What Amazon says

An autumnal stroll through the woods, colourful leaves crunching underfoot, the air fresh on the face, laughter and lightness portraying a happy mother and daughter scene. But something isn’t right…

A young boy who thought he knew his parents finds out that he doesn’t know them at all.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to die and then to look down upon yourself?

These are just a few of the scenes and scenarios found in A Walk In The Woods and other short stories. There are stories to make you smile, tales to bring a tear and stories to shock as well as delight.

Following the success of The Siege and other award winning stories, penned under the name Esther Newton, Freelance writer, copyeditor and Writers Bureau tutor, Esther Chilton brings you her second short story collection. You’ll find plenty of prize-winning stories throughout, as well as some new tales to enjoy.

My review

A Walk In The Woods: and other short stories is an entertaining and intriguing collection that clearly demonstrates the extensive creative abilities of the author.

The stories cover a range of genres from those that relate the spectrum of human emotion to ghosts and the supernatural.

A walk in the Woods is a heart wrenching tale of human loss. My favourite description in the book is included in this story “She laughs, a melodious chuckle bubbling in her throat.”;

Jake sets out the anguish experienced by a boy whose mother is accused of murdering his father and who must come to terms with the reality of his father’s behaviour towards his family;

Book Lovers is a unique tale about obsessive compulsive behaviour and raises awareness that this condition may not be that unusual;

The Letter is a short peak into the sadness of dementia;

The Blue Balloon is a story of a mother’s anguish and hope’s vindication;

The Brat was one of my favourite stories in the collection. The tale of an older sibling’s journey towards discovering the joy of a new sibling;

The Strangest Parents on Earth is an entertaining science fiction story about acceptance and making the best of situations;

Dead is about abuse and retribution;

The Godfather is a story of the rescue of a boy that has been attacked and beaten with a most unusual twist;

The Battle is a story of bravery in the face of great adversity;

William is all about loss, fear, deception and forgiveness told from the perspective of a child;

Operation Flora gives the reader insights into the recognition of a serious life mistake and the path taken to rectify the error before it is too late;

A Walk in the Park is a delightful tale of love lost and found;

The Secret Diary of Marvin Martin aged 14 1/2 demonstrates how everything in life is not always as it appears from the outside;

The Lover is a fresh interpretation of the old saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”;

The Dark Place is an excellent depiction of the injustices of the past, particularly for women in a patriarchal world;

Home is about a care giver who despises her charges and must undertake her own journey to gain understanding of the inevitability of old age;

Spaceman Sam is most intriguing as this story could have had a much darker ending than it did. Mother’s need to keep an eye on their children and be disciplined about their time spent gossiping in public places;

If Only shares insights into the psychological complexities of arranged marriages for women who have lived in Western countries where people chose their own life partners; and

Gus was another favourite story of mine. It tell the tale of an elderly man who dies an accidental death and becomes a ghost. Having failed, in his opinion, to have achieved success in any area of living, Gus discovers that as a ghost he has a very special skill.

I highly recommend this excellent collection of different and well written short stories.

Purchase A Walk in the Woods: and Other Short Stories by Esther Chilton

I am delighted to announce that Through the Nethergate is available as an ebook from Lulu.com here: Lulu.com

It is also available from TSL Publications as a soft copy book here: TSL Publications

It will be available on Amazon in a few weeks time.

The blurb

Margaret, a girl born with second sight, has the unique ability to bring ghosts trapped between Heaven and Hell back to life. When her parents die suddenly, she goes to live with her beloved grandfather, but the cellar of her grandfather’s ancient inn is haunted by an evil spirit of its own. In the town of Bungay, a black dog wanders the streets, enslaving the ghosts of those who have died unnatural deaths. When Margaret arrives, these phantoms congregate at the inn, hoping she can free them from the clutches of Hugh Bigod, the 12th century ghost who has drawn them away from Heaven’s White Light in his canine guise. With the help of her grandfather and the spirits she has befriended, Margaret sets out to defeat Hugh Bigod, only to discover he wants to use her for his own ends – to take over Hell itself.

