A Little light reading for the kids this one (both big and small), by yours truly.

My first foray into self publishing was seven years ago now and I've learnt a lot since then so I thought a little time spent revising wouldn't go amiss and to top it off (pardon the pun) I've added a little extra.

So Tom's early morning visit to the park in the title piece has had a rewrite and I've added The Drop (which is a piece of flash fiction that was published a couple of years ago in Graffiti magazine). I hope you enjoy them both.

The link below will take you to the book if you wish to make a purchase and have the Kindle app (this can be downloaded onto any tablet or smartphone) or you can click on the image of The Mystery of Emile Rowan to your right, and then on my author name to see all of my available works.

As this one's for kids and Children in Need is nearly upon us, I will gladly add any purchase monies for this to my donation on the night, so even if you've read it before, grab yourselves the revised copy and treat yourselves.

Enjoy.

(Oh, and please leave a review and star rating. Thanks)

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Over-Top-Can-conquer-fears-ebook/dp/B00DLWTBPY/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=michael+j+richardson&qid=1603369720&sr=8-3 

The Sprout that Ruined Christmas. A festive yarn by yours truly.

The Sprout that Ruined Christmas

T’was a single sprout that sealed her fate,

As she walked down the hall, bird on a plate.

That poor little sprout, it did do its best,

Hiding in the room packed full of guests.

But knocked by the door it rolled in her path,

Stopping before her two feet from the hearth.

 And oh how she yelled, as she took a tumble,

A silence then fell, no murmur, no mumble.

For never a bird had finer been roasted,

No grander a feast ever been hosted.

And the bird it did fly! It arced overhead,

Whilst host and her guests looked on in dread.

For heading for Vicar it seemed to be,

This basted bird this, gigantic Turkey.

And hit him it did with an almighty thwack,

Clean off his chair, flat on his back.

So dinner was ruined the Vicar was hurt,

But all was not lost, there was always dessert.

Herts & Minds anthology is launching on Wednesday 11th December 2019

If you like ghosts, ghouls, and Werewolves, the beauty of the English/Hertfordshire countryside, a wandering cat cast in bronze, that comes alive by night, historical fiction, death by dangerous driving, poetry, or a good old fashioned crime drama, then you're going to love the Hertford Writers' Circle 2019 anthology, Herts & Minds.

From our home town of Hertford to New York, from the slave trade to murder, from Welwyn to the remotest corner of Ireland, this book will take you there and further.

Packed with dramatic stories about snakes, flowers, aliens, bullying, a dystopian Hertford, and finding a corpse in the boot of your car, we've got it all, and you could too if you are in Hertford on the night of the 11th December (Wednesday) and would like to join us at the books official launch (7:30 pm, Courtyard Arts, Port Vale, Hertford, SG14 3AA) but if you are not, if you hail from further afield but would like to purchase a copy - for yourself, a friend or for Christmas - just message me in the comments or via my Amazon author account and I'll make sure a copy wings its way over to you as soon as possible.
For an exclusive extract from this anthology, visit my blog again on Christmas Eve, for I will be posting, The Sprout that Ruined Christmas, which I may also read at the launch if I feel brave enough.
Enjoy.

In celebration of my two hundredth blog post and All Hallows' Eve, a dark tale of woe.

He was fifty minutes in, hot, sweaty, but he was fit. He could run for hours but not today – today he had other things on his mind. Her!

The root was a trip hazard, looping from the ground like an old Victorian boot-scraper. I’ll get you one day, it said. I’ll get you when you’re daydreaming.

He’d run the path a hundred times, maybe more, but the caw of a crow distracted him.

He flew for a second, landing gently, free from injury, but sliding, the wet leaves giving little purchase and the barrier (some old wooden posts) did nothing to arrest him.

The impact was brief, the posts giving way, and his cry rang out shrill like the birds. He was flying, free-falling, branches slapping his face, snapping beneath his weight.

The ground was soft but it broke him all the same. He tasted blood. It hurt to breathe. He couldn’t feel his legs. Something other than the branches had snapped on the way down.

He blinked and his vision blurred.

He wept and there was pain.

Darkness came. In and out of consciousness he fell, dreaming, thinking of her. What she’d said, what he’d done! Would he ever see her again? Hold her, comfort her? Would she ever forgive him?

He called, he shouted, screamed until he was hoarse but no one came: no dog walkers, no search parties, just animals. Nervous at first they crawled, hopped and slithered: a crow with a taste for eyes, a badger, sniffing but bolder over time, and then, as the moon rose and his breath clouded, they feasted.

He felt the tug on his arm, shooed a bird from his face, blew bugs from his lips, but it was no use; it was over. The creatures would gorge, they would have their meal, and as steam rose from exposed flesh, as they buried into him, the pain would take him beyond this life until he was nothing but a memory.

As dawn broke and cast mottled shadow across broken bough, a bird – the crow – the one with a taste for eyes, perched on a root that looped from the ground like an old Victorian boot-scrapper, and having supped, it listened and waited patiently.

Goodwood Festival of Speed. (The Hill Climb), by yours truly.

Muffled voices, straps pulled tight - too tight – sweat soaking, everything.

Clammy! I’m clammy and need to pee, but –

HOLY SHIT, THE NOISE!

An all-encompassing cacophony rents the air, thunderous, metallic. It settles, and in spite of it reaching in and plucking at my every sinew there’s rhythm, then . . .

BANG!

Bang, bang, bang and I’m rushing, thrusting forth at unfathomable speed.

My boobs hurt, bladder’s squeezed, lungs struggling for air, hot acrid oily air, like sucking on a greasy spoon, and as my body vibrates, fizzes with the energy, the world outside blurs.

