Chloe Holiday's Blog, page 15

Come and Get It!

Come and Get It!

Need an escape? Hard Truths is free today and Saturday on Amazon!  If you get it, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

And guess what? Finders, Keepers is coming out as an audiobook soon! I’m so excited to have it available for those with visual or time limitations. I’ll share details later. Right now, I’m off to dig in the dirt. Hooray for spring!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

My earliest memories of St. Patrick’s Day are of being chased on the playground, fleeing the pinching fingers of my classmates. Over the next few years, it proved a perfect excuse for interaction with boys, who were otherwise best avoided. All I knew otherwise was that leprechauns existed, presiding over a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.

Imagine my disappointment when I learned the truth about my gullible assumption that these were real “snakes”—apparently, it refers to his efforts to supplant the pagan Druids. There never were any snakes in Ireland—when the land mass was connected, it was too chilly for them, and it’s been an island for millennia. Interestingly, the snake-free nature of the country has made snake ownership into a status symbol.

St. Patrick’s Day has been decried as becoming too tacky and commercialized as well as perpetuating Irish stereotypes, particularly for drunkenness. The association with booze came about because the Lenten restrictions on alcohol were raised for the day. It was traditional to “wet the shamrock” at the end of celebrations by putting a shamrock into the bottom of a mug, which was then filled with whiskey. The shamrock was either swallowed, or tossed over the shoulder for good luck.

Pat himself was the son of a wealthy 5th century British Roman family who was kidnapped by Irish raiders. He spent six years herding sheep before he could escape and returned later to spread Christianity. He used the shamrock to explain the concept of the Trinity.

OK, but we can count on green as legitimate, for the original color association, right? After all, they tint beer that color. Um, no. When the Order of St. Patrick was formed in 1743, they chose azure blue as their color, which is still seen in heraldic dress and insignia.  Lebor Gabála Érenn is a text from the Middle Ages containing Irish stories and historical legends. One relates the story of a boy named Glas who was saved from snakebite by Moses, who placed his staff on the wound, told him it would turn green to remind him of the episode, and that he would lead his people to a land free of snakes. Glas is the Irish word for green, and the “green harp” flag of the Irish Catholic Confederation, as well as other nationalistic organizations, led to green supplanting blue as the color associated with St. Patrick in the late 19th century.

Today, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival—even in the International Space Station!

So get your green on, and go forth to pinch someone!

Get Your Sizzle On!

Hard Truths comes out Monday, 3/15!

Enemies to lovers? Check. A cocky adventure racer? Check. Real-world roadblocks to romance? Check. Here it is!

Why is time fast as a cheetah when things are fun, but slow as a turtle when one waits?

That reminds me: this one contains a turtle or two, and I found out some fascinating facts during my novel research. Sea turtles migrate thousands of miles, exhibiting a degree of philopatry, returning to the same beach from which they hatched, though it takes decades for them to reach sexual maturity. The females dig nests in the sand at night to lay between 50 and 350 eggs, then cover the nests and camouflage them with vegetation, sometimes digging decoy nests.

The sex of the babies is temperature-dependent: the warmer it is, the more females are hatched. A ratio of 80 females to 20 males has been common for millennia, but more recent hatches are 99% females, leading to concerns for survivability. On the plus side, the near-vacant beaches worldwide since the pandemic has led to an increase in nests, the highest numbers seen in twenty years in some places.

Sea turtles are bioluminescent—who knew? They’re the first bioluminescent marine reptiles discovered. It’s theorized it helps them blend in with the reefs and avoid predation from sharks.

Though they are air-breathing, sleeping sea turtles can remain submerged for 4-7 hours, but if turtles are trapped in nets, they can still drown. They are poikilothermic, with internal temperatures that vary according to their environment, but they exhibit cold-stunning in temperatures of 50 degrees F or less, which cause them to bob along, unable to swim.

