Guest author Chris Bodor of Ancient City Poets and Prizes

A.C. PAPA Literary Journal, Issue #1

Ancient City Poets, Authors, Photographers & Artists (A.C. PAPA)

Fifty-three contributors musing on the subject of the Sunshine State.Editor-In-Chief Chris Bodor; cover by nature photographer Mark Kirwan

An article written by writer Barbara Pyles Barker about issue #1 of A.C. PAPA Florida Literary Journal.

Reading this inaugural issue of A.C. PAPA was a special treat for me, because the many wonderful poems and stories evoke a world from my own memories. Like Robin McClary who wrote the foreword, I grew up in the Sunshine State and know many of the same things: palmettoes; TVs you actually had to cross the room to change; three local (and only) channels; locks not used, because they were not needed. On Vilano Beach, where I was raised, the sand dunes were tall, the ocean gave up the most perfect shells after tropical storms, and August meteor showers were brilliant because there was no competition for the light.

My sister and I walked together between our street and Boating Club Road to visit our grandparents practically daily—no worries about what lay between those two homes. We knew the neighbors, and there weren’t a great many. The beach community is filled now. The world is so connected, and I suppose we’re safer now in a way because of it, but there’s also more we need to be safe from. Something has been lost, and that makes it all the more important to remember these details of our childhoods and family histories here in St. Augustine.

The poems in A.C. PAPA capture Florida in works that celebrate cities such as Saint Augustine and Saint Petersburg, as well as the state’s varied landscape. They share the authors’ own memories, as well as what they love of our state and town in contemporary times. Salt-river views, beach glass, Egrets, sea turtles are all here in verse. “Florida’s Environmental Heritage” speaks of those things that have been lost from Nature, but of our attempts to recapture. Haikus capture slivers of Florida.

My state has always provided inspiration to artists. In this collection Larry Baker recalls his inspirations for The Flamingo Rising, how the A1A coastline provided shape and grounding for the acclaimed novel. Another essay, authored by Susan Bennett Lopez,  takes us back to her journey to find Jack Kerouac in Florida. She recounts her search for Jack, her attempt to get to “the core of Kerouac’s psyche.”

Another theme in this volume is the inspiration we writers find in Nature’s most dangerous and awesome forces. There is something about storms that draws us, and lights our imagination. “Fakahatchee Bay Crossing”, by Jim Draper, is a gripping account of a struggle to survive, and the character’s transformation in the stormy bay along a coast of mangrove trees, buoyed above the hazard of razor sharp oyster shells.

In a special section called Coast Lines, three of the poems relate the power of hurricanes; Mother Nature’s signature Florida force. Ann Browning Masters gives us a glimpse into the Oldest City’s history with these storms. “Hurricane Winds”, by Gigi Mischele Miller and Tovah Janovsky’s “Impressions of Arthur” relate beautiful imagery of how we natives dealt with Mother Nature at Her most fearsome and awe inspiring. These poets give all due respect where it is deserved to this stunning and destructive power.

The talented artists in this volume capture the beauty, mystique, and history of this special place, in verse and prose and photos. It is a jewel of a collection.

The inaugural issue of Ancient City Poets, Authors, Photographers and Artists (A.C. PAPA)

To buy on Amazon click HERE 

A.C. PAPA Editor-In-Chief Chris Bodor spreading the message of poetry and spoken word.

CALL For WORK – A.C. PAPA ISSUE #2

The next reading period for Ancient City Poets, Authors, Photographers & Artists (A.C. PAPA) will be April 01, 2015 to June 30. The focus of this Saint Augustine, Florida based journal is to spotlight Florida artists and art that references the Sunshine State. They will accept submissions of poetry, fiction, fine art and photography. A.C. PAPA is looking for writing and artwork that speaks of Florida, from all angles and all perspectives. They would like to hear from locals, tourists, travelers and residents. Special sections in issue #2 will include: “Saint Augustine History—the first 450 Years” and a number of articles on Florida writers such as Harry Crews.

