Sandra Cox's Blog, page 59

Did You Know

 Did you know, in 2016 Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature?

 

Writerly Wednesday

 What's your word for:
Mine: askew
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Some synonyms thrown out last week for:

Sloshed

Hammered

Legless

Shickered

It's Ketch-up Tuesday

 

So,

what do you think would happen if I got Penny's freshening spray confused with the catnip spray I use for the scratching post?

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I finished the pet memorial garden (again).  No new additions since Faux. Thank goodness.

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The eternal garden pics.

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Due to a freeze warning my garden was littered with sheets, shirts and rags.  No more frosts, I say. It's April.

 

What's blooming in your garden, blogger buds? Sheets and T shirts? Heh.

 

Your Weekend Read: THE TIME TRAVELER'S CHILDREN

 

The Time Traveler’s Children

Buy link

The Time Traveler's Children: and Keith, Judy, Judy, Tipton, Rhonda: 9798417905469: Amazon.com: Books

Amazon author page https://www.amazon.com/Judy/e/B013HBQTLM/

For teens of all ages, a time travel adventure story that spans the galaxy.

Kindle Unlimited is free, and a paperback version is available.

If you enjoy this story, please check out ‘More Time.’  

 

Blurb

How can you sidestep the end of the world?
Mom’s a time-traveler, and you were born inside the time stream with the ability to see the future and travel through time within your lifespan.
Armageddon is staring you in the face. The human race is facing extinction, and options are limited.
What would you do?

The three brothers propose different solutions and go their own way.
What if they need each other to save humanity?

Excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Children
Introduction

Hi, my name’s Kyle Brixton. My mom, Sophie, is a time traveler, and guess what? She decided to travel through time while pregnant with me. To give her credit, she didn’t do it on purpose and hadn’t known she was expecting. However, it resulted in me going from an embryo to ready-to-be-born inside the time stream. To me, the process took seconds, actually a couple of minutes of my personal time, but nine months of real time elapsed. It resulted in me being born with old memories, and the ability to see my entire life as a road with multiple junctions and major intersections.

I can choose when I want to live, except I was scared by what I saw. Humanity was heading for disaster. It didn’t matter what time junction I tried—the result didn’t change. Two pandemics, followed by the Land Wars would whittle the worldwide population down from multiple billions to just a few million. Life would be tough for my generation and even tougher for the next. Humanity was doomed, there weren’t enough survivors to maintain critical mass. Slowly but surely, each bastion of civilized life would succumb to food shortages and mutations—then, a strange thing happened, the junctions started to move.

Why?

I discovered it was Mom.

She tried her best, but what can one person achieve in a single lifetime? Not much, but she got on her spinning bike, slash time-machine, and peddled back in time for another attempt. She was relentless, and like a spider didn’t give up. Her web would break, but she struggled on, endeavoring again and again against formidable odds. A little push here, an insertion of funding there, always using future knowledge to mankind’s advantage.

Persistence won. She often thought an older-version of herself was coming back in time to leave hints. That was only partially true. Most times, I was the change agent. With my help, Mom threaded the needle through two pandemics, discovering cures and vaccines with the effective result of limiting the outbreaks to specific geographic areas and downgrading them to epidemics. Only I understand the heartache she endured in saving billions of lives only to see them die in the following Land Wars.

Global warming was awful, setting community against community and highlighting humanity’s appetite for self-destruction. Over a third of the planet’s habitable land became unlivable, creating food shortages and a mass migration to higher ground. Sadly, the people living there fought to protect the little they had.

I remember all the timelines Mom created. Don’t know how, just do. You’d think your brain would overload, but it doesn’t. She worked wonders and frequently used her time-machine to rewrite recent history. I studied and learned from all those possibilities to such an extent that it’s easy to get lost and not realize which is the one you’re currently living inside. A time traveler’s curse, is life an alternate memory or reality?

 

Kyle moved to live in the past...rediscovers reading as there is no texting, only real conversation.

Kyle also has the ability to relive the happy moments...why would you live in the present?

He longs to be surprised and will do almost anything to get it. 

 About the authors

Judy and Keith have been married for over forty-seven years. They’re semiretired and live in the South Bay, Los Angeles. Both were born and raised in England in the early fifties and relocated to Los Angeles in the late eighties.

They have two sons and two grandsons.

You can contact the authors on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JudyandKeith/ or Twitter @JudyandKeith  

Our inspiration comes from family. We have published several illustrated collections of short-stories for children ages five to twelve, including Quests and Adventures, Bedtime Stories, and the Wicked Witch Anthology.
Our grandchildren are now older, so our most current releases are for teens of all ages.

Three fun-quirky facts

We’re only two years away from our golden wedding anniversary…plus we went to the same school from age eleven, where Judy beat Keith in a music competition!

We write together, but Keith also writes adult stories under a different penname.

We love to dance especially Lindy Hop.

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Did You Know

 Did you know that after water, tea is the most consumed beverage around the globe?

 

IWSG Wednesday

 

The first Wednesday of every month is officially IWSG day. IWSG was formed by Ninja Captain Alex Cavanaugh. Members post about their doubts and fears, discuss struggles and triumphs, and offer words of encouragement to others who are struggling.

April 6 question - Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook?

MATEO’S LAW is an audiobook. I went through Amazon and found the process to be a lot easier than expected. My challenge is marketing.  I'd be quite interested to hear how others have approached this.

 

March/April reviews

I’m afraid I’ve fallen down on my Indie reads and reviews.  I’ve been pretty caught up in the Pendergast series. Has anyone else read any of these books?  I’m both repelled and fascinated.  It’s occult suspense that meanders into horror.  The horror side is what repels. But the characters are fascinating.  So, I keep reading 😊

I did read one book that I absolute loved and here’s the review.

