Subordinate Clauses: Olympia Investigations, #4.5

By Sherry D. Ramsey

Acacia Sheridan is a private detective with a special gift for communicating with the supernatural. When a clutch of elves hire Acacia to investigate a plot against Santa Claus and an elf kidnapping, she has only her supernatural detection abilities to guide her in the right direction. As the days count down and the presents pile up, will Acacia and Oliver be able to find the perpetrator, rescue the elves, and save Christmas?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sherry D. Ramsey
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781999575694

Sherry D. Ramsey

Sherry D. Ramsey is a speculative fiction writer, editor, publisher, creativity addict and self-confessed internet geek. When she's not writing, she makes jewelry, gardens, hones her creative procrastination skills on social media, and consumes far more coffee and chocolate than is likely good for her.Her debut novel, One's Aspect to the Sun, was published by Tyche Books in late 2013 and was awarded the Book Publishers of Alberta "Book of the Year" Award for Speculative Fiction. The sequel, Dark Beneath the Moon, is due out from Tyche in 2015. Her other books include To Unimagined Shores—Collected Stories. With her partners at Third Person Press (http://www.thirdpersonpress.com), she has co-edited five anthologies of regional short fiction to date. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies in North America and beyond. Every November she disappears into the strange realm of National Novel Writing Month and emerges gasping at the end, clutching something resembling a novel.A member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia Writer’s Council, Sherry is also a past Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer of SF Canada, Canada's national association for Speculative Fiction Professionals.You can visit Sherry online www.sherrydramsey.com, find her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter @sdramsey.

Book preview

Subordinate Clauses

An Olympia Investigations Christmas Story

by

Sherry D. Ramsey

Copyright © Sherry D. Ramsey 2018

Cover Artwork © Sherry D. Ramsey 2023 (created in Midjourney by Sherry D. Ramsey; Rune brush by Obsidian Dawn)

Christmas Tree Icon by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

All rights reserved. The author retains all copyright in the content of this book.

No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the author.

This book contains a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, entities or settings is unintentional, coincidental, or entirely attributable to the whimsy of the multiverse and fluctuations in the space-time continuum.

Ramsey, Sherry D., 1963-, author

Subordinate Clauses: An Olympia Investigations Christmas Story / Sherry D. Ramsey

Email: [e-mail]

Web: www.sherrydramsey.com

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

Subordinate Clauses: An Olympia Investigations Christmas Story

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-9995756-9-4

Love science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, mysteries, and weird genre mashups? Sign up for my monthly newsletter to receive a free book, and get all the latest news on releases, giveaways, contests, and more!

It was half-past noon on a blustery day two weeks before Christmas, and my good friend Caroline Lewis and I toasted each other across the coffee shop table with matching mugs of steaming coffee.

Here’s to us! Caro said, clinking her mug against mine without spilling a drop of the precious contents. We are victorious!

And unscathed, I added. Although I thought that woman was ready to take you down for the last jar of Vanilla Snowmelt Body Scrub.

Caro shrugged and sipped her coffee. My mother will be just as happy with a Sugarmint Cookie Triple-Wick Candle. I could afford to be magnanimous.

I nodded. The main thing is, we are—

Finished—

Christmas shopping! we said together, grinning madly at each other. Never in the history of our friendship, which meant seven or eight years, had we both managed to complete our holiday shopping missions this early in the month. Coffee and two luscious eclairs seemed an appropriate reward.

I was savouring the first bite of mine when the elf stepped up next to the table. Acacia Sheridan? he asked in a surprisingly deep, raspy, smoker’s voice, and I almost choked on the whipped cream and chocolate confectionery.

Are you all right? Caro asked with concern. Make the sign for choking if you need the Heimlich maneuver. She demonstrated, putting her own hands to her throat, and half-stood from her seat, but I managed to wave her back to a sitting position as I coughed. Caro was the local Medical Examiner and I knew she could perform the procedure perfectly well, but I just needed a minute to catch my breath.

Sorry, the elf rasped. I didn’t mean to startle you.

Caro watched me closely, and ignored the elf completely. That would be difficult to do, even if your best friend might be choking to death across