I love perfume bottles. In fact, the inspiration behind “Released,” the first book in the Romani Realms series, came from a perfume bottle. Now, I’ve found this angel inspired bottle by Victoria’s Secret and I think I feel a story brewing.
TITLE – My Wife’s Li’l Secret
AUTHOR – Eve Rabi
GENRE – Women’s Fiction
PUBLICATION DATE – 18 November 2014
PUBLISHER – Eve Rabi
COVER ARTIST – Eve Rabi
She called me the miracle in her life, I called her my Li’l treasure.
Sounds corny, I know, but I really believed I was the luckiest bastard on earth. I had the loving and supportive wife, a nurturing mother to our two precious girls, a thriving business and the future looked rosy. I was a contented man.
But overnight everything changed. My wife withdrew from me, ignored our children, and made it clear she was no longer interested in playing the role of wife and mother.
We had two children under five, they needed her. I needed her.
When her dressing began to change and she disappeared for hours, I suspected I was not enough for her.
Thinking she was having an affair, I placed my wife of five years under surveillance.
What my surveillance revealed shook my world, broke my heart and exposed a web of lies and deceit.
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Since my wife was out partying again, bedtime routine for our girls was left to me. Again. I tucked Ally and Becky into bed and began to read a story to them. “Once upon a time…”
“Dadda?” Ally said placing her hand on the storybook and stopping me from continuing.
I paused and looked at my daughter. “Yes, Alleycat?”
“Dadda, what’s a hooka?”
“Whaaaat?” I peered at my daughter wondering if I had heard correctly.
“The teacher at preschool, she said, ‘Here comes the hooka,’ when she saw Mummy.”
Slowly, I lowered the book and stared at my daughter. “It’s …it’s …”
How do I explain what a hooker is to a four-year-old? I shouldn’t even be in a position where I had to.
“The lady shouldn’t have said that, Ally,” I muttered.
“But, Dadda …”
Two-year-old Becky spun around and clamped her hand over Ally’s mouth. “Shhh! Let Daddy read the story, Ally!”
Becky hated anyone interrupting a story, so to prevent her from getting mad with us, both Ally and I fell silent. I continued reading even though I was terribly distracted by Ally’s words.
“Talk about it tomorrow, Ally,” I muttered when the opportunity arose.
Ally nodded.
After the kids fell asleep, I sat in my lounge in the dark and pondered Ally’s teacher’s comment.
Liefie had great legs, a great figure and I had no problem with her wearing whatever she liked, but people were talking and clearly her dressing needed to be …addressed.
Of course I expected Liefie to become angry when I confronted her about it, accuse me of controlling her and after the number of arguments we had had, I was reluctant to talk to her about it.
But when I saw her the following evening, all dolled up and ready to party without her family again, hooker was the word, alright.
Her red skirt was the size of a large belt, her white top strained across her breasts and ended above her belly button, her fake tan looked like she’d dipped herself in food coloring and that garish, face paint with that dominating electric-blue eye shadow…reminded me of Braveheart.
She didn’t look pretty; she looked like an aging prostitute. Harsh words, I know, but they weren’t out of malice, they were simply an observation. (People were talking, remember?)
Tarty make-up aside, to my absolute surprise, she sported two piercings above her left eyebrows. My jaw fell.
When did that happen, I wondered? How could that happen? Why hadn’t she told me about it?
Of course it was her body and she was free to do what she liked to it, but facial piercings weren’t something I liked. She knew that.
She could have at least mentioned it to me before she pieced her face. We were husband and wife; it was reasonable to expect her to talk to me about something like that before she did it.
“What’s with the piercing?” I asked, both mesmerized and irritated by them.
She shrugged, flashed me a deal-with-it look and turned away.
With a weary sigh, I walked around to face her. “We need to talk.”
A guarded look flashed in her eyes before they hardened.
“Liefie, you need to dress more like a mother,” I said in a quiet voice. “You have two children and …”
“What?! You want to tell me how to dress now? You want to CONTROL ME?”
Just as I had expected.
“Hey, keep you voice down, will you? I’m talking to you, that’s all.”
“There is nothing wrong with my dressing, okay?! Nothing!”
