Tag Archives: Paige Daniels

Love, Murder & Mayhem: Read it Now: Super Mom’s Cookie Caper

Paige Daniels’ ‘ Super Mom’s Cookie Caper’ asks the question: Can a woman in the modern world be a great mom with three kids and a husband and have the career? And in this case, a career as a superhero? In short, can she have it all?

To find out, here’s an early look:

Super Mom’s Cookie Caper

by Paige Daniels

“Oh my God! They’re all dead! Someone murdered them!”

I sit bolt upright in my bed. My senses tingle and my breath quickens.

“No, no, this can’t be!” I hear from down the hall. “Why did they have to die?”

Microseconds before I zoom off, I feel a warm hand gently wrap around my wrist. My husband shakes his head. “Take a breath. Don’t be running off at super speeds. Hon, I’m sure there’s a bad guy out there plotting to take over the world . . . again, but I doubt he’s in our living room right now.”

I slowly let out a breath. He’s right, no need in exposing my secrets to the kids . . . just yet. “Thanks, honey. I need to keep that under control. ”

Michael smiles. “That’s what I’m here for.”

The shriek happens again and we scramble out of bed and run into the dining room. In front of the large aquarium, our tiny, seven-year-old daughter is sobbing. “Mr. Fish an . . . an . . . Ms. Blue, they um . . .”

We go to our daughter and take her in our arms. I look over to the aquarium and floating on top is the whole aquatic menagerie.

I huff under my breath, “Damn.” I pat her head and say, “I’m sorry, honey. We can get more fish. On the plus side, you still have two cats, a dog, and a gerbil.” I peep over her head and look at my watch. We’re going to be late. “Listen, Annie, I know this isn’t the best way to start the day, but we really got to get a move on.”

Michael gives her a tickle and she laughs. “We’ll go to the pet shop this weekend and you can pick out whatever fish you want.”

She sniffs and wipes her wet face with the back of her arm and gives a half smile. “Okay, Daddy.”

He pats her on the head and says, “Okay, now do what your mom says. Scoot and get ready.”

She leaves the room and we both stand. His big green eyes grow serious and he grumps, “I’ll give you two guesses who’s responsible for the great fish massacre of two thousand seventeen.”

We both look at each other and yell simultaneously, “Parker!”

A disheveled red-haired boy shuffles out of the back, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “What?”

I look over to the aquarium. “Didn’t I tell you to use spring water and not the stuff from the tap when you refilled the fish tank? Look, they’re dead because you were too lazy to go down to the basement and get the spring water. Like, I don’t have enough to deal with already?” My case load of criminals is almost higher than the pile of dirty laundry downstairs. “You’re eleven years old. You’re mature enough to keep clean water in a fish tank.”

His eyes spring open and he shakes his head. “I didn’t use tap water. I swear!”

To read the rest of “ Super Mom’s Cookie Caper” click here.

Love, Murder & Mayhem – On Moms, Superheroes, and Cookies

By Paige Daniels

Be gentle, dear reader, for it’s been quite some time since I’ve blogged. With a full time job and kids who need shuttling to and fro, I had to make the decision between writing actual stories or blogging … spoiler alert writing stories won. This brings me to the inspiration for my story “Super Mom’s Cookie Caper”, set to appear in the new Crazy 8 Press scifi anthology Love, Murder & Mayhem. I love superhero comics, movies, t-shirts, toothpaste, whatever it is I love ‘em, can’t get enough.

But sometimes I wonder: what happens when the earth or universe has a day or weeks off from being nearly destroyed by the latest super villain with a chip on their shoulder? There’s no way one guy, like Superman, could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, thus the forming of the Justice League. So what happens when Superman has a day off? Does he have to clean up the cat poop out of litter? Do you think Lois gets mad when he forgets to put the cap on the toothpaste, yet again? Does Wonder Woman have to clean her own toilets? Does Black Widow worry about having to fight with the cable company for raising her rates again?

Yes, these are the things that go through my mind late at night and oh, crap, I forgot to put the pot roast in for tomorrow. I thought it would be interesting to explore the more human side of superheroes. Besides the Incredibles, the only superhero I can really think of having just a normal boring family life is Hawkeye aka Clint Barton. Some may argue he’s not a “real” superhero. But who’s the MVP here? The guy who got brainwashed by Loki then had to go home to his family without skipping a beat and take out the trash and coach his kids’ little league team or Tony Stark who has paid help to everything under the sun for him?

I think about this because as an engineer (that’s what pays the bills), and a female engineer in particular, your teachers, parents, mentors tell you how you get to build cool stuff, work in cool labs with cool technology, and see cool things. No one tells you in between all the cool stuff you still need to make dinners the kids will eat, make sure you don’t run out of toilet paper, and find a matching lid for your Tupperware containers … you know, basic adulting stuff.

This story was just my idea of how a superhero, who happens to be a mom, would handle life. She she’d have to have a lot of support from her partner, work, and co-workers to make it work. Sometimes the mom work would be a lot harder than the superhero work. And at the end of the day, many times she’d wonder if all the effort was worth it all, but when she saw that her work led to a bad guy being put away and ended the day with a hug from her kids she’d know that it was worth it.

Love, Murder & Mayhem from Crazy 8 Press will be on sale both in print and digital formats in July. Stay tuned for updates!

Writing under the pen name Paige Daniels, Tina Closser is the author of Non-Compliance: The Sector and their sequels, Non-Compliance: The Transition and Non Compliance: Equilibrium, all through Krisell Ink. They are face paced science fiction, cyber punk tales with elements of humor and romance with a strong heroine. They explore different themes such as family, government control, and how one seemingly insignificant person can make a difference.

Feel free to contact her at: http://www.goodreads.com/PaigeDanielswww.facebook/paigedanielsauthor.com, and www.twitter.com/TClosser.

 

 

Cover Reveal: Love, Murder & Mayhem

At long last we are thrilled to present here the official cover for our new scifi-themed Love, Murder & Mayhem anthology coming out in July, debuting at Shore Leave in Cockeysville, MD.

As always, our pal and cover designer extraordinaire Roy Mauritsen did a fantastic job on the cover, with the collection featuring stories from an all-star author lineup including Aaron Rosenberg, Robert Greenberger, Michael Jan Friedman, Peter David, Paul Kupperberg, Glenn Hauman, Mary Fan, Hildy Silverman, Meriah Crawford, Kelly Meding, Paige Daniels, Karissa Laurel, Patrick Thomas, Lois Spangler, and editor Russ Colchamiro.

In this great collection you’ll get 15 stand-alone stories, including those featuring superheroes, super villains, A.I., off-world, space cruisers, private eyes, a monster mash and … one DuckBob!

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