What's Shiny and New in the Falstaff Vampire World

A new cover for the ebook of The Falstaff Vampire Files. I wanted to put Falstaff himself on the cover of the book from the beginning, but it took the amazing Julie Nicholls to make it happen.

Also looking forward to a review from a great new site for book readers and reviewers The Readers Review Room.

43rd Six Sentence Sunday, starting the new year with a bang...

Welcome back Six Sunday friends. I'm digressing a little from The Falstaff Vampire Files because the second Josephine Fuller book, Large Target just came out and I have to celebrate with suitable fireworks.

After a night of passion that took an unexpected turn toward dawn Josephine and Mulligan have a serious talk over breakfast. They're on Coronado Island near San Diego where automobiles rule, so she tries to lighten the mood with some car talk...

"Come on, I'll walk you to your car," Mulligan said.

As we reached the parking lot at the hotel, I decided to show off the car I was borrowing, Mrs. Madrone's Lexus. "The remote control is hooked into the alarm so it makes the most amazing sound. Listen to this," I said, whipping out the remote as we headed for the Lexus.

I pressed the button and a deafening explosion shattered the car's windows and rocked it on its tires. I jumped back against Mulligan who was already pulling me away from the hot slap of air and spatter of glass.

For a good time check out the dozens of other Six Sunday writers who will be offering up New Year's surprises in six sentence doses at Six Sentence Sunday.

41st Six Sentence Sunday...who's delusional here?

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, just after dusk, alone in a shed just behind her ex-lover’s house, Kristin sees a huge, old man emerge from a crate. He introduces himself as Sir John Falstaff.

Falstaff did seem appropriate to his age and girth, but he had picked an unusual figure to impersonate, or fixate on--not Napoleon or Elvis--but Shakespeare's Falstaff, a character from literature! Unusual.

No harm in talking to him--he seemed harmless. Had there ever been a journal article on delusions of being a fictional character? A flicker of self-interest ran through me at the thought of a journal article on this subject, and I must have showed it in some way because he leaned toward me.

I tensed up, remembering the months when I worked in a full-fledged mental hospital.

For more fun in six-sentence snippets, check out some (or all!) of the 160 authors at Six Sunday.

40th Six Sunday sentences - Kristin considers the impossible...

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, a skeptical Kristin Marlowe tries to consider what to make of the man who has just risen up at sunset out of a crate in the shed behind her ex-lover's house.

"Sir John--sorry—I didn’t catch your last name?" I had, I just didn’t believe it.

He examined me with eyes that were bloodshot but not yellowed by the jaundice of liver disease, sighed and seemed to come to some kind of decision.

"The Bard dubbed me Falstaff, and many know that name. But most in your fair city call me Sir John. I was born John and won my knighthood on the field of battle."

For more fun from Six Sentence Sunday writers in all kinds of genres, check out this week's snippets at Six Sunday.

39th Six Sentence Sunday, a Meeting in the Shed

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, Kristin Marlowe meets a strange man, emerging from what had seemed to be an empty crate in the shed beind her ex-lover's house. The huge, deep-voiced man has an unusually hypnotic effect on her. Rather than run, she stays to hear him say:

"Fair mistress, what name shall I call you?" The exotic flavor of the words and his deep rumbling voice somehow didn’t fit with a crate in a garage, yet he seemed perfectly at home.

"I'm Kristin," I managed to say, "and you are?"

He cleared his throat. "Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe. At your service, my lady."

For more fun in six-sentence snippets check out the dozens of writers at Six Sunday.

38th Six Sentence Sunday - an unlikely predator

Searching the shed behind Hal's house for a stolen item, Kristin finds herself confronting a man who suddenly rears up out of a crate she had thought empty. Large and rumpled with a white beard and drinker's red cheeks and nose, yet the man is eerily poised and confident,

No shaking from alcohol withdrawal as some drinkers have on arising. No, he was totally still, his eyes sharp and piercing as the eyes of a hawk, but with a most unhawk-like twinkle.

Turn and run, I thought, But I stood frozen, not so much terrified as stunned, like a small mammal suddenly confronted with a large snake.

"You can't be a dream. It's dusk and I'm awake," the man said.

For more than 150 snippets from a wide range of genres, check out the talented writers at Six Sunday

37th Six Sentence Sunday - Arising at Dusk...With Coughing

From The Falstaff Vampire Files. Kristin Marlowe watches in shock as the crate in the deserted shed...opens and an old man emerges.

He was huge. Tall and broad, with unruly white hair and beard, though his face seemed startlingly pale when paired with the reddened cheeks and nose of a serious drinker. He wore an ancient, old-fashioned long underwear shirt that might have been World War II army surplus. He gave one last wracking cough, then took a deep breath and turned to regard me with eyes that were bleary, but bright blue, not bloodshot.

"A vision of womanliness," he said in a thick, English accent. Even with all my Public Television viewing, I couldn't place its location in the British Isles.

For more fun in six sentence doses, check out the other writers participating at Six Sentence Sunday

36th Six Sentence Sunday - The Coffin...Well, the Crate, Opens...

