Melody Writes

Title: Daughters of the Blue Moon Author: Millie Abecassis Daughters of the Blue Moon by Millie Abecassis is a unique spin on the classic Little Red Riding Hood tale. Carmine, our Little Red, is a seasoned huntress of wolves, protected by magical tattoos painted on her skin by her loving grandmother after a close call with the Big Bad Wolf. Under the tutelage of her husband, our Woodcutter, she has learned to track and kill wolves with the best of them, but one night she has an even closer call with a she-wolf that disrupts her grandmother’s magic and Carmine’s entire life. Damaging the spell reveals that there is more to the magic, and herself, than Carmine was led to believe, and she embarks on a dangerous journey of self-discovery. Little Red Riding Hood has many themes, including growing up and learning who to trust. Little Red foolishly trusts the wolf, and misses all the red flags when he is disguised as her grandmother. Similarly, Carmine has been too trusting of the wrong peop...

This is my third time reading Pelayo’s work, and the first time I’ve been disappointed. Children of Chicago was a dark, masterful retelling of the Pied Piper, and The Shoemaker’s Magician is another unsettling tale based on the urban legend of a lost movie and Greek mythology. Forgotten Sisters, drew me in with the promise of a ghostly retelling of The Little Mermaid, and it sort of is.  This book, like Pelayo’s other Chicago stories, does not follow the plot of the original tale beat for beat. Instead, she pulls characters and themes from the story and fits them to her own story. Anna, the main character, has an obsession with the tale of the Little Mermaid and identifies heavily with Ariel. She lives in her family home with her sister, Jennie. Their parents drowned in the nearby Chicago River, leaving the two girls adrift in their grief. Because of her trauma, and Jennie’s complicated moods, Anna cannot leave her home and feels trapped there, much like Ariel did. Both long for lo...

  Happy Launch Day to my debut collection - Thin Slices: A Collection of Horror Flash Fiction It is not available in e-book, paperback, and on Kindle Unlimited (for the next 3 months)! Description: Welcome to Thin Slices , the debut collection from Melody E. McIntyre, writer of short, dark fiction. With over 90 stories, all less than 1000 words apiece, this little book is bursting with scares. Melody drew her inspiration from history, mythology, science fiction, monsters, ghosts, and secret places only accessible by night. These stories may be tiny, but the terrors they invoke are anything but.   I am so proud of this collection. The 92 stories in here were written over a period of four years and published with a variety of small publishers. Previous blog posts about my self-publishing journey as well as sample stories can be found here . Some of these stories are personal, some are inspired by mythology and other interests, some were written for specific projects. And al...

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Happy New Year! Every January I like to make resolutions/goals for the upcoming year. There are people that will tell you that new years resolutions are stupid or just get broken, but I think that's because people either make unrealistic goals, give up too easily, or fail to adjust throughout the year as needed. A year is a long time and a lot can happen. I will often reevaluate my goals throughout the year to see how things are going and if I need to make some changes.  In 2024, I achieved a good portion of my goals. I met my financial goals, fell a bit short on writing goals, and did not keep up the exercise routine I started. Some may point to this and say "see? failure", but I don't see it that way. In the late summer and fall, I had some health issues that I am still recovering from that derailed my progress, which is something beyond my control. As well, one of my goals was to reach 500 Twitter followers, but instead I ...