Jean Marie Ward

To quote Mark Twain

“Wagner’s music isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
Just got home from the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD production of Siegfried. Greg is the Wagner fan. I confess, I’m meh on opera, but from the music to the singers, the performances were glorious. I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen a more perfect Siegfried–the boy who doesn’t know fear–than Jay Hunter Morris, and Greg has 78s, LPs, CDs and DVDs of every production ever. Even better, off-stage Morris sounds just like Owen Wilson. Hee!

Duzell, we hardly knew ye

Cat-assisted writer. (Photo by Greg Uchrin)

The iconic Duzell, born we don’t know, entered our lives in September 2006 and left as considerately as he did everything sometime around eleven this morning. He got me through some of the worst times of my life, always gentle, always the gentleman. I wasn’t ready for him to go. I don’t think I would’ve ever been ready. Sometimes you are blessed with a friend, human or animal, too good for just one life. I wish my sweet boy many such lives, all of them filled with the love he deserves.

Six Sentence Sunday: “Fixed”, Part 2

It’s getting closer and closer. The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity goes on sale March 6. To whet your appetite, here’s another Six Sentence Sunday snippet from my cat shifter story, “Fixed”. Enjoy!

He feinted right. With a triumphant woof and the crackle of dead weeds, his pursuer plunged into the brush. Jack veered left, gaze locked on the outdoor balance beam. If he could run the dog into the log . . .
“Look out!” a female voice screamed.
He turned just in time to see a bicycle twice his height tearing up the center of the path.

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Six Sentence Sunday: “Hoodoo Cupid” Three

This will be my last Six Sentence Sunday excerpt from “Hoodoo Cupid”–at least until next year. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the excerpts as much as I’ve enjoyed revisiting the story.

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No matter how hard or how loud her inner paranoid told her he couldn’t be trusted, the rest of her wasn’t listening. Her respiration slowed, lulled by hints of scents which had no place in a sickroom—sandalwood and ginger and the faintest trace of sweat. The longer she stood there and watched him breathe, waiting for her to act, accepting it…

Something fluttered, soft as feathered wings, inside her belly.

“Maggie?” he whispered.

Why did he have to say her name like it mattered?

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Six Sentence Sunday: “Hoodoo Cupid” Two

As promised, February’s first three Six Sentence Sunday entries are all from my short contemporary romance, “Hoodoo Cupid”, available wherever fine ebooks are sold.

Today’s scene takes place in the ER after Maggie Scanlan’s hoodoo has done it’s work on her professional rival and new boss, Dan Constantine:

When [Dan's] eyes focused on a person—the way they focused on her now—it was like being targeted by a pair of lasers. The fan of creases deepening at the corners of his eyes and his slowly widening smile only made it worse.

“My ride.” His voice had a husky quality—a subtle roughness like vintage mohair upholstery, which inspired almost as much thigh wriggling and skirt palming among the agency power groupies as his eyes. “Talk about answered prayers. Please tell me it’s going to be a long one.”

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Six Sentence Sunday: “Hoodoo Cupid”

In honor of February’s big day, I plan three Six Sentence Sunday excerpts from my Valentine’s Day romance, “Hoodoo Cupid”, a short romance published by Red Rose and available wherever fine ebooks are sold. As the blurb says:

Maggie Scanlan’s voodoo was a bust until she took her scissors to a poppet on Valentine’s Day. She never expected professional rival—and voodoo victim—Dan Constantine to break his leg, much less sweep the rug out from under her in an Emergency Room. Her brain says, “Run!” Her heart…

“Hoodoo Cupid”

The tattered rag doll flopped on the brushed metal table as Maggie Scanlan wrapped a thread thrice around its stubby legs.

“Let’s see how you like being cut off at the knees, Daniel Curtiss Constantine!” she shouted into the doll’s expressionless face.

A raw, exhaust-scented wind skittered under her hair, raising goose bumps across the back of her neck. She paid the goose bumps no mind. She wasn’t scared. It was just the cold.

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More next week!

Six Sentence Sunday: “Billy’s Monster”

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This week’s Six Sentence Sunday offers offers the opening of a story you can read right now, “Billy’s Monster” from Hellfire Lounge 2: Rat Pack Redux. If you like your horror with a big helping of humor and fun, this is the book for you. I haven’t posted my usual information slug on the main page only because resizing the cover is giving me grief. The delay is killing me, too. In addition to great stories by C.J. Henderson, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, KT Pinto, Robert Waters and our fearless editor (and he has to be!) Rick Allen Leider, the book features a fabulous cover by Ben Fogletto and amazing interior art by Ed Coutts, Ben Fogletto, Denny Fincke, Jason Whitley and Paul London. (Face it, I’m all about the pictures. )

“Billy’s Monster”

Billy was six years old when he brought home a monster. It had sharp, pointed teeth all around its mouth like a possum. Two rows of three stubby horns each grew from its forehead. Its spotted feathers were as soft as bunny fur, and it churred when Billy rubbed its tummy and fingered the satiny leather of its wings.
Billy’s parents didn’t know what to make of it. But it wasn’t too big, and they never did see a creature better at catching the mice and other varmints around the farm.

