Tilly Greene's Blog, page 47
January 13, 2011
Picture Worth a 1000 Words
This is Lily, my sister and BIL's second eldest daughter's pug, who is actually theirs to spoil. She's on my mind because this is a recent pic of her from my sister and I set it up to visually remind me of today's dental appointment - a picture is worth a thousand words.Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 12, 2011
Hump Day Reflections
I'm finishing off Missing where the hero is a pro-surfer who retired after a shark attack and possesses some rather unique tattoos. He has a wicked bad boy reputation who was caught by the press in a few naughty interludes. While those happened in the past, everyone knows him to be the same person he was before, a down-to-earth guy who happens to really enjoy sex. However, time has moved on, and the sex is best with the heroine who inadvertently turns his world upside down with a phone call.This photo of Adam Levine of Maroon 5 by Ben Riggott [found on Homotography but featured in the UK's Cosmopolitan] reminded me of my guy.
As for the heroine, she's has no match, really, but if I had to try and find one it would sort of be Martha Stewart + Pink + Heather Locklear + a dash more of individuality. Told you, not really like anyone else, but she is the perfect match for the hero.
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 11, 2011
AAD Philly Panel News
I'll be attending Authors After Dark 2011 which will be in Philadelphia this August and the panels have just been released.
So exciting!
You can see them here, but I'll share with you here the one's I'll be sitting on:
Myths and Magic, Sexy Shifters, BDSM panel, Menage and More, and last but not least When the details are just as important as the Story: Food and Clothing in Romance
Aren't they great? And these are just the ones I'm sitting on, there are many others I can't wait to be in the auidence for, which, I have to say, is why this is a fabulous conference to attend. Besides being a not for profit conference [and on that actively tries to raise money for specific charities], AAD actually understands that everyone is a reader at heart, and we want to know everything there is to know about the books/ebooks we love!
Enough, if you haven't signed up yet, you still can here, and I look forward to meeting you in person.
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 10, 2011
Naughty Thought for Monday
These underwear for men are from Andrew Christian and they're called Shock Jock Flirt Boxers w/Male Features. To quote from the site:"The Shock Jock Flirt Boxer features an Active Shaping Technology Cup with authentic male features for a completely natural look."
There you have it, underwear or do these offer more than you want to know?
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 7, 2011
A Bit of the Greene Holidays: Pub Stuff
Time to pull a few bits and pieces I've posted this week together.
We landed in London and had a day, one day, to get a few things done and we kind of did them all. One thing was to visit the Cabinet War Rooms, another was to enjoy some Crispy Duck, and the third thing we wanted to do was see a friend. There were others, but with it snowing and us getting into vacation mode, we cut it down to these three things.
What we hadn't thought to do in the snow is a pub crawl, but that is exactly what ended up happening.
After the museum we dashed to Liverpool Street station to meet our friend at a local pub once he finished with work. It was a nice pub, but packed, so we moved on to another which was again, okay, but had no personality, and so moved to a third. This is where we decided to have one and do a crawl to Chinatown. Let me remind you, it's snowing, maybe mid-20's/F, and we haven't eaten all day.
The next pub found us in the Smithfield section of London with it's longstanding market, which was closed, but still some of the best pubs we've ever visited in the city. Where we went to next was my favorite pub of the night, Cittie of Yorke, and also happens to be where the last picture I took on the crawl was taken. Somehow the camera was put onto panaromic and ended up with one picture showing the pub sign and front so we can find it again and the third [right] is we think the street, sideways, and have know idea why this was taken.
Okay, moving on from there we visited two more historic pubs, and then to Chinatown for Crispy Duck. Unfortunately, we didn't check our watches, and after eating discovered the tubes had stopped [12:30am] and so we walked. First to Russell Square [our hotel] and then our friend went on to the train station where he picked up a train for home. After an hour ride and thirty minute walk, he made it home, and slept for three hours - had to be at work early the next morning, we merely took the train north and beat the blizzard [relative really because it was maybe 5" in the city] that had been building since we arrived.
Told you the pub crawl could be fun, but also very bad.
There you go, a very small snippet of our time in England for Christmas :-)
We landed in London and had a day, one day, to get a few things done and we kind of did them all. One thing was to visit the Cabinet War Rooms, another was to enjoy some Crispy Duck, and the third thing we wanted to do was see a friend. There were others, but with it snowing and us getting into vacation mode, we cut it down to these three things.
What we hadn't thought to do in the snow is a pub crawl, but that is exactly what ended up happening.