The next issue of A.C. PAPA will appear in November, and will feature the best work from Florida artists as well as national and international writers who have something to say about Florida. Poet Plant Press is best known for their 2014 title Florida Speaks, an anthology featuring more than thirty writers musing on the Sunshine State. Please email your submissions as a RTF Microsoft Word file as an attachment to acpapalitmag@gmail.com. For more info and guidelines please go to the Poet Plant Press website at www.bodor.org or purchase a copy of issue #1 on Amazon by searching for the title of the publication.

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Guest author Jamie White and Prizes

Stains on the Soul

by Jamie White

About Stains on the Soul: 

It’s her last summer before going away to college and Fiona finds herself facing more than she bargained for: A boyfriend she doesn’t want who has a strange hold over her, a friend pushing her to expand her boundaries, and a new guy named Ted whose presence is more than a distraction.

If that isn’t enough, Fiona is being haunted with horrifying nightmares of burning at the stake—nightmares so real, she feels as though she’s losing her mid.

Are they only dreams, or are they trying to warn her about this new guy she can’t help but want?

Guest blog from (the main character) Fiona’s point of view:

“The Dream”

I feel like I’m losing it. Every time I go to sleep, it’s the same thing: I wake up in a cold sweat with all kinds of horrible images fresh in my mind. I’ve been walking around like a zombie and trying not to let anyone know just how exhausted I am, and all because of these dreams.

There’s a girl about to burn at the stake. She looks terrified and I know it’s not just the fact she’s about to die. She’s terrified of what she sees before the men come and light the kindling beneath her. No… actually, I think she looks more sad than anything.

It makes me think of him, and I don’t know why. He’s new is town and he’s been coming on to me. He’s cute, so I really shouldn’t mind but there’s something about him that makes me uncomfortable. I think part of it is the fact I like him too much and I shouldn’t. I’m technically seeing someone, and I’m about to go off to college soon. Why should I bother getting mixed up with someone else? Especially someone who makes my skin crawl.

Every time I see him, I can’t breathe and sometimes I think of that girl in my dreams. She looks so sad, like she wants to tell me something important.

I told you I was losing it. 

To buy book click HERE

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Google Plus | Pintrest | Amazon Page

About the author:

Jamie White is a music addict, book lover, pet servant & NaNoWriMo survivor. When she's not busy writing blog posts, she's taking pictures and spending time with her husband and pets. She released Stains on the Soul and Clutter via Pagan Writers Press in 2013. Stains 2 is set to release February 2015.

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Guest author Leslie C. Halpern and Prizes

Frogs, Hogs, Puppy DogsShakes, Cakes, Frosted FlakesRub, Scrub, Clean the Tub

by

Leslie Halpern

BOOK SYNOPSES

Award-winning poet Leslie C. Halpern wrote her Funny Children’s Poems book series to educate and entertain early readers, ages 5-9. The series includes Frogs, Hogs, Puppy Dogs: Funny Children’s Poems About Animal Friends (2014), Shakes, Cakes, Frosted Flakes: Funny Children’s Poems About Table Manners (2013), and Rub, Scrub, Clean the Tub: Funny Children’s Poems About Self-Image (2012), all published by Cricket Cottage Publishing and illustrated with whimsical watercolor paintings by Oral Nussbaum. Told from a child’s perspective, Frogs, Hogs, Puppy Dogs takes a light-hearted look at our relationships with house pets and zoo animals; Shakes, Cakes, Frosted Flakes humorously studies eating habits, nutrition, and etiquette; and Rub, Scrub, Clean the Tub provides a child’s distorted view of personal hygiene, interpersonal relationships, and self-image. All three books in the Funny Children’s Poems series include parent-teacher resource pages with challenging questions, fun games, and glossaries of unfamiliar words. Find Leslie’s children’s books and adult nonfiction books about the entertainment industry at Amazon.com, on her website at www.LeslieHalpern.com, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/funnychildrenspoems.

