E.A. Monroe's Blog, page 2
July 15, 2023
April 1, 2023
Pale Imitations Excerpt
The short span of a week found the first published copies of Sir Galen’s music selling on the streets of San Bargel. Within a fortnight, Sir Galen’s reputation extended beyond the drawing room musicales. An overnight celebrity, he basked in the glory of his quickly won fame. His sheet music could not be printed or copied fast enough to satisfy the public’s demand.
Sir Galen’s newest musical was the smash of the season. Nightly, a standing-room-only crowd packed San Bargel’s opulent opera hall and filled the red velvet seats and gilded private boxes. Sir Galen was busier than he had ever dreamed possible, and Reece Rau had made friends among the theatrical cast, who nightly romped, danced, and sang to the delight and applause of the theatergoers.
Sir Galen hardly noticed Reece’s new friendships and growing independence. He was too busy to notice or care — as long as Reece was happy and content and favorably acclaimed by the theater critics as the newest rising star to grace a San Bargellian stage, then he was satisfied.
Surrounded by the laughter and applause of the theater crowd, he was too engrossed in the performance to notice his companion’s wandering attention, her lackluster laughter at the funny sections of the play, or how Jonquil’s eyes focused on a vague point in space and time somewhere above the audience.
Sir Galen was the critic of his own musical masterpiece. Even as he listened, he composed his next score. Perfection’s master, each night he heard the slightest imperfections, the out-of-tune instrument in the orchestra, or the notes that needed changing. Unlike him, the theater crowd did not notice the minuscule flaws. Rich wine and food dulled their senses. They came for the escape, the entertainment provided, the latest gossip, and to be seen — especially that night.
High King Edrick and his entourage were present. Ticket holders were left standing at the opera house’s canopied doorways, while men-at-arms stood posted around all the entrances and exits. A buzz of excitement and tingling expectation pulsed through the crowd.
***
Jonquil’s gaze swept over the central figure — Edrick, the mercenary king. He was not the man Jonquil had imagined. He was taller than most San Bargellians, and his skin was blackened by time spent in the sun. Beneath the gold circlet of his kingship, he wore his hair cropped short in the fashion of the soldier.
He did not have the physical presence she expected a king, a ruler of men, to possess. Without his gold chains of office or his fine brocade, silk, and velvet clothes, or his circle of surrounding ministers and scarlet and gold uniformed officers, he looked like any other ordinary man she might have seen or encountered on the city streets: another dark-skinned, dark-haired San Bargellian not too different in appearance from Denarri Pascale, except more muscular.
It was as well that High King Edrick’s presence commanded the audience’s attention. Jonquil heard the frequent mutters of disgust as Sir Galen grimaced at the missed notes, the missed cues, or rhythm changes made to his score.
“What is wrong with Reece tonight?” Sir Galen grumbled. “The fool has had too much to drink.”
“He is nervous.” Jonquil wondered why she even tried to defend Reece when he was nothing but antagonistic toward her.
“Nervous!” Snorting his disgust, Sir Galen slapped a rolled-up sheet of music against his knee.
“Would you not be nervous if you were the one performing and knew the high king was watching?”
Sir Galen gave High King Edrick a contemptuous glare. “Look at him. Does he have the look of a terrifying man to you?”
“If not for his crown or his circle of important men, patrons, and armed soldiers, he would seem an ordinary man.”
Sir Galen smiled. “Good. Edrick’s countenance does not deceive you. Still, he has complete authority — complete and total power.” He grimaced again. “That is not the note I scored for that passage!” He raked his long fingers through his dark mane of hair. He sat forward, vibrating in his seat, living each note, rapping the rolled sheet music against his leg in time to the music’s rhythm.
Jonquil smiled and let her gaze wander over the crowd. For all his authority and power, High King Edrick appeared as absorbed as the rest of the audience present that night to hear and watch Sir Galen of Nevarra’s amazing, spectacular musical production.
