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It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Springwater Seasons by Linda Lael Miller
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Springwater Seasons by Linda Lael Miller
A dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst of those tied to a thriving Virginia plantation in the decades before the Civil War. The Kitchen House: A Novel by Kathleen Grissom
A dark secret threatens to expose the best and worst of those tied to a thriving Virginia plantation in the decades before the Civil War. The Kitchen House: A Novel by Kathleen Grissom
At the heart of the mystery, they suspect an elusive serial abductor lurks. But what they uncover is something darker still. MORI: The Lost Ones Volume 1 by Michael Seagard
At the heart of the mystery, they suspect an elusive serial abductor lurks. But what they uncover is something darker still. MORI: The Lost Ones Volume 1 by Michael Seagard
Reverse hypertension, increase energy, and prevent or reverse heart disease no matter when you start! Heart Disease & Hypertension: Vitamin Therapy for a Healthy Heart by Bryant Lusk
Reverse hypertension, increase energy, and prevent or reverse heart disease no matter when you start! Heart Disease & Hypertension: Vitamin Therapy for a Healthy Heart by Bryant Lusk
It’s been twenty-five years since she sealed the Hellgate. Now, she’s gotta stop the apocalypse. Again. Reunion: An Over Forty Urban Fantasy Novel (The Hellgate Chronicles Book 1) by Jocelyn Lindsay
It’s been twenty-five years since she sealed the Hellgate. Now, she’s gotta stop the apocalypse. Again. Reunion: An Over Forty Urban Fantasy Novel (The Hellgate Chronicles Book 1) by Jocelyn Lindsay
The story about a girl in search of her past who discovers a secret rooftop world in Paris… Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
The story about a girl in search of her past who discovers a secret rooftop world in Paris… Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out USA National Parks: Lands of Wonder by DK Travel
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out USA National Parks: Lands of Wonder by DK Travel
She wants to leave the mafia life behind. He’ll protect her at all costs. The Mafioso’s Promise by Jade Styles
She wants to leave the mafia life behind. He’ll protect her at all costs. The Mafioso’s Promise by Jade Styles
Start building stronger bones today! Osteoporosis & Osteopenia: Vitamin Therapy for Stronger Bones by Bryant Lusk
Start building stronger bones today! Osteoporosis & Osteopenia: Vitamin Therapy for Stronger Bones by Bryant Lusk
This is the true story of a kid trying to survive trouble of biblical proportions… Dream Monster: A Memoir by Kurt B. Dowdle
This is the true story of a kid trying to survive trouble of biblical proportions… Dream Monster: A Memoir by Kurt B. Dowdle
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Mystery: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman
It’s Giveaway time! Get a free bonus entry into our monthly raffle and check out Mystery: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman
She saved his life. Can he heal her heart? The Baron’s Return: A Regency Historical Romance (The Rakes of Mayhem Book 4) by Anna St. Claire
She saved his life. Can he heal her heart? The Baron’s Return: A Regency Historical Romance (The Rakes of Mayhem Book 4) by Anna St. Claire
Who says the Brits have a monopoly on great Victorian mysteries? We’re not buying it, not even for a moment. So here’s a treat for Kindle Nation readers with a long weekend (by which, of course, I mean a long reading weekend) coming up: A terrific mystery short from popular California-based historical mystery author M. Louisa Locke!
We wouldn’t leave you high and dry with three days to read, so my hope is that you’ll get started here with “Dandy Detects,” and that you’ll like it so much that you’ll pick up M. Louisa Locke’s full-length historical mystery novel, Maids of Misfortune, for just $2.99 in the Kindle Store. The story, the novel, and their terrific cast of characters are all set in San Francisco c. 1879.
And just in case Ms. Locke and her characters don’t get you through the weekend, you’ll have tomorrow’s “Scary Saturday” Free Kindle Nation Short to add something truly twisted to your library along the way!
* * * Be sure to keep an eye out this weekend for the new “Scary Saturday” feature from Free Kindle Nation Shorts, which will be pushed directly to your Kindle if you subscribe to the Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily
* * *
Scroll down to start reading the Free Kindle Nation Short
It’s the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie’s husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt. Annie Fuller also has a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl’s clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe his death was suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered and that his assets have been stolen. Nate Dawson has a problem. As the Voss family lawyer, he would love to believe that Matthew Voss didn’t leave his grieving family destitute. But that would mean working with Annie Fuller, a woman who alternatively attracts and infuriates him as she shatters every notion he ever had of proper ladylike behavior.
Sparks fly as Anne and Nate pursue the truth about the murder of Matthew Voss in this light-hearted historical mystery set in the foggy gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Barbara Hewitt sat by the open window, drinking in the faint breeze that barely touched the flame of the candle sitting on the table in front of her. It was nearly eleven at night, yet her attic bedroom refused to release the accumulated heat of the day. While only her second September in the city of San Francisco, she was already familiar with the odd habit the weather had of producing the first searing temperatures of summer just in time for the fall school term.
Today her students at San Francisco Girls High had wilted under the requisite five layers of clothing that female modesty dictated, and she had noted that none of them had been willing to forgo the newly fashionable polonaise wool dresses that had clearly been specially tailored for the start of school. She smiled to herself, thinking of the dampness of their knitted brows as they struggled over their first English literature essays–essays that she was trying to finish grading by candlelight so that she could return them in the morning.
A raised voice and a sharp sound shattered her reverie, and she looked out the window into the illuminated back room on the top floor of the house across the alley. A lit oil lamp revealed in stark detail the tableau of a man and a woman and a dog. The shaggy black dog was clutched in the arms of the woman, who was sitting at an upright piano, her shining blonde head bowed. The wide-shouldered man loomed over her, his hands pressing down on the lid that covered the piano keys. The sound Barbara had heard probably came from the man slamming the lid down, since the soft notes of a Beethoven sonata had now been replaced by silence. But it just as well could have been the sound a man’s hand made when it came forcibly against the delicate skin of a woman’s face.
