Tattle and Wrye - August 2009

FROM THE DESK OF

DONA PENZA TATTLE, ESQ.

AND

ASSOCIATE WRYE BALDERDASH

Penza, with a puzzled expression, looks at Wrye's odd black-tie accoutrement. "Pray tell... overdressed? Really, Darling?" He leans, dapper, against a marquetry, a writing table. The inlaid carvings were that of a vibrant peacock, using one of her quills as a pen while a wily fox was collecting dogtooth violets making a bouquet of them.

“The name is Balderdash, Wrye Balderdash, double O handsome.” Brows waggle.

"The persona du jour I see is quite stylistically modern. A stretch for you."

"I pre-read the leap list. Apt. Wait and you'll see." His slicked hair made into a D.A.

"Agent B-dash you need to decipher the email you sent me. What's xdcctjut fihpp?" Penza hands him a print-out, looks in the mirror, giggles, spins and blows a kiss.

"Pessters, my Tabby was on the keyboard." He put the paper in his pink cummerbund.

The playful zaftig quidnunc says, "Balance," slips on a rugby sweater, violet cleats, impishly sighs with eye roll, "Dressed for the opera are we?" puts out her hand to be taken, and points at HITTING THE HIGH NOTES, a women's contemporary by Nancy Arnold. “Love of Literature Leap time, m’Bond clone, aprés vous, mon ami!”

Tattle draws Wrye into the shadows of the elegant townhouse, “That’s Lorenzo Pazzazzi, an incognito Italian opera star, going by the name of Stavros," She smirks watching him watch, "and the lovely lady who is indulging her vino palette is Maggie Duncan, a childless widow who is mourning the recent loss of her mother and still smarting over killing her abusive husband in self-defense... Ouch! Paybacks are...”

“Oh, my, double O toil-n-trouble... something wicked this way comes.” He adjusts trou. More the waist height rather than the traditional man's repositioning of the F. J.s.

“Not Shakespeare, Signore Snare-a-quote, but a dire dilemma in the making. Stavros goes missing as does Maggie’s coach bag and an irreplaceable picture of her mother. Enter stage left... color-blind cop, Bruce Herring. By-d-by your short pants are a crime.”

"Slacks evasion... " Wrye cants his head with gravitas and strokes his fake moustache.

"The hero is a hunk of... fill in the thought... and the heroine is a cougar-ish pushing the edge of forty. Experience meets possibilities with experience smiling broadly."

Wrye wets his pointer finger and swabs an unruly left eyebrow, notices Tattle watching, and replies, "Grooming is necessary when a man is well-embrowed." Changing the focus, "Tell me more about the book... Now!"

Penza reads a few pages ahead. “Oooh, he's a fashion nightmare but what a hottie-tottie.” She pauses. “You knew of The Green Socks Gang!” as she looks at his green argyles. "Did you read ahead?" She prances on tip-toes to keep the cleats off the floor.

“Harmless environmentalists… or so they say. Stavros thinks they are after him.”

“Are they? And poor Maggie, looks like she is going to be forced to make a hard, or harder choice between a plucky song in her heart, or a cutie pie in her feather bed.”

“Bingo-bang'er not! And you won’t know the answer until you read the book.” He stops her. “Not now, Curious Georgette, we have more stories for da leapin' ta do.”

She stumbles over a dangling participle, gathers composure, and with Wrye's gallant assistance

they end in Spanish dance frame.  "Tango?"  Wrye acts the defiant matador, turns chin and then

checks out the scene.  “Tattle… Tango me later... where’s Earth?”

After stopping her cambio de frente, holds form, flicks her face back, she dramatically points to the tallow-colored sky. “There... and several light years away. We’re on the planet Dessa, the setting for K. M. Tolan’s sci-fi novel BLADE DANCER, Champagne Books' Novel of the Year 2008 nomination and a 2009 EPPIE finalist.”

“We're as lucky as a grandmother wearing high-heeled combat boots in a cow field to be visiting this particular story.” He grins, "Cow-patty alert... Janet... it's just a jump to the left... and then a step to the right... let's do the Time Warp, again!"

“Luckier than Mikial Haran, a warrior and a Dathia Qurl who dreams of being a dancer but guilt over a fallen comrade and the threat of civil war won't allow anything else.” She takes a tortoise hair clip and hikes up her curls, "So you think you can dance?"

Wrye bows and offers his arm, she accepts, they saunter until he blurts, “Who is that?"

Disappointment again gnarls as they stop, Tattle spikes at his wingtips. "Dalen Goss, a crafty member of the Cothra Qurl. He and Mikial plan to dispatch a banned airship. Crimmmminal. And Mikial finds out the unsettling truth about her Qurl heritage. Sighhhh moment. Who'da thunk but it turns out the enemy she didn’t expect was her people, and the ally she didn’t anticipate was human. Connnflict!”

“A rocky horror picture... looking precarious, take my hand and we'll make like a frog.”

Blackness engulfs as Tattle bounces into Wrye who keeps her from falling. “I can’t see you. But I know we are in Ciara Gold’s time travel ON THE SILVER EDGE OF TIME.”

"Don't panic," Wrye hands her a pair of spy glasses, "A gift from Q, m'Dear... night vision spectacles... it’s just an eclipse. Look! A wizard, using ancient Celtic incantations had induced the extraordinary power to send Erik Lotharsson into the future to find the woman his people have chosen for him. Preemptive matchmaking. Unbeknownst to him he will be bringing home his destiny and his heart. Hint... hint...”

“Goodness to the graciousness of impossible, how’s he ever going to handle a woman of the modern era, one who is independent and feisty. Dial up imagination. Just how is she going to exist in a world without the very basic necessities like… chocolate!”

"Sweet Tart." Wrye gives her a look reserved for the irrational. “The she in question is Keelin Haverland, and she has dreamt of a Viking lover for years. Naughty? Only she didn’t expect him to be a man who wants to cultivate her to his ways, a man who she barely can resist, a man who just happens to be so much a man... Ahh breathless."

"Do they do the that which all men and women have done throughout all of time?"

"Dance?"

"Yes... and canoodle?"

"You and your mouth and the bar of soap have a date."

“So, I suspect an eclipse conveys her through time... to magic... Vikings... where life is beyond anything she has ever known... derriere... where she just might find love.”

“Ah, might is the plot bite. So much is unknown... derriere?”

"Think about my nugatory usage... m'Funion... We're homeward bound."

"But... But... But?"

"You got it."

Before either dare reveal any more, they pop back into reality. What a grand adventure. We hope the stories have piqued the interest of all you readers. Next month we’ll be visiting STRANGER IN HIS BED by Nancy Henderson, Candace Morehouse's GOLDEN ENCHANTMENT and BLIND CONSENT by Michael W. Davis. Until then, m'Dears, don’t forget to leap... right into a Champagne Book.

Double-cheek kisses,

Dona Penza Rutabaga Tattle, Esq.

And Associate Wrye Balderdash

Of Blather City, Wannachat

Created and written by

Angelica Hart and Zi

KILLER DOLLS ~ September 2009

SNAKE DANCE ~ February 2010

Champagne Books

angelicahartandzi.com