Sandra Cox's Blog, page 278

Rain and Weekends

wpclipart.com There is little chance that meteorologists can solve the mysteries of weather until they gain an understanding of the mutual attraction of rain and weekends.  ~Arnot Sheppard



I'll be back Monday.

Cat Burglar

A leonine scream of challenge echoed through the pines, bounced off rock, and echoed in my ears. Fighting the pain coursing through my vibrating body, I forced my aching neck to turn.The moon shown full on a beautiful puma, his lips drawn back, his tail lashing. He tilted his head and snarled. And the hits keep on a coming. Would I become beast fodder or puma silage?At the moment, I wasn’t in any condition to fight off either.For one brief moment, the cat looked directly at me. My breath caught in my throat. Those eyes were eerily reminiscent of the stranger in the restaurant. The man called Kylar. Then the puma turned his attention to the beast. His ears back, he roared another challenge.The beast threw back his head and responded; his mouth open, he howled at the moon. The sound sent chills down my spine. A spine that felt like it was breaking and re-forming. MINDER

Weight: Gaining It Or Not

I went to the doctor the other day for sinuses. Tis the season.
The only time I check my weight is at the doctor's office. I don't own a scale. I was certain I'd gained five pounds. My clothes just weren't fitting like they used to.  I stepped bravely on the scale and discovered I hadn't gained a pound. Must be the combination of gravity and age. Anyway to say I was surprised was an understatement. 
To recover from the shock I treated myself to chocolate and pizza.
Anyone else out there suffering from the tug of gravity?

At Least The Deer Wasn't Packing Heat

Halloween E Giveaway and VBT

I have a VBT at Downtown YA today. P. J. Sharon is blogging on her new release Waning Moon a dsytopian YA. If you're a dystopian reader and in the vicinity drop by and say 'hey'.

And at Night Writers we're having a Halloween E Book Giveaway. One randomly drawn entry will win a download of:
Sally's Answer by Jewel Adams
Crewkin by Rhobin Courtright (I've read this one. Very well written. I enjoyed it.)
Somewhere My Love by Beth Trissel
The Harvester by Lynn Crain
No Job For a Woman by Sherry Gloag
Vampire Island by Sandra Cox
It's easy to enter. All you've got do is stop by and put your name in the RaffleCopter.
~*~
Chrysrawr was a winner in the Whisper of a Witch contest. Congrats, Chrysrawr.
~*~
Upset, not paying attention, I turned and plowed right into the sexy stranger who'd been starting with so much interest at my necklace.
I hadn't even noticed his approach. Just goes to show how upset I was to have missed that.
I felt a leap of electricity when his arms circled me. Heat radiated through his thin silk shirt and trousers. My knees grew weak. I clutched at him. I started to rub against him and purr but caught myself in time. I choked back my rumbling.
"Are you alright? I didn't mean to run you down." His gaze bore into mine. I stared, mesmerized by those glittering amber eyes that so reminded of a cat's--a wild untamed cat.MINDER

It's The Weekend

I always give 100% at work: 13% Monday, 22% Tuesday, 26% Wednesday, 35% Thursday, 4% Friday. ~ Author Unknown

We made it. Enjoy. I'll see you--in the cyber sense--Monday.

~*~“So you’re saying a vampire can’t bite my neck, yet a monster can rip my heart out?”  Aurora Valente, MINDER 

VBT: Across The Winds Of Time

BLURB:
While on a genealogical research journey through the Midwest, Molly Hamilton impulsively buys a 100-year-old Victorian house in the middle of a cornfield, and falls in love with the house’s owner...the original owner, that is. Can he be a ghost? The handsome, intriguing attorney certainly feels solid—and somehow her soul knows she has always loved him.
Darius Ferguson has no idea how he has come to present-day Iowa. The last thing he knew, the year was 1880, and he had just buried his fiancée, who happens to look exactly like Molly. He cannot separate the two women in his heart—to him, they are one.
In spite of being drawn to him, Molly thinks Darius is unhinged. Darius wonders if he has joined his fiancée in purgatory. If time travel is possible, will love be enough to build a future together?

