Like Trees in November

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OchWheesht&Get OanWae It

I finished editing Ethandune.  I believe I mentioned that on Facebook, but I don't believe I said it here on The Penslayer.  That is to say, the first draft is edited and is now being proof-read.  I assume.

When I'm not working on writing Talldogs (or scribbling pieces for the other novels as they come to me), my husband has been helping me do my research - which is awesome because I have a hard time reading articles online and comprehending what is passing in front of me.  Books I can manage; online articles are impregnable.  So he reads them aloud to me, and having long ago become accustomed to responding to the sound of his voice, my subconscious can process the information.  It works quite well.

I'm also a little over halfway through Anne Elisabeth Stengl's newest release Goddess Tithe (which is available in retour de papier on Amazon!) in order to review it, so keep your eyes open for my opinion on this novella from The Tales of Goldstone Wood!  Not that my opinion counts for much, but you might like to know what I think.

the fruitiness of my labour
The lane was heavy with the shadows cast by beech and oak, the grass between the aisles of trees a rich, biting green. The air was swimmingly hot, the insects were lazily skirling in the brake, and once, when he chanced to pass a fox under the fern-scrub, the brute did little more than raise its head, panting, lean flanks heaving with the heat. Its beady black eyes followed Raymond until, too hot to mind, the little thing laid its head back down on its forepaws and lost interest. talldogs
“And you,” said his friend with equally brutal honesty, “have got iron ribs and a high-cinched halter.”talldogs
[She] was a great favourite of her sons: they both adored her and played with her, and Raymond had many happy pictures caught as though in amber in his memory of her surrounded by the group of them, flung into a passion by some sharp wit of her eldest’s, and looking for all the houses of heaven like the hearth-fire of a house-place to which a weary soul longs to go home.talldogs
His foot nearly caught on something and he looked down to find a runt, little more than a pup still, sprawling along at his feet. With a wry smile he scooped it up and followed the bigger dogs, the little creature in his hands bloating with youthful energy, stubby, fat legs churning fruitlessly in the air. talldogs
He said simply, “St. Jermaines are not fat.” And he rolled over, pulling the blankets up over his shoulders, fought the old night terror, and finally fell asleep with no more interruptions from his brother.talldogs
Everything in this place was worn and wooden and smelled of horses. By now his own temper had calmed down considerably and he waited placidly, like Redlocke’s four-footed patients, for the physic to come patch him up. Still a little water-blind, Raymond glanced from article to article, from the beaten chair by the old corn-crib that operated as a catch-all these days, to the filthy windowsill clustered with blue- and yellow-glass bottles, to the pegs full of half-furbished tack and the odds and ends of a farrier’s life. Everything, Raymond noted, much the way it had been last Christmas, and last summer, and the Christmas before that…talldogs
“Light of the sun!” Raymond felt his temper go. His chest contracted, his lungs gave his words up with great effort. “Don’t—you—dare—speak to me—of a—gentleman.”talldogs
In a gesture of acknowledgement he had never witnessed in the steward, Ajax put out his hand and touched Goosechase’s brow. “I am sorry, sir,” he said again. “I have—I have done what I can.”talldogs
He set the vial down, much as one might set down a chess-piece, and began twisting off the cap. It came with little resistance. Odd—odd how these things never offered a fight when everything ought to be warning him to turn back.lamblight
For her efforts she got a cuff across the side of her face, dragging off skin, and was flung haphazard through the dark in a turmoil of fear and anger until she came up against a tree and every bone which was not already gouged by pain was shocked senseless by the blow. She lay on her side, sobbing softly into a root, her body wrapped around the tree-trunk. The snow began to drench her clothing. Flakes gathered on her lashes.drakeshelm
"Can you hear the mockingbird?"lamblight
“Wake me up—Richard, wake me up!” lamblight