Barbara remembered another room, on another breathlessly hot night, and another furious man. But that room had also contained the increasingly frantic wails of a three-year-old boy, a sound that had driven her across time and space to end up in this attic in Mrs. Fuller’s O’Farrell Street boarding house. She stood up and turned her back on the window, taking up the candle to move across the room to an adjoining alcove where her young son lay asleep. Jamie was now eight, and he slept in that deep, drugged state that healthy children effortlessly achieve. She briefly stroked his sweat-darkened short hair that the summer’s sun had burnished golden, and her heart turned over.
She then noticed that Dandy, Jamie’s terrier, was sitting upright on the bed, staring alertly at her. The candlelight revealed the blaze of white on his chest and the white around his neck and front paws. The white patches looked so much like a starched white shirt against his black fur that Mrs. O’Rourke, the boarding house cook and housekeeper, had exclaimed, “Oh, Jamie, with that squashed-in face, if he doesn’t look like a street tough trying to pass as a high-class gent. A dandy right enough, all dressed up in his fine evening clothes.”
Dandy, ears erect on either side of his round forehead and slightly bulging eyes reflecting the candle glow, cocked his head and wrinkled his short muzzle to emit a soft, questioning “woof.”
“Shush, Dandy,” Barbara whispered. “Don’t wake up Jamie. I am sure everything is all right.”
“Gracious me, I do declare that if this heat continues I shan’t be able to eat a bite. Now, dear sister, I do insist that you take some of this chicken; you must keep up your strength. How clever of Mrs. O’Rourke to think of making this cucumber soup; a fine choice on a day like this. I don’t remember when we have had such a string of hot days, not here in San Francisco. Now, in Natchez, where Miss Millie and I spent our youth, this would be a mild summer day. Oh, my goodness, Millie, do you remember how hot it got back in Natchez? I….”
Barbara let the older woman’s conversation wash over her as she picked at her dinner. She was exhausted from several sleepless nights, and her head had been so muzzy at school today that she had finally let her last period students work silently on their poetry assignments because she couldn’t summon the energy to listen to their recitations. She looked over at Miss Minnie Moffet, who was continuing to tell the rest of the boarders about summers in Natchez, and she wondered at the woman’s determined cheerfulness. Miss Minnie and her sister, Miss Millie, who must be in their early seventies, shared a tiny room across the hall from Barbara. If Miss Minnie’s stories had any connection to the truth, she and her sister had not been born poor back in Natchez. Nevertheless, some hinted-at-tragedy had landed them in San Francisco where they eked out their living as skilled seamstresses. Barbara noticed that Miss Millie, who looked so like Miss Minnie that they could be twins, was smiling benignly at her loquacious sister. Jamie swore that Miss Millie did speak, but Barbara had never heard her utter a syllable. She wondered if Miss Millie had simply given up trying to get a word in edgewise some time in the distant past.
Well, at least with Miss Minnie at dinner, I won’t have to worry about making conversation, Barbara was just thinking, when a masculine voice on her right destroyed that hope.
“Ah, excuse me, Mrs. Hewitt. Jamie was just telling me that you had promised him that you would take him up to Nob Hill this weekend, and I wanted to let you know I would be free to accompany you.”
Barbara looked over at Mr. Chapman, who was leaning forward to speak to her around Jamie, and suppressed her irritation. A tall, awkward man in his thirties, Mr. Chapman had some sort of office job, and he seemed to feel it was not safe for her to walk in the city without a male escort.
“Why, thank you Mr. Chapman, I will certainly let you know if we do decide to do so. It all depends on the weather and my students’ essays. It is the beginning of the term and I am afraid that, between the heat and their apparent failure to retain anything they learned last year, I may be in for a difficult weekend of grading.”
Relieved that Jamie had immediately reclaimed Mr. Chapman’s attention, Barbara shifted her attention to the rest of the boarders at the table. On her left was Mr. Harvey, a clerk in a dry goods store who shared a room on the second floor with Mr. Chapman. He had an ailing wife who lived up near Sacramento, and she had noticed that he seemed as reluctant as she to engage in dinnertime conversation. Next to him at the head of the table sat Mr. Herman Stein, a wealthy businessman, who was steadily making inroads into his roast chicken and potatoes. Across the table from her sat Mr. Stein’s friendly wife, Esther, who was listening politely to Miss Minnie, and next to Miss Minnie was Miss Millie. The boarding house owner, Mrs. Fuller, was absent, as was Miss Pinehurst, a cashier in a fashionable restaurant off Market, who was, as usual, at work at this time of day.
Boarding houses bring together such an odd assortment of people, Barbara thought to herself. She looked down at her son, who now had the full attention of the entire table as he reported that he had heard that there were wildfires on Mt. Diablo to the east. But they are all so kind to Jamie, and I suppose I can’t ask for more than that.
“Ma’am, are you finished? You didn’t hardly touch your dinner. Will I be able to tempt you with raspberry compote?”
Kathleen, the boarding house maid, leaned between her and Jamie to take their plates and continued, “But your son sure had a good appetite, and I don’t even have to ask if he wants dessert.”
Barbara found her spirits lifting as they often did around Kathleen, a freckle-faced young Irish girl whose sparkling blue eyes radiated good humor. She replied, “Oh, Kathleen, its just too hot. I don’t know how you and Mrs. O’Rourke can stand it down in the kitchen; it must feel like you are in an oven. Do tell Mrs. O’Rourke how much I did enjoy the soup. I don’t want her to feel her efforts were wasted on me, and they certainly weren’t wasted on Jamie!”
Kathleen placed the dishes on the stack she had been accumulating on her tray and said, “Well, the kitchen is in the basement, and that is a help. I don’t know how you can sleep nights up there on the third floor! When I went up to sweep this morning, I like to died from the heat!”
This comment prompted Barbara to ask a question that had been niggling at her for several days. “Kathleen, that reminds me, with the windows open in the evening I have been hearing the woman across the alley play the piano. Quite lovely. I wondered if you knew her name or anything about her? I do believe they moved in this spring.”