EXCERPT
“Molly, wait!” 
I froze in place for a moment.  It was definitely a man under the tree though I couldn’t see his face...and he knew my name. 
 “Do I know you?” I called in an unsteady voice.  It seemed, though, as if my words were taken by the wind.  Who was this man?  And how did he know my name?     
He moved away from the tree with a tentative step.  His clothing was formal—a dark suit and white shirt—as if he had just been to a funeral.  I hadn’t remembered seeing a canopy for a funeral on the grounds, but I wasn’t about to take my eyes off the stranger for one instant to confirm that suspicion.
I thought I saw a flash of white teeth from under his dark mustache, but he was still some distance away.  Golden highlights in his chestnut hair caught the sunlight, and my mouth dropped open.  He was undoubtedly one of the most handsome men I had ever seen in my life.  My stomach rolled over at the sight of him, though not with admiration of his good looks.  Cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and I put my hand to my mouth as if to hold back the morning’s breakfast...if I’d had any.
For here—in the flesh—was the man of my dreams.  Not just any dreams.  More specifically, my dreams of the previous evening.  Yet I couldn’t for the life of me remember ever seeing him before until this moment. 
“Be careful what you wish for,” I muttered behind the hand that covered my face.  
 “Molly, don’t be afraid.  I can see that you are.  I don’t want to frighten you.”  He took another step forward and held his hands up palms out...as if to show me he wasn’t armed, I thought hysterically, or to calm me down.  Either way, it wasn’t working.   




AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Bess McBride made her first serious writing attempt when she was 14. She shut herself up in her bedroom one summer while obsessively working on a time travel/pirate novel set in the beloved Caribbean of her youth, but she wasn't able to hammer it out on a manual typewriter (oh yeah, she's that old) before it was time to go back to school. The draft of that novel has long since disappeared, but the story is still simmering within, and she will finish the adventure one day soon.
Bess was born in Aruba to American parents and lived in Venezuela until her family returned to the United States when she was 12. She couldn't fight the global travel bug within and joined the U.S. Air Force at 18 to "see the world." After 21 wonderful and fulfilling years traveling the world and gaining one beautiful daughter, she pursued her dream of finally getting a college education. With a license in mental health therapy, she worked with veterans and continues to work on behalf of veterans. She writes romantic suspense, contemporary, light paranormal/fantasy and time travel romances and currently has eight novels published. She can be contacted through her web site at http://www.bessmcbride.com.

Links:www.bessmcbride.comhttp://willtravelforromance.blogspot.com/

The author will be giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to one random commenter during the tour. The tour dates can be found here:  http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2012/08/book-blast-across-winds-of-time-by-bess.html

Yoga

Four of us from kickboxing have signed up for Yoga. Two of us compared notes after the first session and this is what we decided:
Even though Yoga is excellent for mental and physical well being...
The block we sit on hurts our backs
The hour spent kickboxing goes much quicker
Yoga is very relaxing. The middle of a work day is not the best time to be relaxed
Maybe most important of all...
We both realized we needed manicures

~*~

A golden glow bathed the room as I stared at the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Thick,
tawny, almost leonine hair capped his skull. His unusual amber eyes glowed like a cat’s. Skin stretched taut and smooth over high cheekbones. His lips made my mouth water. My face must have reflected the same rapture I saw on his. Unfortunately, his gaze was fastened on my necklace.  MINDER

VBT: Whisper Of A Witch

BLURB:
Biologist Shauni Miller, is as beautiful as she is compassionate, harbors a secret that could alter her life forever. If she chooses to share it. Dr. Michael Black helps Shauni in her time of need, but sees more in the raven-haired temptress than she ever meant to reveal. He knows she’s hiding something, but then, so is he. Both Shauni and Michael have a role to play and decisions to make as a centuries-old prophecy has yet to be fulfilled. Only the fates know if they are meant to be together. Or if one of them has to die.

