Amber Polo's Blog, page 8

The Wassail Gingerkuchen Excerpt

The Wassail Gingerkuchen Excerpt


   “May I escort you, Mistress?” He led her into the Reading Room alight with glowing candles and whispered, “Don’t they look real? The only bad news is the man you hired to play St. Nicholas came down with the flu.” “What will I do?” Alarmed, Liberty fumbled in the brocade pouch at her waist for her cell phone. “We can’t do this without St. Nicholas.”  “You will have your St. Nicholas, madam.” Gregory stepped close to her side and smiled down at her. “I have experience.” He gently placed her arm on his. His St. Nicholas outfit was no rented Santa costume. The smooth velvet of his red jacket caressed her bare arm. The ruffled shirt, tight black pants, and high black boots complemented his masculine form perfectly. Before Liberty could speak, Lily announced, “Wassail time.” Aldwyn, in a dinner jacket, entered carrying a steaming silver punch bowl, followed by Emma and Rebecca holding platters piled high with spicy, fragrant gingerkuchen. Liberty whispered to Gregory, “Is it safe for you here?” “Perfectly safe. This is a magic night.” Outside the window, a flash of lights illuminated the huge outdoor tree and they heard the loud “Ah” as the people of Shipsfeather gasped in pleasure. The strains of “Greensleeves” floated from the Local History Room. Liberty didn’t remember hiring a quartet. 
Within moments the library doors were thrown open and guests paraded in. Gregory served wassail and Liberty passed out warm gingerkuchen, greeting smiling Shipsfeather residents and their visitors. Many of Liberty’s regular library patrons passed by. Gregory embraced members of old Shipsfeather families. An elderly gentleman called him Chronus and a woman with a British accent curtsied and addressed him as Sir Gregory. Replying to foreign visitors in their own languages, Gregory was the perfect host. He looked handsome, courtly, and comfortable in ruffled shirt and velvet jacket and each guest lit up at his attention. 

Read more excerpts and the complete Chapter One of  "Released" Book One of "The Shapeshifters' Library"
Buy Released 
Read "Researching St.Nicholas Eve" for my personal remembrance of the celebration.

Prescott Library Displays Professional Writers of Prescott Books

Thanks to the Prescott (AZ) Public Library for displaying 85 books published by 36 members of the Professional writers of Prescott (PWP). Special thanks to the library for agreeing to add the books to their collections!

Photos and publishing biographies of each author are posted on the wall behind the books.

Thanks to PWP and especially President Jeannie Leighton; Secretary Carole Bolinski; Membership Chair Marian Powell; Bulletin Creator Susan Lanning; and Members Cathleen Cherry, Jessie Lincoln, Ronny de Jong, Connie Johnson and David Ganci for setting up this great showcase of books!

What a great way to show off local authors. 

On display for the month of December.

St. Nicholas Excerpt from "The Shapeshifters' Library"

St. Nicholas Excerpt from "The Shapeshifters Library"

