Free stories on Christmas? Yes, please. While the only book I've had the opportunity to cuddle up with today features more talking animals than I care for, for you I have something completely different. My distrust of talking animals is another blog alltogether. The Two Sisters is an itty bitty companion piece to The Hidden Icon, and it is, I hope, a treat for folks who've already read the novel and those who haven't yet. It's relatively spoiler-free - if you've read the back cover you're safe, seriously - and offers a vignette-like introduction to two of the novel's main characters. Step (just a little) outside the narrative of The Hidden Icon for a story within a story, a tale of sisters in spirit and flesh, of haunts and unexpected sacrifices.

I wasted I don't want to tell you how much time formatting it for the Kindle, only to find I can't offer it for free in that format, so, I've only got a .pdf for you. You can download it here. The .pdf also includes the first two chapters of The Hidden Icon because, as my most excellent publisher recommended, why not? If you spend half as much time salivating over the cover as I did - Mara Stokke does absolutely beautiful work - and maybe half as much time over again reading, I'll consider this venture a win.

Enjoy and happiest of holidays!