Hyacinth Grey. Indie Author. I write fiction.

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Books. Fiction. Some free, some not. | Writing advice. | Haiku.

Books

Testimony of Outlaws

book cover image of Testimony of Outlaws by Hyacinth Grey

Testimony of Outlaws

Haiku poetry. A new story about Christmas. All for 99 cents.

Wounded Bride

book cover image of Wounded Bride by Hyacinth Grey
First in a series of hard-boiled detective novels. Press enter on the picture description or click on the cover image to visit the Wounded Bride page to learn more and purchase.

About the Book

The city of Chicago is relentless. Murders and other violent crimes pile up: a woman lies in the hospital in a coma, a man is brutally attacked in his sleep, and a child suffers.

Detective Maria Mateo is new to the Chicago Police Department, but she’s not soft. In spite of her strength, every case that arises brings troubling memories of her past and fear that her deepest secret will be revealed and threaten everything she’s worked for.

When her captain discovers she’s having difficulty with her health, she faces the possibility of losing her badge for good. Mateo struggles to keep her personal baggage out of her work, but when a woman is almost smothered, the investigation leads Mateo to help someone she never thought she’d see again.

Read an interview with fictional Detective Maria Mateo.

Our Place: Monica and Brad Start School

book cover of Our Place: Monica and Brad Start School by Hyacinth Grey with text shown in both braille and print
Coming soon! Children’s book written with my husband, Michael. I tell a story and he writes about braille. Press enter on the picture description or click on the cover image to visit Hyacinth Grey’s Books for Young Readers (hgb4yr.com).

Free Fiction

Woman in Gray Sweater Using MacBook Air
I write mostly on a PC but like this picture.

It’s all yours!
Please download, share in any format, and print. All that I ask is that you include a link to this website and don’t rewrite, change, sell, or repost my work (links and short excerpts of a few lines with links are nice.)

The Dark Tide – revised version available NOW for free!

book cover image of The Dark Tide by Hyacinth Grey

The Dark Tide, a short piece of fantasy fiction, has been published with Smashwords, as a blog post on this website, and also a podcast episode on Anchor.

The Dark Tide

Billy

Billy is a young man whose stories I love to tell.

2020 NaNoWriMo Romance Novel

Time Gone By – story in progress

book cover image of Time Gone By by Hyacinth Grey

Science fiction. Time travel. Four children and their grandmother trying to prevent a second civil war.

Time Gone By

The Christmas Room

This is contemporary fiction, and the story has two endings.

The Christmas Room – blog post with link to podcast episode

The Basket – story in progress

I started writing a story for Easter 2021, intending to tell it all in two parts, but the story’s turning out to be longer.

The Basket

Ruth – story in progress

Ruth started by accident. I needed some sample dialog for a post about writing, and ended up with a story.

Ruth

The Choice

The Choice was my first piece of free fiction. It was posted in six very short parts in April 2020, and those are still way back in the archives, but I link only the full story here.
The Choice – blog post
The Choice – podcast episode

In Life – story in progress

Sci-Fi Fantasy. A young woman who has lost everyone she loves. A new world for her to discover. Will she find friendship and love, or will she encounter only misery, horror, and brutality?

  • Update about In Life
  • Until it’s published for free on Smashwords, the first fifteen parts of In Life are still available to read on the In Life page.

Random Writing Advice Post

Writing: endings and beginnings

With the year 2020 about to become the year 2021, I’m starting to think about finishing up old projects and starting new ones. That goes for all kinds of projects, from cleaning the house to trying new foods, but since this website is mostly about writing, I’d like to talk about the beginning and the ending of a story. If you’re like me, both the first sentence and the last part of a story are the hardest, but for different reasons. Beginnings. Every time I revise, I notice how the first part of my story feels different from later parts of it. This is because I am a Pantser, but also because I don’t know the characters as well when I’m just starting to tell their stories. I think that the most effective way to deal with this is to write and then to revise. If you wait to get to know your story well enough to start it, you may never type the first sentence, let alone the last paragraph. When you revise, your characters will touch your story in ways they can’t do when you’re caught up in the writing moment. You will be able to correct sentences that don’t make sense to them, add things you didn’t know when you started, and smooth out inconsistencies in all aspects of your work. Endings. The end of a story should be easy. You know the characters inside-out by now, and all you have to do is wrap things up, save your file or close your binder, and then go celebrate. However, it’s not aways simple. To find out one of the reasons why it might not be as easy to write an ending as it seems, please refer to this post.

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