Chrissy

That’s such a fabulous story, Seagreen.

I enjoyed everyone else’s entries too. Thank you Ath for the prompt and all your comments.

Moving On

The elderly man picked up a landline receiver. On his desk lay an open, glossy page of Country Life. The man underlined a phone number and dialled.

“Hello, my name’s John Tucker,” he said. “I’d like to sell my house. Could you send a valuer?”

He gave his address. A distant phone voice burbled.

“Two valuers?” said John. “This aft…[Read more]

Congratulations, Ath. I love your story. Very well deserved win.

Thank you Janette for setting the competition and for everyone’s entries. They are a very enjoyable selection of stories.

PS 495 words including title

Somewhere to Bloom

The cottage on the lane had a garden of pink, blue and mauve flowers on plants she couldn’t name. They faced her in clumps and drifts. On the lane she considered the pretty cottages, each one wearing its garden like a skirt, patterned, pastel – standardised, or something. And, even more annoying, they coped with the early May…[Read more]

@sandradavies

Sandra, this is an atmospheric depiction of the personalities within a family, all so economically written. I’d never heard of furanocoumarins. What an interesting thing to discover! You built tension with all the possible problems resulting from letting children loose in the kitchen, then there was a fine twist at the end. Very e…[Read more]

Ten days left to enter the monthly competition for April!

Details here

Monthly competition April 2025

Thanks, Sea! 😃

Thanks, Ath – as I’m sure you remember, they came to life in a short story in one of you winter writing challenges. Now I’m about to start writing book 3.

Thanks, Libby!

Book 1 in the series was a bronze winner in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards last week too. So I’ve had lots to celebrate on the writing front. A very nice feeling after the years of drought when I was chasing agents!

Thank you, Knicks! @knickylaurelle

Thank you, Ath!

Thank you, @sandradavies I really didn’t expect that. The other entries were so good.

I’ll be back later with a comp for April.

Glorious. I’ve been to that part of the world and had no idea there had been a railway there, let alone one with such a remarkable history. It’s a shame it didn’t survive long enough that the preservation movement had got going, though by the sound of things it was probably lucky that they quit while they were ahead.

They’d Chosen Me for Being Good at Isolation

Those harbour houses had slope-ceilinged attics with dormer windows. I’d been instructed to stay in one garret, squint out between curtains, send situation reports every two hours. A reconnaissance man, a civilian thought to be steady, I watched the quay below, admired the yachts and motorboats moo…[Read more]