  The Shapeshifters' Library Book 1ReleasedThe St. Nicholas Eve ExcerptGregory and Liberty paraded back into the rotunda and on to the entrance to the Children’s Room. Children in pinafores and breeches clustered around Bliss in her shimmering princess dress. The children turned, saw Gregory, and little voices called, “St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas.” Gregory placed his hand on Liberty’s waist and escorted her to the middle of the room. “Children, this is Lady Liberty.” Children cheered and tiny hands clapped. “Lady. Lady.” Gregory whispered to Liberty, “Say something.” “Welcome children. To the library. On St. Nicholas Eve.” The quartet’s violin player fiddled a merry tune, as a huge Newfoundland in a silver-studded harness pulled a cart to the doorway. Gregory smiled. “And now, it’s time for presents.” The children cheered. The dog lumbered in and small hands reached out to pat the gentle giant who, compared to the toddlers, appeared as large as a draft horse. Gregory stepped to the cart. “Stand back.” The children obeyed. “Now, one at a time.” He reached into the cart and took out a small toy horse and beckoned to a little girl in a crisp petticoat. She skipped forward to receive her painted wooden horse and a large orange. Liberty selected a book from the cart for the girl, who skipped off to show her friends. Bouncing in stiff, shiny shoes, children waited their turns. Next a boy was given a miniature dog and cart. He held it high for all to see, then accepted his book. One by one, each child received a small toy, an orange, and a book. Every child seemed more thrilled with simple wood animals than if they’d received the latest electronic wonders. The entire scene was reminiscent of another more charming century. When all the children had received gifts, the fiddler announced, “Time for St. Nicholas to leave,” and the children let out a collective, “Ah.” Gregory reached one more time into the cart and presented a wrapped gift to Bliss. “Dear lady, for your kind ministrations to the children.” Bliss curtsied. As children raced past to show toys to parents and grandparents, Gregory took Liberty’s arm. No longer the center of attention, the couple walked to the rotunda. Sparkling lights reflected like stars on the glass dome above. “I cannot stay,” Gregory said softly. “I’m tired.” Liberty nodded. “Thank you for making this night so beautiful.” “Shipsfeather always celebrated St. Nicholas Eve like this. I am grateful your library made it possible once again. Now you see why this town and people are so special.” “Where did the children’s gifts come from?” She looked around. “And where is the dog cart … and the music? This was the most magical night of the year.” He laughed. “Ah, now you want magic explained. Tonight is only the beginning of the Season. The true magic will happen on the night of the Winter Solstice.” “What could be more beautiful and amazing than tonight?” “Nothing could be as amazing and beautiful as you. You are a most good and wonderful woman, Liberty Cutter, my Mistress of the Fete.” He leaned down and kissed her lips. A tender kiss tasting of cinnamon and warmed cider. Straightening, his eyes held her gaze. “Tonight,” she whispered, “I feel like a princess.” “You are a princess. My princess, dear one.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “Sweet Liberty.” He slid his hand into his jacket pocket. Holding her left hand, he slipped a ring onto her finger. “Forever, my princess, my love.” She gasped as warm gold encircled her finger. She looked down at the intricately carved band. When she looked up, he was gone. Over the music and laughter, she heard the sound of boots descending the stairs.
Read more excerpts and the complete Chapter One of  "Released" Book One of "The Shapeshifters' Library" Buy Released 
Read "Researching St.Nicholas Eve" for my personal remembrance of the celebration. 

Researching St. Nicholas Eve

 This year St. Nicholas Eve falls on December 6th.

When I was small Christmas, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and St. Nick were all mixed up – but it didn’t matter.
Wikipedia says: In Northern Germany, Sankt Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch in their boots instead. Sometimes a Nikolaus impersonator also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on the basis of their behavior.
Here’s what I remember. When I was a young child, St. Nicholas Eve was the start of the Christmas season.
Everyone in the family hung stockings. The socks my brother and I wore were much too small, so my grandmother donated her long baggy cotton stockings. I don’t remember really big gifts. Everything had to fit in the stocking. But there was always an orange in the toe (which made the stocking really long and funny looking) and some candy. Maybe there were small toys. I think the excitement was more important than the gifts. Gifts and surprises weren’t ordinary. And little things meant more. (And Christmas meant big presents.)To awake to find a bulging stocking was pure magic. 
It fits the Northern German tradition. Stockings instead of boots. And St Nicholas as the beginning of the annual “be good or Santa will bring you coal” time of year. Behavior was very important. I also remember threats that bad children could get a switch (ah the old tree branch). 
I’m not sure when we stopped hanging St. Nicholas stockings, but we never hung stockings on Christmas Eve and I always wondered why anyone would do that. Sadly, I think in my family the St. Nicholas traditions disappeared because they didn’t fit the melting pot American Santa Claus images. 