Jason’s turtle is a tortoise, however: a Greek thigh-spurred tortoise, which lives on land. These can live up to 125 years, and exhibit sexual dimorphism, with the male’s undershell, or plastron, concave. Though smaller than the females, they are every bit the alpha male: as soon as they awaken from hibernation, they attack other males, ramming into them and trying to flip them over, and follow the females, trying to get them alone, bumping into them, and even biting at their legs. When he mounts one, he opens his mouth, showing his red tongue and making squeaking noises—not quite the erotic show as mating camels, but close!

There’s no turtle sex in Hard Truths, but it does contain some non-cookie-cutter sex scenes. Can’t wait? Me, neither! I hope you enjoy it!

What’s in a Name?

Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but can you see a modern-day heroine named Gertrude? Today, I’ll spill a secret about the way I name my characters.

Sometimes, the story drives the name. Jason from Hard Truths, for example, is an ancient Greek hero: the leader of the Argonauts, who went off to seek the Golden Fleece, braving all sorts of disasters. I’ll do a post on Jason later, but for now, know that he’s the O.G. alpha male, warts and all. My Jason is a lot more nuanced, though. Nick, too, is so named because of how it fits into the story, Submerged Hopes.

For the most part, I tend to avoid names that are highly symbolic, since I don’t want to be heavy-handed. I know some authors name unpleasant characters after people who leave bad reviews or real-life enemies, but luckily, I have none of the latter, and to give space to a mean-spirited reviewer is allowing them too much power, in my book. Besides, people like what they like, and my work will not be to everyone's taste.

Most of my names are homage names—I often name my characters, whether good or bad guys—after my alpha readers/critiquers, who’ve been so wonderful in helping me fine-tune my stories. It can be the main characters, or something smaller, like the name of a diner or a craft beer, but it’s an insider “thank you” to my marvelous team.

For the first time, I’m working on a formal Advance Review Team! An ARC team gets early copies, in hopes of getting reviews put up on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s a little bit scary, actually, since a bad review can tank a book I worked lovingly on for six months or more, but an author needs courage. My ideal ARC reader “gets” my work and is willing and able to read through quickly and leave reviews. If that’s you, you can sign up on the website, but the number of copies is limited!

Release Day! (for the paperback, anyway)

Fearful of heartbreak, Theresa is drawn to safe, unavailable men. After she flees to Greece to escape becoming her alcoholic mother, she lands her dream job working for the sexy CEO of Helios. So what if she has a little crush on her boss? He’s safely married. Theresa’s content to worship him from afar until a company shake-up, her boss’ divorce, and the arrival of Jason, a cocky adventure racer, topple her carefully constructed walls.

Despite their disastrous near-hookup, Jason’s smitten by Theresa, but he can’t afford to lose his heart to her: it’s clear she carries a torch for her boss. His new boss, who’s sponsoring Jason’s adventure racing team. And no way is Jason content to come in second.

An enemies-to-lovers story at the intersection of Romance and Women’s Fiction, Hard Truths features real-world issues beyond simply boy-meets-girl: an immersive, steamy story about a young woman struggling to overcome addiction, a love triangle between a billionaire CEO and a tech-savvy environmental champion as well as family drama and laugh-out-loud moments.

Hard Truths is a stand-alone novel in the Helios Series, with a happily ever after (like the others), and will appeal to discerning readers who crave escape but want more depth than a cookie-cutter romance with a “meet cute” on page one and a couple of misunderstandings. It contains on-page sex scenes and adult situations.

Now on Amazon in paperback and for e-book preorder for 3/15!

What Makes A Man?

It’s interesting to see the changing ideas about “what makes a man.” The pushback against “toxic masculinity” intrigues me, and certainly it’s a good thing, to alter from the ideal of “the strong, silent type” of the past, to allowing our young men to express their feelings or pursue alternate life paths. Heaven knows my stay-at-home husband sacrificed a lot when he made that decision, and was subjected to a certain amount of judgment, as if there had to be something wrong with him, to do that. As if he couldn’t compete.