Kathleen’s face lit up, “Oh Ma’am, that would be Mrs. Francis. Don’t that piano sound glorious? She was famous, used to do concerts and everything. That was before she was married. Her husband, though, I dunno. I heard he dotes on her, but I also heard he’s a rough sort. They do say opposites attract. He runs a store for second-hand tools in the first floor of the house. Well, I guess Mrs. Francis does most of the work in the store, while he just runs around town, finding goods to sell.”
Barbara watched as Kathleen moved away to finish clearing the table, and she wondered about Mrs. Francis, “who used to be famous.” It had been so long since she had someone with whom she could share her love of music. She had hoped that she might find one of the teachers at her school compatible, but so far there had been no one she really felt she could trust. Schools could be such gossipy places, and she couldn’t afford to make any enemies, which some how meant she hadn’t been able to make any friends.
The next day Barbara found herself again wondering about Mrs. Francis when her thoughts were interrupted by Dandy, who was barking in great indignation at an emaciated hound who was tied to the hitching post outside the Ellis Street butcher shop. Saturday mornings she walked Dandy while Jamie made spending money by doing errands for Mrs. O’Rourke. This Saturday, despite the continued heat, she had extended her usual route so that she could go past the Francis house.
Barbara had some vague idea that she might stop in the store and, if Mrs. Francis was alone, strike up a conversation. But she had forgotten the butcher’s dog, which always sent Dandy into a frenzy. Dandy was still a pup and didn’t weigh more than fifteen pounds, so she wasn’t worried he would get away from her, but he was creating a good deal of commotion on the crowded sidewalk.
She scooped Dandy up in her arms, immediately subjecting herself to several swift doggy kisses on her nose, and she laughed, saying, “Oh you rascal. Proud of yourself aren’t you. Defended me against that ruffian. Now settle down.”
Having made it safely past the butcher shop, Barbara put the wiggling dog down at her feet, just in time for him to begin straining at the leash again. Looking up, she saw the object of his excitement was a short, boxy black dog with a shaggy coat, who was pulling his mistress towards them with equal fervor.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Francis. That is your name isn’t it? I have so wanted to meet you,” Barbara exclaimed when she noticed that the slender blonde in front of her was her back alley neighbor. Before the woman had a chance to respond, she went on. “My name is Mrs. Barbara Hewitt, I live just over on O’Farrell Street, and I wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed hearing you play the piano these warm evenings. You are quite accomplished.”
Heavens above, I sound like an idiot, accosting a stranger on the street this way, she thought. Embarrassed, Barbara looked down at the two dogs who were enthusiastically trying to sniff each other’s rears, which, because they were about the same length, meant they were going around and around in a tight circle, completely entangling their leashes.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “They are getting tied up!” She looked up and saw that the other woman was awkwardly trying to control her dog with her right hand, while she used her left to hold the half veil of her hat down over the left side of her face.
I wonder what she is trying to hide? Barbara’s heart squeezed painfully as she remembered her own fearful attempts to hide the cuts and bruises that bloomed periodically on her face after her husband’s rages. Not wanting the woman to catch her staring, Barbara again looked down at the dogs at her feet and said, “What a splendid dog you have. What kind is he?”
“He is a Scottish terrier,” a soft voice replied. “I call him Gordie. He seems to like your dog. What breed is he?”
“I think he is some sort of mixture. Jamie, that’s my son, found him on the street being tormented by some boys. We call him Dandy. There, I think we have them untangled,” Barbara added.
The other woman pulled her dog to her side, letting her full skirts separate the dogs. She then nodded politely and began to move past Barbara.
“Please, Mrs. Francis, before you go. You must think me daft. But I particularly wanted to meet you because I wondered if you ever gave piano lessons. I would like my son, he is eight, to learn. I wouldn’t be able to pay much, but….”
“Oh my, no,” the woman said. “I don’t think that would be possible. My husband wouldn’t let….I mean a small boy in the house…I don’t think he….”
Barbara broke into the woman’s protestations, “You have misunderstood me. I live at Mrs. Fuller’s boarding house on O’Farrell, and she has an upright in the parlor that she lets the boarders use. I thought you might be able to teach him there.”
Seeing that the woman was shaking her head and uttering more disjointed phrases, Barbara continued, “Please, just think about it. Now I must let you go on your way. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
As she moved past, she thought she heard Mrs. Francis reply faintly, “So kind of you.” Perhaps she is just shy, Barbara thought as she moved on. I could stop by and visit her next week, bring Jamie with me, nobody withstands his charm.
Barbara sat bolt upright in her bed, drenched in sweat. Her heart pounded, the remnants of a dream swiftly evaporating. She had been back in Kansas, lost in the cornfields, and she had shouted. No, someone else had shouted. As her eyes began to focus, she realized Dandy was standing on the bed beside her, staring intently towards the window, whose curtain she had left open in the weak hope that this would permit the ferocious heat of the room to escape.
“Did you hear something, Dandy?” she whispered. When she spoke, he looked back at her briefly and then turned again, leaning forward, his neck stretched out, sharp ears cocked. Without warning he began to growl, while backing up, never turning his head from the window. Barbara snatched the dog to her chest, trying to soothe him. She feared he would wake Jamie or, worse yet, Miss Minnie and Miss Millie across the hall. Then she noticed Dandy was trembling violently, and she could feel his heart beating wildly under her hands.
“What is it, boy? Let’s go see, is there a prowler out there? Do we need to sound the alarm?” Barbara disengaged herself from the bedclothes and got up, all the while stroking the agitated dog. She crossed to the desk in front of the window, which was again piled high with essays to grade. Looking outside, she noticed that despite the late hour there was a light on across the way. I bet I am not the only person who is finding it hard to sleep in this heat, she thought. Then she saw a man, she assumed it was Mr. Francis, move into view, his back to the window. He was shirtless, his suspenders over bare skin, and he seemed to be staring at his feet. Dandy struggled in her arms and began to bark. The man swung around to peer out the window, and Barbara scuttled backwards, her heart again pounding, Dandy now silent in her arms.
