Free short stories

by Carola Dunn

My deadline is rushing ever closer, so I'm just going to post links to three free mystery short stories. I wrote these for anthologies, two of which were published and the third never came to fruition. They're available for download in a variety of formats.

The published ones are both Daisy Dalrymple mysteries, set in London in the 1920s, featuring the main character of my 20-book series (it's the deadline of #21 that is almost upon me).

STORM IN A TEA SHOPPE: Daisy and her friend Lucy go out to lunch and find themselves in the soup...

http://www.belgravehouse.com/online/freestorm-in-a-tea-shoppe-p-465.html

UNHAPPY MEDIUM: A seance takes a deadly turn:

http://www.belgravehouse.com/online/free-unhappy-medium-p-466.html

 The third story is set in 1830, at the opening of the first public passenger railway in the world, from Liverpool to Manchester. It's closely based on the real event, but my elderly sleuth, Miss Primrose, discovers that the accidental death of the local Member of Parliament was no accident:

MISS PRIMROSE AND THE MARCH OF PROGRESS

http://www.belgravehouse.com/online/free-miss-primrose-and-the-march-of-progress-p-480.html

Enjoy!

You can find a list of all my mysteries in the correct order at:
http://www.cozy-mystery.com/Carola-Dunn.html

FOX FIVE: Five Charlie Fox Short Stories by Zoe Sharp

By Jaden Terrell

Between helping organize the Killer Nashville conference and scrambling to meet the demands of an increasingly demanding day job, I haven't had a lot of time to read for pleasure lately, but now that the conference is over (for now), it's time to catch up. My newest discovery is English thriller writer Zoe Sharp. (Sorry about the missing umlaut, Zoe. If I can figure out how to get it on there, I will. Gentle readers, it should be inserted above the "e".)

My first encounter with Zoe's work was in her new short story anthology, Fox Five: A Charlie Fox Short Story Collection. All five stories in the book feature Sharp's recurring character, Charlotte "Charlie" Fox, a former Special Forces soldier who now works as a self-defense instructor and sometime bodyguard. In "A Bridge Too Far," the first story in the book and the one that occurs before Charlie goes pro, Charlie finds herself hanging out with a group of thrillseekers, members of the local Dangerous Sports Club. When the dangerous sports turn out to be, not just dangerous, but deadly, it's Charlie who recognizes that these "accidents" are anything but accidental.

This well-crafted story hooked me early and kept me reading. The other stories, "Post Cards From Another Country," "Served Cold," "Off Duty," and "Truth and Lies" are equally good. Sharp's writing is crisp and vivid, well-crafted but unpretentious.

Of Sharp's protagonist, Charlie Fox, Paul Goat Allen of the Chicago Tribune, said, "Ill-tempered, agressive, and borderline psychotic, Fox is also compassionate, introspective, and highly principled: arguably one of the most enigmatic--and coolest--heroines in contemporary genre fiction."

Charlie is a jill-of-all-trades, but Sharp is no slouch in that department. She's worked as a van driver, horesback riding instructor, pension and mortgage advisor, and member of a yacht delivery crew. Her hobbies include "sailing, fast cars (and faster motorbikes), target shooting...and reading everything [she] can get her hands on." Her novels have taken her to bestseller status with the Independent Mystery Booksellers' Association, and she's been nominated for a Barry Award for the Best Crime Novel. Last year, Twentieth Century Fox optioned her series for television.

Sharp is working to upload the first five books in the Charlie Fox series (the hardest to get these days and the ones to which she has gotten back the rights) to Kindle and later to other e-readers. I, for one, will be on the lookout for them.

To read more about Zoe Sharp and her books, check out this interview with Timothy Hallinan at The Blog Cabin.

Six Words, a World

By Beth Terrell

I just bought a fascinating little book called Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak. Written by "Writers Famous and Obscure" and edited by Smith Magazine, the book is composed of the shortest of short stories: six words each. I was amazed by how much could be told in so few words.

For example, there's this little gem by Joe Hill: I thought we had more time.

There's a world in that brief phrase. Is this the story of a widower realizing that he took his wife for granted? A woman watching her mother slip into dementia? A bridge designer being pressured to meet an unexpected deadline by rushing a design he knows may result in disaster? None of the above?

All of the above?

This book is a treasure trove of ideas for a writer, because each one contains the seeds of many stories.

Here are a few more.

Should have listened to the soothsayer. - Lisa Johnson

They never seemed crazy at first. - Eric Heiman

Found soul mate. Became call mate. - Harlan Stanton

Good men? Like promises, easily broken. - Bill West

And how about this one, by Christopher Moore? Heartbroken, until the bitch finally died.

If that doesn't spur the imagination, I don't know what will. Who is the bitch? Why is the narrator heartbroken? If you gave this line to a hundred authors and directed each one to write a novel about it, you would get a hundred different stories. Maybe the narrator is a henpecked husband whose wealthy wife makes his life a misery. Maybe he's a dutiful son whose overbearing mother comes between him and the woman he loves. Maybe "the bitch" dies of natural causes, after the narrator's years of self-sacrifice, or maybe he is the one who killed her. Six words, but what a wealth of ideas!

As snippets of commentary about the human heart, the book is thought-provoking. As a collection of story starters, it's invaluable. Story stuck? Skim this book (or its companion Not Quite What I Was Planning), and you're sure to come across something that sparks an idea.

But it works the other way, too. I tried it with my first novel (Met wrong woman. Framed for murder.), my most recent book (Loved nephew like son. Wasn't enough.), and my current work in progress (Tried network marketing. Upline murdered. Oops.). It's harder than it might seem to distill an 80,000-word novel to a mere six words.

How about you? Can you come up with a six-word distillation of your book, or, like the authors of Six-Word Memoirs, a six-word story of life, love, and heartbreak?