Belated Mothers Day to My Undead Mother-in-law! What do you give to a mother-in-law who is nearly unkillable? How about new readers?
I’m giving you every excerpt I have about this delightful, middle-aged, zombie woman with anger management issues. This is every excerpt I have on her throughout my ten-year career as a self-published author.
Here’s an info dump on Diane Newby, the undead mother-in-law.
My mother-in-law’s a zombie. And she has anger-management issues. My mother-in-law, Diane Newby, zombified by accident. She still volunteers at her church bake sales and cooks pot roast for her daughter and son-in-law, Ron Yardley. What ticks her off is when people don’t treat her like a normal human being—with glowing red eyes and super strength and speed. And if she doesn’t get her way, look out. She explodes and leaves broken plaster and body parts in her wake. Nothing stops her: not brick walls, the federal government, or middle-aged spread.
But the world’s most powerful criminal plans to control zombies. His only problem with zombies is that they have way too much free will. He has a solution for that. But will it work with Diane Newby? The world is divided into pro-zombie and anti-zombie factions. Battles break out everywhere. Which side will you take? Who will live and who will die? You might not survive this book. But at least you’ll die laughing.
The galactic black hole began eating another object. The planetoid survived far longer than the average planet or star due to its supernatural density. Forged long ago at an earlier age, the intense radiation from the whirling maelstrom and swirling magnetic fields did not affect it. Not until it spun near the speed of light did the immense tidal forces crack its surface.
Spinning ever faster, each fragment resisted the stupendous forces around the black hole until finally they shattered. Finally this unique element transformed into pure energy. It radiated in all wavelengths of visible light, and beyond, to light never seen before.
The radiation coalesced oddly, through forces unknown to science, into a single beam of energy radiating from the black hole. It swept out like a searchlight from the galactic core and across the light-years—straight toward Earth and its teeming multitudes.
Fortunately, Earth was twenty-five thousand light-years away from this cosmic conflagration. Unfortunately, this happened twenty-five thousand years ago.
Magic arrived on Earth.
Magic Arrives Except – Chapter 1– Tea
Sunday, October 4
I made our pot of tea, English Breakfast. Each morning Jane and I sip the hot beverage in our easy chairs in our living room. We had an early freeze that October, and the chill air gripped the house. We turned the heat down at night and up when we get out of bed. Our elderly Victorian home had an old furnace, and it took over an hour to warm the house.
But tea made everything better. I heard Jane settle into her easy chair. I could tell by the squeak when she rocked back.
In the kitchen, I poured a mug for each of us and added milk. “Jane, are you ready for your tea?”
“You bet,” Jane called. “And can you grab a biscotti for me too?”
“Sure thing. A biscotti sounds good to me too.”
I grabbed two biscotti out of our cupboard and took them and her tea mug to the living room, which stretched an echoing thirty feet. But our two leather easy chairs flanked the crackling fireplace, which Jane had started.
Jane smiled at me as I placed the mug and biscotti on her side table. I took a moment to take in the sincere love shining in her hazel eyes. I barely saw any gray in her blond hair. Forty years of marriage had not diminished our love. I took my biscotti and plunked next to her, enjoying the warmth from the fireplace.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Thanks for starting the fire. I love not having to rush off to work in the morning, since I retired.” I’d worked as a programmer, trainer, and documenter in my career.
“Me too.”
Chapter 1– Tea – continued
Jane had been an office manager at a construction firm.
I opened my biscotti, took a crunchy bite coated with chocolate, and reached for my mug. It wasn’t there.
“Grrr!” I wrinkled my face like a gargoyle.
“What’s wrong?”
“I left my mug in the kitchen. I hate it when I do that.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if it’d come when you call it?”
I laughed. “On little legs. I’d just say, ‘Come here, tea mug!’”
We laughed. We laugh together nearly every day. I rose and then stopped. I heard an odd tap-tapping. Almost like our little corgi but even smaller and lighter.
“What’s that? Is that a mouse?” We had mice in our house every fall until we trapped them.
“It doesn’t sound like one.”
From the dining room came my tea mug on four little legs, scampering across the floor. I reached down to pick it up, and it jumped into my hands. The legs disappeared.
