on it soon as I’m back in work tomorrow. Nothing official until we have something solid to go on.”
Caudinus nodded and got to his feet.
“Thank you, I appreciate that. But now we’d best get these ponies back home.”
A few minutes later they began heading back to the farm. Their easiest way led through a small wood of stunted oaks and ash trees and that was when it happened. Dai vaguely recalled something stinging his neck and as he lifted a hand to swat it away, the world had turned upside down and slid out of sight into a dark tunnel.

An extract from Dying to be Fathers a Dai and Julia Mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

Before Ginny could ask her next question there were footsteps on the spiral staircase and Agnes appeared carrying a tray, preceded by the nutty perfume of freshly ground and filtered coffee.
“Sorry for the slight delay,” she said brightly as she handed round the cups, I had to fend off Petunia.” She sat down and lifted her mug in a sort of toast to Ginny. “They all can’t wait to meet you.”
“They?”
“Our Sisters. The Steering Committee of Little Botheringham Ladies Association.” Agnes explained. “That’s me, Agnes, great-great granny and gossip. Lilian who you sat next to at the LA meeting.”
Agnes paused for breath, and Ginny dredged up the memory of a skinny woman with a seamed face and fascinating dreadlocks.
Agnes ploughed on. “Petunia who is a veterinary nurse and who held you down while Em Fed you. Ellen, who is bit of a leftie and a very strident lesbian – especially when she has been drinking. Jamelia, who is quiet, incredibly clever and beautiful. And of course Em who is Queen of our nest.”
Em made a depreciating gesture.
“It really isn’t what you might think. Just the traditional title given to whoever in a vampire community is daft enough to step up to the plate and try and organise things. It’s a very hands-on kind of leadership role. Like most such things, you wind up having to do much of what needs doing yourself.”
“And Em is very good at doing things,” Agnes said. “And at organising the rest of us, which in the case of most of our little community is very like herding goldfish.”
“Don’t you mean cats?”
Agnes grinned. “You tell me – after you’ve met the others.”
Ginny looked between the two women.
“So the Ladies Association is run by vampires?”
“Oh yes. We work very hard to look after the village.”
Ginny thought of the bench outside the village shop and the fundraising for a new minibus for the local primary – and the campaign she’d heard about which had kept the school open. All organised by the Ladies Association.
“You do seem to be very involved in village life.”
Em’s mouth sculpted the hint of a grin.
“You could say that.”
“And a lot of thankless work it is too,” Agnes put in. “I sometimes wonder why we bother with some of the ingratiates.”
“It can be hard work,” Em agreed and took a drink of her coffee.
“So why do you do it?”
Both the women looked at her as if she was asking something that had the most obvious answer in the world.
“This is our home,” Em said gently. “If we didn’t look after it before long it’d be nothing more than a hollowed out dormitory for the wealthy with a sprinkling of second homes and holiday rentals.”
“Like most of the other villages around here,” Agnes added. “Much Botheringham is more like an English village theme park than a real community, and Nether Botheringham has become little more than a suburb of Bedchester and half of that was taken over by an industrial estate.”
Ginny tried to fit the idea of helpful conservationism into her concept of a vampire and what vampires did. And failed. She pushed it aside as something else occurred.
“So about vampires. Are there a lot around?”
“Not that many nowadays.”
“There used to be more?”
“Going back a couple of centuries and some, yes,” Agnes told her. “Too many, in fact. And in the increasing glare of science and mass communication it was becoming harder and harder to keep hidden from humanity. So we had to make some changes within our community. Establish certain norms.”
Agnes sipped her coffee and looked over at Em, who gave a small shrug.
“We just had to make sure we eliminated the troublemakers. It was very obvious that those who caused the most problems were those who had been transformed when young. They still had all the folly and exuberance of youth and never really grew out of it. Imagine a four-hundred year-old with ongoing teenage angst.”
Ginny did, and her eyes widened as Em went on talking.
“And the men were the worst. Vampirism boosts testosterone levels to the point where two could barely be in a room together without having to fight it out to decide who was the ‘alpha’.”
“So that explains all the ravishing young women vampires in the stories and the ravishing of young women by vampires, the overdramatic dress sense and so forth.”
Both Agnes and Em were nodding.
“So we made a new rule. One that would exclude all the most unstable elements from the vampire community. We wanted people who were rational, controlled, wise and careful.”
Ginny wondered which of those descriptors she could actually lay claim to.
“That must be a bit difficult. How do you find such paragons?”
“That was easy,” Agnes said. “The only people who can be made into vampires nowadays are post-menopausal women.”

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

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