by KJ Charles
The story of Vortigern’s palace (“Remember, Remember”) is part of the ancient Welsh Merlin cycle. Many bridges and palaces across Europe are supposedly mortared with blood.
Dando and his dogs (“Devils on Horseback”) can still be heard in the skies around St Germans in Cornwall. It’s probably wild geese.
The Rat Queen (“An Eye for an Eye”) is a unique London tosher’s tale, as recounted by the Victorian tosher Jerry Sweetly on his deathbed. He really did have a daughter and a granddaughter with differently coloured eyes. I have adapted the tale to my purposes; the original appears in The Lore of the Land: a Guide to England’s Legends, by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson, which is a marvellous resource for anyone interested in English folklore.
Several Kent and Essex churches are said to have had their doors covered with the flayed skin of Danish invaders instead of the usual cowhide (“Turn of the Century”). Samuel Pepys records this legend from his visit to Rochester Cathedral in 1661.
About the Author
KJ Charles is a writer and editor living in London with her husband, two children and a deceptively innocent-looking cat. Tweet @kj_charles, find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kjcharleswriter, or visit www.kjcharleswriter.com for free reads, info, and her blog about writing, editing and general bookishness.
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A Charm of Magpies
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Flight of Magpies
Jackdaw
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Think of England
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A lord in danger. A magician in turmoil. A snowball in hell.
A Charm of Magpies, Book 1
Exiled to China for twenty years, Lucien Vaudrey never planned to return to England. But with the mysterious deaths of his father and brother, it seems the new Lord Crane has inherited an earldom. He’s also inherited his family’s enemies. He needs magical assistance, fast. He doesn’t expect it to turn up angry.
Magician Stephen Day has good reason to hate Crane’s family. Unfortunately, it’s his job to deal with supernatural threats. Besides, the earl is unlike any aristocrat he’s ever met, with the tattoos, the attitude…and the way Crane seems determined to get him into bed. That’s definitely unusual.
Soon Stephen is falling hard for the worst possible man, at the worst possible time. But Crane’s dangerous appeal isn’t the only thing rendering Stephen powerless. Evil pervades the house, a web of plots is closing round Crane, and if Stephen can’t find a way through it—they’re both going to die.
Warning: Contains hot m/m sex between a deeply inappropriate earl and a very confused magician, dark plots in a magical version of Victorian England, family values (not the good kind), and a lot of swearing.
Lie back and think of England…
England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.
Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all-too-obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.
As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.
As the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before…
Warning: Contains explicit male/male encounters, ghastly historical attitudes, and some extremely stiff upper lips.
If you stop running, you fall.
Jonah Pastern is a magician, a liar, a windwalker, a professional thief…and for six months, he was the love of police constable Ben Spenser’s life. Until his betrayal left Ben jailed, ruined, alone, and looking for revenge.
Ben is determined to make Jonah pay. But he can’t seem to forget what they once shared, and Jonah refuses to let him. Soon Ben is entangled in Jonah’s chaotic existence all over again, and they’re running together—from the police, the justiciary, and some dangerous people with a lethal grudge against them.
Threatened on all sides by betrayals, secrets, and the laws of the land, can they find a way to live and love before the past catches up with them?
This story is set in the world of the Charm of Magpies series.
Warning: Contains a policeman who should know better, a thief who may never learn, Victorian morals, heated encounters, and a very annoyed Stephen Day.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
Copyright © 2015 by KJ Charles
ISBN: 978-1-61922-872-6
Edited by Anne Scott
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The Caldwell Ghost first published by Torquere Press: 2013
Butterlies first published by KJ Charles: 2013
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2015
www.samhainpublishing.com
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Table of Contents
Dedication
The Caldwell Ghost
Butterflies
Remember, Remember
Silver
Cakes and Ale
Devils on Horseback
An Eye for an Eye
The Writing on the Wall
Turn of the Century
The End
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Look for these titles by KJ Charles