First 100 Words

[Karen]

I hope it's OK to do two books....



PROLOGUE

Alice gazed in awe at her birthday present. It was a picture book — a real book with pages.
“What's it called, Mommy?”
“The Journey.”
"Play it, Mommy!"
"You don't play this kind of book, honey. You read it. Like this."

Many years ago, before you were born, there was no one like you on this whole planet. There was no one with two arms instead of four. There was no one who could smile. There was no one with a twinkle in her eye.

The people like you all lived far, far away. They lived on a planet called . . .

[[deleted user]]

New Kingdom: Creatures of Habit

Caleb Johnson reached down and picked up his 45 caliber Schofield Single Action Pistol. He twirled it in his right hand to feel its weight and balance. Even after seven years the gun still felt good in his hand. He remembered the last time he used it. Vengeance, although sweet, could not replace the loss burnt into his heart. He missed Lucy, her smile, her golden corn silk hair and the way she would tell him, Life without you would be pointless.

His holster slammed down on the desk in front of him drew Caleb’s attention back to his surroundings.

[Stephen]

RIVER DAWN

“They think the river's dead, you know,” said Pal, lifting his head wearily, his hands still clutching the oar. The hot August sun was bearing down on him, but he didn’t break a sweat. He narrowed his gaze as he looked upward. Fisher nodded his head and smiled faintly at the older man, his leathery skin as brown as a bread crust, marks and scars dotting his long sinewy arms. “But she’s not. She’s got a heartbeat.”
“The river? A heartbeat?” asked Fisher. “I’m not following.”
Sarah shook her head and walked quickly through the cabin doorway. The boat began to rock in the wake of a passing skiff. She motioned for her daughter to follow, but Alice wanted to hear the rest of it.

[Paula]

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR...
Book I of The Wishes Chronicles

At exactly 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, early March, 2010, Ray-Ray DelGotto got the call for a clean-up several miles outside of New York City.

He called Frankie Camarreri, his most reliable go-to guy these days, and together they did what they did best.

It took them two hours to collect the dead girl’s body from the private residence near Belle Haven, Connecticut, secure the site, and deposit her corpse on the spring tide of Long Island Sound off the point of Horseshoe Harbor, not far from Manhattan.

Ray-Ray watched her beautiful body slip below the waves just off the docks.

[Paula]

ALL YOUR WISHES...
Book II of The Wishes Chronicles

I saw the trauma surgeon, Dr. Lee Taylor, chief of surgery at Dartmouth University hospital swing open the waiting room door, walk in and look over to us. A nurse scurried in behind him and shoved a clipboard in his hands.

Taylor murmured something low to her that I couldn’t hear. He took the pen she held out for him, scrawled something across the bottom of the documents on the clipboard, and then looked our way.

“Dr. Franklin? Dr. Nick Franklin?” he said and strode our way.

I stood up. Tried to gauge his demeanor, what he was going to say. Evie stood up on my right and clasped my hand. Patrick stood on my left, and looked back for his father Tom to join us.

[Ginger]

El Rey: A Novel of Renaissance Iberia

The alarming boom of cannon fire resounded across the rolling, green plains of the island, shattering the quiet of the peaceful summer morning. The old woman sat in her chair next to a roaring fire. It was the last week of July, the sun already blazing in the midmorning sky, but that made no difference to her tired, old body. Nothing she did lately seemed to warm it.

Her great-granddaughter sat next to her. The girl’s charcoal colored eyes, a darker version of her own, stared up at her seeking reassurance. The little girl’s pale face was surrounded by an...

[Mhgerber]

This is from my first novel, Night Walks Softly.


Yellow River was a small town in the middle of somewhere and it had a rhythm all its own.
It was that rhythm, the town’s pulse, that drew Anne as the beating of tom toms might draw a small child. Purpose, tradition, and occasional frivolity all lent their cadence, from shared family dinners with the clicking of silverware on china plates, to the hysteria of the crowd at the high school basketball game, to the soft murmurings of greeting at the funeral home. In life, and death, the rhythm continued just as the gentle lapping of the river itself.

Night Walks Softly

[Mhgerber]

This is from my second novel, Should Night Come.


