Denise Bartlett

Denise Bartlett began writing short stories when she was nine. Pen and paper gave way to word processors and typing, printing, reading and perfecting. A dreamer, she has always searched for deeper meaning and more vivid experiences in her everyday life. From hypnosis, training with mystics and spiritual people of many walks to tax preparation and gardening, her interests vary widely. The thread that runs through her life is imagination. Denise has written a variety of poetry, short stories and novelettes, as well as columns and articles on gardening and income taxes. Her website is http://www.silvervalkyre.com and her email is Denise@silvervalkyre.com/. She'd love to hear from you.

New Titles from Denise:

  Fantasy Teen Novel (Time Travel) in installments; Volume I and Horror story

Also Available: FREE Read!

  Also available under the pseudonym of SilverValkyre—Fantasy Titles:

Click on the thumbnails above to learn more about the books

His mother calls him from daydreams to go to school. His teachers summon him from them to answer questions in class. One day a revolutionary from the American war for independence called him into a daydream. Will Conrad be able to travel back in time to fulfill a soldier's last request?

                                                                    Excerpt

Word Count: 2999                                                    Pages to Print: 19
File Format: PDF                                                      Price: $2.99

Horses can be a passion or a hobby, and those who love them can be enthusiasts or accomplished equestrians. Writers and riders can all find something of interest in this short overview of horses and their uses in stories and daily life.

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Word Count: 1505                                                    Pages to Print: 12

File Format: PDF                                                      Price: FREE 

Liza Casey called in to report a double homicide today. Sheriff Bobby Knowles had a high-school crush on Liza's mother, Elizabeth, who disappeared without a trace, years ago when Liza was young. Liza's life has been a maelstrom of tragedies, and this seems to be yet another one. But what is behind the latest report? Liza says it's the green-eyed monster. 

                                                                                                 Excerpt

Word Count: 3496                               Pages to Print: 17
File Format: PDF                                 Price: $2.99 

Excerpts:

The Adventures of Conrad

    Mr. Fantom's history class was BORING. To listen to him made one think all the people who used to live on the earth died not of disease and warfare, but of sheer boredom. Surely it must have been exciting to live during the American Revolution.

    The picture on page 124 showed an old tavern where men of the time met to discuss treasonous ideas. The smells alone would have been interesting. Sweat, tobacco, ale, charred wood and smoke; the occupational smells of farmers, tanners, trappers and fishermen.

    "Hey, kid."

    Conrad's ears perked up. The voice was very quiet, almost located inside his head.

    "Come on in, I'll show you around." The tavern door was open now, and a man stood in the doorway. Conrad looked carefully around the classroom.

    No one else seemed aware of what was happening.

    Okay, he thought, but how.

    "Like this." The man suddenly stood beside him; the classroom gone, the tavern reality, the stench verified that. The man ushered him into a small room off to the side of the bar. "Name's Jake. Change into these."

    Conrad slipped off his clothes and dressed in the ones the man handed him. They were an exact fit.

    "What's your name, kid?"

    "Conrad."

    "It'll do." The man put Conrad's clothes into a huge wooden wardrobe and they reentered the tavern.

    The man bellied up to the bar, and Conrad followed his lead. "Two pints, Johnny."

    "Who's the new man?"

    Conrad stood a little taller at the word 'man.' Well, why not? He was maturing quickly.

    "His name is Conrad. Conrad, Johnny serves the best ale in town."

