Flash Fic Challenge: Zamboni

 Zamboni

Ice doesn’t remember what’s been drawn on it, but I do. Most of my job consists of taking the zamboni over the rink’s surface to remove all the sigils that the local ice mages leave behind.

Most of the mages are decent enough, they’re just exhausted after they’ve done whatever they’re doing, and unable to do more than the minimal cleanup that ensures they get to keep using the skating rink rather than wait for a pond to freeze over. If it ever does. Global warming’s hitting that sector hard.

But there is always one jerk in any bunch, and my local one left enough discarded junk (including a plastic toy horse just big enough to wreck things if the zamboni went over it) alongside the sigils that I was seriously considering getting him banned. At least his sigils weren’t anything special, just a load of good luck and swift travel crud that most mages grow out of before they were halfway through their apprenticeships.

Heck, even I knew they were crud and I wasn’t even formally trained, I just eavesdropped on the real mages getting lessons.

What I didn’t expect was for said jerk to have failed to remove the magic in the sigils as well as his trash. So when I brought the zamboni in and golden magic settled on us rather than the caster? Yeah, that was a surprise. Cleaning’s been quicker and easier ever since though, so I’m not repining.

Though that zamboni only works for me now. Who’d have thought getting magicked would give a machine opinions?

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Hammer and Tongs (and Bucket)

 Hammer and Tongs (and Bucket)

(This is set in my Olson College universe. Enjoy)

The gym was supposed to be empty at this time. Or at least, empty except for me and my cleaning equipment.

Instead, there were a couple of young adults going at each other with blunted practice weapons and rather sharper words. (Judging by the tone, anyway. It wasn't a language I spoke.) This is a college though, and I've been working as a cleaner here for years, so I know how to deal with young fools, most of the time.

I'd say the pair were going at each other hammer and tongs, but given the weaponry involved, it was more like oversized hammer and shortswords.

They didn't notice me enter.

The water in my bucket bounced hopefully at me. (Water likes me, it knows I'm a water creature at heart, which is useful for cleaning, but for anything bigger than a bucketful or so it's more like a friendly wave in passing than an active help.) I glanced at the water, so that it was still clean, and flicked my fingers. "Go for it."

The water leapt out of the bucket, into the air, and came down on the youngsters' heads.

They spluttered. And finally noticed that I was there. The slightly shorter and slimmer one bowed an apology, and elbowed the other, who copied him.

Then they left, and finally, the gym was empty. The water rolled around on the floor, and I jabbed a finger at the bucket until it reluctantly hopped back in, and let me start mopping.

Flash Fic Challenge: One of Those Days

 One of Those Days

I was only there to pick up a new set of pizza pans. Someone - naming no names - had managed to put a horn through my old set. (Such things are inevitable when one of your housemates is a minotaur)

See, the car park closest to the shop with the good, cheap, pizza pans also has the local landing area for folks with wings, or with flying transport of one kind and another, so it wasn't that uncommon to see low flying objects there. You learn to look out above you as well as around you, after a while.

What was not common or expected was for a vampire in bat form to crash land on my pizza pans.

Heigh ho. It was clearly going to be one of those days.

New Book! A Love Less Travelled By

 My latest book, A Love Less Travelled By (Previously known as Catch the World's Desire) will be out 1st Sept 2023! Preorders open at B&N, Kobo, and iBooks.

When star-crossed lovers Maria and George thought they had lost everything, they called on the goddess of love for help. She answered. Whisked away from their feuding families, and fostered by Professor Smith of Olson College, they have a chance to get things right this time: right names, right genders, right friends. But only if they can stop their past from haunting them.

 

This is a story of "Romeo and Juliet: the Aftermath" featuring: 

 Established relationships 

Monster-friendship 

Ace rep 

Assorted disabled characters 

T4T relationship 

Quiet, cozy, fantasy 

Small stakes 

Older characters 

QPP

Preorders:

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-love-less-travelled-by-e-h-timms/1143729756

iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6450846965 

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/Search?Query=9798215923191

Flash Fic Challenge: Let Down Your Hair

 Let Down Your Hair

It was time. 'Zelle put her hairbrush away, gathered up her mountain of hair, and took her place at the bow of the ship, where the figurehead stood in a water navy. Static crawled across her as the protective mage-shield snapped into being around the crew's quarters. She leaned up into the magic and shook out her hair. The static drew it out into a perfect halo: a golden, gossamer fine, sail to catch the solar wind.