“It is a satire only a San Bargellian could appreciate and understand,” Galen had confidently announced when they had entered his private box. “It is the story of two men — star-crossed lovers — a role written to be sung and performed by Reece.”
But for all the play’s hilarity and satirical farce, Jonquil sensed the intimacy between Sir Galen and his creation and the actor performing on the stage.
With the final closing of the curtain, the house lights rose to the cheers and applause of an appreciative and well-entertained crowd. Jonquil stepped back into the shadows of the heavy red velvet drapes and Sir Galen, basking in the entire theater’s adulation.
From a narrow slit in the heavy curtain, Jonquil searched out Edrick’s swarthy face. The white flash of his dark eyes slashed up to Sir Galen’s box. She saw the slight nod of kingly approval as King Edrick inclined his gold circlet-crowned head to Sir Galen.
She glanced at Galen, standing at the balcony’s edge. He returned Edrick’s acknowledgment with a bow and, with a graceful sweep of his long fingered, slender hand, returned the audience’s attention to the stage, where the performers were taking their bows amid a cascading rain of flowers, ribbons, and confetti.
The orchestra began playing a medley of songs that she would hear hummed and sung on the city’s streets tomorrow. At the triumphant end of another night, King Edrick and his entourage of statesmen slowly departed through the space his soldiers cleared. Through the aisles, the crowd flowed into colorful streams of evening clothes and glittering jewels. Laughter and voices mixed and mingled, forming another counterflow of music.
Everything was brilliant and confusing, like a sea of sensation that flooded unleashed through Jonquil — an overwhelming sea of fierce impressions she could not contain or express, only experience.
***
“Are you coming with me to the Green Dragon?” Galen asked. “You cannot leave me at the mercy of so many strangers.” He abhorred the thought of being accosted by the appreciative crowd of theater patrons, whose drawing rooms and salons he had played for less appreciation. The same people who now boasted, “Sir Galen played in my salon! My guests adored him!”
“Tomorrow they will applaud another, and I will be reduced once again to begging for coins in their salons,” Galen muttered.
Jonquil laughed. “Enjoy your time in the spotlight, Sir Galen. Take all its splendid glory before it fades and becomes lost forever.”
Sir Galen took her arm. “Do you speak of love or life, Jonquil?” He bent his head close to her and inhaled the sweetness of her fragrance.
“Both,” Jonquil answered.
“You support me emotionally and financially, yet you refuse to share the spotlight. Without you, the sun would have never shone. I would still be tucked away in that shabby apartment, dreaming and starving. I owe you my soul, Jonquil.” He laughed softly. “You let me wax sentimental. I know you prefer a behind-the-scenes involvement.”
“Discretion is my mother’s favorite word, Sir Galen.”
He studied her exquisite profile, the wisps of burnt gold hair caressing the smooth length of her neck. If beauty had perfection, she was perfection’s embodiment, and yet not one fleeting hint of desire whispered to his heart. Instead, he heard a sea of music: notes, chords, scales, and tempos set adrift in his mind, awaiting a snare of inspiration to net and capture the incandescent sparks.
Jonquil provided the spark. She had inspired him to create something that exceeded his capabilities. He was certain there was not another in the whole of San Bargel who possessed her rareness. He attributed her refreshing difference to her upbringing. Only a woman such as Adria Gittel could have created such an exquisite daughter and such inner pain. In that single instance, he saw the fleeting glimmer in Jonquil’s luminous eyes — in the breathless parting of her lips and the proud lift of her chin.
“Yes, your mother. I sense a hint of pain when you speak about your mother, Jonquil,” Galen said.
Jonquil smiled — a brave, tender smile.
“Your smile does not deceive me, Jonquil Deering,” Galen said. “But I greatly appreciated it. Now, if you will continue smiling, we can thread our way through this crowd that awaits my exit.”