“What do you mean you still don’t know where he is?” Sherry Ross tapped her fingers on the steering wheel with her free hand as she sped down the highway. She had been driving for an hour and was almost there.
“I told you Sherry, I can’t get a hold of him. He did not board the plane. The rental car is still out. And as far as I’ve been able to determine, Jason took a later flight and should be landing shortly.” Gordon VanHorn rubbed his balding head and adjusted his glasses. How did she expect him to keep track …
Should Night Come

[Rachel]

Bright sunshine flooded through the tall windows, touching each surface with its dazzling light. Every corner of the room was bathed in a soft yellow glow, and its elegant proportions were displayed to their best advantage. It was a disaster. The one thing she hadn’t allowed for was a sunny day.

Maximum impact - that’s what she was striving for. The clothes, the hair, the jewellery; her attention to detail had been impeccable, and any false note would influence his perception of her credibility. But instead of completing the illusion by creating subtle lighting and atmospheric shadows, the room was more akin to a floodlit stage. It was the end of October in London. It was supposed to be raining.

[J.T.]

The Apples of Avalon


Sheriff Martin Frost heard Gage gun the engine on the Explorer, the cry of tires as the big engine propelled the SUV along Main Street. Thirty seconds since the girl had stepped through the door of the White Forest Hotel. Less than thirty remaining for her to live.

Frost glanced left at the diner. The fat man who had preceded the girl from the hotel was gone inside, about to get a little fatter still. Good. The less witnesses the better. On the off-chance anyone was watching Frost stepped down and raised his hand, shouting across, “Hey, miss, look out!”

[M Todd]

The first 78 words of my book First Chosen

In the moments before Julianna’s birth, Kaeldyr flew on wings of shadow toward the one chance to save his god. His flight through the spirit world was a calculated balance of speed and stealth. He had only remained undetected this long by traveling in hidden corners of the World Between Worlds; however, he would have to interact with the mortal realm soon. Once that happened, his intentions could no longer remain hidden. Then the celestial powers would intervene.

[Scott]

Here are the first 110 words or so to The Bones of the Earth:

Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait until the full moon is high, Vorona chanted. Wait until magic fills the night.

They waited as Vorona’s steady drumbeat pulled the full moon over the trees.

“Mysyach,” she repeated with every drum beat. No one else spoke or even moved. They waited as Mysyach, the moon goddess, slowly revealed her face. On this warm night, they felt a promise being fulfilled: “A full moon the night before the summer solstice is a very rare event,” Vorona had said one full moon ago in this same clearing. “It is the time for young men and women to worship, to celebrate their own fertility.”

They had danced naked to Vorona’s beating drum and returned home, exhausted and expectant.

[Bryn]

Origin Legends

Once a great grey wolf, his fur touched by blue like a cloudy sky, wooed a doe, ochre like a steppe horizon. The doe loved her enemy. For in that age animals understood each other's speech, in a state of jargalant and amgalant, happy and at one. Tangr had a goal for these beasts in their courtship and sent them on a journey over the Sea of Origins. When they came to Onon Springs on the mountain Holy Old Haldun, the urge to quest in their hearts lay quiet. Here the ochre doe coupled with the cloudy wolf and cast a strange creature, a human child: our first father Bataji.

Amgalant One: The Old Ideal

[Anthony]

The Cradle Above the Abyss is available on Amazon.

The first 100 words:

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness,” echoed in his mind, as he sat in the courtroom reviewing his notes, conferring with a phalanx of junior prosecutors, and thinking, intently and strategically, about the case before him. He wished he had never read Vladimir Nabokov’s book Speak Memory because the catchphrase about the blasted abyss and eternal darkness was now forever locked in his memory. It was beginning to infringe on his mind at a time when he needed to concentrate and apply all his gray matter to the case.

http://www.amazon.com/Cradle-Above-Ab...

[[deleted user]]

It’s not easy to walk when you’re drunk. It’s even harder when it’s dark, like at about 3 in the morning. And it’s yet harder when you’re tired and spent the whole day at Lincoln High School. Doesn’t get any better when you’re only 16. Jane walked up the front steps of her Philadelphia row house as if a flowing river was pushing against her legs, and she carefully planted and lifted each foot up the cement path until she could hang onto the front door. Her hearing wasn't keen enough to detect how loudly her key scratched...

"Lizzie's Journal"

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

[R. Scott]

Richard wrote: "It’s not easy to walk when you’re drunk. It’s even harder when it’s dark, like at about 3 in the morning. And it’s yet harder when you’re tired and spent the whole day at Lincoln High School. Do..."