* The perverted story “Six to Eight Black Men” by David Sedaris in Holidays on Ice  provides politically incorrect outrageous holiday laughs at the expense of Saint Nicholas in the Netherlands.Read the story online - originally published in Esquire  Or listen to Sedaris read it at Carnegie Hall on YouTube



For a more delightful version of St. Nicholas Eve as celebrated by the dog-shifter librarians of Shipsfeather, Ohio read the Wassail Excerpt and the St. Nicholas excerpt  posts.

An Arizona Aviation Romance

Just out - "Heads in the Clouds"
A revised edition of Flying Free with a great new cover.
Love is in the air… “Keep your Feet on the Ground, Your Mind Wide Open, Your Spirit Flying Free, and Your Head in the Clouds.” Can a meat-eating Texas advertising woman find love with a vegetarian Buddhist and get her pilot’s license despite interference from her wacky Arizona airpark neighbors and a high flying Alaskan Malamute?


Lia Bedford thinks she’s going to get her pilot’s license, sell her father’s Arizona airpark house, go back to helping beef producers sell meat, and probably find a guy just like the cheating husband who bankrupted her.
Seth Hartman thinks he’s come to Arizona to build a spiritual center, escape the community and wife that betrayed him, and create a new beginning much like the contemplative, vegetarian life he left.

While Lia tries to hide and Seth tries to fit in, their attraction pulls them together. Lia and Seth begin to change with help from their wacky senior citizen neighbors and a high-flying Alaskan Malamute. All they have to do is conquer the fear of flying and their fear of love.
A Contemporary Western Aviation Romance
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
SmashwordsI'm thrilled to announce the release of "Heads in the Clouds" (a revised, republished edition of Flying Free, a contemporary romance originally published in 2009 by Treble Heart). This story, set in my own Arizona neighborhood, has always been close to my heart. I enjoyed revising it and adding a second dog, a Papillion. Connie Fisher's cover captures the spirit of the story. So if you haven't read the original Flying Free, step into my world and enjoy "Heads in the Clouds."   
Awards and Reviews for Flying Free




Heart of Excellence Readers’ Choice Award(Strong Romantic Elements Category)Ancient City Romance Authors,St Augustine, FLFinalist – Write Touch Contest,Wisconsin RWA.





Reviews
“With characters readers will relate to, Flying Free is of profound and high recommendation for general fiction readers searching for a quirky romance.”
~ 5 Stars Midwest Book Review

“Polo’s characters are filled with warmth and heart. Polo’s writing is crisp and engaging. Two thumbs up to the supporting cast. Flying Free will take the reader for a ride on the wings of love.”
~ Classic Romance Revival
 
“There are villains. There is mystery. And there is love that overcomes all. I enjoyed …the caring group of folks in the second half of life who live on Airpark Mesa near Sedona. The Airpark folks, whose passion is flying, building and maintaining small planes, seem very real.”
~ Reviewed by Judith Helburn for Story Circle Reviews
 
“A nifty, sweet story filled with planes, airpark life and a super sexy vegan Buddhist that anyone would find hard to resist. A heart warming tale about discovering what is really important in life…..sometimes a little later than you had hoped. Creative, quirky characters really set this story alive and give it a spark. Good work Ms. Polo, a true enjoyment " ~ Seriously Reviewed
 
“Her amazing gift of creating vivid images with only a few words…is awesome. …a powerful, sensually written, heart-warming story that will keep you turning pages.”
~ Long and Short Reviews

Sedona Book Festival Dog Fight - Series Sale!

I took Chronus II to the Sedona Book Festival. As usual he gets a lot of attention but isn't the most aggressive sale assistant. All he has to do is look cute and pretend to give out dog biscuits to readers to take home to their dogs. 

Since it was an indoor show there were only a few dogs. But a cute little pink-nosed pup decided to pick a fight. Can you believe it? He wasn't bigger than Chronus's head. And the little twerp started growling. And growling. 

I explained that my dog was a "fantasy" dog and not a threat. Finally I distracted the feisty one with a package of dog biscuits and he agreed to back off.