What Amazon says

Sizzling romance with steamy love scenes, also a must in her novels, but it’s the characters that make this a five star and a must-read. I laughed, I swooned, I gasped (totally didn’t figure out the murderer until Biggar revealed it), I cried. Highly recommend!
Amazon Reviewer

This is the first story I’ve read by Jacquie Biggar. It won’t be the last. TEMPTED BY MR. WRONG hits all the right romance notes
Amazon Reviewer

How can something so wrong, feel so right?

Falling for her step-brother is a mistake T.J. doesn’t want to repeat, but one look into those sapphire blue eyes and she’s ready to give Jason whatever he wants.

Tammy-Jo Hawthorne’s marriage was floundering, but she never expected her husband to make her the laughing stock of Magnolia.
And she definitely didn’t expect to trip over him in their front yard after he’d been murdered.

Jason McIntyre was forced out of his home and the love of his life by the man who’d haunted his nightmares for ten long years.
Now Jason’s back–and he wants revenge.

Related subjects include: cozy mysteries, women sleuths, murder mystery series, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), amateur sleuth books, book club recommendations, humorous murder mysteries, women’s fiction.

My review

Tempted by Mr Wrong is another exciting book by Jacquie Biggar. Tammy Joe’s marriage to her father’s partner is in trouble and she ends up walking home from the local country club when he has her car towed away. Who should come to her rescue but her step brother, Jason, who broke off their relationship and disappeared ten years ago. Unbeknownst to TJ, Jason’s actions were at the instance of her over-protective father, against whom Jason has borne a grudge ever since.

Jason picks up TJ walking home in the rain and gives her a lift home from the country club. He happens to still be in the vicinity when she trips over her dead husband in the back yard.

Naturally, as the humiliated wife, TJ is the prime suspect in her husband’s murder and Jason becomes involved to help her out and keep her safe. The attraction that the two shared is still disturbingly real and it creates confusion for both of them, especially as Jason’s presence in Magnolia is not as innocent as he has made out to his mother and step sister. He is living a lie.

Jason soon starts to discover that things are not entirely as they seem with his step father, who he has hated consistently for years, and his mother, who is suffering from dementia.

There is a bit more sex in this book than in previous books by this author that I have read, but it works and is tastefully written. The book has a dual focus with one being the rediscovery by TJ and Jason of their strong feelings towards each other and the other being the murder of TJ’s husband and her father’s business involvement with him.

This book is a fast past murder mystery with an intense romantic sub-story which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Purchase Tempted by Mr. Wrong

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

This is an intriguing question which I can only answer if I first break down what I think my own writing process is.

I have only published one young adult book, While the Bombs Fell, and I have recently finished a much longer work for a young adult audience, Through the Nethergate. I am currently working on a novella called A Ghost and his Gold which is set during the Second Anglo Boer War in South Africa and the first book in a trilogy about a world in the throes of climate crisis and the fallout from the fourth industrial revolution.

My writing process for WTBF was rather experimental as it was the first longer and more complicated story I attempted. It involved a lot of historical research which was enjoyable but time consuming. I learned a lot about developing a historical timeline of real events first and then fitting your story around it so that the timing all works correctly. I only realised that I need a historical timeline after I had finished the first draft of the book so I took me a lot of time and effort to go back and turn the entire story around and remodel it onto the historical timeline. I’ll never forget this lesson, that I can promise. I also learned a lot about dialogue and showing not telling as I have previously written non-fiction books which have a different writing style.

I carried my learning experiences from WTBF through to TTNG up front so the structure and flow of this book was much smoother from the beginning. That made my writing experience easier and quicker. The developmental edits for this book were much smaller from a structure and story line point of view, and more around a developing emotion and showing rather than telling perspective. Another steep learning curve.

With my two WIPs I have had a good idea of the basic story outline up front and have fleshed it out as I go along. I research each new section as I write it which is why my word count rarely exceeds 1 500 words in one sitting as the research is time consuming and I check to a number of sources for factual accuracy.  I am doing my best to show and not tell and build in the emotion and description as I go along. I wonder what my new developmental editing points will be?

Going back to the question as to what is the most difficult thing for me in the artistic process, it is getting the detail and emotion into the story in a compelling way. The facts need to be conveyed in and interesting and natural way that fits in with the characters and the story and this is hard work and requires effort and deep concentration for me.

The front flap of the tent was tightly closed. Mrs De Wet opened it and gestured to them to enter. Marta’s first impression was of neatness despite the dim lighting and stuffiness inside the tent. A smell of sickness and impending death hung in the oppressive air.