How to Make Poetry Fun for Children

By Leslie C. Halpern

When I tell people I write children’s poetry books, perform with a poetry ensemble, and once worked with a Shakespearean acting troupe, they often roll their eyes and tell me they don’t like poetry. That’s usually because as children they never learned to understand the language of poems.

Parents can make poetry fun and educational by introducing age-appropriate poems to young children. Infants will respond to hearing rhymed poems and looking at illustrations. As soon as a child can speak, he or she can explain what the pictures mean and guess what happens next. By being active listeners, children learn to decode language at an early age and may develop a life-long love of words.

Blending Concrete and Abstract

When children become accustomed to the language, they can appreciate one of poetry’s most beautiful elements: blending concrete (what’s experienced through our senses) and abstract (emotional truth without physical proof).

The poem “Chew Chew Train” from my book, Shakes, Cakes, Frosted Flakes: Funny Children’s Poems About Table Manners combines concrete images (strained spinach, ice cream) with abstract ideas (playing tricks, comparing a mouth to a tunnel). This humorous look at parent-child interactions at the dinner table offers a child’s point of view about adult manipulation.

Illustration by Oral Nussbaum, from the book Shakes, Cakes, Frosted Flakes.

Chew Chew Train

“Open wide for the choo choo train,”
my parents sometimes say.
There is no train, just spinach strained,
but I open anyway.

A spoon with spinach doesn’t look
like any kind of choo choo.
It’s the oldest trick in the book,
like kissing someone’s boo boo.

The train still comes and blow its steam,
but now the tunnel shuts.
I wait for spoons of soft ice cream,
caramel, and nuts.

Poetry For Young Children

Most children enjoy figuring out symbols and metaphors, and finding patterns in the poetry. They also find comfort and gain confidence from anticipating rhyme and repeating rhythm of traditional children’s poems. Rhyme and rhythm make memorization easier.

Repetition is a key element in the poem “Snakes on a Bus,” from my book, Frogs, Hogs, Puppy Dogs: Funny Children’s Poems About Animal Friends. Repeating final words in the rhymed couplets helps children remember and recite this short lesson in safety.   

Illustration by Oral Nussbaum, from the book Frogs, Hogs, Puppy Dogs.

Snakes on a Bus

Kevin brought three snakes on the bus, bus, bus.
And waved them around at us, us, us.

The snakes stared, but didn’t hiss, hiss, hiss.
Kevin screamed: “Take this, this, this!”

The driver slammed his brakes, brakes, brakes.
But Kevin’s snakes were fakes, fakes, fakes.

Although the drive to school is far, far, far,
Kevin now must come by car, car, car.

Writing Their Own Poetry

Reading and reciting poetry often leads children to write their own pieces. Encourage each child to write in easier forms, such as haiku (17 syllables total with three lines broken into 5, 7, 5 syllables each line), rhymed couplets (two lines with rhyming final words), and free verse (no designated rhyme or rhythm).

To enhance their poetry, children can draw pictures or use artwork and photographs from magazines to illustrate poems. Compile their best written poems or their favorite poems by other poets into a hand-written book, a booklet printed from the computer, or a blank book purchased from the store. Let the child “perform” this poetry in front of family and friends, using silly props and percussion instruments, such as tambourines, bells, and drums, to increase the fun. The important part of this process – and what will be appreciated most – is for parents and children to explore poetry together

Leslie C. Halpern

BIO

Award-winning poet Leslie C. Halpern has a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts and Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. In addition to children’s books, she writes nonfiction books about the entertainment industry for adults, and reviews books and movies for several online publications. Find out more about her at www.LeslieHalpern.com and www.facebook.com/LeslieCHalpern.

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Guest author Elise Abram and Prizes

Oooooo.....this is one to read with all the lights on and doors locked. 

The Revenant

by Elise Abram

Synopsis:

Raised from the dead as a revenant more than a hundred years ago, Zulu possesses superior stealth, superhuman speed, and a keen intellect. His only companion is Morgan the Seer, an old man cursed with longevity and the ability to see the future in his dreams. Zulu has spent the last century working with Morgan in order to save the people in his nightmares from horrible fates. Branded a vigilante by the media, Zulu must live his life in the shadows, traveling by night or in the city's underground unless his quest demands otherwise.