Surely he couldn’t see me, I’m standing in the dark. He just heard Dandy, she thought. Nevertheless, when she crept back to the window she approached from the side and peeked out again. The light had gone out, and the texture of the square of darkness at the window suggested that the man had pulled the curtains as well. She stared out for a moment, seeing nothing else stirring in the still night air.
“Mother, what’s wrong?” Jamie called.
“Nothing, dear. Dandy just heard something, but everything is fine. Probably some cat,” she said, hoping this was true. She felt Dandy’s hot breath on her cheek, but he was no longer trembling, so she set him down and heard the sharp click, click, click of his toenails as he made his way across to Jamie’s bed. As she climbed back into her own bed, she heard the soft murmurs of her son talking to his dog, and she smiled and unexpectedly went to sleep.
“Mother, I told you, he isn’t a mongrel. Georgie’s Uncle Sean said he saw a dog just like Dandy back east, and he was a special new kind of dog. Part English bulldog, part English terrier, and part French bull dog.” Jamie trotted in front of her, holding Dandy’s leash.
Barbara replied, “Well, Jamie, if that isn’t a mongrel I don’t know what is. Be careful, don’t let him! Oh dear, too late.” Dandy, who had been weaving back and forth, his minute black nose snuffling up smells from the wooden planks of the sidewalk, had suddenly swerved right and lifted his leg on a barrel of shoes outside a cobbler’s. At least the dark stain on the barrel attested to Dandy not being the first dog to anoint it. But really, did he have to lift his leg every few feet?
“Mother, I’m telling you, they gave this mixture a name! That makes it a pure breed. Least that’s what Georgie’s Uncle Sean says, and he’s an expert on dogs, Georgie says. His Uncle Sean says that they call dogs like Dandy Boston terriers cause they were made in Boston. But seems to me if Dandy was born in San Francisco, he should be called a San Francisco terrier, don’t you think?”
“Well, if you ask me, since he is of English and French heritage, but made in America, I think that they should call them American terriers. But it doesn’t matter what he is, Dandy’s a fine dog.” Barbara smiled at her son. Whatever kind of dog Dandy was, he was a blessing. They had had to move so often in the first four years after they left Kansas that Jamie had become quiet and withdrawn. Moving last year to San Francisco was even harder on him. San Francisco was such a big city. The papers said when the 1880 census was taken next year the city might turn out to have as many as 400,000 people! So much noise and bustle, Jamie had seemed afraid to go outside. Moving to Mrs. Fuller’s boarding house last January had helped, everyone was so nice to him. But in the last month since he had rescued Dandy, he had become a new boy. He was making friends, and he had begun to roam the neighborhood on his walks with his dog. She was so relieved, and she felt as long as he had Dandy with him, he would be all right.
“Jamie, wait, let that wagon get past before we cross Taylor.” Barbara moved to the end of the wooden sidewalk to stand by her son, watching to make sure he had a tight grip on Dandy’s leash. It was early Saturday morning, a week since she had run into Mrs. Francis, and they were on their way to visit the resale shop, hoping to find her alone.
“Now I know you aren’t very excited about having piano lessons, but I want you to give it a try,” Barbara said a few moments later as the approached the resale shop. The windows fronting the sidewalk were jammed with hammers, boxes of nails, iron files, several shovels tied together like some gigantic bouquet, and a saw that looked large enough to fell a redwood. Then she noticed that the shade on the front door was pulled down, and a “closed” sign hung against the shade.
Before she had fully digested this obstacle to her plan, her son, who tugged at her sleeve, distracted her.
“Look at Dandy, mother. What’s the matter with him?”
Barbara looked down and saw that Dandy was standing stock still in front of the iron gate across the entryway to the side of the store, stretched out as long as possible from his pathetically small nose to his equally diminutive crooked tail, and his right front paw was drawn up under his belly. He looked for all the world like some miniature hunter, at point.
“Well, dear, he seems to have found some particularly intriguing scent, ” she said, trying not to laugh. Then Dandy, growling, began to move, stiff-legged, towards the gate, and as Barbara came up behind him she was startled to see the fur at the back of his neck standing up. Her son had knelt beside the dog, looking through the gate and down the side of the house, and he said, “There, there, boy. What do you see? Is there another dog down there?”
Barbara, fully expecting to see Mrs. Francis’ Scottie, peered down the narrow passageway, but she saw nothing but an empty brick walkway. Dandy then sat down abruptly and began to howl.
“Positively howled! I don’t know how to describe it, a kind of eerie yodel. It was the most bone-chilling sound,” Barbara said to the three women sitting with her in the kitchen later that evening. Mrs. O’Rourke, the cook, Kathleen, the servant, and Mrs. Fuller, the boarding house owner, all looked at the dog in question, who was lying down, his small muzzle between his front paws, his brown eyes looking up at them.
Barbara felt like an interloper in the basement kitchen. Yet she was desperate for advice, and this was the only place she could think to turn. She didn’t know why she felt so uncomfortable. Jamie, of course, could be found down here almost every day, doing his homework or playing with Dandy, who stayed in the kitchen when Jamie was at school and Barbara was at work. And she knew that Mrs. Stein often spent the evening down here when her husband was away on business. It wasn’t that she felt she was above Mrs. O’Rourke or Kathleen, either. Mrs. O’Rourke had been so good to Jamie; she felt nothing but gratitude towards her. And Kathleen! Well, she just wished the young girls in her English and literature classes had half the intelligence and lively curiosity of Kathleen, who was probably not much older than those students. Maybe it was the third woman sitting across from her in the kitchen rocking chair, Mrs. Annie Fuller, who made her feel so uneasy.