 

CASSADARK by Alex Cavanaugh

CASSADARK is a Sci-Fi with heart and non-stop action.

 

In book four of the Cassa Series, Bassan, a nerdy young man with incredible talents, must navigate a plethora of mine fields on and off planet. For someone who is a legend in the galaxy, Bassan has no confidence in himself or his abilities. When his friend nearly loses his life, Bassan blames himself and his self-doubts increase.  An unplanned trip to a prison planet will put his capabilities to the test and make him prove his mettle to the people relying on him to save them and to himself. The journey into the stars sends him hurtling into the adventure of a lifetime.

While genre is important it takes second place to a well-told tale. Sci-Fi isn’t my go-to genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed CASSADARK. The characters are well-developed, the world-building phenomenal and the action never stops.  I highly recommend it.

Available at Amazon.

 

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MATEO'S BLOOD BROTHER will be released April 22. If anyone can help me get the word out it would be much appreciated. And to those who have already offered, mega thanks:)

 

https://tinyurl.com/MateosBloodBrother

 

 

What about you? Have any books on audio? Read any good books?

 

It's Tuesday

 Tuesday's Question.

My son just turned forty. How is that possible when I'm only thirty-nine?   

 

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This was taken at our friend's property. The flowers are growing alongside their creek which ripples and whooshes continually.

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Yes, my interests are limited. Rocks and flowers:) Today I'm concentrating on the rocks.

 

 

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This series sounds like fun doesn't it?

$2.99 - SAVE $7 off the first three books of this bestselling mystery series! April 4-11Click here to get Pineapple Pack! #1 $2.99 on Amazon!

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Grab the first three books in the bestselling Pineapple Port Mysteries series by USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Amy Vansant at a discount off the single book prices!

Call it a cozy mystery, call it a feel-good thriller -- by the end you'll be calling Pineapple Port your new favorite series! Murder, romance & laughs strike a Florida community full of characters you'll never forget.

Book One: Pineapple Lies - Growing up in one of Florida’s fifty-five plus communities, Charlotte never expected life to be wild. Golf cart racing with her surrogate mothers Mariska and Darla was about as nutty as life got...until she found the hot pawnbroker’s mom buried in her backyard. Talk about making a lousy first impression. Armed with nothing but her wits, Pineapple Port’s questionable cast of characters and a growing crush, Charlotte is determined to solve the mystery of Declan’s mother’s murder. Hey, at least this guy’s skeletons aren't in his closet.

Book Two: Pineapple Mystery Box - When a giant inflatable Halloween witch goes missing in the Pineapple Port retirement community, Charlotte’s eager to nab the culprit. Before she can lift a fingerprint, someone threatens to kill a new neighbor who looks like an adorable Pomeranian but possesses a disturbing talent for revenge. Moments later, a stranger demands the return of a mysterious wooden box… or else. Charlotte's boyfriend, Declan, isn't having a great morning either. His calculating ex-girlfriend has returned to claim she's the rightful owner of his pawn shop. She’s livid he’s found a new lady, too.Eh. Things could be worse. At least Charlotte doesn’t know that a mojito-swilling killer who fed his grandmother to a cat is on his way to Pineapple Port…

Book Three: Pineapple Puzzles - The infamous Puzzle Killer returns to Charity, Florida, in search of a rival murderer, and when two serial killers battle, Charlotte, Declan, Seamus and a naked cat find themselves on the chopping block!

 

Got rocks? Need a good read?  Thirty-nine still? Or younger?

Friday's Great Read: CassaDark

 

CassaDark
By Alex J. Cavanaugh

His world is unraveling…

Bassan’s father is stepping down from command. His best friend almost dies when Bassan freezes. Now, he’s being sent across the galaxy to speak at an important conference. Despite saving the eleven races years ago, he’s paralyzed by fear and doubt. Could things get any worse?

Once there, new acquaintance Zendar convinces Bassan to visit his planet for a humanitarian mission. Bassan’s special connection to ancient technology is the key to saving Zendar’s people. One problem though—it’s a prisoner planet.

On Ugar, he discovers things aren’t so straightforward. As each secret reveals itself, the situation grows more desperate. If he can’t find the right answers, he might die along with Zendar’s people. Can Bassan summon the courage to be a hero again?

 Bassan’s parents both fly ships, but he hates to fly.

He’s hated herron roots (think a mixture of turnip and carrot) since he was a child. Naturally, they are a Tgren staple.

Bassan is a creature of habit in the real world but an avid explorer in the virtual world.

Release date – April 6, 2022
Trade paperback, 226 pages, Dancing Lemur Press, LLC
Science fiction - Adventure (FIC028010) / Space Opera (FIC028030) / Space Exploration (FIC028130)
 $4.99

Links:
iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id1574189874
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0982FL3SH
Barnes & Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940164947033
Kobo – https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/Search?Query=9781939844859
Scribed – https://www.scribd.com/search?query=9781939844859&language=0
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58461762-cassadark

www.alexjcavanaugh.comwww.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com

Alex J. Cavanaugh works in web design and graphics, and he plays guitar in a Christian band. A fan of all things science fiction, his interests range from books and movies to music and games. Online he is known as Ninja Captain Alex and he’s the founder of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.
http://alexjcavanaugh.com 

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

https://twitter.com/AlexJCavanaugh

 

 

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 Any help getting the word out is appreciated.

 

Did You Know

Did you know, the calico is the official cat of Maryland? 

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Writerly Wednesday

 What's your word for:

Mine: Plastered.

AND

 

 The blogger buds' synonyms for last week's word:

 

Conscientious

Hard-working  

Assiduous 

Industrious

Preserving

Persistent

Devoted

Workaholic

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