Morgan also has enemies. His twin brother Malchus, a powerful necromancer, is raising an army of undead minions to hunt Morgan down. Will they be able to stop Morgan from raising his army? How will they kill someone as powerful as Malchus? Is there more at stake than just their own lives?

Amazon - To buy click HERE

Barnes and Noble - To buy click HERE

Kobo - To buy click HERE

Black Rose Writing - To buy click HERE

Guest Post

Author Elise talks about The Importance of Dialogue

"Conversation #1" by Angus Cameron

https://www.flickr.com/photos/73716058@N04/9291813137

Reading should be an immersive activity in which you experience everything the point of view (POV) character experiences. A good narrative should give the reader a fly-on-the-wall-with-extra-sensory-perception feeling in which everything the POV character sees, hears, feels, and occasionally tastes and smells is related. The ESP comes when we hear the POV character's thoughts. This helps to establish pathos, a sense of empathy, compassion and the ability to put myself into the protagonist's shoes.

What about dialogue?

Every seasoned writer has heard the old adage "Show, don't tell". It's the first thing I teach my Writer's Craft students, repeating it as a mantra to them throughout the semester. Dialogue is the best way to show your audience what motivates your main character.

To demonstrate, consider this:

John said he was mad.

Here the narrator tells the reader what John has said, that John is mad. We know nothing about John's thoughts, or his level of agitation. Rather than tell us what John's said, let your characters speak for themselves.

"I'm mad," John said.

Though this time John is allowed to speak for himself, this excerpt gives the reader nothing more than the first example of telling.

John felt the blood rise in his temples. "I'm so angry I could spit," he said.

Here the author tells us what John's feeling in the moments before he speaks. Something's happened that has clearly agitated him. He's not just mad, he's angry, really angry.

Dialogue doesn't just show detail, it helps advance plot ("Don't follow me," he told her and he climbed into his pick-up, that old Dodge beater he'd bought on Craig's List for a song.), and character ("I hate it when she does that.") to show the characters' thoughts and feelings in a way being told these things (He told her not to follow him and he got into his truck and drove away.) by a disembodied narrator can't. 

Author Bio for Elise Abram

Elise Abram is a high school English and Computer Studies teacher, former archaeologist, avid reader and student of the human condition. Everything she does, watches, reads and hears is fodder for her writing. In her spare time she experiments with Paleo cookery, knits badly, and writes.

Websites - http://eliseabram.com and http://britbear.eliseabram.com

Facebook - https://facebook.com/zulutherevenant and https://facebook.com/eliseabram

Twitter - https://twitter.com/eliseabram

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliseabram 

Amazon Author Page - http://www.amazon.com/Elise-Abram/e/B009FF1JGA 

Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/EliseAbram

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Guest author Charmain Zimmerman and Prizes

Little Pearl's Circus World  

by Charmain Zimmerman Brackett    

This looks so cool! A non-fiction picture book about the author's great-grandmother, Pearl Clark LaComa (1890-1927). Pearl was the daughter of Mack Loren "M.L." Clark, who owned the M.L. Clark and Son's Combined Shows. Their wagon circus traveled throughout the United States from 1894 until 1945. The family sold the circus after M.L.'s death in 1926. Pearl started off as contortionist but after marrying her husband, Cris LaComa, she took to the air on a trapeze.

How cool is that! The author also shares insight on how the book was made in the article, Circus Roots.

Book Synopsis - Before she was 5 years-old, Little Pearl Clark was performing in her father's circus, the M.L. Clark and Son's Combined Shows. Join Little Pearl behind the scenes of her circus world. Little Pearl's Circus World is based on the true story Pearl Clark LaComa (1890-1927).

Circus Roots

            It started as a way to preserve her family heritage, but it resulted in an illustrated children's book based on her great-grandmother's life in the circus.