Mrs. Fuller was a young widow, in her mid-twenties, who had inherited the house on O’Farrell Street and last year had turned it into a boarding house, although Mrs. O’Rourke was in charge of the day-to-day running of the household. She was a slender, graceful woman, with reddish blonde hair and deep brown eyes–eyes that were now looking at Barbara with disconcerting directness. She sees too much, that’s what makes me uncomfortable, Barbara thought to herself. Everyone else just sees me as Mrs. Hewitt, the schoolteacher and doting mother of Jamie. She looks like she can see into my very soul. She couldn’t possibly be really clairvoyant, could she?
Barbara tore her eyes away and looked back down at Dandy. As “Madam Sibyl,” Mrs. Fuller spent most of her days reading palms and charting stars in order to advise a number of proper middle-aged women and prosperous businessmen. Mrs. Fuller had explained to Barbara, when she had interviewed her about becoming one of her boarders, that she billed herself as a clairvoyant because this was the only way she could get paid for the domestic and business advice she gave. She had assured Barbara that her clientele was very select and that there would be no reason for her to worry about the effect living in the same house as Madam Sibyl would have on her son, or her own reputation. At the time, Barbara had been so eager to move out of the wretched rented room she and Jamie had been living in that she had paid little attention to these assurances. But Mrs. Fuller had been true to her word. In fact, she was so discreet that Barbara had only once gotten a glimpse of her dressed in the odd clothing and wig that made up her alter ego, and Jamie seemed oblivious to the fact that the Madam Sibyl who worked in the front parlor of the house and the “nice Mrs. Fuller” were one and the same.
Of all the women in the boarding house, Mrs. Fuller was closest to her in age and education. They both had been married, but were now without their husbands, and it would have been natural for the two of them to become close. Nevertheless, Barbara had been relieved that Mrs. Fuller seldom ate with her boarders and that there hadn’t been many opportunities to get to know her better. Until now. Why do I have such difficulty making friends? Surely none of these women would ever deliberately hurt me, she thought.
“Mrs. Hewitt, dogs do howl. Why has this upset you so?” Mrs. Fuller’s crisp clear voice interrupted Barbara’s thoughts. “Was there a particular reason you needed to see Mrs. Francis today about the piano lessons?”
“Oh, no. Not really,” Barbara replied. “But, afterwards I began to worry about Gordie, Mrs. Francis’ little black Scottie. You know, from my window I can look down and see into their back yard. On the days I’m not working I always see Gordie, digging in the back or sitting in the shade of a bush by the back door. And every evening, about when the sun sets, I hear Mrs. Francis call for him to come into the house. But I haven’t heard her, or seen the dog, in a few days.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Francis is away,” Mrs. Fuller said.
“Yes, yes.” said Barbara. “That is what her husband told me, but I don’t know….”
Kathleen interrupted, “Did you speak to the lady’s husband then? A handsome man, but ill-mannered from what I have heard.”
“Yes, I did. Maybe that is what has me so rattled. While we were trying to figure out what was wrong with Dandy, suddenly Mr. Francis appeared at the gate and asked us what was going on. Quite startled us, Dandy included, because Dandy started snarling and then leaped up, as if he wanted to bite the man on the nose. Of course, he couldn’t reach him, but he can leap awfully high, and Mr. Francis pulled back and began to curse. Quite abusive. Ill-mannered is the least of it!”
“Heavens be merciful,” said Mrs. O’Rourke. “What did you do?”
Barbara smiled at Mrs. O’Rourke and said, “Well, first I instructed Jamie to pick Dandy up and take him down the block and hold on to him. Then I tried to apologize to Mr. Francis. To be fair, Dandy had been very fierce and I think he gave Mr. Francis a start.” Barbara saw the three women look down at the small dog at their feet, appearing anything but fierce as he lay on the floor, gently snoring.
Barbara went on, “In my apology I had mentioned that I had hoped to see his wife, and that is when he said Mrs. Francis had left Wednesday evening on a trip. In fact, he became quite friendly. Told me his wife’s sister had turned ill, and his wife had left very suddenly. Called himself an old bachelor, having to cook for himself.”
Kathleen scoffed, “What cheek! His wife isn’t gone three days and he’s trying out his blarney on you. Georgeanne, who works in the house next to them, she said he was a flirt, and how it was such a shame with that pretty blonde wife of his. But they do say, ‘when the cats away the mice do play.'”
As the women laughed, Barbara thought to herself. Was that why I felt so uneasy? Because Mr. Francis was trying to flirt with me?
We’ll kick off the month of July with two new freebies in the Kindle Store …
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
What a treat to invite Amazon to sponsor today’s Kindle Nation Daily Free Bargain Book Alert with the launch of the stylish, brand new, $379 graphite Kindle DX with an all-new 9.7″ diagonal E-ink screen, 50% better contrast, free 3G wireless, and international access to its free web browser with no monthly fees!
It’s ideal for a broad range of reading material, including graphic-rich books, PDFs, newspapers, magazines, and blogs, and its no-glare e-Ink displays means you can take it to the beach, the hammock, your deck, or a summer cruise because you can read in sunlight with no glare or to your bedside night table with a Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 Clip-On Light for the Kindle.
Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title, and of course, we encourage you to support our sponsors. Some of these paid titles will be from our own Kindle Nation Daily press (an imprint of Harvard Perspectives Press), while others will be paid titles from other authors and publishers.
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information:
by Rick Riordan The Heroes of Olympus Book One: The Lost Hero, by Percy Jackson creator Riordan, is available for pre-order and will be released October 10 at a Kindle price of $9.99, so the usual free sample chapter is not available for another few months, but this is a fairly substantial preview (over 400 locations, or about 60% as long as Stephen King’s novella Blockade Billy).
Here’s a list of the categories in today’s Free & Bargain Book Alert:
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Romance
Erotica
Gay & Lesbian
Samples
Memoir, Biography, Personal Story
Writing and Publishing
Children/Young Adult/Teen
Contemporary Fiction Nonfiction/Leadership/Change/Reference/Essay Christian Spirituality and Christian Fiction
“Free” in the Kindle Store refers, for now, to the price for download to US-based Kindles. Amazon may add charges for Kindles based beyond US borders.