Nice flow. Good catchy start.

[R. Scott]

Laurie wrote: " I was always good at the salesmanship of drugs, okay? I just had a knack for it and made  a lot of people a lot of money. I also had a knack for the bar business. I’d go into places that weren’t m..."

From this I feel like the book is definitely not going to be your standard fare. Intriguing

[R. Scott]

Death.

Gory violent death.

I suppose, if I had stopped to consider it when I was alive, I would expect such a death to be exceedingly traumatic - for the one doing the dying. I can now personally assure you that it was. With the path my life had taken, I supposed I always expected to die violently. What I certainly didn’t expect after dying, in such a way, was to have time to get over the shock. I’ve now passed through the five stages of grief. I have reached the resigned stage, and I'm now looking for something to do with my time.

[[deleted user]]

This is the first portion of the prologue for my upcoming novel. . .

To you, my song is muffled, barely existent. You pause beneath my window and gaze up, seeing little more than a silhouette, for it is night, and my headboard lamp casts me only as a shadow. But the whisper of my song and the mysterious stasis of my form enchants you, and though you meant only to pause, you are still standing below me when a touch of my finger to my lamp joins my room in darkness to the night wherein you seclude yourself. The full moon that first drew you out to walk now whets your imagination as my features are illuminated.

[Nan]

Elle,

What a great idea! Here are the first 100 words of Pandora's Key, Book I The Key Trilogy.

It was a cold May in the Pacific Northwest, but in one backyard bulbs had already pushed through untended soil and opened their petals, revealing cheerful yellow daffodils and snow-white tulips. In adjacent yards spring flowers had yet to peek out of soil tilled and fertilized by professional gardening services.

Perhaps the early blooms were what made this particular backyard feel bewitched. Or maybe it was the hummingbirds, who would not be seen anywhere else in Oregon for several months, hovering over honeysuckle that shouldn't bloom until July. But the other-worldly effect could simply have been the result of the shadows and weak gleam of moonlight that cast a silver net over the premises.

[Deborah]

Here are the first 100 words of Crazy in Paradise...

There should be a law a person can't die in South Florida during the summer. The death of a loved one was hard enough without the added humiliation of sweat. I felt it rolling down my back, like a river, trapped with nowhere to go by the belt of my dress.

My name is Madison Elizabeth Westin, and I'm seated at the funeral of my favorite aunt, people watching. Most of the mourners looked ready for a pool party, some of them in shorts and bathing suit cover-ups. I was the only one dressed in black; even my brother...

www.amazon.com/crazyinparadise

[[deleted user]]

R.Scott wrote: "Richard wrote: "It’s not easy to walk when you’re drunk. It’s even harder when it’s dark, like at about 3 in the morning. And it’s yet harder when you’re tired and spent the whole day at Lincoln ..."

thanks. mighty nice of ya. reminds me that i should be ready those 100's of others.

[[deleted user]]

Room 317

John Page boarded the 1671, a Greyhound coach departing Mount Laurel station twelve miles east of Philadelphia, bound for Los Angeles. As he decided where to sit, a stream of consciousness pushed him into the yellow monster of a school bus from childhood. A thought-leap brought up an image of his favorite teacher who encouraged him to write poetry even if the other kids laughed. He pictured his least favorite teacher, the one with the scalpel for a tongue that could slice your guts out and spilled them out for the rest of the class to trample. The stream ended with the confusion in his sad father’s weak voice a few months ago after news reporters pestered him with questions about his son John’s arrest.

(might be a little over 100, but i needed to get to that point)

[R. Scott]

Richard wrote: "Room 317

John Page boarded the 1671, a Greyhound coach departing Mount Laurel station twelve miles east of Philadelphia, bound for Los Angeles. As he decided where to sit, a stre..."

Hey Richard,

This one didn't move me as much as the other. IMHO it is too unfocused to catch my attention and didn't tell me much about what I would be reading.

[[deleted user]]

thanks. i don't disagree. it was rambling a little. i was trying to connect him from getting on a bus, thinking about when he was a kid, and then thinking about when his father had gotten the news he had been arrested. i gotta work on that. thanks for the feedback - which isn't easy to get.

[Antony]

The old farmhouse, once such a familiar part of my childhood, has been devastated by the blaze. The thick stone walls are scorched and fatally cracked, there are deep oblong gaps where the windows used to be, and all that survives of the roof are smouldering rafters, picked clean of their slates, jutting black and naked into the pale dawn sky.