When Sir Galen appeared on the grand stairway and descended into the brilliant gilt and mirrored lobby crowded with theatergoers, the crowd surged toward him, clamoring for his attention and asking for his autograph on their programs.
High King Edrick’s slow departure delayed the exit of many waiting for their cabs or carriages. Intermingling knots of people gathered throughout the lobby, speaking and visiting with friends and acquaintances. Women laughed and gossiped; men smoked and discussed politics.
“Public performances,” Galen muttered to Jonquil. Then he grinned and waved to the crowd. “We are all actors.”
© 2023 Elizabeth A. Monroe
January 1, 2023
Happy New Year!
Back in the early, early days, when an idea for a book began niggling in the back of my brain (shortly after our house burned down after a bad electrical storm), I walked outside to listen to the wind. In far southwestern Oklahoma outside the college town of Weatherford, Oklahoma, the wind is a constant and often after a storm the departing clouds reminded me of mountains looming on the horizon.
Anyway, as I was listening to the wind in the junipers, I was struck by a “bolt out of the blue,” and the whole idea for the Voice of the Wind series was born. After being struck, I walked back inside the trailer house we were living in at that time and picked up Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet. I opened the small book, opened it to a random page, and read the following:
“He alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.”
And so, the theme of what was to become the first three books in the Voice of the Wind series was born into a full-blown reality, along with the characters and stories that continue to inspire me.
December 24, 2022
Merry Christmas!
In gratitude, I want to offer the first two books in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series to all the kind folks who have supported and followed me.
You can download Written in Omen (book 1) and Fortune’s Hostage (book 2), for free beginning on December 25th through December 29th on my Amazon author’s page. 
Here’s the link to my Amazon page:
December 19, 2022
Excerpt ~ What is the Winter For?
This excerpt is a work in progress for Book 10 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series.
Noah over imbibed that evening, but he deserved it after the trying day he had spent dealing with Grange and his two hired idiots, Burl and Jag Longnecker. Something was going on with the two laggards. The Longnecker brothers acted mighty shifty, squinting at each other, even as they handed over the evidence of having carried out his orders and bundled it all up in the filthy and bloodied shirt of their victim to present to him as if delivering a present.
He certainly paid them more than enough coin. If either brother had the temerity to demand more payment from him, or even consider blackmailing him for their silence, he would have Grange deal with the fools, preferably by tossing them off a cliff into Kilmere. It was time for the Midnight Mugger to disappear.
Plus, the winter’s frigid temperatures made his joints and hands ache, and the pain soured his temperament. The rich flavor and bouquet of the heady Cloisters’ brandy he enjoyed lessened the pain, especially after the third snifter, followed by a leisurely smoked chunk of golden hashish.
He finished his smoke and was settling into following his dreams, when a tapping at a window roused him from enjoying his late night revelries.
Ignore it, he thought. Tomorrow he would have someone trim the tree branches the wind rattled against the windowpanes of his study.
He sank deeper into his armchair and closed his eyes. He was once again on the verge of sliding into euphoria when…
Tap… tap… tap…
He cracked open one eyelid, squinted at the tall windows covered in heavy curtains. Outside, the wind whistled about the chimney and eaves. He listened for a moment, and hearing nothing, he settled deeper into his armchair and closed his eyelid.
Tap… tap… tap...
“Confound it!” he cursed and shoved out of the armchair.
He strode across the thick carpet and drew aside the drapery to reveal the dark night. He pressed his nose against the cold windowpane, his breath fogging the glass. He rubbed the fog away, clearing a small patch, and peered out through his reflection. Nothing. The trees were not even close enough to the house for the wind to knock or scratch their branches against the study windows.
He shifted his gaze farther into the yard, where he thought he saw movement among the trees, but it was only moonlight and shadows. He was about to close the curtain and turn away when a definite movement caught his attention.
Was that someone drifting across the yard, stirring up puffs of snow? Who the blazes would be outside wandering about in the snowy night? He leaned closer.
