THIRTEEN: AN ANTHOLOGY

I have a story in a just-released anthology of crime stories.  The book is titled Thirteen, because it just happens to have thirteen stories.  The contributors are a group of women writer friends from Southern Ontario, and range from never-before-published, to Canadian-bestsellers.

My story is titled SORE FEET AND GOLD DUST and is set in the Klondike in 1898, during the Great Klondike Gold Rush.  If you are a fan of Fiona MacGillivrary, you'll be delighted to hear that Fiona makes a small appearance in the story.
The book is now available on Kindle, and will be released in paperback (with very limited distribution) some time in October.  So, if you're a fan of short stories, looking for something new and different, why not give it a try?

Here's a sample:

Sore Feet and Gold Dust: A Story of the Klondike

By Vicki Delany

My feet hurt. My boots don’t fit too well, and my feet always hurt at this time of night.

Six a.m. The musicians are packing up their instruments and the men are being shown the door. Sometimes there’s trouble: a drunk wants to keep on dancing or shouts for the band to keep playing, but not often it’s anything bad enough to bother us. The bouncers here are good, and the regular customers know the rules and don’t want any stranger messing up things for everyone.

Mrs. MacGillivray, co-owner of the Savoy Saloon and Dance Hall, smiles at a big spender. I wonder how she keeps that smile on her face, with her ear turned just so towards the man and her chin pointed forward in rapt attention. He’s almost melting under her charm. Here it comes: he’s asking her if she’d like to get a bite of supper. Then he laughs, blushing and pulling at his tattered collar, telling her he’d say breakfast except that sounds so improper. She lets the smile fade slightly and her face fills with regret. “No, thank you,” she says. No excuses, no perhaps another time. Just no.