After the museum we dashed to Liverpool Street station to meet our friend at a local pub once he finished with work. It was a nice pub, but packed, so we moved on to another which was again, okay, but had no personality, and so moved to a third. This is where we decided to have one and do a crawl to Chinatown. Let me remind you, it's snowing, maybe mid-20's/F, and we haven't eaten all day.
The next pub found us in the Smithfield section of London with it's longstanding market, which was closed, but still some of the best pubs we've ever visited in the city. Where we went to next was my favorite pub of the night, Cittie of Yorke, and also happens to be where the last picture I took on the crawl was taken. Somehow the camera was put onto panaromic and ended up with one picture showing the pub sign and front so we can find it again and the third [right] is we think the street, sideways, and have know idea why this was taken.
Okay, moving on from there we visited two more historic pubs, and then to Chinatown for Crispy Duck. Unfortunately, we didn't check our watches, and after eating discovered the tubes had stopped [12:30am] and so we walked. First to Russell Square [our hotel] and then our friend went on to the train station where he picked up a train for home. After an hour ride and thirty minute walk, he made it home, and slept for three hours - had to be at work early the next morning, we merely took the train north and beat the blizzard [relative really because it was maybe 5" in the city] that had been building since we arrived.
Told you the pub crawl could be fun, but also very bad.
There you go, a very small snippet of our time in England for Christmas :-)
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 6, 2011
A Bit of the Greene Holidays: TV Stuff
Oz [Clarke] and Hugh [Dennis] are two guys we enjoyed last Christmas and so when we noticed they had a show on again this year, we made time to watch it. The first series was 'Drink to Christmas' and this year it's 'Raise the Bar'. The fun part of not knowing what going to happen is that we enjoyed it even more when they did the Otley Run pub crawl and visited some of our old university haunts in Leeds. I'm not sure if you can watch the show here, but if you can, enjoy! Oh, and yes, Leeds was the city Ann and Tom visited in My Angel .
There's lots of Agatha Christie repeats, however, this time there was not only a new David Suchet as Hercule Poirot doing 'Death on the Orient Express'. It was great, stayed true to the story - at least as far as I remember it. 'Suchet on the Orient Express' was also good, there were many interesting bits about the notorious train that were shared, and I would love to take that ride! Two shows over a couple days, fantastic! Now, because it came to mind, I thought I'd remind you all that Michael Hoeye's Hermux Tantamoq [a Hercule Poirot of the animal world] trilogy is wonderful, and both you and your young reader will enjoy. Love those books!
A few others I caught were 'Upstairs, Downstairs' was a popular series from the 70's [I never saw any episodes when it did play on public tv in the US] and they've revamped it. We also watched 'Countryfile Winter Special' in the Outer Hebrides and want to go up there for a visit! Others we caught were Top Gear, Have I Got News For You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and Rebus - yes, that would be Ian Rankin's Rebus!And as for that most important show of all - the Queen's Speech - we missed it. The kids were playing on the Xbox instead - oops - but it was on the importance of sport. So go out and be sporting :-)
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 5, 2011
A Bit of the Greene Holidays: Food Stuff
This is one of a few must have's whenever we make it back to England and have time to stop in London. It's crispy duck and something we share.
We generally choose a restaurant in Chinatown that has a duck hanging in the window, gruesome, I know, but it's a part of this area. There's only one restaurant we've been to more than once and that wasn't because it was the best, we were just hungry, and knew we could get served fairly quickly. This place was picked because it just so happened to be opened at midnight, although I suggest you do wherever the toursits aren't :-). Anyway, we lucked out, the one we chose had some duck still in.
So, to the picture I took above. That's a steaming pancake with plum sauce smeared around, a bit of crispy duck piled on and followed by thin strips of both cucumber and scallions. Once everything is there, you roll it up, and chow down on the goodness, Within seconds it's time to prepare another. While this is served as a starter, in general we each get 4 pancakes, and that's a favorite dinner of ours to partake.