    Conrad nodded, and picked up the mug. It was heavy, pewter hammered into a rugged shape. The taste was something like muddy roots soaked in old beer. He swallowed deeply, and smiled at Johnny. "I believe you were right, Jake. The finest I ever tasted." He felt a drip on his chin, and reached up to wipe his face with his sleeve, as he'd seen the other men do. His mustache seemed to be wet. What a change!                       Back to Conrad

Horses and Riding Them

    Lots of lighter build horses are perfect for riding and pulling carriages and carts. For show, pulling a carriage in a parade or procession, use fine boned high-stepping horses, preferably mares and geldings, since many stallions are impossible to manage without individual attention. The stallions and riding horses are not often used to pull anything, so they end up following the carriage, tied by lead rope to a halter, never by the reins. The bit in the mouth can injure a horse, so keep the bit out until you have a rider or driver who needs contact with the horse in order to control it. Horses can't eat with a bit in their mouth very well, and you want to warm an ice-cold bit against your own tummy or some other way before shoving it into their mouths.

    War wagons need draft horses, mules or oxen. Oxen are used when the load requires heavy work by a slow and steady team. Horses and mules can pull and be ridden, so they are more versatile to use than oxen. Also, study the differences in the traces worn by various pulling teams.           Back to Horses 

The Eyes Have It

     Peace officer. Hah. Sheriff Bobby Knowles poured single malt whiskey neat into the same small Support Your Local Sheriff tumbler his father had always used. His father, Robert Knowles, Sr., had been the sheriff of Lane County, Texas, for years before retiring and backing his oldest son’s election to the spot. Easing into his recliner, Bobby pulled the remote out of the western-design saddlebags his wife had made for the old stuffed chair several years before. When he clicked the button, the pre-programmed CD player dutifully started through a stack of 20 George Strait and instrumental country music disks.
     His back hurt, the worn out muscles sent spasms up his spine and he knew exactly where the pain originated. The desk chair at work was hurting his back these days, but that was his own fault. During his trip to the U. S. Law Expo in Washington, D. C. last month, paid for by the fair politicos of Lane County, he’d opted for the latest in technology―three new laptop computers equipped with satellite uplink and GPS―with absolutely no money left for new office chairs. Maybe he’d just have to set aside the money from the meager supply funds and get one. Yeah, right.
     Sometimes he wondered why he had gone into law enforcement. As he mused, he smiled to himself. His mother had always said he had gone into peace-keeping. "It’s a worthy field, Bobby. Your father has kept the peace here for years." He'd thought―there is no peace, Mom―but had kept that thought to himself. He knew it was the only way she could justify allowing another of her loved ones to wear a badge and carry a gun. But he had not been able to keep the peace.
     Being a peace officer had not been enough to keep cancer from ravaging Jill’s body, either. They’d been married only five years when she died. They had no children; he alone remained. He still lived in his parents’ rambling old two-story, built somewhere around the turn of the century.
     Shortly after his dad’s retirement, a car accident way off in Minnesota had taken both his parents from him. Peace. He could not believe how much he ached from the times peace had been replaced by tumult in his life.
     Jill. He’d met her his freshman year over spring break in Galveston. She’d been a fresh, vibrant sociable fireball of a girl. Her blond hair was straight and her blue eyes bright―and he’d loved that little birthmark at the base of her throat that seemed to tremble when she was excited. She’d often been excited―at football games, at parties, out late at night at beach parties and alone with him in his car. Those were the days. . . .
     Fun and youth and laughter. Going to Padre Island to look for shells, feed the sea gulls and watch the sun set on the dunes. Why did he feel so old and alone today? What was with him?
How he missed her. Jill. He sat staring at the brown liquid in his glass, moving it slightly to watch the waves swirl against the insides. He sipped again, letting the fiery liquid burn his throat as he slid deeper into reverie.
     Before Jill, there had only been one other love interest, a local girl, Elizabeth Casey. He had a huge crush on her, but he never knew if it was reciprocated. Sitting there in his lonely house, forty years heavy on his frame, he recalled those high school days. He remembered very well the long afternoons spent daydreaming that someday she would be his wife. Unfortunately, there was a significant block of his unexpressed ardor from the beginning.