EXCERPT
Willyn opened her mouth to speak, but paused and looked down at the stone floor. All of the women stilled and listened.
They sensed.
Shauni grasped Hayden’s arm just above the elbow when she felt a low but very distinctive vibration. It was more like a hum and came from the floor, the walls, possibly the ceiling. It was all around them, and judging by the others’ faces, they felt it, too. “What is that?” she whispered.
A new voice spoke gently but with the authority of one who was well acquainted with privilege and position. “What you’re all feeling is the power of the nine.”
They turned to find another had joined them. Sable brown hair fell around her shoulders and brilliant blue eyes held warmth and welcome above a serene smile. “You’ll get used to it, so that you probably won’t even notice. And it only occurs when we’re all together.” Her lips spread into a playful grin. “Just wait until we link.”
“Cool,” Kylie said. “Hey, Anna.”
Shauni remained where she was but zeroed in on the elegant woman, still very young to be so comfortable wearing the unseen but almost palpable cloak of power. “Link?”
“You know why we’re here?” Paige asked. “Because I’m ready for some…”
“Answers,” Anna finished for her. “Yes, I know.” She stepped back and swept a hand toward a door in the back of the room. An invitation. “And I have some.”
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Suza Kates can’t remember a time when she didn’t love books, but two particular memories stay with her. “As a young girl I picked up Little Women, read it straight through, and promptly turned to page one to start all over again. The next book I did that with was Mind Hunter by John Douglas, tales about profiling serial killers.”
Thus a twisted romantic was born.
Throughout her teenage and young adult years, she read everything from horror to historical romance yet never imagined writing anything of her own.
It was during a long, cold winter in a tiny apartment in Germany that Suza picked up a pen and notebook to entertain herself. “The apartment was so tiny, my bed also served as my living room couch. Plus, I shared it with three cats.”
Missing the warmth, the hospitality, and the food of the South, she wrote about those things with a huge dose of family thrown in. She says she still has a sweet spot in her heart for her first book, Southern Moon, but to date, she hasn’t revisited it for submission to her publisher.
Suza followed her heart to Savannah, Georgia, and it was the gorgeous city with its moss-covered oaks and secrets of history that inspired her to consider paranormal romance. “I had an idea about sisters and magic, so I went to work on the first book of The Savannah Coven Series, Whisper of a Witch. The series is still going strong, and I am grateful every day that I took a chance on paranormal romance, a genre I wasn’t very familiar with and had never actually read before writing it.”
Suza has since joined RWA and can’t say enough about this organization. “The education and support are unparalleled. I am so grateful to all of my fellow writers who have offered advice.”
Suza still resides in Savannah and is currently working on her next book. She considers it a perfect day when she can sit at the keyboard with coffee in her cup and one of her cats purring in her lap. 
www.suzakates.comhttp://www.facebook.com/authorsuzakates
   



Suza will award signed cover flats and pens to a commenter at every stop, a total of five $15 Amazon/BN GCs to randomly drawn commenters during this tour and her Name Before the Masses tour, and gift basket to one commentator from both this tour and her Name Before the Masses tour,

Weekly Workout

Mondays:    Kickboxing



Tuesday: Yoga

Wednesday: Walking

Thursday: Kickboxing

Friday: Walk from the restaurant to the sales racks


Sat and Sunday: Ah......
This is what my Monday through Thursday is supposed to look like. Unfortunately, I cheat. What's your workout week look like?

~*~ 
Among the northern tribes there is a legend passed down from generation to generationabout shape-shifting Minders—guardians of the innocents—and how they came to be.
It is said that nowadays only a handful of Minders exist, hunted to near extinction by a fearsome beast. Of the remaining Minders, only one wears a garnet-studded collar, the symbol of protection and royalty.
Even when my aunt told me the story and handed me an ancient garnet-studded band, I had no idea the tale applied to me. After all, it’s only a legend… MINDER