“Yes, there is, Liefie. Your skirts are too short, your tops are way too tight and the people at Ally’s school are talking about it. You need to …”
“Ally’s school?” Her heavily-lined eyes slanted.
“Yes!”
Her painted, pillar-box-red mouth twisted into a sneer. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I swear!”
She cocked her head and looked at me. “Who told you that?”
“Ally told me. She said one of the mothers or teachers, I can’t remember, after seeing you, used the word hooker.”
Her body stiffened. “Ally said ….THAT?!?”
“Yea…”
“That bitch! Where is she?!” She turned and strode off in search of Ally. Even though she was in heels, she almost ran.
“Liefie stop!” I cried running after her, shocked she would call her little daughter a bitch. “Leave her alone!”
She found Ally playing with Becky in the TV room. “Did you call me a hooker?” she demanded, putting her flaming face in Ally’s.
“Liefie stop this shit!” I warned.
Ally’s eyes flitted between Liefie’s and mine, a terrified look on her face.
“Lief…ie! ” I hissed. “Stop this …”
Liefie suddenly backhanded Ally across the face, sending her crashing into a doll’s house.
Ally lay on the floor so stunned, she didn’t even cry. The only thing that showed her distress was puddle appearing around her waist.
For a moment, I too was stunned. Liefie had never ever hit our kids before.
Then fury overtook me – I grabbed my wife by the hair and slammed her against the wall.
Putting my face in hers, I snarled, “You ever touch my child like that and I will fuck the shit out of you, understand? UNDERSTAND?”
Her attempt to look defiant failed and I saw fear flicker in her eyes.
I had never hit Liefie before, never even called her names, so this wasn’t something she was used to.
“Don’t ever lay a finger on any of my daughters. Understand?” I pushed my face further into hers, resisting the urge to head-butt her.
“Daddy, stop! Daddy!” Ally cried, while Becky started to whimper. I looked over at my two children clinging to each other, terror on their little faces.
What am I doing?!
Quickly, I released Liefie and took a giant step back.
I walked over to Ally and Becky, scooped up both of them and hugged them to me. “It’s okay, it’s okay!”
They looked at their mother who stood holding her head with both hands, but did not try to go to her.
After a few moments, Liefie ran out of the room, shouting, “Your father is an abusive man! He just abused me in front of our children. That’s the kind of man I married!”
I looked at Ally. “Sorry, hon.”
“Why did you tell her, Daddy?” Ally whispered, holding her tear-stained cheek.
“I’m sorry, Al, I was trying to get her to do the right thing. I’m sorry.”
“You knew she’d hit me, Daddy. You shouldn’t have told her.”
I peered at Ally. “What are you talking about? She doesn’t hit you, Ally. Usually. Right?”
No answer.
“ALLY?!”
“I need to change my pants,” Ally muttered, ignoring my questions.
My head jerked to look at little Becky.
Becky’s head bobbed, her eyes opening wide.
You can’t be serious?!
My eyes shifted back to Ally. “This is the first time she hit you, right? Or does she hit you? Tell me, Ally.” I shook her. “Tell me!”
Becky’s head continued to bob.
“All the time, Daddy,” Ally finally muttered. “Yesterday she hit me because I took too long to get Uncle Viggo’s beer. From the fridge.”
“WHAAAT?” She had my four-year-old daughter fetching alcohol for her brother?
Ally nodded.
“Mummy hit Ally here,” Becky said, slapping the top of her head.
I was mortified at what I was hearing.
If Liefie could hit my daughter that way in front of me, backhand her, what would she be doing behind my back? Aghast, I looked at my firstborn who I idolized. “Ally, honey, why didn’t you tell me this?”
“You weren’t here, Dadda. And Mummy said if I carry tales she’ll make me sorry.” Fat tears coursed down little Ally cheeks.
I drew my girls closer, feeling absolutely gutted to know they were being silently abused by their own mother. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Daddy will make it stop. I’m so sorry. This is not going to happen again. I promise.”
Eve Rabi lives in Sydney Australia, but was born in South Africa.
She is the author of 25 books and is known for her kick-ass leading ladies, her alpha males and her ability to make you cry and make you laugh as you fall in love.
She loves music and cannot live without it.
She also enjoys dancing, (was a Latin dance instructor years ago) and keeps her kids in line by threatening to bust a Zumba move in front of their school assembly.