Series SaleAll the Kindle books in
The Shapeshifters Library
on Sale!Get the entire series for $3.98!
Released (Book 1) Free October 17-20Retrieved  (Book 2) $.99 until October 31Recovered (Book 3) $2.99 until October  31

Blog Radio Interview on Rowena Cherry's Crazy Tuesday!

Online Books Radio at Blog Talk Radio with PWR Talk on BlogTalkRadio

Blog Talk RadioPWR NetworkCrazy TuesdayHosted by Rowena Cherry Listen to the Interview!

"Rowena Cherry's guest on October 1st is award-winning author Amber Polo.  Critically acclaimed, and traditionally published, Amber Polo is best known for her Paranormal Romances. Her most recent series brings together her love of dogs and her fascination with illiterate werewolves.
Dog lovers adore The Shapeshifters' Library, Amber Polo's award winning cozy fantasy series. Meet her delightful dog-shifting librarians and brutal book-burning werewolves in a world almost like yours."

Listen to me answer Rowena's great questions:
How dog training is useful to writingAre there BDSM elements in my novels (there are not)Why werewolf lawyers are my villainsHow to enter my Goodreads GiveawayLocations, real and imaginary in "Recovered"Research dumps in my book (non existent, I hope)

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Goodreads Book Giveaway Recovered by Amber Polo Giveaway ends October 15, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to win

Libraries and Writers

Back in August I did an interview on The Library as Incubator Project blog. Their mission is to promote and facilitate creative collaboration between libraries and artists of all types, and to advocate for libraries as incubators of the arts.Their website features artists, writers, performers and libraries who exemplify the “library as incubator” idea as well as highlight resources that may be of particular use to artists and writers and provides ideas for art education opportunities in libraries with our program kit collection and practical how-to’s for artists and librarians.

Needless to say, their questions were no the usual ones bloggers ask. Thanks to them I needed to do some rethink the relationship between libraries and writers.Here's an excerpt from that interview -

Please tell us a bit about yourself (who you are, where you’re from, the type of work you did).
My first library job was in my fifth grade school library in Wisconsin. After I received my MLS from UW-Madison I worked in public, special, and university libraries all over the country and for library service companies building online catalogs and providing contract services. I’ve seen a lot of libraries from the inside.

What is/has been your relationship to libraries – as a reader, worker, and writer!
As a reader, writer, and researcher I’ve found each library a treasure of function and beauty. Now, as a full time writer and yoga teacher, I’ve become a library volunteer in a small town library and appreciate what a library building without a million volumes can offer.

Your book series, “The Shapeshifters’ Library” is set in/around a small public library in the midwest. Can you talk about how the library factors in to the series, and what inspired you to integrate the library so fully in to the story?

I wanted to write about libraries and tell a little about what goes on behind the scenes. And make it fun. In imagining The Shapeshifters’ Library series, I created two libraries, like Downton Abby, upstairs and downstairs.

The upstairs library is an appealing small town library, remodeled from an abandoned academy. Filled with brass, wood, and sculpture, the antique domed Shipsfeather Public Library also contains all the latest technology to serve the town. With a vampire look-alike YA librarian, a New Age chanting children’s librarian, and more, the community loves the staff and SPL does pretty well despite the town being run by library-hating bureaucrats.

In the levels below, traditional scholarly research librarians work tirelessly to discover clues to break the curse that locks them in. What makes these librarians a little unusual is that they are dog-shifters, descendants from an ancient race that have loyally worked as librarians and protected knowledge from their distant book-burning werewolf cousins. Though captive, they’ve created Zoogle an internet company bigger than Goggle, and a library services company able to install RFID codes that can track a book for miles.

