#RomancingSeptember Days 10 and 11

Still going crazy around here, this time with Createspace issues, but trying my best to catch up. I certainly don’t want to forget about Rosie Amber & Stephanie Hurt, and their lovely September event. Day 10’s featured author is Lizzie Lamb, and Day 11’s is Adrienne Vaughan. (Don’t forget to check both blogs, as the questions are different.) And please remember to pay it forward! Thanks!

Rosie Amber: #RomancingSeptember Day 10 with Lizzie Lamb
Stephanie Hurt: #RomancingSeptember Day 10 with Lizzie Lamb

Rosie Amber: #RomancingSeptember Day 11 with Adrienne Vaughan
Stephanie Hurt: #RomancingSeptember Day 11 with Adrienne Vaughan

(Originally posted on The Write Stuff)

#RomancingSeptember Day 12

#RomancingSeptember is approaching mid-month, and going strong, with lots of wonderful authors giving us insight into what and how they write. Today’s featured author is Monica La Porta. Check out both of her interviews! And please share with all the usual suspects. 🙂

Rosie Amber: #RomancingSeptember Day 12 with Monica La Porta
Stephanie Hurt: #RomancingSeptember Day 12 with Monica La Porta

#RomancingSeptember Day 3

Hope you guys are enjoying meeting these authors as much as I am. Today’s #RomancingSeptember guest is #LindaLeeWilliams, and you can read her two interviews here:

Rosie Amber: #RomancingSeptember Day 3 – Old Town Nights

Stephanie Hurt: #RomancingSeptember Across the World – Day 3

Happy Reading, and don’t forget to share!

#RomancingSeptember Day 2

Today’s featured author is Helen Hollick. Another interesting interview, and plenty of info about historical fiction. Check it out, and please share both this post, and the posts on these two sites. Again, we’re Writers Helping Writers, and we will do the same for you. Happy reading!

Rosie Amber: #RomancingSeptember Day 2 – Helen Hollick

Stephanie Hurt: #RomancingSeptember Day 2 with Helen Hollick,

#RomancingSeptember with Rosie Amber & Stephanie Hurt

Today is September 1, and that means…tada!…#RomancingSeptember has begun. Thirty days, thirty authors featured on two different blogs, answering two different sets of questions. I have been invited to take part, and my post is scheduled for September 30. I hope you’ll all read it, but PLEASE don’t wait for me. There are some wonderful writers being featured (I’m so lucky to be in the mix!) and you’ll want to meet one each day.

I will be posting the links daily to both Rosie Amber’s blog and Stephanie Hurt’s blog, and you can check each of these authors out for yourself. I predict you’ll learn something from each one of them, find some new books to read, and have a lot of fun along the way.  (You’ll also find two new blogs to follow, as well.)

Today’s featured author is Melissa Foster. Here are the links to her posts:

Rosie Amber:  Romancing September Day 1 – Melissa Foster

Stephanie Hurt: Romancing September Across the World Day 1 – Melissa Foster

Hope you enjoy learning about Melissa Foster, and please remember to share these posts everywhere you can. Remember, it’s all about Writers Helping Writers, here.

Have a great day!

