Dear Reader…
First of all, THANK YOU for your extremely warm reception of Ixy & Ixos! It makes me so happy to see folks invested in the story of Ivy, Pete, and all the rest you haven’t met yet! And things are about to get a little mysterious, a little strange…
In our next installment this Friday, Ivy arrives at Pete’s house and is faced with the reality of life away from the noisy city…and a question is raised about something Ivy has always believed.
Subscribe for free to stay up to date with the story, and/or read Issue One here!
Stay tuned for an excerpt at the end of this missive!
Schedule Reshuffle
So…you all kind of blew me away!
I was hoping that our summer season would start well, but your reactions have been completely outside my wildest expectations. Thanks to your responses, I’ve thought a bit more carefully about the rest of the summer and I’ve decided to shuffle our short story offerings around, just a bit.
Now, if you check our Publishing Schedule, you’ll see these Short Tales:
JULY: The Revelation of Scott Candle (Suspense/Supernatural) - a megachurch pastor meets his match on an ill-fated book tour.
AUGUST: The Gospel of Agnes Candle (Suspense/Supernatural) - a pastor’s wife goes on a dangerous search.
These suspense tales form a sort of duology (they can stand alone, but work best together), and I’m excited to bring them to you back-to-back for the remainder of the summer!
(And if you’re eagle-eyed, you may spot some interesting connections forming in my works by the end of the summer. But you gotta read close!)
Contest Update
Thank you to EVERYONE who has entered a story so far!
As I write this, we have entries from Scoot, Michael P. Marpaung, Michael S. Atkinson, ReddOscarWrites, Zoe Carada, Kim H., Peter Smetanick, Stephen A. Davis, Ben Woestenburg , Leigh Parrish, Buck Weiss, and John E. Dobbs!
But remember, we all have a job to do: your votes will pick the winner! Make sure you go to last week’s Talebones Weekly, check out each story, and vote for your favorite by clicking “like” on the comment containing their story’s link! Each “like” on those comments is a vote, so if you love an entry you gotta show us!
Voting ends at 9pm PST on Monday, June 26th, so there’s still time to enter!
Before you go, please enjoy this snippet from the next part of Ivy & Ixos…
Excerpt - “16 Seavend Road”
“You wanna see your room?” Pete asked.
Ivy’s room was at the rear of the cabin, right at the top of the spiral staircase, and the window above her bed looked through the alder grove and out to the forbidding line of the woods. It was a small room, but cozy, with a birchwood armoire and bookshelf, a low bed with a wrought-iron headboard, and a rag rug on the floor. There was a large, framed photograph of a woodland scene on the paneled wall, and the window was slightly ajar. The breeze blowing in smelled sweet, like pinebark and meadowgrass.
There was a sprig of some kind of purple flower on the plump pillow. Ivy picked it up, twirled it in her fingers. “I really like it, Pete. Thanks,” she said.
“Sure, of course,” Pete replied, though he seemed strangely taken aback by the purple flower in Ivy’s fingers. But he recovered, and said, “Hey, take your time getting unpacked and stuff. Come on down in a half hour and we’ll eat. Sound good?”
“What are we eating?” Ivy asked. She tried to sound nonchalant, but it suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know what food her dad liked. What if he only liked weird or spicy stuff? What if he only liked his cookies with raisins and his pizza with mushrooms? How would she survive?
But he shrugged, casual. “I thought we’d have spaghetti.”
Ivy turned to him, hopefully. “With tomato sauce? That’s my favorite.”
“Well, now.” He winked. “What a coincidence.”
Auntymack must have told him. But still, the thought of something familiar for dinner was more comforting than Ivy could put words to.
Pete left her alone, then. If Ivy had known him better, she would have heard the victorious spring in his step as he descended the spiral staircase to start dinner.
If nothing else, he had gotten the spaghetti right.
Ivy sat on the bed, feeling the cool air filtering in on the back of her neck. She held the little sprig of purple flower in her fingers and twirled it, twirled it, the ghost of Auntymack’s perfume wafting up from the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
I'm a big fan of ReddOscarWrites' entry and I feel like he's waaaay underrated as an author. Deserves way more publicity than he's currently getting!
I'm nearly ready to post my entry to the contest, just want to do a bit more editing. Haven't read much of the other entries yet. Looking forward to reading more of Ivy & Ixos.