It was partly this that I wanted to explore in Submerged Hopes. Nick, the hero, struggles with the feeling that his Navy career as an office worker is somehow not measuring up against the “snake eater” types, and he also keeps one of his athletic outlets under wraps, because he thinks it might be met with derision, and this is true in real life, sadly.

Why is it that men who play music should choose the drums, trumpet, or guitar, whereas a flute would be considered effeminate? Why are male ballet dancers sneered at, though it’s actually one of the most demanding sports for men? What’s wrong with it if a man enjoys needlepoint? Certainly, on the flip side, I benefitted greatly from the freedom to be a tomboy, to jump out of planes, learn to weld, and pursue other non-“girlie” experiences, so I welcome the changes to the expectations for men.

Nonetheless, I dislike the term “toxic masculinity” since the implication is that simply being male is the root of it, when I think it’s being a jerk, which is a unisex affair. After all, women are capable of being predatory, emotionally withdrawn, and the other attributes ascribed to toxic masculinity. However, it’s true that males were often given a “boys will be boys” pass on some of it. It’s a good thing, that the ideals now are that all people should treat others with respect, not abuse their power, and be able to express their feelings. I’m grateful my son is young enough to benefit from a less constricting expected role.

Still, I hope we won’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. It will be a sad state of affairs if men feel attacked for being male, or lose the lovely masculine attributes of problem-solving, willingness to step in without whining, courage to protect and defend, loyalty, and competitiveness.

I really love exploring these issues; it’s one reason why I like to write dual POV.

Konstanintos is very much a man’s man (BTW, his story, Helios, is free today). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089G6T6WK  My other heroes are still alphas, but without the degree of arrogance that millions of euros bring to the table.

What sort of heroes do YOU like to read about? Do you love Dark Romance with abusive men, since it’s fiction and not real life? Do you prefer the Alpha Male that’s a staple in Romance? Or do you like the ones that are more nuanced, maybe a little closer to real life?

Food As Love

Today is a day for homemade chicken soup, and we’re also planning the menus for when our son returns from out of state. It’s got me thinking about food as a gesture of love, acceptance, and nurturing. On The Boy’s list would be chicken pot pie, flank steak, and lasagna, so we’ll be sure to have those in rotation for his first week of homecoming.

My novels feature lots of food mentions, in part as world-building and as seduction, but also to represent comfort and safety. Some of them I’ve tried, though I’ve yet to tackle the salteñas that Carlos’ mother makes for him in New Heights, but when I do, I’ll post the recipe, like I did with the pitas, tzatziki, and gyros. There’s nothing like the smell of home cooking on a cold winter day!

The chicken soup will serve nicely as leftovers for a day or two, while I put the final touches on Hard Truths, too.

What are YOUR comfort foods and treasured family recipes?

Well, that’s creepy…

The evolution of Valentine’s Day, from two early Christian martyrs to today’s multi-billion dollar industry is a bit of a strange tale.

Saint Valentine of Rome is said to have worn an amethyst ring engraved with a heart on it, enabling Early Christian soldiers of Rome to identify him so he could perform marriage ceremonies for them. When he was brought before the Roman emperor in 269 to recant, he refused and tried to convert Claudius. It didn’t go well, but before he was killed, Valentine cured the blindness of his jailer’s daughter, Julia, and wrote her a note signed, “Your Valentine.” She planted an almond in memory.

A macabre relic of St. Valentine still exists. His skull, crowned with flowers and with his name stenciled across the forehead, now resides in an ossuary that looks like a little Art Deco TV, complete with legs. It can be viewed in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin.

The first association of St. Valentine with romantic love comes from Chaucer, who wrote a poem called Parliament of Fowls, in which birds chose their mates, to commemorate the engagement of 15-year-old Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, in the 14th century. Hearts and keys came to symbolize courtly love, and the now-infamous “roses are red, violets are blue” was penned in 1590.

The commercialization of Valentine’s Day can be traced to 1797 when The Young Man’s Valentine Writer was published. It contained sentimental verses for the poetry-challenged suitor.