Excerpt From Wake-Robin Ridge

Available on Amazon in Kindle & Print Format

Thought I’d start the new year by sharing the occasional excerpt from my book, Wake-Robin Ridge, and possibly from the draft of my newest novel, Swamp Ghosts. So, here ya go. An excerpt from the Prologue of Wake-Robin Ridge. Enjoy!

~~~

..He found a spot behind some thick but low-growing bushes. It was a perfect place to hunker down and wait. In the gray light of early morning, he pulled out his favorite filleting knife and a small whetstone, spat on the stone, and began to slide the knife back and forth across the surface. Falling into a rhythm, eyes half closed, he continued to hone the knife, metal caressing stone again and again.

Summer Magic Has Gone Live!

Exciting news here today! My little volume of verse (also called a “chapbook”) has gone live on Amazon.com today. Wow. Two books live in less than a month and a half. I’m feeling pretty good right now, for sure. 

Summer Magic is a 44-page collection of seventeen poems. Part One of the book is called Mac At Ten, and features the main male character from my novel, Wake-Robin Ridge, as a little boy, camping in his beloved Blue Ridge Mountains, where he sees the magic in all that nature has to offer. From tales around the campfire to watching the sunrise, he knows instinctively that he is in a special place, and he throws himself into the pleasure of it all, with reckless abandon.

Part Two concerns itself with a variety of topics…whatever was on my mind on any given day, pretty much. Life, death, summer and autumn, betrayal and abiding love. 

I thought this little book would be the perfect opportunity to learn more about Kindle’s new Cover Creator, and I will be doing a post on that another day, as part of my series on self-publishing. I think it probably worked well enough for this project, but I’m not trading in my graphic designer yet, by any means.

Hope some of you will enjoy Summer Magic. I had a wonderful time writing it, and am already at work on another collection of poetry.

Summer Magic

The Second Time Around: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

In keeping with my plan to intersperse some older reviews of more “literary” works with my current reviews, which are often Urban Fantasy works, here is The Second Time Around #2. Enjoy!

My Rating:  5 of 5 Stars

Written in 1997, Cold Mountain remains one of my favorite books of all time.  A modern day classic set during the Civil War, it details the long journey home

The Second Time Around: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

NOTE: Lest new blog followers think I never review anything that doesn’t have a vampire or werewolf in it, I thought I would re-run a couple of older posts on books of other types. And never fear, I do plan to read newer books in different genres, too. There are several things in my To Be Read basket that are most assuredly not Urban Fantasy. But for now, I’m going to do a few “Second Time Around” posts, starting with my all-time favorite book by my all-time favorite author. Enjoy!!

MY RATING: 5 of 5 Stars

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”

So opens one of the great romantic mysteries of all time, written by my very favorite author,

Vampire Smut

I have a friend who calls all Paranormal Romance “Vampire Smut,” whether it has blood suckers in it or not. If it has some element of the supernatural and more than a casual mention of sex, to her, it’s Vampire Smut. Ever read any? You know the books I mean. The covers usually feature some hot, sexy, bare-chested guy 

The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars and  A Lot of Romantic Swooning

Let me get it out of the way up front: This series made me “squeeeeeeeeee” like a fifteen-year old fangirl! I admit it. I’m a hopeless romantic, and a growing fan of steampunk, and the series worked for me on every level. It was crazy good, for what it is. Is it “Great Literature?” Probably not. Do I care? Definitely not. Why? Because I was pulled into the world from the very first book, Clockwork Angel, and wasn’t sent back to the merely mundane (pun intended) world until the last page of the last book, Clockwork Princess. And  frankly, I really didn’t want to return to reality at all. I wanted the story to go on and on and on, kinda like the theme song from Titanic!

Just Thinkin’….

I realized after reading a comment the other day that I haven’t reviewed a non-urban fantasy book in quite some time. Now this doesn’t bother me overly much, as I’m very fond of good urban fantasy and have been in that frame of mind for a couple of years. However, I certainly

A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book 1

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

I don’t know what to say about this book, except that it wins my award for the most wonderful surprise of the past year, perhaps.  I really don’t know if I can do A Hidden Fire justice in a review. It’s that good.

Quote #71 – Anonymous Valentine For You

Please tell if you’ve a loving heart,
For I have come to query,
Ere have I searched both far and wide,
And be both sore and weary.

Do tell if you’ve a loving heart,
For I have come to query,
Give me your heart and be my love,
And I will be your dearie.

–Anonymous

NOTE: I copied this little ditty from a greeting card over forty years ago.  I have no idea who the original author was…possibly a Hallmark poet in some unmarked cubicle somewhere.  But I have always loved it, for some reason. And thus, I send it to all of you tonight (even though it’s a wee bit late) with my heartfelt wishes for a Happy Valentine’s Day.

Quote #70 – Rita Rudner

“I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don’t know. I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does. Sometimes I see a really great outfit, I’ll break up with someone on purpose.”

–Rita Rudner

NOTE: I guess this isn’t really very romantic, but it deals with relationships, and it struck me as funny, so here it is, for what it’s worth.

😀

Quote #69 – Rita Rudner

“Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love.
I’d stepped in it a few times…”

–Rita Rudner

NOTE:  Just one more way of looking at love for you…..

Quote #68 – Marisa de los Santos

“There’s a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don’t receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving.”

–Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In

Poem of the Day by Sara Teasdale

The Look

* Sara Teasdale *

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.

Poem of the Day by Dorothy Parker

Unfortunate Coincidence

* Dorothy Parker *

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying,
Lady, make note of this–
One of you is lying.

*

NOTE: Another bit of wry humor from Dorothy Parker, and in keeping with my affairs of the heart theme for this month.

Poem of the Day by Ogden Nash

A Word To Husbands

* Ogden Nash *

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it,
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

NOTE:  Just a wee bit of Wednesday morning humor, in keeping with the theme of the approach of Valentine’s Day!

Poem of the Day by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How Do I Love Thee

* Elizabeth Barrett Browning *

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

NOTE: With Valentine’s Day (and coincidentally, my wedding anniversary) fast approaching, I thought maybe some poems of love would not go amiss.  And of course, when thinking of poems of love, How Do I Love Thee must surely be among the first to come to mind.  Enjoy!

Dangerous Talents by Frankie Robertson

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

My last post dealt with authors who blog on WordPress, especially self-published authors who may not have become household names yet. (Though, of course, we know they ALL will get there someday, right?)  Frankie Robertson isn’t a beginner, by any means, but I don’t think I would have discovered her books if I had not found her on WordPress,

Do You Read WordPress Authors?

I find myself constantly surprised at the number of writers with WordPress blogs, ranging from beginners to very experienced and well-known authors, whose names you would probably recognize immediately.  I have been trying to research

Steel’s Edge by Ilona Andrews

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

I have often said that the husband and wife team of Ilona Andrews simply can’t  write a bad book–just varying degrees of good ones.  There was nothing in Steel’s Edge to change my mind about this.  The only thing about it I didn’t enjoy

Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich

My Rating: 3-1/2 of 5 Stars

Let me say right up front: this book is not serious literature. It isn’t to be compared to the “Great Works” of any literary genius I’m aware of. I didn’t learn a single thing about improving myself or making the problems of the world go away. Nor did I add any new