“That’s different,” I said,
“Uh, that’s never happened before, not to us or anyone else I’ve ever heard of.”
“It’s like my wish for the tea mug got granted.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s convenient.” I sipped my tea. “That’s good tea.”
“Did you rub any magic lamps?”
“No. “
“Did you throw a coin in a wishing well?”
“No. I wonder if we can make any other wishes?” I sipped my tea. “Mmm.”
“Mmm,” Jane agreed as she took another sip.
The tea mug purred, “Mmm.”
Magic Arrives Excerpt – Chapter 2 – Pinky
Sunday, October 4
ARC Copy
I hugged my dragon, Pinkie, as we went outside to play. I’d had him since I was a baby. My mom had bought him for me. Lamar, my older brother, went outside with me. My mom, Shannon, had told Lamar that morning, “Lamar, if Shayla wants to go outside, you go with her. Don’t let her out of your sight. If you see trouble, both of you get out of there.” I knew trouble sometimes happened in our neighborhood.
She’d turned to me. “Shayla, don’t go running off without your brother. You listen to him and do what he says. I’ll be back at five.” Then she’d left for her job at Wal-Store.
Lamar and I walked out on a fine fall day. I watched the robins hop along the ragged grass in an empty lot. We hiked[JS1] to a neighborhood park a few blocks away from our apartment. Lamar pushed me on the swings and then on the merry-go-round.
“Shayla,” he said, “I’m going to play basketball with my friends over there. You stay here till I come back.”
I watched him jog to the court next to the park. “Pinkie, what do you think of that? We gotta play by ourselves. What d’ya wanna do? You want me to push you on the merry-go-round? Okay, I’ll try.”
It wasn’t as hard as it looked. I worked it up to speed and then hopped on next to Pinkie. “I’m almost a big girl now. I can push the merry-go-round all by myself. And I started kindergarten this fall.”
I spun the merry-go-round again and again till I got tired. “You getting hungry, Pinkie? I am. What do you eat? Bugs? Huh. Whatever. Let me get you some.”
Chapter 2 – continued
I knelt on the grass next to the merry-go-round’s sandpit. The smell of the grass filled my nose as I poked around the dirt and found some ants and pill bugs. I put one of each in my hand and gave it to Pinkie.
“Num num! Tastes good, don’t it? D’ya want more? Okay.” I gathered more. Then I heard something like fireworks coming from the basketball court. “What’s that, Pinkie?” I picked up my dragon and ran to the court to check on Lamar.
Some big guys had guns. They were chasing the boys off with lots of yelling. “No little kids here! This court is for men, for our gang!”
Lamar ran in my direction.
More young guys came up. “Hey, what d’ya think you’re doing? This is our turf. Get out of here.” They had guns too.
Someone shot a gun. Then a whole firecracker string of shots rang out. Some guys dropped on both sides. The first group ran into the park, then hid behind the playground equipment and started firing again.
A bullet zipped over my head. “Get down, Pinkie!” I fell on top of him, protecting him. I peeked and saw Lamar running full speed toward me. Then he fell.
“Lamar!” I crawled to him. His blood oozed from his back, warm and sticky. He moaned.
I cried.
The blood spread over Lamar’s shirt like spilled tomato juice. He stopped moaning. I made my own wet spot crying over him. The bullets still zipped above us. I could taste my salty tears. Pinkie squeezed between us.
Magic Arrives Excerpt Chapter 2 – continued
“Oh, Pinkie, I wish you’d gobble up those guys with guns like you did those bugs!” I cried with all my heart to my magic dragon.
Pinkie shook in my hand. He felt like my mom’s cell phone when it buzzed. Then he grew out of my hand. My pink dragon ballooned to dog size, then horse size, then elephant size, then bigger. The shooters turned to my giant stuffed dragon, flapping his pink wings in midair. Both gangs shot at him.
Like a cat jumping on a mouse, Pinkie gobbled up a shooter, then the one next to him. Six more gangbangers disappeared into his huge pink mouth before both gangs turned and ran.
“Yay, Pinkie! You chased away those bad guys!” Then I saw Lamar again, quietly bleeding on the ground.
“Oh, Lamar, get up! You’ve got to take me home!” I lay on his still body, crying into his wet shirt.
