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The Lonely Girl and the Lonely Warrior Preview 1

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Little Bronislava Kowalski made up for being cursed with a wicked stepmother by being blessed with the most wonderful godmother in all of Europe.  Although Dame Valiant wasn’t a fairy, she was the next best thing: a warrior and a voyager.  With the British or French kings’ navies and armies, Bronia’s godmother sailed to faraway lands which she pillaged and conquered and from which she brought back rare and expensive gifts.  Once, she had given Bronia the most delicious of foods, a decadent dark brown substance called cocoa in the local tongue, chocolate or czekolada in the girl’s native Polish.  As this miracle of a treat melted on Bronia’s tongue, she felt the bittersweet warmth of home and nostalgia pouring down her esophagus, filling her heart with memories of a mother’s sweet voice softly singing an old lullaby describing the beauty of the Tatra mountains.  Another time, the conqueror had brought back a scarf made of the finest fabric the girl had ever rubbed between her fingers, gentle as dandelion’s seeds brushing her hands as she wove together a springtime flower crown, or a father’s touch stroking her cheek as she fell asleep listening to the mountain wind rustling the lace curtains hanging over her window.  But none of these material gifts compared to the latest surprise.

One Christmas, Dame Valiant returned to Poland from a voyage across the ocean, carrying with her the fluffiest, most adorable little creature Bronia and her three siblings had ever laid eyes on.  She called the animal wrapped in her flowered shawl a ‘chinchilla,’ a rodent from a land where the sun burned so brightly that snow never fell.  “A sun-kissed companion for our sun-kissed girl,” she joked, thrusting the grunting and huffing little monster, still wrapped protectively in the now tattered fabric, into Bronia’s eager hands.  According to Dame Valiant, the feisty little beast was a representative of the softest species of animals in the world, with fur so thick and delicate that natives and foreign conquerors alike hunted them relentlessly for their pelts.

Bronia named the creature Daisy after she found the chin holding a daisy in her mouth, its leaves sagging, its stem caught between her sharp incisors, her head bobbing in affirmation of this floral designation.  When the girl caught sight of the wilting flower, her patriotic mind recalled the folk song ‘Polskie Kwiaty' or ‘Polish flowers’ that sang nostalgically of daisies, violets, marsh-marigolds and poppies, which in turn inspired her naming conventions.  In actuality, the furry rodent had attempted to introduce herself by her true, Spanish name – Margarita – but reluctantly settled for the translation once it stuck.  The significant flower became immortalized when Bronia chose to press it between the pages of her favourite book: The Definitive Encyclopedia of the World’s Most Horrible Monstrosities and Mutations: An Autobiography by Anonymous.

The Kowalski children’s pater familias, Oliver, found comfort in stroking the ball of fluff while sipping tea in his old rocking chair by the fireplace.  Amelia Scrubs, the maid, scoffed.  “If you ask me, that’s a giant rat.”  But, sometimes, when no one watched, she fed the chinchilla some bread crumbs she had hidden in her apron’s folds explicitly for the diminutive rodent, who eagerly chewed them up, clicking her incisors in glee.  Always the spoilsport, Bronia’s stepmother, Badina, declared Daisy an obvious misfortune and a hairy apparition, and took every opportunity to attempt to kill her.

Daisy, who may or may not have been an obvious misfortune and a hairy apparition, was nonetheless slyer than a fox and nimbler than a highwayman.  When Badina tried to squish her with a broom, expertly wielded as befits a hag, the rodent leapt swiftly out of harm’s way, shook the dust off her fur, and, with a disapproving wiggle of her whiskers, gave the wicked woman a disdainful huff.  When Badina mixed poison with the grains in her food bowl, the chinchilla sniffed the offending substance out and refused to eat.  When Badina threatened to tie her up and burn her at the stake, Daisy disappeared for days, visiting Bronia at night to reassure the girl that her disappearance wouldn’t be permanent, only to return once Badina found a different target to torment, sometimes her husband, sometimes her youngest stepson, Little Johnny, sometimes Bronia herself, but, more often than not, poor Amelia, who she threatened with the stake on an almost daily basis.

The more Daisy avoided Badina’s wrath, the more determined the hag became to dispose of the sly rat.
The first book in the Daisy the Chinchilla Series as well as my debut novel, The Lonely Girl and the Lonely Warrior comes out May 22, 2018!

Pre-order the Kindle edition here: www.amazon.com/Lonely-Girl-War…

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The Lonely Girl and the Lonely Warrior Preview 2
A massive black horse emerged from out of the mists surrounding the Dark Forest on the far end of Middle-of-Nowhere.  On its muscular flanks sat a rider cloaked in black, his snow-white eyes, devoid of pupils or irises, peeking out from underneath the dark hood, a massive, decorative sword strapped to his side.
An adequate entrance, he thought to himself, smirking, grateful for the menacing effect produced by the surplus of white mist circling him.  Let them think he was a phantom, a highwayman, an oversized dwarf or, conversely a runt of a forest guardian.  They’d leave him alone to think, to search.  If Lady Otylia’s claim proved true . . .
He shook the thought away, annoyed at the rusalka for her unsolicited advice, annoyed at her mischievous little daughter for having gotten mauled – by regular bears, of all things – in the first place, annoyed at himself for having given into his pesky conscience’s promptings to save the disobedien


Click to read Part 3:
The Lonely Girl and the Lonely Warrior Preview 3
Bronia had been wide awake and running about the Dark Forest long before Middle-of-Nowhere’s only rooster, known by the affectionate moniker of Sir Alarm Clock the Bothersome, had begun his discordant crowing.  Her yellow-green eyes popped opened, her pupils dilating when her brother, Mietek, leapt onto her bed and tugged at her tattered dress’s sleeve at the very stroke of midnight, hissing “Little Johnny is gone” into her ear as the clock pounded out the late hour.
“He ran to the Dark Forest!”  Mary, his twin sister, added, wiping a tear off the corner of her blue eye with her intricately embroidered handkerchief, inherited from their deceased mother.
Quietly and quickly as she could, Bronia snuck into her parent’s bedroom and snatched Badina’s carved wooden mirror from the nightstand, knowing she’d be punished, but not seeing any other way to defeat a basilisk.  Luckily, her stepmother didn’t hear the creakin


The original draft of this story came about in February/March 2017.  I redrafted it during Nanowrimo 2017.

Its an adventure/folklore fantasy/fairy tale/family story/pastiche/comedy/migrant literature story (not sure which it is most of all) set in a fictional version of the Podhale region of Poland about a playful mountain girl named Bronia, her mischievous chinchilla Daisy, the mysterious Lonely Warrior and their adventures in the Dark Forest.

This is the first of my preview chapters and features Bronia meeting Daisy the chinchilla for the first time :)

I couldn't figure out the html, so the foreign words aren't italicized as they are in the book :P  This is not a fault of my writing but of my computer skills :P

Daisy/Stokrotka is named after the song Polskie Kwiaty/Polish Flowers which lists Polish flowers as "stokrotki, fiołki, kaczeńce i maki" (daisies, violets, marsh marigolds and poppies).  Because chinchillas come from the Andes Mountains in South America, her true name is Margarita, and it suits her

This is the song:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Q-4d…

Flower icon.16 Chinchilla 
© 2018 - 2024 szynszyla-stokrotka
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Cicada123's avatar
I like the word play, great job it reminded me of how you told me not to repeat the same words, great read still remember the first time i read it, the polish version i believe. anyways hope things work out with your book can't wait to get the full version maybe a Christmas gift from my mom huh? :) your brothers is still on my list i might get both earlier if i can. again nice play on words.