All The Write Stuff: Lovers in Hell

Only fools fall in love, and hell is filled with fools.

Lovers in Hell

A Heroes in Hell Anthology

created by Janet Morris

Genre: Dark Fantasy Anthology

Only fools fall in love, and hell is filled with fools. Our damned lovers include: Christopher Marlowe and Will Shakespeare, Napoleon and Wellington, Orpheus and Eurydice, Hatshepsut and Senenmut, Abelard and Heloise, Helen and Penelope, Saint Teresa and Satan's Reaper, Madge Kendall and the Elephant Man, and more . . . -- all of whom pay a hellish price for indulging their affections.

Shakespeare said "To be wise and love exceeds man's might," and in Lovers in Hell, the damned in hell exceed all bounds as they search for their true loves, punish the perfidious, and avoid getting caught up in Satan's snares. In ten stories of misery and madness, hell's most loveless seek to slake the thirst that can never be quenched, and find true love amid the lies of ages.

GUEST POST

What is something unique/quirky about you?

Together we breed Morgan horses. We consult with Morgan breeders to help them choose crosses to their stock to achieve a desired result.

We are also musicians; Janet plays bass guitar, Chris sings and plays guitar. We have an album on MCA records. Look for Christopher Crosby Morris on Soundcloud or N1M.com

Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?

Janet wrote her first novel, High Couch of Silistra in 1975; a friend sent it to an agent who chose to represent her; she had already written the second book in the Silistra Quartet and her agent told her not to disclose that until they finalized the contract for the first one. When the publisher learned of the others, Bantam Books bought the succeeding three. When the fourth book was published, the series already had four million copies in print. Suddenly Janet was a novelist specializing in environmental, gender, historical and political subjects. In the process, Chris started as her editor and ultimately a co-writer. Since then, she and Chris have co-authored many books.

Who is your hero and why?

Heraclitus of Ephesus, a pre-socratic philosopher, whose Cosmic Fragments foreshadow our knowledge of reality and how to perceive it. Among his precepts is the statement that change alone is unchanging. We’ve worked Heraclitus’ fragments in here and there throughout our books.

Which of your novels can you imagine being made into a movie?

All of them. We write cinematically, our books are vivid adventures we undertake without knowing the destination. I, the Sun, The Sacred Band, and Outpassage are particularly suited to film. The Threshold Series is a feast of opportunities for today’s special effects creators.

Advice to writers?

As for advice to writers, here is all we know: write the story you want to read. Start at the beginning, go to the end, and stop. Seriously. From start to finish you must inhabit the construct in a manner that makes the reader choose to continue; if we as writers can’t feel what it’s like being there, our readers can’t either. Close your eyes, look at your feet where they are standing on the story’s ground; tell us what you see. Tell us what you hear. Ask at the end of each paragraph ‘what happens next?’. If you lose touch with it wait until you’re back inside it. Tell the story that comes to you, and from you, to us.

EXCERPT

Love in the Afterlife, Part I

Never Doubt I Love

Janet and Chris Morris

“Doubt that the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.”

–William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II

“Love in hell makes beggars of us all!” Cheeks flushed, Shakespeare reproved Kit Marlowe, scorning today’s woes and fears with a paraphrase from Antony and Cleopatra.

“I’m the beggar here, not you. Lest you forget, those words rang truer as first writ: ‘There’s beggary in love that can be reckoned.’ I’ve had my reckoning from your Archfiend while you stood by, besotted.” Kit glowered at Will.

Overhead, Paradise snubbed them, unattainable, smug, as they surveyed Christopher Marlowe’s demolished Rose playhouse. Kit pulled his slashed leather jerkin tight over doublet and linen he’d worn far too long. Ever since flood and tidal wave sent his Bankside audience diving for cover, he’d shirked a codpiece, girding on his stabbing sword instead.

Marlowe meant to wound Shakespeare’s fragile pride, dismiss him and drive him off. Will mustn’t be here—not now, when Kit had an appointment scheduled, one both sensitive and secret. At this most inconvenient time, the Bard of Avon appears, unexpected, unbidden, and unwelcome. Kit must send Will packing well before the rendezvous.

Trembling with ire to his lacy cuffs, Shakespeare waggled a finger at Kit. “You yet think Satan creates your misfortune? ’Tis not the devil but your sylphic savior, the famous J, who turns your fate foul with her Bible verse and her big doe eyes.”

At the mention of J the Yahwist, Kit drew back, boots crunching hazelnut shells on muddy cobbles. Basta. Enough of this. He’d try another tack. “Look you long at my flattened Rose, and tell me how J caused such devastation.” A mere stone’s throw from Shakespeare’s Globe, Kit’s Rose Theatre lay in splinters. Lost to looters were its seats, its every curtain, its rigging, props, and treasures.

The choosy tsunami that destroyed the Rose had preserved Will’s Globe entire. These days in the theatre district only the Globe stood tall by the river, a house owned by Shakespeare, run by Shakespeare, and favored by every fiend and demon in New Hell’s vast domain. For Kit to stage any play henceforth, he must kiss Will’s arse to wheedle a pittance for acting or directing whatever Shakespeare’s patron devil chose.

“Did J not return your words to you, Marley? I liked you better without them. And without her. J stands for jade, that’s certain.”

“Leave off, Will,” Marlowe warned, truth sticking in his craw. “Go home.”

But Shakespeare was yet warming to his subject: “How long didst thou profess to love me, you flesh-monger, committed fornicator, buggle boe, meddler in my doings, before your callet J showed her face? Is it her pie you’d rather eat? Her saddle you’d rather ride? I’ve yet to ask Abbadon to rot that rod right off your crotch.”

Includes:

Never Doubt I Love – Janet Morris and Chris Morris

Love Interrupted – Nancy Asire

Lovers Sans Phalli – S. E. Lindberg

Fume of Sighs – Janet Morris and Chris Morris

Calamity – Michael E. Dellert

Love Triangle – Michael H. Hanson

A Hand of Four Queens – A. L. Butcher

Devil’s Trull – Andrew P. Weston

Withering Blights – Joe Bonadonna

Wrath of Love – Janet Morris and Chris Morris

Excerpt from Hell Gate – Andrew P. Weston

**On Sale for Only $2.99 until the end of the month!**

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About the Authors

Best selling author Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.

Christopher Crosby Morris (born 1946) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction, as well as a lyricist, musical composer, and singer-songwriter. He is married to author Janet Morris. He is a defense policy and strategy analyst and a principal in M2 Technologies, Inc. He writes primarily as Chris Morris, but occasionally uses pseudonyms.

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