This was a bad one, all right. Admittedly, after ten years with Red Watch, I've seen worse blazes than this, but never one that had such a painful claim on my emotions. Never one this personal.

http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/249...

Free download available on Feedbooks :-)

[Jim]

Life would be so much easier if I was a toaster. Less action-packed, true, but definitely easier.

Ruminating on my very existence whilst strangling the human I had been sent to assassinate struck me as being unprofessional. Neatly proving that point, my wayward musings were brought to heel, as a burst of gunfire from a previously unseen bodyguard slammed into my chest. Served me right for losing mission focus.

"Why was I made to feel pain?" I yelled, as I punched through a wall, and the head of the bodyguard who had just ducked back behind it. An internal alert...

[Patricia]

Jim wrote: "

Life would be so much easier if I was a toaster. Less action-packed, true, but definitely easier.

Ruminating on my very existence whilst strangling the human I had been s..."

Love that. That right there makes me want to go out and buy this book.

[Jim]

Ha-ha! Thanks. :)

It should sum up the silly, tongue-in-cheek humour that defines my first stab at a sci-fi novel. (Debut novel too).

[Bridget]

The Path of Light

The sun just peeked over the horizon spilling its light across the plains and sparkled off the blue waters of the lake as the ring of swords echoed through the courtyard. A fine mist still hung in the shadows of the palace walls not yet chased away by the sun’s rays.
“Do not allow yer guard to drop!” A voice cut across the clash and clang of metal in the practice yard. Dozens of boys were paired off and scattered about the yard worn to dirt from the hundreds of feet over the decades. “Watch yer shields! If ye let the enemy that close and drop yer guard yer’ll be skewered.”

Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006139K88

Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

Barnes & Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-p...

iBookstore:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-p...

[[deleted user]]

Bridget wrote: "The Path of Light

The sun just peeked over the horizon spilling its light across the plains and sparkled off the blue waters of the lake as the ring of swords echoed through the co..."

Just downloaded it onto my new kindle! Very exciting! :)

[Bridget]

Georgina wrote: "Bridget wrote: "The Path of Light

The sun just peeked over the horizon spilling its light across the plains and sparkled off the blue waters of the lake as the ring of swords echoe..."

You're awesome! Thanks.

[Diane]

Black Oil, Red Blood

I didn’t even know how to use a gun before yesterday, and I certainly hadn’t become a crack shot overnight. That didn’t bode well for my chances of survival at the moment —especially since I was currently staring down the wrong end of somebody else’s barrel. What was I supposed to do? Duck? Shoot first? Run?

Maybe the decision would have been easier if I hadn’t loved the guy pointing the gun at me. I watched his trigger finger tense as the smoky, toxic air around us seemed to grow even thicker. Walls shook and the floor rolled beneath me as an explosion thundered through the building. The PetroPlex flagship oil refinery was fast on its way to becoming nothing but a memory.

The doorframe buckled before my eyes—my only means of escape. Sharp orange tongues of flame lapped at me from above, sending down a rain of fiery particles as acoustic ceiling tiles disintegrated overhead.

That’s when I knew that gun or no gun, I was going to die.

[[deleted user]]

She was goddess, floating down upon the wings of her own will. No other power had misled her feet, forcing her to begin a fall that would end in flames. Ever since the beginning, it had been meant to happen. She had lusted after this moment for years. Now it had come. She was goddess.
Shiloh’s outstretched arms split the water smoothly, causing hardly a ripple as the waves suffused her slender body with an icy green wetness. For an ecstatic moment, she sank. With the gelid water grasping her body in its greedy fingers, she felt all warmth she’d known, real or affected, disappear into the unforgiving depths of Salban Retrio. This world would never again know mercy at her hand.

from the unpublished sequel to Quest

[[deleted user]]

Anthony wrote: "The night was black and as the man walked down the road he felt, not only the shadows and the spirits roaming free, but something else. There was a lust in the air, a taste of something foul and e..."

i suggest you delete "he noticed something." let the reader figure that out from the goosebumps.

[Tony]

My Half of The Story

The sharp sound of rushing stilettos gave me only a moment to hide my bottle and force down a glass of water, I knew I would get sixty seconds from when the second woman pushed the door, and another fifteen when the first gave her last try and turn towards me with an apologetic shrug, she always did her best, she was just no match for Grace, so I took the extra time to hide the pack of Benson & Hedges and force out the incriminating scent.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Half-Story-e...