We turn, this way and that, g-force stretching muscle twisting bone, but I stay fixed, strapped in.

I giggle; rational thought unavailable.

Time passes, 30, 40, 50, 55.63 seconds, and then, it subsides, the push, the squeeze, and the hollow sound of those twelve cylinders, coasting now, is almost calming.

We stop but my body doesn’t.

Air, fresh and inviting, floods in, replacing the scorch of rubber and hands, helpful hands, assist. I stagger as I exit, dizzy, but I’m laughing.

Have we the record?

Do I care?

No.

Race for Life - by a friend of mine!

You can show your support and help beat CANCER but visiting my Just Giving page at https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/michaels-race-for-life-2554

The Drop. (A short story by yours truly, about . . . well, I'll let you decide).

In light of all the rain we've had recently, I thought I'd be bold and share another of my short stories with you fine folk.

I hope you enjoy, and that Spring, springs shortly.

The Drop

The party of precipitation was over, and we were heading for the front.

We’d had a lot of fun in training and the party was our last hurrah. It was something every newbie had to attend before their first drop, and every newbie had to do at least one drop.

I see some familiar faces in the cloud, mostly the guys I’d been training with; I even see Bobbie and I like her. She has a nice curve, if you know what I mean?

I thought all the pep talks were over, but before we begin our descent, Big Walt shuffles up.

Now Big Walt is a legend. A complete, you name he’s done it legends. This guy’s been down the longest darkest scariest rivers in the world, over the tallest, fastest waterfalls; conquered Everest and survived the Atacama.

The moment Big Walt opens up, you shut up. You do this out of respect and because you want to hear what he’s going to say.

“Okay newbies.” Silence! No-one can hush a crowd like Old Walt. “Keep it tight out there and let’s not have any collisions, you know what happens if we collide.”

An image of the Doc showing us the aftermath of a collision in training makes me feel all woozy, but I hold it together. Then I realise what Big Walt has done. He’s taken everyone’s mind off of the drop, and suddenly it’s our turn.

“Take it easy guys,” he says as we reach detachment point. “And try to avoid the concrete; you’ll get back a lot quicker if you stick to the soft stuff.”

“OH . . . MY . . .”

The rush, the sense of freedom, the shear thrill of it all, is indescribable.

It takes a second before I clear the cloud, so I guess it’s about two thousand feet to Earth, but what a rush. No wonder this is addictive.

Big Walt flies past in a flash. I don’t know how he does it, there’s so much more to him than me. He changes shape and squeezes through gaps I’d never fit through, but that’s why he’s a legend I suppose.

There’s no way I can keep pace, so I ease up, and as I do, I see Bobbie again.

“Ninety seconds we’ll never forget,” she shouts, and I don’t disagree.

As the ground comes up to meet us, we spot two brightly coloured mackintoshes to our right, so we aim for them.

To most of the world I am nothing but a nuisance, something to shelter from, but for the two young kids stomping in the puddles that Bobbie and I are about to replenish, I’m nothing but fun.

I land with a splash, and the last thing I hear, as Bobbie and I join millions of our comrades in the waterlogged earth, is a giggle, and I can’t wait to get back up there.

The Kiss. (A short story with bite, by yours truly)

It's been a long time since I shared any of my own work on here, which was half the reason for starting this blog in the first place, so for this post I thought I'd share a piece of flash fiction that I wrote last year, which was published in Graffiti magazine.

Enjoy.

The Kiss

Fever gripped me.

I had all the symptoms. Vomiting, which I put down to the drink - Shellie, Beth and I had been clubbing the night I fell ill - I had the sweats: I got so hot one night that my step-mother phoned the doctor, I got so cold the next that I couldn’t move for all the duvets blankets and clothes piled upon me. Then, there was the pain. It had started as a dull ache but got progressively worse.
My temperature rose from a rather unassuming 100.3 to a hyperpyrexian 103.4. I was delirious, I didn’t know what day it was, who my friends were.

My mother bathed me with a flannel and a bowl of cool water, but it didn’t work, so she placed me in a cold bath, but still the fever raged.

Then, on the fifth day, everything changed.

I woke with a hunger beyond any comprehension, in more pain than I could bear. I tried to eat, I wanted to eat, but everything felt coarse, alien in my mouth. Danny, my darling brother, he even bought me my favourite cake, but I didn’t want it. All I wanted was for the pain to stop.

I pushed Danny away; I pushed him with strength untold, and when I did the truth began to unravel.

An image appeared before me, the image of a face. I was lost, trapped in its beauty – just as I had been in the club that night - and I remembered now. The touch of those lips as they pressed upon mine, the cool of a tongue as we’d started to kiss, that faint metallic taste in my mouth, and with that recollection everything fell into place.

I looked at my brother all crumpled on the floor. He’d cut his hand on the shattered plate, his blood flowed freely and the smell was intoxicating. I was completely overwhelmed, there was nothing I could do to resist; the temptation was just too great. All I wanted, needed, to satisfy the hunger, to nullify the pain, was right in front of me.

In the blink of an eye I was sucking his fingers, feasting on his life, gorging on that rich delicious nectar. A second later and I had a hold of his head, tipping it back, exposing his neck, and as much as he wanted to struggle, he couldn’t; he was powerless, lost in my beauty.

The fear and wonder on his innocent face, his last gasp for breath, the smell and taste of his warm blood on my tongue, were all so enticing.

As my cold lips caressed his neck, I heard the pounding of his heart fill the room like a drum, and then, as a shudder of dread rippled through him, I sank my teeth into his exposed flesh, and we kissed!