FOLLOW EVE HERE
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Pinterest – Smashwords
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TITLE – What Rough Beast
AUTHOR – H. R. Knight
GENRE – Paranormal Mystery
PUBLICATION DATE – 9/8/14
LENGTH (Pages/# Words) – 320pp/109,000 words
PUBLISHER – H. R. Knight
COVER ARTIST – Rebecca Poole
Harry Houdini asks Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to help him expose Maximillian Cairo—a spiritualist medium. But the two men underestimate Cairo. He’s a master of the occult and the most debauched man in London. Conan Doyle and Houdini get more than they bargained for when they interrupt a magic ritual and accidentally set loose a force for ecstasy and chaos on an unsuspecting Edwardian London.
Soon one of their friends is falsely accused of a grisly murder. Conan Doyle and Houdini are sure the real killer was at the ritual with them. They’re faced with a locked-room homicide that baffles even Houdini.
One by one, people in the little group who attended the ceremony feel an insidious influence creep over them. Each succumbs to a burst of creativity, shortly followed by an act of uncontrollable madness.
The proper Victorian gentleman and the ebullient New Yorker must team up to solve the murder and stop the thing they set loose before it completely unravels their ordered world.
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ITUNES – Books > Mysteries & Thrillers > Historical> H. R. Knight
Chapter 28 – Encounter in the Fog
As we strolled along the tiny cobblestone lane, there was not a cab in sight. Not that we could see far in the darkness. The damp fog off the Thames had worked its way north to this neighbourhood. A thick patch of it rolled in quickly. In a few minutes, we could barely see across the street.
A little chill ran down my spine. I had a distinct feeling of being watched. I turned to look behind me. The gaslights had become faint glows that hid more than they illuminated. Movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention. There, had something behind us just flitted into the shadow of a doorway? Or was it merely a swirl of mist? I felt alone and quite vulnerable. I was grateful for the sturdy companion at my side. Houdini spoke in a low voice.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “I’m getting the creeps.”
We picked up our pace and made south for Euston Road. The fog thickened and thinned around us in pale, cottony patches. We encountered no other soul. At its densest, the fog could have concealed armies. Indeed, it played strange tricks on one’s ears. I thought I heard footsteps shuffling along behind us. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour or the disturbing events we were investigating, but the sound made me uneasy. We continued on even more quickly. Then, suddenly, we were in the clear. We could see the entire block of flats behind us. I paused, and restrained my companion with a hand on his arm. Here was our chance to get a good look at our pursuer. I could not be sure, but I thought I heard a foot scrape the stones of the road before silence surrounded us. I looked to Houdini.
“I heard it too,” he said softy. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Back there.”
Why his confirmation filled me with dread, I cannot say. The person behind us was almost certainly a weary pilgrim such as we, eager for his own sitting room and a warm fire.
I saw that Houdini had drawn the sharpened screwdriver out of his pocket and held it like a dagger. We turned to face whoever was following us.
Halfway down the street a single gaslight glowed feebly. At the end of the lane a figure approached. It jogged along the walls of the buildings. I got an impression of a manlike shape with an impossibly lean body and grotesquely long limbs. It loped along in an odd, loose-jointed way. I could have sworn I heard soft, animal-like moans. It was as if some savage beast were hot on our trail. I felt Houdini clutch my shoulder.
“What is it?” he hissed in my ear.
I could only shake my head. It was like no creature I had seen in all my travels. The thing’s unnatural form filled me with loathing. Its huge shadow, magnified by the streetlamp, flitted along the bricks of the buildings.
I stood, my eyes riveted on the gaslight down the street. What would I see when the thing stepped full into the glow? As if in answer to my thought, it paused and sniffed the air. The misshapen head swiveled until it pointed precisely in our direction. Its eyes glittered with a malign emerald glow.
The beast took a step forward. Then an absolutely unexpected thing happened. Just before it stepped full into the light, the creature swarmed straight up the sheer wall. I gasped at the speed with which it scaled the bricks. It climbed until it was lost in the shadows. For a moment, all was silent. Then I heard a sound that chilled me to my soul—the faint sound of claws scrabbling across the roof tiles high above us. And the sound was approaching rapidly.
“Come on,” Houdini hissed, grabbing my sleeve.