Nowadays 1 billion Valentines cards are exchanged in the US alone, if the ones traded by grade-schoolers are included, and candy sales for Valentine’s Day last year was 2.4 billion dollars!

Your best bet is a romantic read—and the price is right! Get Submerged Hopes free today on Amazon!

The Nose Knows

It’s everywhere—in novels, on TV, and in airports: dogs used in scent work, but it’s a common misconception that they have to be German shepherds or bloodhounds. Here’s some interesting things I learned researching this topic for Hard Truths.

Any dog can learn to track. Including Gus the Wonder Pup. Though bloodhounds are the undisputed champions of tracking, the breeds chosen for scent work have more to do with breed agility and eagerness to please.

Nosework can be used to help in law enforcement (finding fugitives, drugs, or explosives), rescue and recovery (missing persons, disasters like mudslides, earthquakes, or collapsed buildings, first aid in wartime, lost items), medical applications (warning for diabetic crises and seizures, detection of TB, malaria, and cancers), and for fun (competitions) and profit (truffles).

A dog’s nose is truly amazing, with a sense of smell up to 100,000 times as sensitive as ours. They can detect the equivalent of a single rotten apple hidden in 2 million barrels, or a single drop of substance in 20 Olympic pools’ worth of water. Some avalanche dogs have been able to smell people buried in 15 feet of snow!

Part of this is that they have 300 million olfactory receptors, compared to 6 million for us, but their brains also have 40 times the space dedicated to analysis of odors. Their nostrils can constrict independently, and they have a flap of skin inside their nose to channel scents into their turbinates, a network of soft tissue, which helps to concentrate the smell. In addition, dogs have a special sensor called Jacobson’s organ, which is used to analyze pheromones.

Dogs used for scentwork are divided into air-scenting dogs, who generally work off leash and detect molecules in the air, and trailing or tracking canines, who usually work on a lead, following a trail laid down by a subject. An air-scenting dog may be able to detect scents from up to ¼ mil away, even on a windy day, and tracking dogs who come upon a trail perpendicular to them can tell even from 5 feet away if the subject was headed right or left.

Dogs are trained to sit and bark for attention, or to return and lead back the handler. Wartime “mercy dogs” are taught to return with an item of a military member’s uniform if the servicemember is alive. There were over 20,000 “mercy dogs” in WWI and II, so called because they carried basic first aid supplies. Retrieval dogs can be taught “bring back,” so if I drop a glove, I can send Gus to search it out and come back with it.

Nosework for fun and competition is a new sport, but chapters are cropping up in many cities now. Some studies have shown that dogs with behavior problems can become better adapted with training, possibly because of the additional time with owners and positive reinforcement. Maybe YOUR dog would find it fun!

New Heights has no dog but it does have a cat! It’s free today and Sunday (1/29 & 30)! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C9P8QL6

Cool Places: Bad Tooth

One of the settings in Hard Truths is a punk bar in Athens, graffitied inside and out, with draft Grimbergen on tap. Bars are fun to use in novels because of their flexibility: gritty or elegant? Earsplitting techno vs quiet jazz? An arranged meet, a new connection, or a fight?

Punk rock emerged in the 70s as an antidote to the excesses of rock in that era. Punk embraced hard-edged, short melodies, stripped-down instruments, and a DIY, anti-establishment vibe, with frank, confrontational lyrics. With the availability of recording equipment, garage bands had a chance to be heard, and independent record labels proliferated.

Early groups The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, The Velvet Underground, and The Clash achieved lasting fame, and spawned New Wave, Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Post Punk, Noise Rock, and Emo, among others. In recent years, Green Day is one of the most well-known group in the US.

The term “punk” also came to be associated with a certain style (leather jackets, spiked collars, T-shirts designed to offend, safety pins, bondage wear) and culture (nihilism, alienation, gritty urban life, and sexual taboos), and debate rages over who is a “poser,” who loves the style, vs “authentic,” embracing antiestablishment values.

What settings do YOU enjoy in novels?