The best way to find out about these free listings right away, when they occur, is to subscribe to the Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily, which pushes Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alerts directly to your Kindle Home screen 24/7. And in the case of many free listings that disappear within a matter of hours or days, “right away” is often just in time.
No Kindle Required: Whether you are a long-time Kindle owner or you’ve just acquired an iPad and are filling it with ebooks for the first time or you are reading Kindle books on a PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone or iPad Touch, you can get any and all of these titles absolutely free on your Kindle-compatible device of choice!
Editor’s Note:It’s an honor to share the Kindle Nation Daily platform with Stacey Cochran. Not only is Stacey a distinguished novelist in his own right, but he has gone far beyond the call of duty in helping other fine writers to create connections with readers in the Kindle community and beyond. Also, let me hasted to add that Stacey led off his post with a very gracious, but totally unecessary, statement of personal appreciation. Since I didn’t want him to bury the lead, I took the liberty of moving it to the end of the post. –S.W.
by Stacey Cochran, author of CLAWS 2 Does anyone doubt that the eBook revolution is here? Last summer 2009, I published my novel CLAWS on Amazon Kindle. I had no idea at the time that I was embarking on a career breakthrough. For five years prior to summer ’09, I had been self-publishing via POD a series of novels and short stories. None of those sold well. So I had no expectations that my Kindle books would do any better. To date, I have had close to 40,000 Kindle downloads of my books. While the vast majority of these were for a freebie, I’ve managed to sell in the neighborhood of 10,000 copies of my books. Again, does anyone doubt that the eBook revolution is here?
This summer I am embarking on a two-month Blog Tour to help promote my new thriller CLAWS 2. A Blog Tour is the ultimate poor man’s way to promote his book. I love it. It completely fits in with my populist proletariat vision for entertainment. It’s extremely difficult to get mainstream media attention from traditional sources like national news, television, newspaper, radio without a major push from a major publisher, but a Blog Tour is a proactive way to help spread the word. A Blog Tour gives the power to the author (or potentially indie filmmaker, musician, artist, etc.) to get “out on the road” and market and promote his/her work. It puts the power in the hands of folks like Windwalker, like Bufo Calvin, like Misty Baker, RJ Keller, Becky Sutton, Dawson Vosburg, Elisa Lorello, Kipp Poe Speicher, Zoe Winters, Scott Nicholson, the list goes on and on. It gives these folks the power to disseminate what is going on in the new world of eBook publishing and entertainment. It is deeply satisfying to not be told no, but there’s more at stake here than me. We are part of a movement that is reconfiguring how traditional publishing finds new authors, publishes, distributes, and prices books. How cool is that? I feel like I’m part of a revolution that says 1) we will not pay excessively high prices for books, that are 2) too formulaic, cookie cutter, and thus demeaning to audiences, and that 3) says we will not support a business model that is top-down, rather than grassroots up. Any structure that puts all of its weight at its highest level is doomed to collapse… or it must reinvent itself. And I think this is what we’re seeing today. So a Blog Tour represents to me a healthy, democratic entrepreneurial action. And every time you host an independent author on your blog or write a review (good or bad), you’re taking a stand that puts the power of your voice front and center. I need two things, which is why I’m here today: 1) Blogs that are willing to host me on this Blog Tour, and 2) Reviews (good or bad) of my Kindle books. If you would like to host me on my Blog Tour the next couple of months, drop me a line at http://staceycochran.com If you would like to write a review or buy my eBooks, visit me on Amazon.com As self-promoting as these two goals are, at its core they’re pure freedom in action. They’re a little man (me) taking a stand. It’s me saying that the voice of the people is what matters most. Not Big money. Not Big Power. Viva la revolution! We the people. We the people. Say it out loud.
(Thank you, Stephen, for allowing me to kick off my summer 2010 CLAWS 2 Blog Tour at the Kindle Nation Blog. I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity, as your blog and your readers hold a special place in my heart, mind, and thinking about the future of publishing.)
If you’ve got a tweener or young teen in your household, then you’ve probably heard of Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan. And if that’s the case, the latest free title in the Kindle Store could be a big hit, even if it is billed as “just” a sneak preview….
But first, a word from … Today’s Sponsor
Today’s Kindle Nation Daily Free and Bargain Book Alert is sponsored by Stacey Cochran’s new thriller, CLAWS 2, just released for just $2.99 in the Kindle Store. Here’s the premise, which Emily Bestler (Dan Brown’s editor at Atria Books) called “a great premise for a thriller”:
Down on her luck and bankrupt, embattled wildlife biologist Dr. Angie Rippard accepts a long-shot assignment from the governor of Colorado to determine once and for all if grizzly bears are completely extinct in the southwest corner of the state. No one has seen a grizzly north of Durango since 1979, but the governor needs proof to halt development of a 6,000-acre ski resort that will devastate the natural resources of the region. What Angie finds will forever disrupt construction of the 500-million-dollar resort, and pits her against powerful political forces that will stop at nothing to see that her research never sees the light of day… even if it means hunting her to her death through the worst snowstorm ever seen in the mountains near Telluride.
Even better, it’s clear from my own reading and from the reviews you’ll find on the book’s Kindle detail page that Cochran is up to the task of fulfilling the promise of his premise. He’s a talented novelist, and whether you start with CLAWS, CLAWS 2, or one of his earlier books, please don’t be surprised if you find that you’ve added a new author to your must-follow/must-read list.
Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title, and of course, we encourage you to support our sponsors. Some of these paid titles will be from our own Kindle Nation Daily press (an imprint of Harvard Perspectives Press), while others will be paid titles from other authors and publishers.