We took off down the street at a run. My shoes slipped on the flagstones. I wheeled my arms to catch my balance. On and on we raced. The blood beat in my temples. We careened into abrupt turns and doubled back on ourselves. Soon we were back in another patch of fog. My breath sounded harsh in my ears. At last I felt Houdini’s grasp on my arm as he pulled me to a stop.
I sagged against the cold bricks and gasped for air. Silence surrounded us. My heart pounded in my chest. Had we given our pursuer the slip? The alley next to us was dark. We huddled in its shadows and peeped around the corner. We could barely make out the walls of the tenements that loomed over us. The stones beneath our feet were rough and uneven. The cold air seared the back of my throat as I caught my breath. I scarcely dared look back for fear of seeing something.
Houdini whispered. “I think we lost—”
The unmistakable sound of scrabbling above us cut him off.
“Run!”
The cry echoed off the walls. We plunged into the blackness of the street before us. I was racing at full speed before I realised that it was I who had shrieked the command. Our feet pounded the pavement as we dashed through the darkness. We both flung our arms up to protect from an overhead attack. The thing that pursued us—was it what had murdered Mackleston’s brother?
The street turned out to be a long, curving one with no side alleys. But at the end I thought I discerned a glow of light.
“At… end,” Houdini gasped beside me. “Stop … set ambush.”
I thought of what the creature above us had done to Reggie and shivered. How could we defend against an attack that could come from any direction? But each breath I drew felt like a stab in my side. I couldn’t run much longer.
Not three yards from the end of the street a huge figure loomed out of the lowering fog in front of us. We skidded to a stop and barely avoided colliding with it.“Here now, what’s the rush, lads?” a loud voice boomed. Two hands the size of hams clutched at our lapels and hauled us into the street. “Let’s get a better look at you,” the voice declared.
We found ourselves under an electric light on Euston Road. The figure looming over us revealed itself as a frowning giant of a policeman. The fog had lowered again. Little droplets had condensed on the brass buttons of his uniform. They glittered like gems under the lamplight. Though I continued to gasp for air, my relief was palpable. As he saw how we were dressed, a look of surprise registered on his face and he loosed his hold on us.
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” he said. Then he noticed the sharpened screwdriver, still clutched in Houdini’s hand. “Now what—”
“Constable,” I panted, “someone or something is after us.” I pointed into the blackness behind us.
Houdini nodded vigorously as he leaned over to suck in air. “Tried to lose him … chased us a good two miles.”
“Oh, he has, has he?” The officer drew his truncheon out of his belt and turned to face the yawning darkness. “We’ll see about that.”I could not let him face the demon alone. “Whoever he is. .. he’s gone mad,” I warned between breaths. “You must … get reinforcements.”
The policeman turned back to us and smiled. “One man only?”
“At least wait… until we catch … our breaths,” I urged. “We’ll accompany you.”
The policeman seemed not to have heard me. His face lit up in anticipation. William the Conqueror’s face might have looked the same as he led the charge at Hastings.
“I hope he tries to resist arrest. I truly do.”
So saying, he picked up a little black lantern from the ground beside him. He lifted it to head height and plunged into the unlit street.
“Like Custer at Little Bighorn,” Houdini muttered to himself. Neither of us had fully recovered, but we straightened up and staggered after the man.
“Wait up!” Houdini called. We chased the watery glow of light from his lantern as it floated through the foggy darkness. Before we had gone six steps, the light appeared to dance wildly. We heard a shout, a feral screech, and finally a shrill scream, like a soul in torment. The shriek rose and fell. Abruptly, it cut off. The lantern fell to the street with a clatter. It glowed brightly for a moment and then winked out. A terrible silence followed.
H. R. Knight is the pen name of Harry Squires, a critically acclaimed author who writes mysteries—some paranormal, some not—as well as thrillers, and the occasional magazine article. Harry has worked as an insurance underwriter, a software marketer, and a corporate trainer. He attended Journalism School at the University of Missouri and film school at UCLA.
He has studied Okinawan karate and Chinese boxing. Current hobbies include dog training, classical guitar, cooking, and collecting obscure, cheesy horror films from the 1930s & ‘40s.
Having traveled all over the world, he’s developed a preference for countries that produce good wines.