            About three years ago, Charmain Zimmerman Brackett had a chance meeting with some long-lost cousins.

            "I grew up in Georgia, and most of my dad's family lived in Las Vegas. I didn't really get to know his side of the family," she said. "One of my cousins moved to Georgia, and I went with my parents to meet her and her sister who was visiting from Las Vegas."

            Her cousin, Becky Bagshaw, was interested in genealogy and spent the next few hours telling Brackett about their family's circus history. Their great-grandmother, Pearl Clark LaComa, had been part of a circus owned by LaComa's father, Mack Loren "M.L." Clark.  And their grandmother, Juanita LaComa Zimmerman, had wanted to be a writer. She wrote down snippets of her circus memories in spiral-bound notebooks.  Bagshaw promised to send photocopies of pictures and these journals when she returned to Las Vegas, and she did.

            "The box she sent me was full of my grandmother's writings and copies of photographs. It was fascinating to me, but it saddened me at the same time because I never knew any of this when my grandmother was alive," said Brackett.         

            Over the next two years, Brackett went on a quest to pull as much circus information together as possible. She traveled to Baraboo, Wis. to research at the Robert L. Parkinson Library and Research Center and to Alexandria, La. where her family's circus had its winter headquarters.

            She spent countless hours on the Internet.

            She gathered family photos from other relatives in Texas and Washington state.

            "At first, I thought I'd do something just for my family. I wanted to put the photographs together in one place in a medium that could be passed down from generation to generation. After posting a few photographs of my grandmother on social media, I discovered other people were as interested in my family as I was," she said.

            With her journalistic background, she had hoped to write a non-fiction work about her great-grandparents' lives, but despite her efforts, she couldn't find enough information. So she went to Plan B - write a children's book based on the notes her grandmother had written. There was enough information for that. She enlisted Erica Pastecki, an artist and art teacher, to create paintings which would be used as the basis for the illustrations. Brackett also hired Ashlee Henry to do the design of the book.

            In November 2014, Little Pearl's Circus World was published.

            And on Jan. 3, readers at The Kindle Hub voted her book as the Best Children's Book of 2014.

            "It's really exciting to see people get behind this project. I'm thrilled with the way the book turned out, and I can't wait to see where it leads," she said.

Click HERE to buy at Amazon

Click HERE to buy at Barnes and Noble

Bio - Charmain Zimmerman Brackett started her writing career while still in college joining the sports staff of the local paper as a correspondent taking high school sports stats. She's continued working for that same newspaper for more than 27 years. She published her first novel, The Key of Elyon, in 2012, and it was awarded the 2014 Yerby Award for Fiction at the Augusta Literary Festival. 

website/blog - www.charmainzbrackett.com

twitter - @CZBrackett

facebook - www.facebook.com/thekeyofelyon

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Guest author Ruth O'Neil and Prizes

Belonging

by Ruth O'Neil

Author Ruth O'Neil shares a question and answer interview with us followed by an author biography and where to purchase the ebook, Belonging.

Book Blurb:

After the death of her father, painfully shy and introverted Shelly finds her world turned upside down. She is forced to speak with people and she may even have to move from her comfortable apartment. Sorting through her father’s possessions at his house brings back many memories, including how they would research her mom’s genealogy so that in a way, she could get to know her mother’s family, who are all deceased. Shelly wonders why her dad never researched his own family and she never remembers any family events. Why? She begins a journey that takes her to places she never dreamed. Throughout the entire story, God nudges Shelly to get out of her comfort zone. That’s easy for some, but for Shelly it may almost be impossible.

Q & A

Is Shelly based on you or someone you know from real life?

I think my characters are always a combination of many people I know and then some imagination thrown in for good measure. I don’t want to have any one person think that I was writing specifically about them. I take bits and pieces of real life and made a whole new life.

In your book, your main character, Shelly, decides to do some genealogy. Have you ever researched your family history?