Jean Marie’s Six Sentence Sunday: “Burning Down the House”

Welcome to my first Six Sentence Sunday (you have no idea how many times I’ve written that “Six Second Sunday” lol) Today’s excerpt is from a little story called “Burning Down the House” commissioned for Hellfire Lounge 3: Jinn Rummy. Take a New York nightclub, combine with two feuding sorcerers and one large jinni–and get the hell out of the way.

“Look, Eddie, I wasn’t born yesterday, or yester-century, for that matter. You’ve got another bottle hidden in that bundle of fabric you’re holding. You want me to show you how I fit into a bottle ‘no bigger than…’ by turning myself into smoke and popping down in there so you can slap one of those extra Seals of Solomon you brought with you over the top. The beer bottle or whatever you scrounged on your way over here won’t hold me as well as a charmed number, but you figure it’ll last until you can get it enchanted. Like I’m gonna give you the chance.”
“But it always works in the stories.”

Annette’s Apple Pie

Since I was evil enough to post a picture of Annette’s Apple Pie, it seems only fair that I provide the recipe. This is taken from an old Samhain fantasy blog that’s still out there, somewhere… Consider it my little holiday present. May Christmas find you warm, happy and healthy with all your loved ones around you.

Apple Magic

Forbidden fruit and food of the gods, the apple has a hell of a rep to live up to.
I can see why the Greeks and the Norse made golden apples part of the minimum daily requirement for immortality. People have been talking about the health benefits of apples ever since there have been people talking. Plus, in a climate cold enough to grow them, properly stored apples will last longer than almost any other fruit. Dried apples last even longer.
The whole forbidden fruit gig, however, seemed way off-base. The Bible never specified the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Why decided it was an apple? Apples are hard. Why not something fleshy and sensual like a peach or a nectarine? Or that eternal naughty, the cherry?
Some scholars think the Romans are to blame. The Latin word for apple (malus) is very close to the Latin word for evil (malum). The sources for the two words are completely different. But medieval and Renaissance painters of the Garden of Eden didn’t know malus came from the Hittite word for branch and malum from someplace else entirely. The mythological connections probably didn’t help either. If a Greek nymph used it to keep her girlish figure, it had to be bad for your soul. Look what Eris did with her golden apple. One little beauty contest later and Troy was history. From there it was only a little step to wicked stepmothers and Disney dwarves.
Much as I’d like to think an apple a day would keep me young forever, I can’t see it happening. But I do think the fruit is magical, especially at this time of the year when farmers markets and roadside stands offer them by the bushel. Especially in a pie.
With that in mind, I offer Mom’s Apple Pie. No really. This recipe comes from my husband’s mother, and it’s the surest way I know to make bushels of apples vanish. The rectangular pan specified in the recipe became a family tradition because the standard-sized, round version of the pie never lasted long enough for leftovers.

Annette’s Slovak Apple Pie

Ingredients:
(Recipe amounts based on a rectangular pan, roughly 12 by 8 by 2 inches.)

Crust

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
½ lb butter
1/3 – ½ cup cold milk (or more, as needed)
Additional flour for rolling dough

Filling

6 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced (or enough to fill the pan with a little mound in the center)
½ cup unseasoned cracker or bread crumbs
1 – 1 ¼ cup sugar (depending on the sweetness of the apples)
2 tbsp butter
Cinnamon
1 – 2 tbsp flour (only if the apples are very juicy)

Directions:

Start the crust by sifting the measured flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and sugar together. Add the butter. Mix together with a pastry cutter or two knives (one held in each hand) until the mixture is reduced to even bits of dough about the size of peas. Sprinkle the milk over the dough until you can pat the dough into a large ball. (This part can be done with your hands if you work fast.) Wrap the dough in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill for at least a half hour before rolling the crust on a generously floured surface. Use about 5/8 of the dough for the bottom crust, and don’t be afraid of pushing and patching it in the corners. Return the rolled top crust to the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
Begin filling the pie by sprinkling the breadcrumbs on the bottom of the crust. Starting with a layer of apples, fill the crust with alternate layers of apples, sugar and cinnamon. Add a light dusting of flour if the apples are very juicy. Dot the final layer of sugar and cinnamon with butter. Cover with the top crust and seal the edges. Vent the crust by slashing or pricking it in a decorative pattern. Bake at 350 degrees until the apples are tender and the crust is brown, usually between 45 minutes and an hour. Let cool as long as you can stand it before cutting. Enjoy!

A dish served very cold indeed

Tonight my darling spouse learned exactly how good the Captain Blood costume I made for him twenty-five years ago really was. He’ll be at AnimeUSA tonight, cosplaying at the con ball, dressed as Fuhrer King Bradley from Full Metal Alchemist in a quite spiffy costume made by a friend–a costume with no elastic secreted in the waistband to accommodate (ahem) changes in manly girth, no pockets.
No fly.
Tee Hee.