Back in September I posted some sentences from Chapter 1 of The Falstaff Vampire Files where psychologist, Kristin Marlowe, went to her cheating ex-lover's house to retrieve an irreplaceable item he stole. She was advised to stay out of the shed:

The shed in the back yard was the very last remotely possible hiding place. I went down the hall bathed in red light of the sunset. A few minutes later I was standing in the shed under the glare of the electric light bulb, watching the lid rise on a crate that should have been empty.

A pudgy hand, followed by a large, rounded arm appeared in the gap and pushed the lid up. The rest of the man followed it, raising the lid until it rested against the wall. He sat up, still coughing, as I watched, frozen in shock.

For more surprises and fun in six-sentence doses, check out the many other writers at Six Sentence Sunday

34th Six Sunday snippet - enter the vampire hunter

From The Falstaff Vampire Files. Therapist Kristin Marlowe is shocked to discover that the client she mainly thought of as having a vampire fixation has just got engaged to Kristin's own, younger lover, whom the client describes as a wannabe vampire. Kristin goes over to a fellow therapist's place to vent, but his door is opened by a most interesting stranger:

"I'm Abraham Van Helsing," he said over his shoulder, leading the way down the hall. "But please call me Bram. Abe just didn't suit me--Honest Abe Van Helsing sounds like an accordion-playing, used car salesman."

I laughed and felt a little better.

"Did Larry warn you about me? He can't have that that many friends who’re researching vampire cults."

For more fun in six sentence snippets check out the 160+ writers at Six Sunday, where the cover to The Falstaff Vampire Files still occupies part of the right hand frame--yay!

33rd Six Sentence Sunday...From The Falstaff Vampire Files - a little hope at the end of the day

From The Falstaff Vasmpire Files, therapist Kristin Marlowe's day goes off the rails when her client's vampire-obsessed fiance is revealed as Kristin's own younger lover. After this bombshell, she must listen to a married client whine for an hour about how he can't find "no strings attached" romantic love in the personals. Kristin walks over to a fellow therapist's house to vent and a stranger answers the door.

This man was not handsome, but commanding with unruly gray streaked dark hair cut short but starting to curl already. Startlingly black eyebrows framed penetrating green eyes with sparks of hazel. What really caught my attention was the mischievous quirk of his mouth as if he were just about to tell a great secret. I liked and trusted him instinctively without knowing why.

Of course, I’d been wrong before--witness my reaction to Hal. But something about this man drew a pang of attraction from me that was welcome in that it dulled the pain of Hal’s betrayal.

For six sentence snippets in many different genres, check out the talented writers at Six Sentence Sunday...you might happen to notice The Falstaff Vampire Files cover in the left-hand frame of that page--an appreciative "thanks and YAY!" to Sara Brookes for this opportunity!

32nd Six Sentence Sunday - When therapist and client have way too much in common

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, Kristin has discovered that her client's fiancé is her own lover.

I wouldn’t say anything till I confirmed it with Hal, but my gut told me Mina’s fiancé was my Hal. She had shyly showed me the exotic, blue diamond engagement ring Hal had found for her in some Eastern European capital and as I leaned forward to look, I noted that I had been touching the antique amethyst necklace Hal had brought back for me from his last trip. I dropped my hand as if the stones had turned red-hot. Dammit, Hal!

Now my hands were shaking and I wondered if I could make it through the next hour, the next client, who of course chose that day to be a quarter hour early.

Luther Kemper was the absolute worst client to follow Mina's announcement.

To find all kinds of action in six-sentence doses click the links to other writers' six sentence snippets at Six Sunday.

29th Six Sentence Sunday, how badly does she want her stolen property back?

Kris Marlowe ventures further into the creepy old house in The Falstaff Vampire Files.

"The corridor on the left leads to the back door," Hal had told me on my first visit. "I keep my coffin in a shed out there--did I tell you I was a vampire?"

Strange how I forgot those words until I stood on the red stone floor again and started up the chilly staircase, also red stone.

A scrabbling sound nearby made me freeze in my tracks. I stopped to listen. The house seemed to shudder like a ship in the wind.

More six sentence snippets from over 160 writers writing in all kinds of genres at http://sixsunday.com/

27th Week of Six Sentence Sunday ushers in The Falstaff Vampire Files

The Falstaff Vampire Files arrived earlier than its scheduled September publication date. I'm celebrating by selecting six sentences to share from Chapter 1:

My name is Kristin Marlow and I'm supposed to be sane for a living, but my ex-lover stole the one irreplaceable item I own, and god help me I broke into his creepy old house by the ocean to get it back. As a psychologist I know a dozen techniques to calm down and think rationally, but I was too angry to use any of them.

Technically I didn't break in. I had Hal's key, but before I could use it, the front door flew open and the old woman caretaker came bustling out like a wool-clad force of nature. I caught the door and edged past her, mumbling something about getting my stuff.

She stopped right in front of me and warned me in a hostile tone, "Don't go in the shed."

For more fiction action in six-sentence doses, check out sixsunday.com where well over a hundred writers share their work.