This is the conclusion of Adam’s supernatural, gothic thriller. Start from the beginning here. Mrs. Holmes watched the carriage carrying the two young women away to relative safety. She was not certain what would happen, but she remembered vividly the last night before Dougal McCullagh, then called Fergusson, had… rescued her. From her husband. As the memories began to surface, she swiftly pushed them away again. Now was not the time to reminisce about days gone by. There was precious little time left, and she hoped very much to survive the night, though there was every possibility that she would not. She considered whether or not she had made her peace with that and decided that she had not. Rather, she simply could not accept it as a possibility, so it seemed an unreality to…
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This is the second part of Adam’s three-piece serial. Read Part One here, and come back next Monday for the chilling conclusion. Mrs. Belinda Holmes, 44, widowed, mother of two grown boys both of whom were overseas serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France, was the only member of the staff who had served the Congdon family longer than Mr. James Atherton and she absolutely loathed the man. He was pretentious, overbearing, haughty, and he treated the rest of the staff like they were below him. In the strictest sense they were, but he treated them as if HE were their master instead of Mr. Congdon and that did not set well with Mrs. Holmes. So when Mr. Atherton came into her kitchen to await the call of Mr. Congdon, Mrs. Holmes was far…
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This is Part One of Adam’s Three-Part Tale. Come back next Monday, and the Monday after for more beautiful, monstrous mystery. The door swung open with the smooth, silent urgency of a practiced hand. James Atherton, the Congdon butler swiftly took in the man who stood before him. Tall, wide-shouldered, he had a broad face decorated with a well-trimmed beard that was significantly out of vogue with modern sensibilities. His brown wool suit was crisp and clean, and his shirt was white, starched, and well-pressed. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that was also out of style, but it suited him in a rakish sort of way. He removed the cap and ran a large hand with scarred knuckles through his thick mane of dark blond hair, and then produced a calling card with his other….
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As we roll on through the best beach days of the year, we baristas at the Fictional Café have been working hard this month to serve up a sampling of the creative arts’ finest. Here are our fresh brews for August: This month, starts off with the wonderful poetry of Judith Ward – a first-time submitter, long time Coffee Club member. Her imaginative poems feature lighthearted imagery juxtaposed by themes of heartache, as she peeks around dark corners for brief glimpses into the curious bits of life. Next up, we have sculptures made from typewriter parts by Erich Griebling. We think his art is a great blend of what the Fictional Café is all about: writing and art. Although we use computers now, many of us remember a time when the typewriter was a very…
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Here Comes the Sun: A happy, faithful fan of the Fictional Café Dear Faithful Fans: It was a long, cold lonely winter, but at last we can tell you that our hard work has brought forth the redesigned, completely revamped, Fictional Café! I want to thank Shari Ryan of Author Needs for months and months of demanding [and often frustrating] work to develop our new site. Shari and I have worked together for nearly five years now, and I greatly appreciate her creativity and perspicacity. She’s also an author and you ought to check her out. Our newest barista, Mike Mavilia, has worked about sixteen times harder on the site than I. He has learned an awful lot about the arcane world of WordPress, teaching me quite a lot in the bargain. Thanks, Mike, for keeping us…
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Happy 2015 everybody! This year’s a big year for me in terms of publishing and writing and all that jazz. I don’t say that to brag, but rather because the experiences are going to be a great opportunity to learn about what’s going on with writing and publishing today. I will definitely take the time to share that learning with all of you, because if you don’t share what you learn what’s the point? By coincidence stemming from a little bit of design, I’m going to have a total of six projects coming out this year. All of them are releasing via different methods. Self-Publishing My vulgar and (I think) hilarious Farkas Foxtrot series goes live next month, self-published via Amazon, Kobo and all the other big boys. They’re novellas, and I plan to release them…
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Editors Note: Herewith we introduce David Free, our first contributor from Australia. This submission is another first for Fictional Cafe: the premier chapter from his novel appears in two formats, type and podcast. You can begin reading, or scroll to the end of the excerpt and listen to the author in his inimitable Down Under accent read aloud to you. In either – or both – we hope you will find A Dancing Bear as delightful as we did. Please click on the arrow below to listen to the podcast of Chapter 1: Chapter 1 You lunatics, Fenton Bland pretended to think, while taking a fiery glance at his watch. What the hell am I doing here? In truth, he knew perfectly well what he was doing there. He had, moreover, no genuine urge to know the…
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