I wanted to portray librarians as smart, resourceful, exciting, human, and most all dedicated. Notice, some dog-like characteristics. The werewolves, of course, are the villains. That’s my world and here’s my favorite quote:

Throughout history, just as many dog-shifter families are librarians, certain werewolf families destroy libraries. In whatever ways they can… Liberty [Cutter]’s eyes widened … She thought of all the negative librarians with minds closed to providing good service. “You mean every cranky, indolent, and downright nasty person who works in a library is a werewolf? That teacher in library school who turned every concept into an equation, the student assistant who mis-shelved the most popular books on purpose, and catalogers who create obscure subject headings? Bureaucrats who cut library budgets and hours? Parents who object to books containing any ideas not already in their own heads?”  (Released, 2012)


From a writer’s perspective, how do you think libraries can serve artists/writers even more effectively in their creative work?

All creatives need support, inspiration, and a venue. Libraries are in a perfect position to passively and actively supply all three. I am passionate about public art and feel permanent and temporary displays are needed in every library in some form. Passively, all libraries provide the research materials and media to explore creativity and support artists’ research needs. Actively, public libraries can provide a place for exhibits and invite artists into the library to offer programs to inspire children, teens, and adults to stimulate their creative souls. Programs by and for writers are a natural partnership. Also, I think the performing arts can have an exciting place in public library programing, especially in communities with limited cultural opportunities.

Writers often need “another place” to write. A place that’s not their home or a Starbucks’ corner. A place with comfortable chairs, quiet, wi-fi, and passable coffee. writers need access to the specialized worlds of research that the internet does not offer. And books. Art and history books and a depth of literary works, media, and databases unfold the heritage of the past and provoke dreams for the future. And staff to open all the doors.

As a writer, what would your ideal library look or be like?
My ideal library would have the quiet charm of an English manor house library (with more comfortable chairs), plus the excitement of a street fair, while providing the latest in technological access. It would have both an espresso machine and an Expresso Book Machine (for POD books), and an in-house café serving low cost healthy gourmet treats.

Amber Polo is the author of two Arizona romances, Relaxing the Writer (a book with lots of tips to help artists, readers, and even librarians relax), and a CD to teach anyone to relax and fall asleep faster than a boring book. Her award-winning Shapeshifters’ Library series is a cozy fantasy for dog lovers and library aficionados. Book 1: Released, Book 2: Retrieved, and  Book 3: Recovered.
Visit her website http://www.amberpolo.com/  to see floor plans of her imaginary library and find links to bios of some of her imaginary librarians.

Recovered is Released!

Don't you love the cover!
I never thought I'd write a series and here is number 3 of The Shapeshifters' Library. I love the characters and love staying in their world. Recovered is a little different than Released and Retrieved. The dog-shifting librarians leave their Ohio library and trek across to New Mexico to find the Library of the Ancients, chased by those book-burning werewolves, of course.
Here's the more official blurb: Recovered (The Shapeshifters' Library: Book Three)
“A fantastic novel" --Midwest Book Review From the award-winning author of THE SHAPESHIFTERS' LIBRARY series, RELEASED and RETRIEVED, comes the long awaited third installment!  Bliss D. Light was just an ordinary children’s librarian until one day she discovered she could grow a tail. Now her life is filled with more magic than any of the fairy tales she tells the children who gather at her feet at the Shipsfeather library. Like many of the other residents of Shipsfeather, Ohio, Bliss is a dog-shifter, and her newly discovered ability to change from human form into that of a sleek white greyhound has left her yearning to know more about her true heritage. The answer to all her questions, she is certain, lies with the dog-shifters’ long lost Library of the Ancients and, undeterred by the fact that thousands before her have searched, she sets out to find it.Accompanied by her best friend Harry, a disgraced werewolf/dog-shifter mix, and hotly pursued by the evil werewolf team of Sybilla and Blaze, Bliss’s quest takes her across the sacred sites and ancient mounds of the American Southwest. Though kidnapped by dogcatchers, sold into racetrack slavery and forced to fight wolf dogs to survive, Harry and Bliss never lose sight of their goal—or each other. Because the only thing more important than finding the ancient lost treasure might just be preserving what they already have found: an unlikely love that could be the first step toward bringing two ancient enemy races together.
Publisher: Blue Merle Publishing
Publication Date: Sept. 07, 2013ISBN/EAN13:0985774827 / 9780985774820Page Count: 264Heat level: SweetGenre: Light urban fantasy  Read Chapter 1
WebsiteKindle
Amazon Print
Barnes & Noble & Nook

Did I mention I love reviewers? 
And here's the roses I received from the Desert Rose Chapter of RWA for the three books in the series.