In short, if you make it to London, go to Chinatown [behind Leicester Square, which is a few short steps from Trafalgar Square] and enjoy the shops, but also indulge yourself with some crispy duck :-)
Something else we usually have is fish and chips or, in my case, deep fried sausage and chips with scraps. The latter is the bits of fried batter that fall off in the fryer and are collected to sprinkle on top of an order upon request. Our lady gave me a huge portion of chips and loads of scraps - we were talking about the lack of fish and chip places in America.There is nothing remotely good for you with this take away, but the fish and chips is something the cutie misses and since I don't eat fish, I get a friend sausage. Now, I admit it, the scraps bit is probably the worst bit, however, they are so very good, we remind ourselves it's a vacation and no one eats properly on vacation! On top of all this and can't be seen is salt and vinegar. Yummy! I guess I should also explain that if you happen to order fish and chips in a restaurant [there are loads of places that you order take away on one side and sit down to eat properly on the other] you might, particularly if you're the cutie, order mushy peas. I personally like my peas firm, but these are so beloved you can buy them by the tin in America [Batchelors is the best brand according to an expert I know :-)] at Amazon or your supermarket.
Since it was Christmas, I'll tell you all about what was on our plates, actually the cutie's plate because mine didn't have everything on it. So, let's start at the 12 o'clock position [and go clockwise] with mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey with cranberry sauce, sausage wrapped in bacon, sprouts with bacon and walnuts [there were also sprouts with nothing on them], and finally roasted parsnips. I know the cutie had carrots, although they can't be seen in the pic. Of course we did the cracker thing [pulled with resulting cracks, hats put on, jokes shared and toys played with, and then we dug in]. We were crowded at the table which always makes it fun to pass the gravy while not spilling it into the wine.Of course there was much more than this, but I don't want to bore you, so I'll leave you here to go plan a meal where scraps can join the party :-)
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 4, 2011
A Bit of the Greene Holidays: Book Stuff
I write erotic romances and read them, so when I go into a bookstore - okay, any store that sells books - I check out the romance section to see if there's anything I want to read or to see which ones they have.
Knowing this about me, you won't be surprised I made time for a personal trip to Waterstones [the big chain bookstore in England], and thought I'd share what I found: not much for a large store!
One and a half columns - a bit of erotic fiction and classics shared the other half - of just a few authors. Nora Roberts had the most space, she starts on the second from the bottom on the left through three shelves on the right. Now, to give Waterstone's a little less grief on the romance selection, they do have a section for "Dark Romances" over by the Sci-fi/Fantasy section - it was pushed by Christmas around the corner to kick off the Teen Section - oops. Oh, and they did have four or five ereaders at the front of the shop.
End result, if you like Elizabeth Chadwick, Georgette Heyer or Nora Roberts, you have copious choices, otherwise you're pretty much out of luck.
But wait, there's books in ASDA [I think they're now owned by Walmart], so here's their romance section.
Don't recognize any of the bottom shelf books? But they're part from a huge publisher, visibly known around the world. They're Harlequin! Mills & Boon! Fab and seriously hot covers, hence they won't be at eye level, you'll have to look for them.
However, this doesn't mean I'm returning with no books, that just doesn't happen - despite the lack of options :-)
Knowing this about me, you won't be surprised I made time for a personal trip to Waterstones [the big chain bookstore in England], and thought I'd share what I found: not much for a large store!
One and a half columns - a bit of erotic fiction and classics shared the other half - of just a few authors. Nora Roberts had the most space, she starts on the second from the bottom on the left through three shelves on the right. Now, to give Waterstone's a little less grief on the romance selection, they do have a section for "Dark Romances" over by the Sci-fi/Fantasy section - it was pushed by Christmas around the corner to kick off the Teen Section - oops. Oh, and they did have four or five ereaders at the front of the shop.
End result, if you like Elizabeth Chadwick, Georgette Heyer or Nora Roberts, you have copious choices, otherwise you're pretty much out of luck.
But wait, there's books in ASDA [I think they're now owned by Walmart], so here's their romance section.
Don't recognize any of the bottom shelf books? But they're part from a huge publisher, visibly known around the world. They're Harlequin! Mills & Boon! Fab and seriously hot covers, hence they won't be at eye level, you'll have to look for them.
However, this doesn't mean I'm returning with no books, that just doesn't happen - despite the lack of options :-)
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 3, 2011
A Bit of the Greene Holidays: Museum Stuff
Okay, so you've been following my tweets, you'll know I've spent the past few weeks in England and thought I'd share a bit of the Greene Holidays with you here.
So, today. let me tell you about our visit to the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. You can go at anytime or schedule an a time and you'll want more time there than you think you will. This entrance [no my picture, it was snowing and we dashed in, so borrowed this one from Sabrina's London Diaries] can be seen if you're walking from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square [The Mall], although the road above is steps from 10 Downing Street.