He jolted when the apparition appeared, for that was only way he could describe the otherworldly white figure floating above the snow-covered ground toward the window, doubtless drawn by the light his study lamps shed.
A snowball splattered against the glass windowpanes. He reared back as if struck, but was drawn to look out again.
There in the moonlight, the apparition hovered, surrounded by the iridescent luster of swirling snowflakes sparking in the moon’s pearl glow. In the rising wind, tendrils of long, pale hair snaked about the spectral figure. White robes as insubstantial as gossamer floated like scarves of seaweed adrift on water.
He blinked, distrusting his vision as a trick of his mind or the hashish he had smoked, but upon looking again, the wraith remained, drawing closer.
“Nooo-aaaahhhh―”
He froze, recalling another night and hearing the unearthly voice moaning his name. Who would dare haunt him?
“Nooo-aaaahhhh―”
He narrowed his eyes. “Jarutia? Is that you?”
Impossible! Jarutia Fayerfield-Tourney was dead, having drowned in Kilmere years ago.
A thump struck the window, sounding like a bird hitting the glass. Startled, he jumped. He cursed softly and chuckled at himself.
He did not believe in ghosts. Someone was playing tricks on him.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. But when he looked again, the apparition remained, floating in the night, the wind swirling its hair and robes about its transparent form.
But the wind was not blowing he noticed when he came to his senses. The night was eerily calm, except for the ice-laden clouds racing across the moon.
“Nooo-aaaahhhh!”
From the trees, the ghostly form drifted closer.
“Nooo-aaaahhhh! Where is my son?”
He swallowed hard. Shaking his head in denial, he stepped back from the window. He was having a bad dream, nothing more.
The hovering apparition lifted its diaphanous hand and beckoned to him.
“Nooo-aaaahhhh! What have you done to my son?”
He spun on his heels and dashed from his study, pausing only long enough in the foyer to retrieve the lantern on the entry table before he threw the front door open and rushed outside into the yard.
“There are no such things as ghosts!” he muttered. Just wait until he caught the culprit.
He lifted his lantern and checked the snowy ground, looking for footprints, certain that a ghost would not leave their footprints for him to track.
“Where are you? Show yourself to me!” he shouted into the night, his heart racing in his throat and pounding in his ears.
Hearing a noise behind him, he spun around. He saw no one. A preternatural silence greeted him.
“What do you want? Answer me!” he shouted.
An owl swooped from the trees, winging silently across the moon, encircled in a halo of rainbow clouds.
“Murderer! You murdered my son! Murderer! Murderer!” the apparition wailed.
“Show yourself, you coward!”
“Nooo-aaaahhhh!” A whoosh of snow hit his uplifted lantern and doused its yellow flame. He cursed and hurled the lantern toward the direction of the disembodied voice. But the apparition melted into the night, shredding into tattered wisps.
***
© 2022 E.A. Monroe
December 7, 2022
Mikuyi Moon Trilogy Available!
Mikuyi Moon, The Wind and the Wolf and Song of the Wolf in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series are available on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B86RQBJ
“When the war moon rises, stained crimson with the blood of the slain — I, Eridandi, Wolf Clan Chieftain of the Mikuyi — will ride again and claim my own.” ~ Ancient prophesy promising the return of the Mikuyi to their rightful place among the tribes of the Objishanda after being banished into exile.
Kieron Fayerfield, seeking adventure and romance, left home to find what he sought among the Mikuyi Wolf Clan. He marries Uriate Canavar, and together they raise five sons. Two decades later, Kieron’s peaceful life among the Mikuyi is shattered when his second-born son Althar’s lover is brutally murdered and Althar is wounded. A night of fire and vows of blood vendetta send Kieron’s and Uriate’s sons, Inali and Althar, fleeing to Fayerton and exile.