Interested in learning more about sponsorship? Just click on this link for more information:
by Rick Riordan The Heroes of Olympus Book One: The Lost Hero, by Percy Jackson creator Riordan, is available for pre-order and will be released October 10 at a Kindle price of $9.99, so the usual free sample chapter is not available for another few months, but this is a fairly substantial preview (over 400 locations, or about 60% as long as Stephen King’s novella Blockade Billy).
“Free” in the Kindle Store refers, for now, to the price for download to US-based Kindles. Amazon may add charges for Kindles based beyond US borders.
The best way to find out about these free listings right away, when they occur, is to subscribe to the Kindle edition of Kindle Nation Daily, which pushes Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alerts directly to your Kindle Home screen 24/7. And in the case of many free listings that disappear within a matter of hours or days, “right away” is often just in time.
No Kindle Required: Whether you are a long-time Kindle owner or you’ve just acquired an iPad and are filling it with ebooks for the first time or you are reading Kindle books on a PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone or iPad Touch, you can get any and all of these titles absolutely free on your Kindle-compatible device of choice!
Right on schedule, Amazon followed through today on the promise it made in January to offer a direct 70 per cent royalty option to authors and publishers who use the company’s Kindle Digital Text Platform.
As we said here when Amazon made its initial announcement January 20, the effective doubling of direct author royalties is “a move that is likely to bring dramatic changes in the way that authors and publishers view their ebook publishing options.”
The 70 percent royalty option will also have an enormously beneficial effect for Kindle owners and other Kindle content customers, in part because it will further accelerate the velocity with which new content comes to the Kindle Store. Equally important, the conditions upon which eligibility for the 70 percent royalty option is based will be a powerful force in organizing Kindle content prices into a mandatory $2.99 to $9.99 price range and setting a maximum price ration of 4:5 between a qualifying Kindle book and “the lowest list price for the physical book.”
How big a change is the new royalty option? It’s more than just a matter of upgrading DTP royalties from their previous 35 percent level, although that’s nothing to sneeze at. Instead, Amazon vice president of Kindle Content Russ Grandinetti suggested in the January 20 press release, it has the potential, for authors and indie publishers, to transform the economics of trying to earn a living by writing and publishing:
“Today, authors often receive royalties in the range of 7 to 15 percent of the list price that publishers set for their physical books, or 25 percent of the net that publishers receive from retailers for their digital books. We’re excited that the new 70 percent royalty option for the Kindle Digital Text Platform will help us pay authors higher royalties when readers choose their books.”
The stunning arithmetic involved here is bound to get the attention of well-established authors who have plenty of choices when it comes to publishing their books, because all of those choices, at present, involve far lower per-unit compensation. As always, the point where the rubber hits the road in these equations involves the number of units that becomes the multiplier for per-unit royalty rates, and more than a few mid-list as well as bestselling authors are likely to get out their pencils and try to calculate how important their publishers are in generating book sales.
In an interview last week on Len Edgerly’s The Kindle Chronicles podcast, Grandinetti directly questioned the roles both of publishers and of Amazon and its retail competitors as intermediaries in the changing worlds of publishing and bookselling:
“Any of us in this business, publishers and retailers, aren’t that necessary. Really the only things that you need are an author and someone interested in his or her work, and all of us in the middle have to figure out how to add value between those two parties….
“We’ve long said that part of our work is to become a more efficient retailer, a more efficient intermediary between suppliers, publishers, authors, and cusrtomers and I think we’re reasonably well known for working hard to lower prices for customers. But if we think about authors as our customers, then making it easier and more feasible for an author to sustain a living writing is a great way to make our store better and to grow our business, so taking some of the efficiency that digital book publishing affords us and passing some of that efficiency back on to authors is a really great way to let digital publishing and digital bookselling drive a better customer experience.
“There are myriad examples out there of authors how self publishing allows them to earn a better income at their craft. We’re happy to take advantage of it but I don’t think we’ll be the only ones. That’s just going to happen as the book business shifts more and more to digital,” said Grandinetti.
Under this new royalty structure, no DTP author with an understanding of the rules and of simple price-demand elasticity would ever price a book between $10 and $25, and few authors with any confidence in their product would ever price a book below $2.99. (This royalty structure does not yet apply to larger corporate publishers under the agency model, but they may create pricing trends that could affect all publishers, and Amazon has shown an interest in publisher parity and may try to move gradually in the future to bring larger publisher contracts into conformity with this structure.)
Here’s how royalties would play out at various price points, assuming a net delivery cost of 6 cents per unit:
Retail Royalty Net Royalty Price Pct. Delivery Cost
70 Percent Royalty Option for Kindle Digital Text Platform Now Available
Starting today, authors and publishers can earn more royalties from every Kindle book sold
SEATTLE, Jun 30, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that the 70 percent royalty option that enables authors and publishers who use the Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to earn a larger share of revenue from each Kindle book they sell is now available. For each book sold from the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and Android phones, authors and publishers who choose the new 70 percent royalty option will receive 70 percent of the list price, net of delivery costs. Delivery costs are based on file size, and pricing is set at $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. For example, on an $8.99 book an author would make $3.15 with the standard option and $6.25 with the new 70 percent option. This new option, first announced in January 2010, will be in addition to and will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option.
In addition to the 70 percent royalty option, Amazon also announced improvements in DTP such as a more intuitive “Bookshelf” feature and a simplified two-step process for publishing. These features make it more convenient for authors and publishers to publish using DTP. “We’re excited about the launch of the 70 percent royalty option and user experience enhancements in DTP because they enable authors and publishers to conveniently offer more content to Kindle customers and to make more money from the books they sell,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. DTP authors and publishers are now able to select the royalty option that best meets their needs. Books from authors and publishers who choose the 70 percent royalty option will have access to all the same features and be subject to all the same requirements as books receiving the standard royalty rate. In addition, to qualify for the 70 percent royalty option, books must satisfy the following set of requirements:
The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99.
The list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest list price for the physical book.
The title is made available for sale in all geographies for which the author or publisher has rights.
The title will be included in a broad set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech. This list of features will grow over time as Amazon continues to add more functionality to Kindle and the Kindle Store.
Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices.
The 70 percent royalty option is for in-copyright works and is unavailable for works published before 1923 (a.k.a. public domain books). The 70 percent royalty option is currently only available for books sold to United States customers. DTP is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their books for sale in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). To learn more about the Kindle Digital Text Platform, visit http://dtp.amazon.com or e-mail dtp-support@amazon.com. Kindle is in stock and available for immediate shipment today at http://www.amazon.com/kindle.
(Editor’s Note: Please accept my apology for my failure to publish this post when it was originally written earlier this week, and to include it in yesterday’s weekly Kindle Nation email blast. I would attempt to explain the complicated set of trivialities that contributed to the omission, but that would serve no purpose but to further burden my already overstuffed folder of lame excuses. –S.W.)
Amazon announced yesterday oops, Monday that the long-awaited free Kindle for Android download is now available for direct download from the Android Market (use your Android smartphone or other Android device to go to the Android Market and type in “kindle.”) Click here for Amazon’s information page on the Kindle for Android device.
As has generally been the case with these Kindle apps for other devices, the app has been launched with some features ready and others in the works. Current features include the ability for customers to:
Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books storedon Amazon’s servers for free
Synchronize last page read between their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and Android-powered phone
Customize background color, font color, and font size to help ease eyestrain
Read in portrait or landscape mode, tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages
Adjust screen brightness from within the app to make reading easier
Features promised for Kindle for Android “in the near future” include full text search and purchasing of Kindle books from within the app.
Although there have been differences of opinion as to the meaning of comparative “installed base” numbers on the Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and other platforms, it is clear that the Kindle is continuing to add significantly to the near universality of devices on which one can buy, read, and maintain a library of ebooks from the Kindle store. (The only reason I use the qualifier “near” is that neither Amazon nor competitors like Sony, Barnes & Noble, and Borders have demonstrated any interest in extending this kind of interoperability between the Kindle platform and other dedicated ebook readers.) There may only be about 4 million Kindles in use around the world, but there are well over a billion other devices which enjoy full Kindle platform functionality with Kindle apps for the PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, and Android, and it is likely that we will soon see the Kindle software pre-loaded onto millions of these devices.
By the way, one thing that seems to create a lot of confusion about these Kindle device apps: not everyone understands that you don’t need a Kindle to be able to use one or more of the various device apps. You don’t. No Kindle Required. You could go through life without a Kindle, really. Although I’m not sure why you would want to do that.
On the other hand, one thing you still cannot do with Kindle for Android, Kindle for iPad, Kindle for iPhone, Kindle for BlackBerry or any of the sibling Kindle apps is read your Kindle blog and periodical subscriptions. Like Kindle Nation Daily, just as a for instance. But that may change soon, and here’s why we think so.
Amazon’s selection of free Kindle apps expands today to include Kindle for Android, giving readers the freedom and flexibility to read and sync their books across a wide range of devices
SEATTLE, Jun 28, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that its suite of free Kindle reading apps now includes Kindle for Android. Customers around the world can now download this free application from Android Market and enjoy Amazon’s vast selection of Kindle books on their Android-powered devices. The free Kindle apps allow U.S. customers to discover and read over 620,000 books in the Kindle Store – the largest selection of the most popular books that people want to read – including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases from $9.99. Like all Kindle apps, Kindle for Android includes Amazon’s Whispersync technology, which saves and synchronizes a customer’s books and bookmarks across their Kindle, Kindle DX, BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, PC, and now Android-powered phones so customers always have their reading material with them and never lose their place. Customers can learn more about Kindle for Android at http://www.amazon.com/kindleforandroid and can download the free app from Android Market. “Our customers tell us they love the convenience of having their Kindle library with them everywhere and their reading synchronized across multiple devices,” said Dorothy Nicholls, director, Amazon Kindle. “With Kindle for Android, customers can choose from a vast selection of over 620,000 books to read on their Android-powered phone, no matter where they are – on the bus, waiting for a cab, or in between meetings. Kindle for Android and the rest of the free Kindle apps are the perfect companions for readers who don’t have their Kindle with them or don’t yet own a Kindle.” Android-powered device owners can now take advantage of the features that customers love about Kindle and the Kindle app experience, including:
Search and browse more than 620,000 books, including 108 of 111 New York Times Bestsellers, plus tens of thousands of the most popular classics for free directly from their Android device. Bestsellers such as “Backlash” by Aaron Allston, “Big Girl” by Danielle Steel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, and “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, and hundreds of thousands of other popular books are $9.99 or less in the Kindle Store
Read the first chapter of books for free before they decide to buy
Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books storedon Amazon’s servers for free
Synchronize last page read between their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, BlackBerry and Android-powered phone
Customize background color, font color, and font size to help ease eyestrain
Read in portrait or landscape mode, tap on either side of the screen or flick to turn pages
Adjust screen brightness from within the app to make reading easier
Several features will be added to Kindle for Android in the near future, including full text search and purchasing of Kindle books from within the app. Customers can learn more about the free Kindle for Android reading app at http://www.amazon.com/kindleforandroid and can download the app from Android Market.
Update: Amazon website functionality appeared to be fully restored in late afternoon (Pacific time).
As you may have noticed, the Amazon website has been suffering from a pretty massive outage since early afternoon today (Pacific time). The following message on the Amazon Sellers Forum is the only official acknowledgment that I’ve seen. Although the weekly Kindle Nation newsletter is queued up and ready to send, we will hold it until the outage seems to be solved.
Greetings from Amazon,
We are currently experiencing an issue that is impacting customers’ ability to place orders on the Amazon.com website.
We are working to correct the issue and will continue to provide updates until service has been restored.
.
, by Percy Jackson creator Riordan, is available for pre-order and will be released October 10 at a Kindle price of $9.99, so the usual free sample chapter is not available for another few months, but this is a fairly substantial preview (over 400 locations, or about 60% as long as Stephen King’s novella Blockade Billy
).