      Liz Casey, one of the most beautiful young women in the county, had the most domineering father Bobby had ever met―maybe the most domineering man Bobby had ever known. How many times had the teenage Bobby driven to the end of the driveway leading to the lonely cliff-top home of the Caseys and turned back after sitting, staring, wishing for an hour or more? Bobby knew the number was not low. The young Bobby Knowles had never ventured anywhere close to the old mansion.
     To make things worse, the man Liz had married as the result of an arranged betrothal was not any kinder than her father to the way of thinking of the citizens of this fair town, Bobby among them. Straight out of high school, she was swept off to someplace off in the Eastern USA to be courted and married. The town had been abuzz with the news that Elizabeth had married one of her father’s old friends. Scandalous talk―rumors really, gossip shared quietly over the side fence for fear of repercussions―sizzled through the town's grapevine. Elizabeth’s father was not young when his daughter was born. Her mother had died in childbirth when her daughter was only ten years old. A housekeeper, Abigail Carlson, cared for the girl and her father, as old Naomi Carlson, her mother, had tended the Caseys before her.
     Many believed hers was an unhappy marriage, for Elizabeth rarely came into town in the months after she and her husband returned to her childhood home. However, they had seen her blossom with the birth of her own daughter. For a short time, she had come out of her shell and spent time in town, showing off her child and adorning her in lovely dresses made by the local seamstresses.
     Then, fifteen years ago, when her daughter was only six years old, tragedy had struck. Much to Bobby's horror, at midmorning of a windy, overcast fall day he was summoned to the cliff-side mansion. The girl's nanny was crying, almost incoherent in her worry. She haltingly reported that Elizabeth had disappeared. As they arrived, his men had spread across the land, working in a grid from the spot where they found her horse. An avid horsewoman, she always went for a morning run to exercise the restive Arabian mare, Katie.
     Her beloved bay mare grazed on a long line. The animal was still saddled, its bridle hanging from the pommel of the saddle, a rope attached to her halter, keeping her close for the rider who never returned.
According to Mrs. Carlson, Liz sometimes came here, to the highest point of land overlooking the sea, to sketch scenes of nature―she'd always had a natural ability. They found a sketch pad with a riding jacket folded beside it, but not Liz. Teams of Search and Rescue dogs and their owners, familiar with the rocky coastline, were called in at noon. The afternoon wore on. When darkness approached, a sense of desperation settled in until one of the men shouted. Then it was a deep sadness which intensified in the hearts of the searchers when they saw him pointing down toward the turbulent, rocky waters.
     Throughout the long day, Little Liza had refused to stay at the house, following the movement of the sheriff, as the others circled around him, watching from her seat on a big flat-topped rock. She was wrapped in a blanket the police had given her, but she would not give in to the exhaustion Bobby knew she felt.
     It appeared the rocks on the side of the cliff bore some blood, but the rain and the waves washed it away before anyone could crawl down to gather it for testing. What had caught the eye of the man was a flash of color―one of the bonnets Elizabeth always wore clung below them, against the stark gray cliff side. Its bright red ribbons fluttered sadly from a crevice. Perhaps it had flown there on a breeze as she fell―or jumped―to her death. A storm raged through the night and the evidence, what there was of it, had washed away.
     They spent a week searching for her, hoping against hope that the young mother would be found alive. After no additional evidence surfaced, Elizabeth Casey Skews was declared dead from accidental drowning. The conclusion the police and townspeople had drawn was that Elizabeth had slipped and fallen to her death. Wilton Skews and his daughter Liza continued living in the big manor house with only old Mrs. Carlson helping out as housekeeper. The nanny had been dismissed.
     Wilton remarried three years later. And only three months after the wedding, the now nine year old Liza had come home from school to discover Wilton's wife and two stepdaughters brutally murdered where they had picnicked atop the cliff overlooking the ocean. Although Lisa discovered the grisly triple homicide, she didn't witness it. The murders were still unresolved. Bobby still wondered about it―had it been a random event? The women's jewelry had been taken, but the house had not been broken into.          Back to The Eyes Have It