Inali and Althar’s journey from their northern home in the Unfaithful Mountains to their father’s family home in Fayerton crosses the unexpected path of the elusive Gahada, one of the tribes of the Objishanda known for their healing gifts. Fearful of Althar’s life-threatening injury, Inali makes a decision that alters his destiny. Without any regard for the consequences of his actions, Inali kidnaps a young Gahada woman to save his brother’s life.
Thus begins an epic journey that brings Mikuyi Moon to life with a diverse and unruly cast of characters and fortuitous events. From sailing regattas and midnight muggings to tavern brawls and domestic disputes, plenty of unrequited love, jealousy and obsession, deceit, and treachery abound.
November 25, 2022
Song of the Wolf, Book 9
It is official! Song of the Wolf, Book 9 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time book series, has a title and a cover!
Intrigue! Obsession! Betrayal!
How far will two brothers’ enemies go to carry out their blood vendetta? Discover the answer in Song of the Wolf, the epic saga that began with Mikuyi Moon and continues with The Wind and the Wolf.
When Inali and Althar Canavar’s childhood friend, Touva, arrives in Fayerton seeking blood vengeance, doubt and suspicion create actions without regard for the consequences that unfold.
Surprises and long-kept secrets are revealed, and they either benefit or devastate. Lives are shattered and other lives saved when the long night ends in the Circle of Fire and a blood vendetta determines who lives and who dies.
Only the Great Ones can determine the future.
© 2022 Elizabeth Monroe, Monroe Media
#Kindleebook #Amazon #amwriting
October 31, 2022
What is the Winter For? excerpt
It was baking day at Fayerfield House. Mavis Rosenthorn and her daughter Madra stood at the flour-sprinkled table, elbow deep in pastry dough and rolling out piecrusts.
Pearlie, Madra’s daughter, and Mavis Rosenthorn’s granddaughter, sat in a kitchen chair, slicing wedges of autumn apples into an enormous bowl she held in her lap. The three kept up a lively pace of animated conversation. Baking day at Fayerfield House was also part of Pearlie’s educational instruction she received from her mother and grandmother in the matters of running a household, as well as how to make Mavis Rosenthorn’s renown pie crusts, the flakiest and tenderest pastry crusts in Fayerton.
“The secret is in the tender handling of the dough. You do not want the water too hot or too cold, dearie.”
“And you never work the dough more than absolutely necessary.”
Pearlie nodded her flaxen head and continued slicing wedges of apples, occasionally popping a piece of apple into her mouth. She had heard these instructions for the better part of her life and could bake a pie in her sleep, even at the young age of eight winters. But the making and baking of pies was not what piqued Pearlie’s interest that morning.
A secret language existed between her grandma and mother when they discussed the latest gossip circulating through the village streets. The good stuff they considered too delicate for the innocent ears of a ten-year-old.
Grownups had a way of thinking. If they spoke above a child’s head and that child was too preoccupied with childish concerns, such as how many apple slices she could eat without getting a bellyache, to know what the grownups discussed. They had a way of dancing around the subject of their discussion, and Pearlie had learned all the steps to that particular dance between her mother and grandma.
She might appear as the picture of childish contentment, slicing apples and singing her childish songs, but she was all ears, especially when the grownups danced around the name Fayerfield and Jantz Fayerfield Himself was asleep in the upstairs room her grandma and mother always kept prepared for his use, when and if he should decide to stay at Fayerfield House for any length of time.
The Fayerfield’s occasional visit and stay at an otherwise empty townhouse the Rosenthorn family continued to manage always offered a reason for her grandma and mother to chatter in that lively dance of grownup gossip. They never let a tidbit slip past.
Everything went into the gossip pie.
That morning was no different. The dance steps were more animated than usual, and Pearlie’s ears perked through the flyaway tendrils of curly hair that escaped her braid. Her mother’s and grandma’s whispers buzzed. They rolled their eyes; they laughed or gasped in breathless snippets, exclaiming as they rolled out their piecrusts and pinched and crimped the pie shell.
“How long do you think Himself will be staying with us?”