A women in her thirties knelt on the floor next to a makeshift mattress. Her small son lay on the mattress, weak and frail. His face was flushed with fever and he had a hacking cough.

“I’m trying to keep him warm,” the mother said, by way of explanation for keeping the flap closed. “He is shivering with cold.”

“What is wrong with him?” asked Marta. She already knew but she needed to be sure. Her whole being shrank away from what she already feared.

“He has influenza. There are a couple of hundred cases of illness in the camp right now, a mixture of influenza, bronchitis and enteric catarrh. There had been some dust storms lately which the camp doctor thinks is causing more respiratory illnesses.”

Marta looked at Sannie, aghast. Their two families and their house servants had always lived a rural life and had little immunity to such illnesses. It was bad enough to deal with the multitude of biting insects and vermin but how could they deal with this?

A few moments later, Mrs Smit entered the tent with her children. She laid the dead body of her baby down on a blanket. The child had drawn its last breath while she was speaking to the Camp Commandant. He had given her directions to the children’s graveyard. She dropped into a seated position on the hard ground and sat there, rocking herself to and fro, and keening softly. Her worn and seemingly bloodless body was that of an old woman and her large eyes in her white face were wild and haunted. The death of her infant on top of the recent losses of her oldest son and toddler seemed to have broken something deep within her mind. It was frightening to watch.

Needing to escape the cloying confines of the tent and the overwhelming anguish of the mother of the dead baby and the mother of the seriously ill boy, Marta went for a walk around the camp, stopping to speak to the other women.

This piece has been posted for Sue Vincent’s weekly write photo prompt. I am desperately trying to finish my novella, A ghost and his gold, about the Second Anglo Boer War. Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that I find it hard to tear myself away from my most recent writing undertaking. That is why I often weave prompts into my latest story idea as I have done here.

You can join in here: https://scvincent.com/2019/08/08/thursday-photo-prompt-within-writephoto/

Where am I going this coming week?

I’ll give you some hints.

This was the home of three famous female authors, all siblings, who all wrote initially under male pen names as women had no recognition as writers at the time they published their first book. The three siblings had two other female siblings who both died of TB as children and a brother who became addicted to alcohol and opiates. In this place you will find artifacts from this family including tiny books which they made from all sorts of scrap paper including wallpaper, paper that came wrapped around packages or newspapers, sheet music, sugar wrappers and other packaging. These are the items I particularly want to see.

Then we are going on to see the home of a rather famous English writer, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her children’s books featuring animals. This female writer wrote thirty books of which twenty three were for children. My favourite of her books is Two Bad Mice which features Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb.

I am then going to visit the house of Robert Burns, the famous poet, who died of rheumatic fever at the age of 37 years old. I am also going to see fellow blogger, Mary Smith, who lives in this interesting town.

Where will I be?

This post was written for Linda G Hill’s SoCS challenge which you can join in here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-10-19/

Fear had eaten into his mind’s core like a malevolent caterpillar. Fear of the future. Fear of the soldiers. Fear of losing his farm. It had been there, rotting his brain matter, ever since the declaration of war in October the prior year. The injury he had sustained early this year had exacerbated its effect until it felt as if his mind was like a worm-infested apple, brown and soft inside. He took some deep breaths, determined to prevent the poison from spreading and affecting his reactions. Poor reactions could result in the deaths of him and his family.

The extract from my WIP, A Ghost and his Gold is posted for Charli Mills’ weekly 99-word flash fiction challenge. You can join in here: https://carrotranch.com/2019/08/08/august-8-flash-fiction-challenge/

Voodoo or Destiny, you decide by Jan Sikes

How would you feel if your husband and the father of your children announced he was having an affair and wants a divorce? Might you vent your anger and humiliation by having a bit of fun with voodoo?

Claire Winters is in just this position when she gets together with her best friend, Jade, for an evening of serious drinking. Jade, whose grandmother comes from Haiti where voodoo is common, comes up with the bright idea of their making a voodoo doll to help Claire express her feelings. The two women have some fun dressing themselves up for the ceremony and going through the voodoo ritual Jade learned from her grandmother.

Claire and Jade come to realise that dabbing in the occult can have unexpected consequences. This is a fast paced and enjoyable story about a game gone wrong.

