So I have a tradition. Every time I release a book, I celebrate by posting a free short story based on a suggestion from a reader about the characters from my previous book. NB: All contain spoilers.
For In for a Penny, I wrote “Four Times Percy Garrett Didn’t Kiss [SPOILER REDACTED], and One Time He Did“.
For A Lily Among Thorns, I wrote “The way of a man with a maid“, about Deborah Hathaway’s first two weeks of marriage to Jonas…which do not go very smoothly.
For Sweet Disorder, I wrote “Poor child of Doubt and Death“, in which Nick is a vampire and Phoebe is a dragon and everything else is pretty much the same.
The True Pretenses short story, in which Ash and Rafe con Aaron Burr, will be up in January!
And now it’s time for me to take reader suggestions for a Listen to the Moon short story!
I’ll take suggestions of any kind, in any format, as detailed or vague as you like. What ifs, alternate universes, missing scenes, backstory, and future scenes are all fair game. Feel free to treat your comment like a mini-brainstorming session if you want!
You can see past suggestion posts here.
Legal stuff: by submitting a comment on this post, you permit Rose Lerner to develop your story idea without any expectation of financial compensation or remuneration. The resulting story will be available to readers free of charge.
Some suggestions to get the ball rolling:
1. Sukey and Toogood are struck by lightning and swap bodies.
2. Sukey works at a coffee kiosk and Toogood owns the upscale classic-cocktail bar across the street.
3. Nora Khaleel and Imogen Makepeace go to the fair together.
4. Sukey learns she’s a fairy changling, and she and Toogood have to journey to Faerie to get back the human baby she was swapped for.
5. Footman Toogood babysitting little Nick at Tassell Hall.
Comment section is SPOILER-FRIENDLY!
Hello, Rose. I have a question about short stories: will Betsy and Robert get one? I’m still hoping 🙂
I have good news for you. 😀
…They’re getting a whole novella! I have a draft written but I’m not sure when I will have time to revise and publish it. Probably this summer or next summer. Stay tuned!
Hi! I found the scene when Lady Tassell asks to read Nick’s letter of reference very touching. So maybe something about her? Or Tassell Hall years before, maybe from Mrs. Toogood’s perspective.
Time travel to far future/Space Au where the young staff go shopping for scandalous clothes, get medical help for neurological conditions, kiss boys/girls, and have to save Sukey, Toogood and the Vicar from space pirates.
One of those “bid on a dinner/kiss” auctions used for a charity/political fundraiser! In a modern AU. With not just the gentlemen bidding on the ladies, but ERRYBODY gets a potential kiss from someone of any gender they fancy.
Mostly I wanna see Sukey kiss her way through the town. (So does the town.)
You know, this story stuck me as having a lot to say that’s relevant to corporate America today, when people are constantly in danger of having their entire department outsourced to India or China. You have to be honest and hard working but very, very careful about what you say, and you have to have agnostic loyalties, so that when the wind shifts, you manage to keep your job.
So: Toogood could be a 40yo programmer who was a wiz kid back in the day — got a job without a degree because there weren’t IT degrees then — now he’s in management — brought into a small company after his previous company outsourced IT — but his position is tenuous because of the no-degree thing — and Sukey is a new hire in marketing with an online degree.
Or: Toogood is a former bodybuilding champion who’s trying to get a business going as a personal trainer but all his female clients want to sleep with him and he’s really getting worried about lawsuits so he simultaneously marries and hires Sukey, who’s about to be fired from a nursing home job.
Or: Toogood time travels to Portland, OR, circa 2016 and finds that none of his skills have any value whatsoever, Portlanders being as they are; so he ends up homeless; but then he gains notoriety on social media for being the best dressed person in the entire town and he starts a (short-lived) craze for cravats.
One more: Toogood and Sukey end up running their own coaching inn, and one day Isabella Bird stays with them. Or any of your characters could meet her; she sounds so interesting!