Bibliotheca Fantastica - "Egyptian Holiday" Excerpt

My short story “Egyptian Holiday” a chic lit prequel to The Shapeshifters’ Library series, was recently published in Bibliotheca Fantastica , an anthology published by Dagan Books. 

  “…fabulous tales of bibliophilic wonder, enchantment, terror, romance, mystery, and adventure”

I'm honored to be included with nineteen much more famous (serious, silly, and scholarly) speculative fiction authors selected and edited by Claude Lalumière & Don Pizarro.

“It seems fitting that fiction, one of the most time-honored ways of examining the complexity of human nature, also be applied to the examination of something as equally complex. Fiction about books in general has certainly been done before. Indeed, one might be tempted to dismiss this book about books, this Bibliotheca Fantastica, as an anthology of stories about Necronomicon knock-offs housed in spooky libraries, or of post-apocalyptic mutant book-worshippers living under St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or riffs on Borges’s Ficciones.

Yes, there are stories about books of power, and of libraries. There is a cathedral, and the name of Borges is invoked not once, but twice. But each of the stories in Bibliotheca Fantastica has, I believe, something unique to say about the importance of the book-as-artifact to those who shape them and to those who are shaped by them. These are stories in which the idea of a book and what it represents reaches beyond issues of form and function. Indeed, sometimes a book’s form is its function, and in this anthology the possibilities for both are limitless.” Don Pizarro

 ############
Were Cleopatra  and her sister Alexandria, 
the Librarian of the Library of Alexandria,  really dog-shifters?

Excerpt from
"Egyptian Holiday" by Amber Polo
 From the diaries of Cleopatra VII, Queen of the Nile, and Ptolemy Alexandria, Royal Librarian. Translated and Enhanced by Liberty Cutter Manchester. Library Director, New World Ovate, Druid Order of Gutenberg Societies Library (D.O.G.S.)


Alexandria, Egypt, 48 BCE
      Ptolemy Alexandria narrowed her eyes and peered up at the woman who controlled her Library’s budget.Alex seethed. She desperately needed more funds for her Alexandrian Library. “At least pretend you have reviewed my arguments. I've justified every drachma.”
      Cleopatra VII, Queen of the Nile, raised her hand and dismissed her guards, ladies-in-waiting, and scribes. She smoothed the golden edge of her purple tunic and with canine grace stepped from the Throne of Isis and stood between the statues of Anubis.
      Alex, wearing the unadorned tunic of a scribe, faced her twin sister. “Cleo, stop behaving like a damned Roman. The future of our people depends on my Library.”
      “Don’t get dramatic. All my departments want more. More money. More materials. More slaves.” Cleo toyed with a pearl earring as large as a crocodile eye. “Do you want my job? Your veins also carry the blood of the Greek pharaohs. We could rule jointly, sister queens of Isis. We could visit Rome. Attend an orgy.”
      Alex lowered her voice. “The Romans have sworn to wipe out our people and my books, ever tablet and scroll.”      "I pay attention to foreign affairs.”
      “Swapping drool with werewolves?”
  Bibliotheca Fantastica Published by Dagan Books - an independent publisher of weird, wicked, beautiful, and brilliant books, primarily speculative fiction.“…fabulous tales of bibliophilic wonder, enchantment, terror, romance, mystery, and adventure”


Buy the epub file here, mobi–which also works on your Kindle–here, or PDF here, for only $4.99 each–instant downloads! Always DRM-free. Or you can buy a bundle of Bibliotheca Fantastica in all three digital formats, for only $6.99 (here)

Print and Kindle from Amazon