* * *
Magic Arrives Excerpt Chapter 2 – continued
I cried myself to sleep. When I woke, Lamar was cold. The shadows were lengthening. Mom would be home soon.
“Lamar!” I sobbed again. A shadow covered me. Pinkie swooped down. The grass flattened under his big pink feet.
“What’s wrong, Shayla?”
“Pinkie, Lamar won’t get up. I-I-I think he’s dead!”
“You’ve got to wake him up, like you did with me.”
“Good idea, Pinkie.” I didn’t notice that Pinkie talked way clearer than he used to. I shook Lamar with all my might. “Lamar, get up! You’ve got to wake up, just like Pinkie. Get better right now!”
“O-o-h,” he groaned. He rolled over and looked at me. “What happened, Shayla? Why is my back all wet?”
“There was a fight between two gangs and y-y-you were shot. You’re bleeding.”
He took off his T-shirt. “Yuck! It’s all bloody.” Something fell to the ground. “What’s this?” He picked it up. “It was in my shirt. It’s a bullet! Why do I feel better? I remember getting shot now.”
“Lamar, I wished you’d get better so we could go home.” I peered at his back. “You’re all bloody, but there’s no hole in it.”
“And the bullet’s out.” He showed me the bullet, bloody and smushed on one side.
Pinkie landed next to us and burped.
Chapter 2 – continued
“What’s that?” Lamar stared at the huge dragon, his eyes bugging out.
“Pinkie, of course. I wished he’d eat up those bad guys with guns, and he did.”
“Let’s go home. Pinkie will have to stay outside. He’s too big to fit in our apartment. He’s too big to fit on the basketball court!”
Lamar was right. Pinkie’s butt and tail filled the basketball court, and he stretched across the grass to us.
“Nah. Pinkie, go back to your regular size.”
“No problem.” Pinkie shrank, and I picked him up.
“Let’s go.”
Lamar closed his mouth and followed me home. I knew the way. I just wanted Lamar for protection.
Magic Arrives Excerpt – More Books After Magic Arrives
Magic Arrives, Magic Wars, and Magic Rules spine art
I’ve got two more books coming in the series: Magic Wars and Magic Rules. I plan to start on Magic Wars this summer!
Here’s some cool spine art, courtesy of my illustrator, Sean Flanagan.
One More Thing . . .
If you like my books, you can subscribe to my newsletter by clicking here to see all my blog posts and get free books every month. Or you can just stay at my blog, checking back every day until the 12th Day of Christmas, January 6th.
For the third, Feast or Famine? we were looking for stories where food is central or pivotal to the plot.
In this anthology there are thirty stories with wide variety of themes and tones, set in fantasy locations, modern times, and even post-apocalyptic worlds. They vary in style and setting, but all are told around the basic truth: us humans love our food.
As in real life, some foods were life-changing while at other times disappointing. How many of you have read about Turkish Delight in Narnia and were disappointed when you finally got to try it? For me it smelled wonderful, but had no taste or texture. Just colored gelatin. (Be assured fresh Turkish delight has flavor and is quite nice, but not so the boxes sold for tourists/holidays).
Think of how food has been a big part of literature. Where would Snow White be without the apple (or Adam and Eve)? In movies like Thor: The Dark World you have Dr. Strange offer tea and Thor responding he doesn’t drink it and getting a big (self-refilling) mug of beer. Where would Star Trek: The Next Generation be without “Earl Grey, hot”? Think of all the meals in the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, or how Rincewind fantasizes about potatoes.
Where possible, the authors have provided recipes that are related to their stories. We at Purple Toga strongly recommend that you think twice before making some of them at home: they may contain magical or alien ingredients for which we know of no substitutes.
Let me know what you think by clicking here or emailing me at [email protected]. As always, everyone who responds with a comment or email will get a free book from me.
Grab Your Copy of Challenge Accepted Here!
Here you’ll find the first Anthology that contained my stories.
What’s it about?
A blind spaceship pilot.
Cops and maintenance personnel in wheelchairs.
Taking on bad guys with only one leg or no arms.
It’s not what you are that makes you something special. It’s who you choose to be.
Seventeen stories about people who rise above anything that tries to stop them, even their own limitations.