I have not, but my mother did. She did it the old-fashioned way, without using the Internet. She traced both sides of my family way back. It’s interesting to look through the pages and pages she collected and see who some of my ancestors are and what their lives were like.

How much of an inspiration to your literary career was your mother?

My mother was a great influence on my writing career. She always wanted to be a writer ever since she was a little girl and I was the same. I have stories she wrote with her cousin when they were young and she kept stories that I wrote when I was young. She was part of a writer’s group where we lived. When I was in high school and decided that was what I wanted to do as a career, she did everything in her power to help me. I attended conferences with her. I was introduced to “real” writers who gave me a lot of good advice as I was starting out. The information I gleaned then was extremely valuable.

Which author, living or dead, would you want to pen the story of your life?

Oooo, that’s a hard one. Do I have to pick just one? Maybe Julie Campbell, the author of the first Trixie Belden books. I would pretend I was Trixie and solve non-mysteries around my neighborhood. She would be a good author to write about my childhood. Laura Ingalls Wilder would be another good one. She wrote about how things were. She made ordinary life seem unordinary. I had a very ordinary life, maybe she could make it exciting.

Which 3 words best describe how you feel about your literary future?

Positive – because so much has happened thus far and sometimes I just have to smile, especially when I get personal responses from readers. Excited – because of what’s to come. I have a lot of new things on the horizon and I just seem to get busier and busier, which is a good thing for me. Hopeful – that I will reach new readers who will be touched by my writing. I love to make readers laugh or cry or maybe just see a little bit of themselves in my stories.

What kind of response have you received from your readers?

I have received some wonderful responses from my readers. I have received emails from people telling me how the book has touched their lives. I’ve received good reviews on Amazon.

I actually received a message with an order for print copies the other day. This woman had purchased an ecopy and then someone at work had begun reading it. For some reason the co-worker was not able to finish and was upset. The lady who had first purchased the ecopy bought her co-worker a print copy just so she could finish it. She also bought a print copy for herself just to have it.

It makes me feel good that people get excited about my books and that they can’t wait to continue reading.

Click HERE to buy book

Bio:

Ruth O’Neil has been a freelance writer for 20-plus years. She sees everything as a writing opportunity in disguise, whether it is an interesting character, setting, or situation. When she’s not writing or homeschooling her kids, Ruth spends her time quilting, reading, scrapbooking, camping and hiking with her family.

Website - http://ruthoneil.weebly.com/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/writerrutho

Blog - http://ruths-real-life.blogspot.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RuthONeilAuthor

First chapter - http://www.wattpad.com/52132851-belonging

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Guest author Cheri Roman and Prizes

One of our favorite subjects here at Gooberella is Angels. We are excited to share this new fiction fantasy series. And as a special sneak peek, the author has given us an excerpt that takes the reader into another place and time with an angel.

Rephaim Series

by Cheri Roman

Descent (book 1)
Click HERE to buy book

Sacrifice (book 2)
click HERE to buy book

Fulfilling one’s destiny requires sacrifice…

Escaping a global catastrophe, angel-human hybrid, Shahara, lands safely in Babylon with her beloved Volot, an angel with a sacred mission. But the victory is a hollow one, for the world she knew has been obliterated. Battered by the loss of her family and the denial of her most cherished dreams, Shahara’s new life begins to disintegrate as she is lured by promises of power and fulfillment into the violent, blood-soaked ambitions of a ruthless enemy. With her marriage shattered and countless lives hanging in the balance, Shahara must make a devastating choice. Can she survive her decision, or will victory require the ultimate sacrifice? By turns romantic, suspenseful and terrifying, this epic fantasy treads the knife edge of human frailty and superhuman courage. 

Excerpt:

Volot leaned over and kissed her, his lips a promise against hers. He was still watching her as he backed into the front garden and leapt, his wings springing free of the pattern on his back, lifting him into the sky.

