Someone e-mailed to ask what other authors are in the Master/slave anthology, as the Venus Book Club website doesn’t list them. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have my authors’ copies, so I can’t tell you! As soon as I get a chance to take a look at the book, I’ll post more information.
In the meantime, here is a picture of the other cover for this two-in-one flip book. As I’m in the slave collection, this is the side that will be facing “up” on my bookshelf. Not quite as enticing as the Master side, is it?
And for those who are interested in my story “In the Stacks,” there is a brief excerpt below.
In the Stacks
He came in one evening shortly before the library closed, looking for information on nautical knots. I pushed my glasses up on my nose and searched the data base. Four titles, all about knots. He smiled, this quirky little smile that hinted at some secret I couldn’t begin to fathom, thanked me and left with three of the books. The fourth didn’t have enough pictures, he said. He liked pictures.
I forgot about him. You tend to forget the ones that only come in occasionally, that ask one question and never come back. But he came back. I don’t remember how long it was. A month, maybe two? But he came back and something about that little smile reminded me of the knots.
He wasn’t handsome in the classical sense. He was average looks, average height. The kind of guy who could be really cute if you liked him or nondescript if you’d only met him once or twice. But the smile, that made him stand out. It would be awhile before I’d notice that his eyes held the same secretive amusement as his smile.
The next time he came to the reference desk he asked about the Marquis de Sade. Not his fiction, a biography. Not a usual request for a small town library in the heart of Virginia. I checked the database. Just two biographies on the Marquis. He took them both. I felt a little strange leading him back toward the biography section, deep in the shadows of the nonfiction stacks. Maybe it was the smile.
I pulled the books and handed them to him.
“Ever read him?” he asked, tapping the cover of the top book.
I could feel myself blush as I shook my head. “Uh, no.”
That smile again. Amused, knowing. “But you know who he is.”
Not a question, but I nodded. Then I hurried out of the stacks and back to the refuge of my desk with a muttered, “I have patrons waiting.” I didn’t and he knew it. I think I heard him laugh.
After he left, I looked him up. It’s against the rules, but I needed to know. His name was Justin Brant and he was forty-one years old. I knew the neighborhood he lived in, it wasn’t far from my own townhouse. I also knew the types of books he liked? historical biographies of questionable characters and action-adventure. Harmless enough. Yet something about him stayed with me long after he left.
Copyright 2004 by Kristina Wright
Sorry… you have to buy the book to get to the good stuff!
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