Hey, Midwinter/Hannukah/Diwali/Winterval/Solstice! It's also Blissemas so let's party!

...Says the bird with the big Cthulhu necklace. I am not entirely sure if the Old Ones go in for midwinter festivities, being not quite that much of a geek, but I'm happy with the general idea. What with it being (at least in the Northern hemisphere) a bit cold and damp and dreary right now, declaring time to party, put up lights, get pissed, Eat All The Things and cop a snog and a feel and a multiple orgasm if you're lucky, well, no problem with that.

So I'm absolutely loving being part of  Blissemas, which is a feast and festival of lighthearted enjoyable naughtiness that happens at this time of year. You can all join in and win stuff! All you have to do is leave a comment here or on any of the other Blissemas posts, and you might land yourself an eReader or a fat gift voucher: do pile in and have a go. Prizes are drawn on Dec 21, the solstice.

 In the pervading spirit of the event, I offer you all a free seasonal short story, originally put out independently a year or two back and featuring some of the characters from Black Heart in their slightly earlier days.

There is an appallingly complicated procedure by which I could apparently embed this, but for now, if you would like to read it, either comment on here with an email address or email me direct at decadentz@gmail.com and I'll send you the PDF. If the stropping at my technical incompetence reaches a high enough level, I'll just post the whole thing on Sat 21st. And you could hear me read a very short extract from this particular story at the Sh! event on Friday anyway.