Six Sentence Sunday: "Fixed", Part 4

Here it is, your last Six Sentence Sunday entry for the month of "Fixed", my story in The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity. And because I am evil, it is a cliffhanger. If you want to read more, well, you just have to buy the book. ;-)

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“Just as I thought,” she said. “Prepare this animal for surgery. I need to operate immediately.”
His head shot upward. Backed against the steel bars, he couldn’t help seeing past her glamour. The lines scoring her forehead and bracketing the corners of her wide, lipsticked mouth floated like a painted veil over a pale, ageless face as perfect as a marble Madonna.

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Six Sentence Sunday: "Fixed", Part 3

Last week I fell down on the Six Sentence Sunday job. Hey, a girl and her sweetie get only one anniversary a year. But I'm back with a third selection from "Fixed", my story in the fabulous anthology The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity. Enjoy!
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Even the kittens shut up, pressing their bodies to the wet plastic floor of their cage. A chill brushed his spine, lifting fur that had just begun to relax. Jack’s ability to sense magic was no better than human. The difference was he knew it existed and taught himself to read the warning signs in other animals. This one was lit up in neon. He hunkered down and tried to think cat thoughts; the last thing he wanted was to attract any kind of magical attention.

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Thursday 13, Modern Fae-style

You already know about “Fixed” my story in The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity (aka #ModernFae in the Twitterverse), the wonderful fantasy anthology edited by Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray. (My blurb and an excerpt can be found here, if you somehow escaped my blog the first time through.) But what you may not know is there are thirteen (yes, exactly thirteen—for Thursday, no less) other wonderful reasons to buy the book. To quote the web site’s table of contents:

“We Will Not Be Undersold” by Seanan McGuire
Dan discovers the sinister reason why the employees of Undermart are always cheerful and ready to help consumers buy the latest cheap plastic imports. But when his snooping takes him to Oberon's realm, Dan must pay the price for his trespass.

“The Changeling” by Susan Jett
Marisol Martinez thinks her son Tomas died in childbirth, until a midwife tells her it’s been stolen by the fae. Now she needs to save her son from the fairy’s clutches...by heading into the hill hidden in...Brooklyn?

“Water-Called” by Kari Sperring
The water spirit Jenny had once ruled a wide expanse of marshland, but now she was hemmed in by the modern world of concrete and drainage canals. But when a killer dares to hunt in Jenny's realm, Jenny ventures into the modern city, and returns to her old ways.

“The Roots of Aston Quercus” by Juliet E. McKenna
A copse full of dryads is threatened by the construction of a new road, right through their heart. But how can they save their precious trees without exposing themselves to the world? All they have is their copse...and their memories, built up over hundreds of years.

“To Scratch an Itch” by Avery Shade
Young Autumn Sky has been told to always, always act normal. But when a storm threatens her roof garden, she acts without thinking, using powers she didn't know she had...endangering not only her family, but all of the fae as well.

“Continuing Education” by Christine Smith
Stuck in a dead-end career, Lee had returned to college, seeking a different life. But when a fellow student disappears, she learns that the picturesque brick and ivy buildings of the old campus hide ancient secrets, and corporations aren't the only ones recruiting students.

"How to Be Human” by Barbara Ashford
Is there anything more pathetic than a menopausal faery? Yes. A menopausal male faery leading a motivational seminar. For humans. At the New Rochelle Radisson. And when some of the local fae youngsters stop by to cause trouble, Finn rediscovers his own passion, and that his talks may apply more to the fae than the humans he’s glamoured his whole life.



"How Much Salt?” by April Steenburgh
Cut off from his clan as humans claimed the beaches once reserved for selkies, Dan finds a new home--and a new place to hunt--when he joins an aquarium show.

“Hooked” by Anton Strout
A rogue fairy lures unwary New Yorkers to their deaths in the heart of Central Park. But her latest victim is more than he seems, and the predator has just become the prey.

“Crash” by S.C. Butler
Where would a crafty leprechaun hide out in the modern world? Wall Street, of course! And Janet has just found the end of the rainbow. But stealing the leprechaun’s "gold" has consequences that she couldn't have imagined.

“A People Who Always Know” by Shannon Page and Jay Lake
Someone is stealing the changelings and returning them to the fae world before their time. Hestia, the former queen of faerie, knows who is behind the kidnappings, but proving her suspicions requires her to venture into the mortal world.

“The Slaughtered Lamb” by Elizabeth Bear
Edie, a drag queen werewolf, has always been an outcast--from the fae and her pack. But when the Wild Hunt rides through the streets of Manhattan, she ends up learning that times have changed, and perhaps the pack needs her after all.

“Corrupted” by Jim C. Hines
Jessica had spent years as an FBI agent, protecting humans from rogue fae. But the years--and the steel of modern life--have taken their toll, threatening to turn her into one of the very monsters that she hunts. When the rogues threaten to destroy the fae realm, can Jessica find the strength for one last case?

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Photos of The Modern Fae’s Guide in the wild at the Tustin Ranch, California, Barnes and Noble taken by the wonderful Catherine Gross-Colten on March 7.


