In case anybody wants a bit of short fiction to read, here are eleven of my short stories that are available online for free right now, listed from newest to oldest. Some have audio versions available. Enjoy! (And watch this space for another one that is due to come out in the next couple of weeks.)

Three-Lobe Burning Eye | August 2019

What remained of the Virtue’s army marched into the Gates of Ice at sunset. In their red uniforms, the soldiers were a trickle of dirty blood on the flank of the mountain. A few rode skinny, stumbling horses. Others rested in clattering mule carts, with bandaged-wrapped limbs steadied between sacks of moldering grain. The army had once been tens of thousands strong, but now there were only three or four thousand hollow-cheeked survivors.

Bourbon Penn 17 | March 2019

She had stopped watering the rose bush. Luisa had not thought about it in weeks, but she remembered it now, as she looked past the porch railing toward where the yellow blossoms drooped in the sun. It was the middle of July, but there hadn’t yet been a single afternoon thunderstorm to crack the skies open. Luisa had taken it as a sign: The roses were not meant to survive.

Clarkesworld | August 2016 (audio)

A low mist clung to the river and laced through the trees, thinning as dawn washed the forest from gray to gold to green. The road dipped into a hollow, lifted again into sunlight. Charlie was reaching for her sunglasses when her phone rang. She started, fumbled through her purse, but by the time she unearthed the phone it was quiet.

The Dark, Issue 12 | May 2016

The gun was still on the table when Caroline returned from her walk.

She stopped short in the doorway. A gust of wind shoved at her back, whipped a spray of rain around her. She fumbled until she found the handle and pulled the door closed behind her.

The gun was still on the table.

Shimmer Magazine, Issue 25 | May 2015

Smoke rose from the center of Asunder Island, marring a sky so blue and so clear it made Aurelia’s eyes ache. The sailors had been insisting for days she would see the Atrox swooping and turning overhead, if only she watched long enough, but there was no sign of the great birds.

Clarkesworld Magazine | December 2014 (audio)

Second Counselor Azo is the last to leave. As Fatima seals her into a silver coffin, Azo asks, “Will you follow?”

The decades fade from her face, the lines soften, and she is young again, as frightened and uncertain as when she came to the prison as a novice.

Fatima smooths a curl of hair from her brow. “Soon.”

Clarkesworld Magazine | April 2014 (audio)

I woke in the darkness. My mother was leaning over me.

“We have to leave,” she said. Her breath was warm on my face.

The scent of dried flowers and wood-smoke drifted after her. She had spent the night by the fire, singing for a young mother and her sickly child. The child had not survived. 

Clarkesworld Magazine | April 2013 (audio)

The stranger fell from the sky just after dawn.

Rela heard the snap of branches and looked up. The sun was rising in a gray haze beyond the forest’s eastern edge, and the mist was retreating from the aerie. In the canopy above, a dark figure tumbled through the fog, bouncing from branches and whipping past leaves.

Tor.com | February 2013 (ebook)

Lucy stood at the window and watched the sun set dull and red behind the clouds west of the city. Seven stories below, sweet smoke from burning garbage and cooking fires settled over the streets of Morningtown. The window glass had been broken out and traded away long ago and there was a cold, damp bite in the air, but Lucy didn’t close the shutters.

Lightspeed Magazine | March 2012

You remember the day they came.

The shady corner behind the store smelled of Lou’s cigarettes and the dumpster down the alley, just shy of pick-up day and overflowing already. You chewed your sandwich and stared at the weeds growing through the asphalt. The day was stifled by summer heat and suffocating humidity, too bright and too hazy all at once.

A shadow passed overhead. You looked up.

WeirdFictionReview.com | February 2012  

On the hill above the broken victory arch, Francisco picked his way through the rough talus, choosing each step with care. Sunken holes and gravel pits pockmarked the slope, the filled-in remains of what had once been openings to the tunnels below. The old officers still muttered about whispering caverns and scrabbling claws in the darkness, but the garrison hadn’t seen an enemy incursion in years.