[[deleted user]]

Shadows of the Past:

There was no denying he loved the horses. The sights, the sounds, and the smells. Nothing beat the thrill of the pack thundering around the last turn as they entered the home stretch. Or the excitement of holding a winning ticket. Unfortunately for Tom, he had no idea how to pick a winner. He always bet on the long shot, firm in his belief that this time he had just chosen a winner.
Bookies loved him. He was their paycheck. So it was no surprise that he’d racked up an impressive amount of debt, turning him into a thief...


Shadows of the Past

[D.L.]

The Warden Threat:
From the back of his mount, Donald saw another group of peasants gathering this year’s potato crop from the dry, cracked soil. Sweat dripped from their greasy hair and stained their worn and patched clothing. ‘Find out about the commoners,’ his mother told him before he left. ‘They are our people and it is our duty to see to their needs.’ What many of them needed most, an involuntary thought suggested, is a bath, and he immediately felt guilty for it. The Faith taught that the gods determined the fate of everyone. If true, these peasants could no more change their role in life than he could, as much as he might like to, and he felt guilty for this thought, too.

[Kristen]

When Light Hits the Path

One dark summer night when I was just thirteen, I lay sprawled on the driveway staring up at the stars in despair. My life felt like a mess. I struggled to find friends I could trust. My sister and I didn’t get along. I’d had another fight with my mom. I wanted to run away, but was too afraid. Instead, I went outside to be alone and contemplate my purpose. Unable, to find an answer that made sense, I let the tears fall.

While I lay wrapped up in my thoughts, a car stopped in front of my driveway. The driver was an older woman I didn’t recognize.

[Allison]

A Demon Love Story Part One: The Obsession

I have never wanted anything more than him.

I was never a hopeless romantic, or all weak in the knees over any man in my life; there was something about him that literally caused me insanity.

Perhaps it was his six-foot athletic frame. Or his piercing blue eyes. Or was it his meticulously-coifed light brown hair? I’m not sure if it were one thing or all put together―all I knew was that I’d never wanted anything, or anyone, more in my entire life.

I’ve loved before―I’ve even been engaged―but career came first. Career always came first. I’m not one of those crazy feminists with facial hair and an unfashionable mullet. I love men just fine, but I refused to have a man come into my life and dictate how I live it.

Allison B. Levine

[Dan]

Summers in Chattanooga tend to be taxing once the oppressive heat and humidity make their way over Lookout Mountain and settle into the valley, but nothing could quite prepare us for the monumental life-changing madness the summer of '44 would heap upon us. Until that time, as far as anyone was concerned, we were just an ordinary family, living an ordinary life, in an ordinary house. Now we've become famous, or more accurately infamous, and newspapers quote neighbors as saying things like, “They were a nice quiet family, always seemed perfectly normal.” I suppose we were normal, or at least seemed normal, until fate, the war, a missing boy, and a dime store canary conspired to expose us for what we really are – a bunch of raving loons.

Chattanooga: a novel

[Robert]

“My husband died,” she said.
She wiped her eyes, but she didn’t shed a tear.
I was accustomed to serious — I’m a former cop — and I couldn’t give it up. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I told her. It seemed like the appropriate thing to say. There’s something to be said for effort.
“I’d like to hire you.”
I needed more to go on. “What’s your husband’s name?”
She paused as if she might be trying to remember. “Artis, Artis Farren. I’m Felicity, his wife. I hear you’re the best, Mr. Holden.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I have an inquisitive mind.”

Falling Immortality: Casey Holden, Private Investigator

[Tommie]

Evan Kentwell wiped a sweat-slicked hand on his pants as he angled the K-Girl northeast, closer to the black velvet shoreline, with its strand of white diamond lights that grew more sparse the farther north they cruised. He drew up a shoulder and dried his forehead on his sleeve.

It wasn’t the cool spring night but his own sense of unseen danger that caused perspiration to drip into Evan’s eyes as he scanned the darkened surface of the Gulf. This part of the trip was the most worrisome to him, with the most likelihood they’d be intercepted, by the authorities or by thieves.