Shahara followed him out the door and watched his progress, up through wide-spreading tree branches, to open air. In the distance a thin, gray tracing smudged the horizon like smoke. Shahara shivered in the cold breeze that kicked along the foundation of the house. Hugging her shawl close about her, she went inside to begin the morning’s work. Preparations needed to be made, Danae said, if they were to have any chance of surviving the thing she called a flood. Shahara shook her head as she worked. Sabaoth may have given Danae the gift of prophecy, but her prediction made no sense. Water was to cover the entire Earth? For a year? Impossible. Still, it was better to be busy.

Immersing herself in the work helped to push the pain of loss once more into the distance. It also served to diminish her awareness of her surroundings. The morning was half gone before she realized how dark it had become. Wrapping a strap across the basket she had just filled, Shahara stood and stretched her tired back. Outside, the wind moaned like a living thing and she crossed to the doorway, looking out with dull eyes. The smudge she had noticed earlier had grown into a skein of dark, heavy gauze, covering the sky from horizon to horizon. She stared at it. The wind died and the world stopped in silence. For an instant her vision sharpened and she noted every leaf, every flower and stone within her sight, as if it had been magically painted across her mind’s eye by an iridescent brush; a scene she would be able to recall with instant, awful clarity for the rest of her life. Then, with an ear-splitting roar, the earth rocked beneath her. An ancient oak swayed like a sapling and crevasses ripped across the ground as water poured from the sky in torrents.

“Volot,” Shahara screamed, calling to him with voice and soul. In a blurred rush, Volot scooped her up and vaulted into the sky as the oak fell, crushing their house beneath its colossal branches.

Shahara clung to him as he fought to stay airborne against the furious wind. For an instant, the couple looked over the sudden ruin of their home.

“It’s too soon! We’re not ready.” Shahara shouted her protest over the storm.

Volot shook his head. “We were not promised time. We only hoped.”

“What about the others?”

Their eyes met and she saw the torment in his glance. “We will have to find them after. They will escape the same way we will. Shahara…” he hesitated and lightning streaked across the sky above him, thunder cracking in the same instant. “We have to go into the Shift.”

She stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. “No. We’ll die there.”

“We’ll die here. There is no choice.”

He didn’t wait for a reply but thrust hard with his wings. In a shower of sparks, the pair was gone, leaving chaos to reign behind.

Stepping into the dark in between, the pair shivered in the sudden, intense cold. The rain-wet fabric of Shahara’s dress stiffened and ice crystals formed in her hair. In the distance, she could see pin-pricks of silver light and she shuddered.

“We have a few moments before they get here,” Volot said.

“Before what get here?”

“The lights.” He glanced over his shoulder but she could see no difference yet.

“And then what?” she asked, her teeth tapping together in the jaw tightening cold.

“I don’t —” Volot’s reply was cut off by a brilliant spray of gold sparks as another angel entered the Shift.

“Well met, Volot. I see you have brought your wife along.” The voice echoed hollow and distant in the cold, but the speaker glowed in sharp relief against the dark. Shahara glanced from Volot to the newcomer. He could only be another angel. His topaz eyes gleamed clear and intelligent beneath black brows. His ebony skin shown reddish bronze in the dim light and it took a moment, but she could see from her husband’s expression that Volot recognized him.

“General Bellator.” Volot snapped to attention and pounded a fist to his heart in salute. He glanced at Shahara. “The situation on Earth is dangerous at the moment. I had to —”

Bellator waved his comments aside. “No need to explain. It is well. You will be taking up a new mission now.” The general glanced over Volot’s shoulder and frowned. “We haven’t much time, so listen carefully. You will travel through the light into a city called Babylon.”

Bio:
Cheri Roman is a writer, editor, teacher, wife, mother, grandmother and friend, in whatever order works best in the moment. Most days you can find her on her blog, The Brass Rag, or working on the next novel in her fantasy series, Rephaim. Cheri lives with her husband and Jack, the super Chihuahua.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/C.L.RomanFantasynovels?ref=bookmarks

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cheri_roman

Web site: www.brassragpress.com

Blog: www.thebrassragcnr.wordpress.com

Amazon author page: http://tinyurl.com/otz5ejp

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