Himself was Jantz Fayerfield.
“Do you think I ought to go to the market? I would like some San Bargellian lemons if they are not too expensive. I might make lemon custard.”
“Wellborn always charges too much this time of the year for lemons. He is getting as bad as a San Bargellian thief with his outrageous prices.”
“Folks will pay the going price if they want San Bargellian lemons badly enough.”
“Himself will have something to say about that. He will not allow the San Bargellians to disrupt our way of life.”
“Still, I am surprised that he stayed over.”
“Can you blame him? He does not want to go home to Miss Zaire, bearing that kind of news. I would do the same and try to get to the bottom of this mess.”
“What mess, Grandma?” Pearlie piped, forgetting to keep her mouth shut and reminding her elders of her presence.
“’Tis none of your concern, child. Have you peeled and sliced all your apples yet?”
“Are two bowls enough? My fingers are tired.”
“That will do, child. Run along and play.”
Pearlie scampered over to the sink to wash her sticky hands, and her grandma and mother returned to their pie making and conversation. She remembered the basket of dolls she had set under the kitchen table and flipped up one side of the tablecloth and disappeared beneath the table.
Out of sight, out of mind.
“No matter what anyone says, Mama, I still do not believe Himself’s boy had anything to do with the Moss girl’s murder.”
“If you ask me, Noah Winterringer planted that particular rumor purely out of spite.”
Beneath the table, Pearlie’s ears pricked attentively to the confidential tone of her mother’s voice. Even then, they whispered. The subject was too horrible for speaking aloud.
Flora Moss. The girl had worked at Fayerfield House before she went to Winterringer Hall, seeking work after being dismissed for doing something she ought not to do. Pearlie as not sure exactly what Flora Moss had done, but she thought it had something to do with Inali Canavar and Miss Oanada when the couple had lived at Fayerfield House. Flora Moss worked at Fayerfield House one day, and the next day she did not.
Everyone in Fayerton had heard about Flora Moss’s unfortunate demise — how Edan Drum, while out taking his early morning jog, had found her body washed ashore behind the Blue Swan tavern and inn.
Sheriff Longacre and his deputies refused to let anyone go behind the Blue Swan for a look. They had tried to keep the murder hushed up, but everyone knew. You could not walk down the village streets or visit any of the shops without hearing the sordid details and the assorted rumors and speculations as to why Flora Moss had been murdered. Even the Fayerton Daily Observer carried stories about Flora and the murder investigation.
Who had committed such a foul deed? The accusations flew on unfurled wings. The suspects included everyone from Darcy Oldroyd to Rojah Fayerfield to an unknown outlander.
Not knowing who the murderer was had everyone looking over his or her shoulders, worrying and wondering. Even Noah Winterringer had posted twenty pounds of San Bargellian gold as a reward for the first person who reported the whereabouts of Rojah Fayerfield.
How Himself’s son was linked to Flora Moss’s murder was a mystery in itself and had to do with Rojah mysteriously disappearing at the same time as Flora’s murder, although not all the details surrounding the murder had been released to the public.
Darcy Oldroyd had garnered more sympathy than he had suspicion as Flora Moss’s murderer. How could Darcy murder the woman he loved, the woman who was pregnant with his child at the time? Sure, Darcy Oldroyd’s outraged father-in-law had dismissed Flora Moss from his employment the day before she was found dead.
Plenty of reasons as to why Flora Moss was murdered abound. The motives grew more plentiful than that season’s apple harvest. All the suspects had an alibi. Everyone but Himself’s son.
Pearlie might not understand half of what her grandma and mother discussed over their pie making, but she knew it was bad. Very, very bad — especially for Rojah. For Pearlie, the sun rose and set on Rojah Fayerfield. If Rojah murdered Flora Moss, the sun might never rise over the Mountains of the Sky again, and it would leave the world cast in the forever twilight of winter.
Unthinkable! Impossible!