Now, even though we were there for two hours, we both agreed we hadn't been there long enough. The shop isn't huge, but I saw so many things I wanted to bring back, and ended up with none - had to think of luggage space and Christmas - although I will be shopping online :-)
The Churchill Museum is attached, seamless entrance, and has one of the most technically advanced timeline displays we've ever seen. Read up on it before visiting so you can take advantage of all it offers.
Okay, enough of that, time for the exhibit itself. The walking wand commentary is a must use as it gives all sorts of interesting tidbits. For instance, I now know quite a few of the secretaries [women] were amongst those who slept below the Cabinet War Rooms, and often were caught in their jamma's walking past gorgeous military men in uniform on their way to the toilets. There were no private facilities either. Also, did you know that when the women married, they were no longer able to work down there? I didn't! Anyway, the track through the CWR puts WWII in a different light for me.
You get a close up view of the maps they used to conduct a war and it often looks like the old road maps we saw our parents and grandparents use. The most fascinating map had to be the one showing how Europe was carved up after it all ended. Yes, very interesting, especially considering how those general lines with a pen affected actual people.
From the very serious to the surreal.
Sir Winston Churchill, whose mother was an American, slept below ground in the CWR [reinforced against bombs - hopefully] three times and wore a velour romper [an Austin Reed "Siren Suit"] during the air raids for comfort. That's right, the leader of Great Britain during WWII wore a one piece velour romper. I could swear the one we saw was a claret color, but I didn't get a good picture.
So, which do you like better: Siren Suit or Romper?
So, today. let me tell you about our visit to the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. You can go at anytime or schedule an a time and you'll want more time there than you think you will. This entrance [no my picture, it was snowing and we dashed in, so borrowed this one from Sabrina's London Diaries] can be seen if you're walking from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square [The Mall], although the road above is steps from 10 Downing Street.
Now, even though we were there for two hours, we both agreed we hadn't been there long enough. The shop isn't huge, but I saw so many things I wanted to bring back, and ended up with none - had to think of luggage space and Christmas - although I will be shopping online :-)The Churchill Museum is attached, seamless entrance, and has one of the most technically advanced timeline displays we've ever seen. Read up on it before visiting so you can take advantage of all it offers.
Okay, enough of that, time for the exhibit itself. The walking wand commentary is a must use as it gives all sorts of interesting tidbits. For instance, I now know quite a few of the secretaries [women] were amongst those who slept below the Cabinet War Rooms, and often were caught in their jamma's walking past gorgeous military men in uniform on their way to the toilets. There were no private facilities either. Also, did you know that when the women married, they were no longer able to work down there? I didn't! Anyway, the track through the CWR puts WWII in a different light for me.
You get a close up view of the maps they used to conduct a war and it often looks like the old road maps we saw our parents and grandparents use. The most fascinating map had to be the one showing how Europe was carved up after it all ended. Yes, very interesting, especially considering how those general lines with a pen affected actual people.
From the very serious to the surreal.
Sir Winston Churchill, whose mother was an American, slept below ground in the CWR [reinforced against bombs - hopefully] three times and wore a velour romper [an Austin Reed "Siren Suit"] during the air raids for comfort. That's right, the leader of Great Britain during WWII wore a one piece velour romper. I could swear the one we saw was a claret color, but I didn't get a good picture.So, which do you like better: Siren Suit or Romper?
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
January 1, 2011
Hello 2011!
I'm choosing to greet the new year by sharing with you a few pics from a fabulous calendar and it just so happens to embrace two of my personal favorites - fashion and Ancient Greek Mythology!The Pirelli Calendar was shot by Karl Lagerfeld, fashion icon, and he just so happened to have done a wonderful job. To make the calendar even better, Lagerfeld focused the monthly pictures on and around Greek Mythology!
Now that is beyond words for me to express how exciting it would be to own this calendar. I can't, but I can share a couple pics with you that I found at WWD, and we can all bask in the glory that will be 2011.
I suppose you want to know who that is [to the right] playing Apollo. He's a Frenchman, model named Baptiste Giabiconi and I think this is a pretty fabulous picture of him. Oh, and the codpiece, well, yeah, it's also spectacular!
You can read more about the shoot, brrr, and check out more of the pics, they are so cool.And, with my love for the Ancient Greeks in mind, I'll share something else with you. I'm in the midst of finishing my 5th tale in the Mythological Messes Redux series. Put a satyr together with a nymph and the loving is going to be wild.
Here's one more pic because I can't resist. This is Erin Wasson, an American model, as Ajax. So cool!
Tilly Greene
WARNING! Red hot romances ahead!