Red Eyes in the Darkness by D.L. Finn

Someone or something is stalking Cass and Will Henderson, something innately evil. It is not enough that “It”, the pronoun used by Cass to identify the hunter, who no longer appears to have any human properties, has manipulated the murder of a relative to make it look as if Cass and Will are guilty of murder, It is now after them too.

The circumstantial evidence, which is not enough for conviction, but is enough to raise great suspicion as to Cass and Will’s guilt, has torn their family apart with both their daughters turning their backs on their parents. This, together with the disdain of their friends and neighbours, has made Cass and Will’s life unbearable in the town they have lived in for many years. They are caught in a cycle of wanting to leave to escape it all, but not wanting to effectively confirm their guilt and let It win.

It is not prepared to wait and let them make the decision. It is coming after them with an intention of getting rid of them forever.

A fast pace story with an unusual twist at the end.

The Scout: Dark Crossings by D.L. Cross

This short story is part of a series but it can be read on a stand alone basis. The Scout is dispatched to a strange and forbidding planet by his superiors to spy on the movements of a group of aliens who have been sighted. The Scout is warned that he will have a limited ability to contact his own people and report back to them, but he is told to make every effort to do so and to keep them appraised of the activities of the aliens.

The Scout walks a lengthily distance from his drop off point in search of the aliens whom he eventually finds deep in a forest. They are busy building a fortress and make several trips to the river. The Scout initially thinks they are reconnaissance missions but, after managing to get close enough to watch them, he discovers they are trips to get water and wash clothing. During one of the aliens trips to the river he makes eye contact with Aria, a small and pretty alien who sense his presence. This is the beginning of a relationship which has unexpected and shocking consequences.

The Scout was a most entertaining short story and I would recommend it to people looking for a short and exciting science fiction read.

My recollection of kryptonite is that it is a substance that makes Superman weak. So my interpretation of this prompt is therefore, what weakens me with regards to writing.

That is an interesting idea, something that weakens my ability to write is stress, particularly stress over which I have no control. I find it difficult to write when I am in the grip of this kind of stress, but usually the negative impact only lasts a day or two and then I am okay again. I am a bit of a panicker when it comes to uncertainty; politically or economically.

I also find that work stress impacts on the nature of what I write. Last year was a busy (read that as stressed) work year for me and I wrote Through the Nethergate, a supernatural, horror story. This year I am still quite stressed at work and I am writing a dystopian novel (hopefully the first of a trilogy) about the joint impacts of the fourth industrial revolution and climate crisis on society. My children’s books I write over holiday periods when I am relaxed. Light hearted stories do not come easily to me at other times of the year.

Time is the other thing that slows my writing down. I never seem to have enough time although I am exceedingly organised and don’t waste a single minute in my day. I still have to allocate time to work, children and their needs, hubby and his needs, my parents, sisters and my in-laws. After than comes writing, blogging, reading and baking. All this makes for a busy life for me so time is the enemy.

On the whole, I love to write and find it relaxing and entertaining. I enjoy reading and blogging to and regard them as my down time and not work. Writing is energising to me and I haven’t really experienced anything in the writing, developmental editing, editing, proofing and marketing process that I don’t like doing.

What about you? What takes you away from your writing?

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From the memorandum of Prof Thompson

31 May

What a strange and terrible day Jeff and I have just experienced. It should have been a celebration of the successful vote for a World Government, instead it turned into the biggest technological debacle I have ever seen.

At about 10 A.M. Lisa came in to see me. She was overwrought and wouldn’t get to the point of her meeting with me. I encouraged her to talk, thinking she would come around to it and eventually she did. Telling me that she was pregnant and would need time off from December to at least March to care for her new-born. She kept telling me how sorry she was to let me down by falling pregnant when Jeff and I had shown her so much kindness and consideration by re-training her as a data analyst. I told her she didn’t need to worry and that she could take the maternity leave she needed, which would be more than three months and come back to her job and her on-going training. She burst into tears at my words and I was relieved that Jeff came into my office just then and took over the job of calming her down. For half an hour or more he spoke to her and eventually she became quite quiet and went back to her desk, where I saw her sitting at her computer, gazing, unseeingly into space.