He shares a home and a life with his wife Susan, who publishes unconventional paranormal romances. They own, train, and show Belgian Sheepdogs. Occasionally the dogs are kind enough to give Harry and Susan hope that they may someday be in charge of the pack.
They all live at the beach in Southern California.
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BONUS!! AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH H.R. KNIGHT
Where does your inspiration for stories come from?
Usually that’s a tough question to answer. And scary. The process seems magical and timid; writers are afraid to question it in case they scare it away.But in this case I know exactly where my book, What Rough Beast, came from:
One summer not long ago, guilt drove me to read the philosopher Frederick Nietzsche. Years ago my good friend Steve had given me a book of his writings. But Steve was a philosophy major in school, so his idea of a fun read was probably a little different from mine.But hey, I thought, you’re a reasonably intelligent fellow. It’s time you knuckled down and got through this thing. You read some philosophy in school. How bad could it be? So I opened the book and started the essay, The Birth of Tragedy. It was obvious from the start that Fredrick and I were not destined to be buddies. Here’s a quote from the book:
“This primordial basis of tragedy radiates that vision of drama out in several discharges following one after the other, a vision which is entirely a dream image, and, in this respect, epic in nature, but on the other hand as an objectification of a Dionysian state, it presents not the Apllonian consolation in illusion, but by contrast the smashing of individuality and becoming one with the primordial being.”
Fun times. But I made my way through it. Neitzsche talked about all art as being a conflict between the powers of two Greek gods–Dionysus and Apollo. Dionysus represented ecstasy and chaos; Apollo stood for the forces of reason and order. It was a conflict between the party animal and the worker bee. Or you could look at it as emotion vs. rational thought.
Or you could slam the book shut in frustration at the denseness of the prose. But I persevered. I owed Steve that much. Still, I was mentally fatigued after a session with Neitzsche. So to reward myself I would relax by reading a story or two from The Compete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
And those were my days (when I had one free) — Neitzsche in the mornings, Conan Doyle in the afternoon.
And I began to get an idea for a book. The story would be about repressed Victorian men being slammed up against the Dionysian forces of ecstasy and madness. I would make them acknowledge that those emotions and desires existed hidden within their ordered, rational lives.Here’s the story I came up with:
Harry Houdini asks Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to help him expose Maximillian Cairo–a spiritualist medium and the most debauched man in London. But the two men get more than they bargained for when they interrupt a magic ritual and accidentally set loose a force for ecstasy and chaos on an unsuspecting Edwardian London.One by one, people in the little group who attended the ritual feel an insidious influence creep over them. Each succumbs to a burst of creativity, shortly followed by an act of uncontrollable madness. The proper Victorian gentleman and the exuberant New Yorker must team up to stop the thing they set loose before it completely unravels their ordered world. And that’s how I started writing the book that became “What Rough Beast.”
As authors we are always looking for new ways to tell a story. Sometimes, we have to find new ways to tell an old story. Apparently, the same is true for the creators of Lego who have recently hired a new art director to fuse together different characters, thus creating fresh and new lego. It’s fiction meets lego.
Take a look at their new creations:
here.
If you could merge any two characters, which would they be?
It’s okay to splurge on Thanksgiving. After all, it only comes once a year and if you’re like me, saying no to pumpkin pie is just not possible. But, after the holiday has passed, then it’s time for the skinny on Thanksgiving leftovers.
Here are three ideas for enjoying the turkey throughout the holiday weekend without over-indulging in too many calories:
Turkey Lettuce Wraps
Top shredded white meat with red onion, shredded carrots, chopped nuts and cilantro. Wrap in lettuce leaves for a low carb lunch.
Turkey Vegetable Soup
In a pot, saute chopped onion, add a few cups of vegetable broth along with white and dark meat turkey. Toss in as many chopped vegetables as you can find such as carrots, celery, and squash. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until veggies are tender.
Chilled Quinoa Salad
Mix leftover green beans or any roasted vegetables with cooked quinoa and fresh herbs like parsley or cilantro along with basil for a lean, but satisfying salad.
Proud to share Sylvia Day on Teaser Tuesday. Here is a sneak peek of Sylvia Day’s Captivated by You. To read chapters one through three, click: http://www.sylviaday.com/captivated-chapters/.
