‘I could almost feel the kiss of the muzzle against my temple, the thrill of cold steel. They would kill me, if they knew, without a second thought.’
An extraordinary agent find a kindred spirit at Chez Romy Haag, during the age of Bowie and the Cold War. It’s easier to slip free of the flesh than the ties of love that bind them, but is it possible to escape the sinister spymaster, Maxim?
Show notes:
Lady Grinning Soul was originally published in the Burdizzo Mix Tape Vol. 1, published by Burdizzo Books. We hope you enjoy it.
Laura Mauro is a PhD student and writer of weird fiction. Her short story ‘Looking for Laika’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2018, and ‘Sun Dogs’ was shortlisted for the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award in the Novelette category. Her debut collection, ‘Sing Your Sadness Deep’ won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Collection, and her short story ‘The Pain-Eater’s Daughter’ won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. She blogs sporadically at lauramauro.com and can be found all over social media.
The future:
Lady Grinning Soul is my tenth audio piece as ‘Fine-toothed Comb Productions’, and I’m very proud of it. I will be adding Narration and Audio Editing to the available Services here at The Fine-toothed Comb in 2022, along with Testimonials from all these wonderful authors.
My plan is to release one new recording each month up to Jan 2022. I have a story pencilled in for December, leaving just one more free space for January. If you have a tale you’d like me to narrate (between 4000 and 6000 words long) then please do drop me a line. All I ask is the flexibility to edit slightly for my ease of performance, and to be able to freely host the audio file on my website. You’ll get a copy of the file to host/use as you wish one month after release. I make no money from this run of test-pieces, but please do check with your publisher before volunteering; I don’t want to fall foul of any legal disputes.
Sound design and attribution:
Intro and Outro music are used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.
My regular Intro music is called The Fifth Life, by Circus Marcus.
My regular Outro music is called Post Bellum, by Dee Yan-Key.
This month I also used additional music for the scene at Chez Romy Haag. That snatch is from The Sting, by Erich Schall, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
All this music and more can be found at freemusicarchive.org
Meanwhile, the various sound effects used come from freesound.org under the usual Attribution NonCommercial License. Those effects this week are as follows:
Striking a match, by Henrythetrain
Crackling campfire, by tim.kahn
Pouring drink into glass, by speedygonzo
Static noise, by ohrpilot
Kirkenes Main Street, by makarius79
British telephone, by inchadney
Raising phone handset, by joedeshon
Lake shore waves, by juskiddink
Further Reading:
If you enjoyed Kabaret und Gläs, you may enjoy my other performed readings – available for free on my Audio page.
If you would like me to record some of your work, talk to me via my Contact page.
If you’re a podcaster who wants help editing the audio, I’d be happy to discuss rates and work out a schedule.