Stephanie Cage - Writer

Following on from the last few Sundays, here's another snippet from the futuristic dystopian world of  Love by the Book .  This novella was my NaNoWriMo effort from a few years back, and as I still love it, I'm finally getting around to polishing it up. Last week I introduced the heroine, Susan.  This week, we get our first glimpse of the hero, Cameron. Finally Susan opened her mouth to let out the admission she’d always known she’d have to make: she didn’t know what was happening, or where the Elders were.  But before she could answer, the doors from the courtyard opened and Mother led the usual train into the dining room: first the other Parents, then the Aunts and Uncles, and finally the Managers, until all the Elders were in place.   But where the procession would normally have stopped, there was a new face.   As the young man paused at the door, the chatter, which had already begun to subside, fell silent.  Susan stared at...

Here's something different for Sneak Peek Sunday - a glimpse into the futuristic dystopian world of Love by the Book .  This novella was my NaNoWriMo effort from a few years back, and as I still love it, I'm finally getting around to polishing it up. Last week I shared the opening .  This week, 6 paragraphs which introduce Susan's role in the House. Sometimes Susan dreamed of being far away, in a world she’d never encountered where nobody told you how to live your life or who you could love or be friends with.  Sometimes she woke from a dream where the table was empty, the precious book having vanished along with its thick glass covering, and she was responsible.  “It’s not my fault!” she would plead to the assembled masses.  Sometimes they were faceless.   Other times it was her mother, or her father, or her teachers, or the gardeners, whose faces stared back at her sorrowfully.  That was worse. “But you’re the Guardian,” their voices ...

Here's something different for Sneak Peek Sunday - a glimpse into the futuristic dystopian world of Love by the Book .  This novella was my NaNoWriMo effort from a few years back, and as I still love it, I'm finally getting around to polishing it up. These 6 paragraphs appear at the very beginning, so shouldn't need too much introduction. Something had changed.  Susan felt it instantly.  The darkness was as dark and the stillness as still as the night before, yet she woke knowing, without knowing why, that everything was different.  Things had changed a little when she joined the main House, and a great deal when she became the Guardian, but she was used to those changes.  They had to do with where she lived and what she did and how people treated her.  This change went deeper.  It crackled like radioactivity around the edges of her awareness and vibrated somewhere inside her with an excited hum.  She lay in silence, feeling out the change,...

In my last post about characters , I mentioned 'Desperate Measures', my work in progress which is a sequel to my first novella, ' Desperate Bid '.  In it, the heroine finds herself alone in the hero's office, indulging in an irresistible moment of nosiness. This is that moment...   Miles' desk was tidy, so tidy that Michelle could have wondered if he ever worked, to sully it, if she had not already known the answer. He worked harder than anyone she had ever known. His desk was indeed, as a tidy desk is said to be, the sign of an ordered mind.   There was just one letter, lying dead centre. It was handwritten, in a looping old-fashioned hand, and although Michelle did not intend to read it, she found she'd become absorbed by the first sentence. "There is no easy way to say this."   There never was. Nowadays, you didn't write, not in pen, if there was an easier way to say it.   "Your father has been diagnosed with cancer. They sa...

A while ago I introduced you to the snowy setting of my Christmas story, with the working title of 'The Santa Next Door'.   If you missed it, you can read it here . Now, I'm delighted to announce that Santa Claus really will be coming... to an electronic device near you.   I've just signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for this short Santa story to be published as an e-book, hopefully in time for Christmas 2013.   So this seems like a good time to let my lovely heroine, Sue, and hero, Bryn, introduce themselves, to each other and to you...     “You said don't go in strange people's houses.”   Sue winced.   Apparently Trudi had inherited Sue's love of rules.   But why did she always have to trot them out at the most embarrassing moment?   Before Sue could find an answer, and definitely before her blush had faded, he had already supplied an answer: “Your Mum is quite right, usually.   But you see, I'm not a stranger...

For the last few weeks, I've been using my 'sneak peeks' to introduce you to some of my favourite characters from my first book, 'Desperate Bid'. Today, my heroine Sarah isn't the happiest person in the world: she's just home from the pub, where she ran into her friend and colleague Michelle, which would have been lovely if it weren't for the fact that Michelle was sitting happily chatting to Sarah's arch-rival Miles.  "On Saturday, Sarah was itching with impatience to find out whether they’d won, but she was still smarting from Michelle’s accusations. Not to mention finding her so cosy with Miles in the pub after work. She knew she shouldn’t take it personally, but she couldn’t help seeing it as a kind of defection.  To work off her annoyance, she started cleaning and brushing and scraping at wallpaper, the first step in her lounge redecoration project. There was something very satisfying about ripping off large sheets of it by ...

For the next couple of weeks, I've decided to use my 'sneak peeks' to introduce you to some of my favourite characters from my first book, 'Desperate Bid' , and after meeting Sarah last week, it's time now to introduce you to struggling musician Alex, who's about to turn his life around by putting it up for sale on an online auction site:         Alex had shaken his head and frowned to himself. Eyeing up random women, falling for the singer... What was happening to him?          It hadn’t even been that long. It must just be the pain in the singer’s voice catching at him and making him think, as he had avoided doing for the last few weeks, of Suzy. She’d have looked good in the singer’s place, smooching around in the low light with the coloured spotlights dancing across her pale skin. Not that she’d have been seen dead in a dive like that. Even when Suzy was roughing it, as she’d always been, a little, w...

For the next couple of weeks, I've decided to use my 'sneak peeks' to introduce you to some of my favourite characters from my first book, 'Desperate Bid' , and who better to start with than my heroine Sarah and her sister Gillian?  (In case you're wondering, since this appears out of context, the subject of their conversation is the nightmare 'team-building event' which Sarah attended the previous day.           Sarah would sooner have been soaking in a hot bath than sitting in this dingy dive, staring at a wall papered inches thick with posters of unknown rock bands. But she’d promised Gillian ages ago that she’d come to hear this great new band, and she didn’t like to let her down. And for all its grubbiness, Campbell’s had a certain charm, a friendly, lively atmosphere that was hard to resist.          “So you loved it, then. I’m sure.” Gillian matched Sarah’s sarcasm.    ...

In view of the weather, it seemed appropriate to post a sneak preview of a wintry scene from my just-revised Christmas holiday romance, with the working title of 'The Santa Next Door'.  Sue and her daughter Trudi are walking past the house of their reclusive neighbour when Trudi spots a pattern drawn in the snow that looks something like a face... Before Sue could warn Trudi that not everyone appreciated company, she'd already poked her head through the bars of the gate and demanded, in a small but carrying voice, “What is it?” The man jumped, making it clear Sue had guessed correctly.  He’d thought himself alone.  He didn't look annoyed, though.  Although his face was expressionless, there was a hint of warmth in his voice as he answered, "It's a snow devil."  "Don't most people make snow angels?"   "I guess.  I didn't feel like getting cold by lying down in the snow.  This is easier, and I always think that snow brin...