-- from my latest, soon-to-be released romantic suspense novel, "Windows of the Soul"

[Frank]

Muley Gilchrist found his wife Susan crouched in the garden, raking leaves with her fingers from around the jonquils that had just begun to sprout. It was April 5th, a day that fit the phrase “spring is in the air.” Birds chirped and fluttered around Susan’s bird feeder, and she was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Muley had just returned from a walk in the woods behind their house.
“Susan,” he said. “The pond is still frozen. You should come see.”
“Why would I want to see a frozen pond?”
“But it’s been in the forties and fifties all week. It’s still solid.”
She gave him a look as if he were a big baby. “It’s in the shade. What do you expect?”
“But most of it’s not in the shade at all,” Muley persisted. “It’s weird. I mean I walked right out on it.”
“Which is a good way to fall through this time of year.”
“But not even a crack. Not a bit of open water. Come take a look.”

[Jeffrey]

When I entered his house I stepped back in time. The musty smell of old carpet and neglected furniture met me in the foyer; dust covered the floors. Nail holes spotted the bare walls where pictures used to hang, but, like the old man’s memories, the pictures were long gone. Just one remained, overlooking the dark entryway – a photograph of me standing with him. Taken about a year ago, it was the only reminder in this old house that time had not stood still.

From the unseen living room down the hall I heard voices. Grandpa had the TV on with the volume way up. He never watched it, but he liked the noise keeping him company.

I came around the corner, and there sat the old man in his reclining chair.

[Peggy]

Aimee Donovan raised her head a few inches off the ground and waited for her foggy mind to clear. Things were way too quiet all of a sudden. And why am I laying on the ground?
She struggled for alertness, took a deep breath, and tried to clear her head. The smell of clean earth and sweet grass enveloped her senses. She bolted upright, nearly blacking out from the blood leaving her brain. Wide-eyed, she slowly turned her head to scan her surroundings. Two facts jolted her mind. First, she was definitely no longer in Zach’s hospital room. Second, this was Yellowstone! Absolutely no doubt about it!

Beginning of Yellowstone Heart Song

[Lee]

Impediments

It was an extraordinary day. The sky was bright blue without a cloud to mar its pristine hue. By contrast Lake Geneva was gray-green like a small sea, like the large lake that it was. Perhaps, it was a little greener and a little less gray than on a less bright day. While the sun was at its highest and hottest and indeed warm, the breeze from the lake, from his left, from the southeast, cooled the air enough to be quite comfortable.
Gerard sat on his usual bench, the one at the center of the shallow curve described by the three benches.

[Craig]

Time Gentlemen

At one time they did have an office. Not a very nice office, granted, but an office is an office. “A good place to do business,” remarked Joe at the time. He was wrong. Jack and Joe did very little business there. Sure, Joe kept himself busy and Jack did a lot of drinking, but aside from the case of Mrs Gilhooney’s missing cat, business was slow. And slow business is no business (like no business I know). Which means no money, which means no rent, which means no office. You get the picture.
And so we find them.

[Frank]

A Conversation Piece

The sky was clear, the sun was bright and little white girls smelled like bologna. At least, this one little white girl did.

She had a whole lot to say, too, this bologna-smelling little white girl. Dressed as a princess, tiara and all, she was all pinked out, and all by herself in a museum with millions of dollars worth of decorative art. Her parents, I imagined, were wherever parents went when their bologna-smelling kids were dressed as princesses and running around museums all by themselves.

"What's your name?" the bologna princess asked. And like most kids today, she had way too much self-esteem.


This is from "A Conversation Piece," the first story of my 99-cent collection of 12 short stories (all previously published in lit journals and mags over the years) called Gary, the Four-Eyed Fairy. 35,000 words total. This collection also includes chapter one of my book The Brubury Tales. There are currently twenty-two very descriptive 5-star reviews on Amazon from US and UK readers if you want to learn more -->
http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Mundo/e/B...

[Greg]

The Spanish Helmet


This was the wrong harbour, the wrong land. It was even the wrong hemisphere. But that didn’t matter any more. Francisco de Hoces would die on this beach. Destiny had decided that for him.
The San Lesmes struck a rocky reef as they entered the harbour. The fragile wooden vessel could not be saved, but they had been blessed enough to limp closer to the coast as it went down. A few of the men had made it to shore, Francisco among them. The rest had gone down with the ship and all of their supplies, somewhere in the harbour.
---
This is from The Spanish Helmet, my debut historical fiction/thriller. It weaves two stories separated by 500 years and comes in at 80,000 words.