Before Pearlie could poke her head out from under the table and protest Rojah’s innocence, the kitchen door swung open, and Himself strode into the warm kitchen with its wonderful smell of apple pies baking in the oven and the sweet juices simmering in cinnamon and cloves.
“Mistress Rosenthorn, do you have any of the black walnut hull extract?” Himself inquired.
Both women jumped at Jantz Fayerfield’s unexpected entry into their kitchen. Pearlie peeked out from beneath the bottom edge of the tablecloth. From where she sat on the floor looking up, Master Fayerfield looked as tall as the pine trees that flanked the corners of the house. She stared at his stocking feet planted beside a table leg. He wiggled his long toes within the dark green wool knit.
Pearlie’s eyes skimmed up the black length of his trouser leg. He wore the cuffs of his shirtsleeves rolled up, his collar unbuttoned, and the narrow suspenders clipped to the waistband of his trousers hung at his sides. He was not even dressed.
Pearlie could not remember a single time when she had seen Himself without his jacket, his black polished boots riding neatly up his calves to his knees, or his black felt hat either in his hands or firmly planted atop his gold head. He wore a towel draped around his broad shoulders, and his uncombed hair was wet and sticking out all over.
“The black walnut hull extract, sir?”
The expressions on her grandma’s and mother’s faces looked as if Himself had caught them saying inappropriate things about his family, but they never looked surprised for long. They both recovered with a stolen glance at each other, as if Himself strode into their kitchen everyday asking for the black walnut hull extract used for repairing scratches on the furniture and woodwork.
“Did you have any left over?”he asked.
Mavis and Madra rummaged through the kitchen cabinets. Madra disappeared into the pantry in search of the walnut extract.
“Not that it is any of my business, sir, but why do you need the walnut extract?”
“I am thinking about dyeing my hair, Mistress Rosenthorn,” he announced.
“Why do you want to dye your hair, sir?” her mother asked.
The idea of Himself diminishing the gold luster of his shiny hair appalled Pearlie’s mother. After all, he was the Fayerfield. Everyone knew him by his barley-gold hair and the piercing brilliance of his azure eyes.
“I am thinking that if I want to investigate my son’s disappearance on my own, it will not do for folks to recognize me. I might learn more if I am not as noticeable—” He coughed into his fist. “If you understand what I mean.” He waved his hand, indicating his hair.
Apparently, her grandma and mother understood exactly what Master Fayerfield meant.
Her grandma laughed and nodded. “Indeed! A wonderful idea, sir. I recall how you and Miss Jarutia once got into the walnut juice and stained your hair and your skin. Your dear mother was mortified.”
“My father called us a disgrace when he discovered our charade.” The pleasant cadence of his laughter made Pearlie smile and want to laugh with him.
“You and Miss Jarutia did love fooling everyone with your disguises. I do remember several of your escapades, sir.” Pearlie’s grandma’s round face grew dreamy, recollecting fond memories.
“If you need a disguise, I am sure Natty can help you find a suitable costume, sir,” Madra suggested.
“My thoughts exactly,”he said, holding up one finger.
“But you should not use walnut shells to dye your hair, sir. It will take forever to grow out, let alone wash off your skin.”
“You could always use soot and ashes, sir. It makes a fine grimy mess and is easier to wash clean.”
“Thank you for your suggestions, ladies,”he replied. Turning on a stocking heel, he strode from the kitchen, leaving her grandma and mother blinking at each other.
“I am surprised Himself did not think of disguising himself sooner.”
Mavis snorted. “I am surprised Himself has not wrung Noah Winterringer’s neck before now.”
Copyright 2022 E.A. Monroe
#VoiceoftheWind #bookstagram #KindleEbook #Amazon #LiteraryFiction
October 5, 2022
Shadows and Substance
New cover for Shadows and Substance, Book 6 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series!
Under A Pale Moon
New cover for Under a Pale Moon, Book 5 in the Voice of the Wind: Shadows of Time series!