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Six Sentence Sunday: "Fixed", Part 2

It's getting closer and closer. The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity goes on sale March 6.  To whet your appetite, here's another Six Sentence Sunday snippet from my cat shifter story, "Fixed". Enjoy!

He feinted right. With a triumphant woof and the crackle of dead weeds, his pursuer plunged into the brush. Jack veered left, gaze locked on the outdoor balance beam. If he could run the dog into the log . . .
“Look out!” a female voice screamed.
He turned just in time to see a bicycle twice his height tearing up the center of the path.

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Six Sentence Sunday: "Fixed"

This Six Sentence Sunday I'm super excited to share an excerpt from "Fixed", my story in The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity, coming from DAW Books to a bookstore near you on March 6. Yes, you read that right: DAW Books. It's my very first appearance in a mass market paperback. You'll be able to go to the SF and fantasy section of your local mall bookstore and find it on the shelves. And you want to find it, because the table of contents features people like Seanan Mcguire, Elizabeth Bear and Jim C. Hines--to say nothing about my little story about a teenaged cat shifter who absolutely, positively does NOT want to get "Fixed". It opens:

There were lots of advantages to being a part-time cat. Being chased by a Rottweiler named Bitsy through Holcomb Creek Park wasn’t one of them.
Heart pounding, chest heaving, Jack Tibbert raced down the bike path, insensible to the late November cold, the people on the path, or anything except escape. Bitsy’s heavy grunts grew louder as she closed the gap between them. His imagination added the heat of the dog’s breath on his neck as her massive jaws closed in for the kill. He had to take cover—high where her crushing teeth couldn’t reach—but where?

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Six Sentence Sunday: "Hoodoo Cupid" Three

This will be my last Six Sentence Sunday excerpt from "Hoodoo Cupid"--at least until next year. I hope you've enjoyed reading the excerpts as much as I've enjoyed revisiting the story.

No matter how hard or how loud her inner paranoid told her he couldn’t be trusted, the rest of her wasn’t listening. Her respiration slowed, lulled by hints of scents which had no place in a sickroom—sandalwood and ginger and the faintest trace of sweat. The longer she stood there and watched him breathe, waiting for her to act, accepting it…

Something fluttered, soft as feathered wings, inside her belly.

“Maggie?” he whispered.

Why did he have to say her name like it mattered?

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Six Sentence Sunday: "Hoodoo Cupid" Two

As promised, February's first three Six Sentence Sunday entries are all from my short contemporary romance, "Hoodoo Cupid", available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

Today's scene takes place in the ER after Maggie Scanlan's hoodoo has done it's work on her professional rival and new boss, Dan Constantine:

When [Dan's] eyes focused on a person—the way they focused on her now—it was like being targeted by a pair of lasers. The fan of creases deepening at the corners of his eyes and his slowly widening smile only made it worse.

“My ride.” His voice had a husky quality—a subtle roughness like vintage mohair upholstery, which inspired almost as much thigh wriggling and skirt palming among the agency power groupies as his eyes. “Talk about answered prayers. Please tell me it’s going to be a long one.”

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Bad Girl Blogging

This month's theme at Beyond the Veil is the changing face of the romance industry. I tried to be good. I really did. But nothing says blog to me like organizations behaving badly. ;-)

The More Things in the Romance Industry Change...

Six Sentence Sunday: "Hoodoo Cupid"

In honor of February's big day, I plan three Six Sentence Sunday excerpts from my Valentine's Day romance, "Hoodoo Cupid", a short romance published by Red Rose and available wherever fine ebooks are sold.  As the blurb says:

Maggie Scanlan’s voodoo was a bust until she took her scissors to a poppet on Valentine’s Day. She never expected professional rival—and voodoo victim—Dan Constantine to break his leg, much less sweep the rug out from under her in an Emergency Room. Her brain says, “Run!” Her heart…

"Hoodoo Cupid"

The tattered rag doll flopped on the brushed metal table as Maggie Scanlan wrapped a thread thrice around its stubby legs.

“Let’s see how you like being cut off at the knees, Daniel Curtiss Constantine!” she shouted into the doll’s expressionless face.

A raw, exhaust-scented wind skittered under her hair, raising goose bumps across the back of her neck. She paid the goose bumps no mind. She wasn’t scared. It was just the cold.

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More next week!

The Faster I Run...

The behinder I get. At least, it sure seems that way.

It's taken me way too long to update JeanMarieWard.com with the cover and jacket copy for Hellfire Lounge 2: Rat Pack Redux. If you like your horror served sardonic--and occasionally laugh out loud funny--this is the anthology for you. It features stories by my old friends C. J. Henderson, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, R. Allen Leider and Robert Waters, as well as new colleagues James Chambers, John L. French, KT Pinto, Patrick Thomas and Paul Kupperberg, and amazing art by Ben Fogletto (check out that cover!), Ed Coutts, Ben Fogletto, Denny Fincke, Jason Whitley and Paul London. Yeah, I'm in there, too, with a little story called "Billy's Monster". And when I say little, you know I mean it.

Also criminal is my failure to blog more about my interview at Carma Spence's Genre Traveller. Carma did a great job with the interview, but the thing that knocks me out is the interactive content. It's worth it to check out the page just to see her linky goodness. Trust me, you won't regret it.

Happy Ground Hog Day!