At about 11.30 A.M. I got up to go to the toilet. On my way past the IT help desk, I saw a couple of clusters of confused looking employees gathered around it. All of them were carrying laptops. On my way back to my office, a few minutes later, I saw that even more people were standing around waiting for assistance from the single IT administrator on-duty. I went over to find out what was happening.

All of the employees’ laptops were displaying a strange message in large black letters: “Sorry, your files are all encrypted.” While I was considering the implications of this message, all of the laptops spontaneously restarted.

I heard an unusual murmur of noise from the main open-plan office where the programmers sat and, rushing over to ask what the problem was. From the doorway I watched in horror as a wave of laptop and desktop screens turned black and silent. Attempts to restart them failed, with the screens returning immediately to the same blackness. The computers and laptops were all irreversibly locked. Every employee’s desk phone and company mobile phone was also dead.

I immediately rushed back into my own office and disconnected my own PC from the network, shouting at Jeff in the adjacent office to disconnect too. Due to the sensitive nature of our work, Jeff and I have specialised cybersecurity, but I wasn’t going to take any chances that the penetration tool embedded in this destructive piece of malware could hack into our machines.

Jeff came rushing into my office, “What’s going on?”

“The networks under attack by some sort of cyber weapon. I suspect it’s an automated network worm. Thank God we have backups of our work on external hard drives. Our computers should be fine anyway, the worm won’t have had time to hack their complex security software before we switched them off.”

My private phone began to ring and I noticed that my company mobile phone had gone dead. I answered it and had a short discussion with the caller. “That was Duarte Teixeira, the Chief IT administrator from the World Government’s building. He is being inundated by calls and messages from people all over London, telling him of similar situations in other World Government organisations. He said that the networks for all of the Free Zone developments have been infected. It’s also spread to all of the hospitals involved in inserting the World Government microchips. He says this appears to be a targeted attack on specific areas of the World Government administration, but we can’t rely on that and need to shut down the whole network.”

“What does he want us to do?”

“Get on the phone and call all government organisations linked to the World Government network and tell them to unplug their networks without hesitation, even if it means shutting down their entire operation. If they wait too long, their infrastructure will be lost.”

Jeff and I finished with the calls at around 3P.M. We made dozens of phone calls, locally and internationally, and in many cases, the infrastructure was saved. In many other cases, the calls had taken too long and it was already too late by the time we reached the relevant people.

Duarte appeared to have been correct in his assessment that this had been a targeted attack. Every World Government office and organization relating to the Free Zone developments, the insertion of microchips and other related benefits and services in the United Kingdom had been infected to some extent, as well as certain operations in France, Germany, Italy, the United States and Australia. It was obvious that the infection had targeted the UK.

We walked out of my office and into the general office area. Lisa was still there but all the other employees, rendered completely idle without a functioning computers, servers, routers and desk phones, had left and gone home.

“Why are you still here, Lisa?” Jeff asked.

“I wanted to wait and see if you needed me to do anything. Fortunately, the electric buses and the tube were not affected by the cyber-attack, so I can still get home.”

“Jeff and I have been asked to go to the World Government offices in Reading tomorrow to lead the IT team that will assist with the launch of Bella here in the UK now instead of February next year. Fortunately, the system is ready to launch. The delay was purely to give the World Government time to get the Free Zone developments up and running before Bella’s implementation and the resultant disruptive employment changes to the world economy. As a result of this cyber-attack, a decision has been made to launch Bella, with its sophisticated cybersecurity, in the United Kingdom now. It will be rolled out over the next seven months to all the federation countries.”

“How long do they expect the launch of Bella to take in the UK?”

“We’ve only been given ten days to get it up and running. The infected organisations, Free Zone developments and hospitals will have to operate manually as best they can during that period. It is a nightmare.”

“Do you need me to do anything for you over the next few days?”

Dr Thompson thought for a moment. “If you don’t mind coming with us to Reading, you could help us wipe the hard drive of all the laptops that were infected by the worm. It would be a good learning experience for you.”

I could feel the huge smile on my face. “I would love to come with you, Dr Thompson. Thank you for asking me.”

This is an extract from my new dystopian novel Russian Roulette, anyone? for Stevie Turner’s short story competition. You can participate here: https://steviet3.wordpress.com/2019/07/31/share-your-short-story-august-2019/