With that in place, she herself shifted, her body settling back into its statue form as if she had never walked and talked and laughed with her crew. As if she had never been anything but the ship itself.

One that was named, certainly. Lifted by the wind like a living thing, eager to dance across the asteroids. But hardly more than a feisty container for those she carried. (Those she carried knew better, but the paperwork didn't)

Her crew cast off, the wind filled the sail, and the Rapunzelle was on its way once more to the Spring festival on Mars.

Testing Grounds: Cover Reveal

 

 

 Testing Grounds

Going through the two week ranking assessment is a chore for Cavallan, simple but necessary. Doing it under a pseudonym is a bit more of a tangle, but he's prepared to buckle down and just get on with it.

But when he arrives, he meets an old friend and makes a new one. Suddenly it isn't as much of a chore, but it's no longer simple, either. 

Now he has to dance a knife-edge between truth and deception, and the only thing waiting for him if he slips is pain...

Now on

Goodreads https://bit.ly/2UqG4g9

Storygraph https://bit.ly/3zrn8g5

 

And available for pre-order in the following places:

 iBooks

 Kobo

 B&N

 Amazon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create My Own Perfection Now Out!

 Create My Own Perfection is now out!

You can find it in the following places:

iBooks: https://bit.ly/36qysfh

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2GRdbCY

B&N: https://bit.ly/2Uo3RcI

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ccYd7b

Smashwords: https://bit.ly/3ki59AA

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3ktJTIq

Storygraph: https://bit.ly/3u2ChS5

 

If any of you feel like leaving a review, that would be awesome!

Interview: Create My Own Perfection (again)

 

 Today I'm being interviewed over on Let's Fox About It!

Come and see me talk about some of the things that inspired my retelling of Medusa and more!

Create My Own Perfection is available for preorder in the following places:

iBooks: https://bit.ly/36qysfh 

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2GRdbCY 

 B&N: https://bit.ly/2Uo3RcI

Interview: Create My Own Perfection

 Today I'm being interviewed over on dovelynnwrites!

Come and see me talk about why I mixed greek mythology with selkies, how long I've been interested in medusas and more!

Create My Own Perfection is available for preorder in the following places:

iBooks: https://bit.ly/36qysfh 

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2GRdbCY 

 B&N: https://bit.ly/2Uo3RcI

Cover Reveal: Create My Own Perfection

 Create My Own Perfection - my aroace retelling of Medusa - now has a cover!

Click here to see it in all its stunning glory!

You can preorder the book in the following places:

iBooks: https://bit.ly/36qysfh 

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2GRdbCY 

 B&N: https://bit.ly/2Uo3RcI

Flash Fic Challenge: Race to the Top

Race to the Top

I know it's a wide open field now, but what made me really interested is why the favourite pulled out, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't that he had to dash down to the shops for a new beard trimmer.

Let me back up a moment. We have a roof running race every third year. This one, everyone thought that the winner would be obvious. He's quicker and nimbler than anyone I've ever seen, and he can get across even the worst set of tiles like a scuttling lizard. But like I said, he dropped out. Vanished. Vamooshed. Left the field of competition wide open, and I could scrape up a bit of hope again. Or try to, because too many of them were looking at me now and I couldn't be sure that whoever nobbled him wasn't going to come after me next.

Which was how I found myself following his trail across roofs and walls and fences until it finally dropped to ground level in a tangled workshop district, next to a tiny abandoned space - one of those nooks and crannies that all its neighbours think one of the others owns, and is actually not owned by anyone.

He was waiting for me when I got there, his arms protectively round a couple of tiny kids.

I put my hands up and out at once. "Not going to hurt you. Just wanted to check you were ok."

He grinned, and the shadows danced behind him like errant wings. "Go win the race," he told me. "It really isn't my scene."

I gave him a confused look, because who wouldn't want to win the roof-race if they could?

Turns out, those weren't shadows behind him. They were real wings.