Tory Richards's Blog, page 171

Did everyone have a nice weekend? I got some writing done...

Did everyone have a nice weekend? I got some writing done, yeah! Getting geared up to have the kids on my own from Thurs-Sun this week. My daughter and son-in-law are going on a cruise. When do I get to go on a cruise? LOL

FRANKENMALLOWS

 A HALLOWEEN TREAT



6 OZ.BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate
25 JET-PUFFED Marshmallows, divided

Suggested Decorations:  baker's angel flake coconut food coloringscolored sugar pretzel sticksring-shaped toasted whole grain oat cerealdecorating icingchow mein noodlesplanters nutssmall candies 

MELT chocolate as directed on package. Dip 20 marshmallows, 1 at a time, in chocolate, turning to evenly coat each marshmallow. Gently shake off excess chocolate. Place marshmallows, in single layer, on sheets of waxed paper. Reserve remaining melted chocolate for decorating. (NOTE: If decorating coated marshmallows with coconut hair, place 1/2 cup coconut in small resealable plastic bag. Add 2 drops each green and yellow food coloring; seal bag. Shake to evenly tint coconut. Arrange on tops of coated marshmallows. If desired, pinch coconut into a mohawk cut before placing on marshmallows.)

LET marshmallows stand at room temperature 2 hours or until chocolate is firm.

CUT each of the remaining marshmallows crosswise into 4 pieces with clean kitchen shears. Cut v-shaped notch out of each piece for the shoes. Dip cut-sides in colored sugar. Attach 1 notched marshmallow to bottom of each chocolate-covered marshmallow with a dab of the remaining melted chocolate.DECORATE coated marshmallows with remaining decorations as desired. For bolts: Cut pretzels into 1/4-inch lengths. Insert 1 pretzel piece into each cereal ring; insert 2 pretzels into opposite side of each marshmallow, securing each with a dab of melted chocolate. For eyes, nose, scars and other hair styles: Decorate marshmallows with remaining ingredients as desired.

GHASTLY GREEN FRANKENMALLOWS
Prepare using BAKER'S White Chocolate, blending 2 drops each green and yellow food coloring with melted chocolate before using as directed.
HOW TO STORE
Store in airtight container at room temperature

I have to share this while I'm thinking about it. Alivia,...

I have to share this while I'm thinking about it. Alivia, my 6 year old granddaughter crawls into bed with me at some time every night. The other morning while we lay there, she said, "You know what grandma? You're my favorite adult." Then I think she thought about what she said and quickly added, "In this room."  LOL

Sharing my Saturday

I am so worn out guys. I spent most of the day at a pumpkin patch with my grandchildren, daughter and niece. We went on a hay ride, Alivia and my niece did the zip line, plus they rode horses. Little Mason sat on my niece's lap and really enjoyed it. There were a couple kiddie rides and a maze. We bought pumpkins and kettle corn. When my daughter was growing up I was the fun mom. But I sure aint the fun grandma. The degenerative disc disease in my back has really slowed me down. I can barely move right now but seeing the smiles on Alivia and Mason's faces was worth it.

CLICK HERE!lucymonroeblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/r......

CLICK HERE!
lucymonroeblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/retreat-guest-blogger-tory-richards.html

Woohoo! Check out my post over at Lucy Monroe's Online Reader Retreat when it goes live at 4:00! And please leave a comment.  

Meet Bess McBride!

Good morning everyone! I'm hosting another author tour for Goddess Fish and today you get to meet Bess McBride. Her new book is a time travel, something I have always been interested in. I know you will give her a warm welcome.


AUTHOR Bio 
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.com
http://willtravelforromance.blogspot....


Across the Winds of Time by Bess McBride 
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.

The author will be giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to one random commenter during the tour.
Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2012/08/book-blast-across-winds-of-time-by-bess.html

Win $20 egift Certificate for Bath and Body Works!

Click here for list of participants!
These hops are a great way to discover new authors, blogs, and win some freebies! There are over 130 authors participating and the more blogs you visit and leave a comment, the more chances you have at winning something. And you have plenty of time because the hop runs from the 10/10-10/15, that's five whole days! Oh and while you're here, I'd love for you to sign up for my monthly newsletter. Sign up link is on the right. Thanks!

Ya'll know I write erotic romance. Does it involve kinky sex? I'm not sure about that. My characters partake in a little more than vanilla sex, but so far other than the over-used dildo, no other sex toys are used. Oh, there has been some anal spray, a pair of hand-cuffs, and a little bondage in a few of my books. Maybe in the future my characters will explore the, um, kinkier toys. 

So on that note, I'd like to introduce you to some of the earlier sex toys. No, they aren't tools of torture! LOL I swear!



Wooden willies made from Rosewood, the late-1700s phalluses. They look pretty sturdy, huh? They must be. I mean, they've been around for a while.







First ever vibrator, created in 1869. This large piece of steam-powered apparatus was used to treat an illness known then as ‘female hysteria’. Otherwise known as being horny. Looks like some torture devise, doesn't it?



Cock rings were reported to have existed around 1200AD in China. The first ever cock rings were apparently made from the eyelids of goats – with the eyelashes intact! At least it's pretty!






So you ask yourself, what fantastic prize is Tory Richards offering? How about a $10 egift certificate for Bath and Body Works? Nice but... Okay, then how about $20 for an egift certificate for Bath and Body Works? That's right! And all you have to do to be entered into a drawing is answer the question, what's your favorite genre? And since it's an egift certificate I can send it anywhere in the world. All I need is your email addy!
Good luck everyone!

Please welcome Kathy Kulig!

Psychic Vampires: Sucking the Life Out of You 
By Kathy Kulig 
First of all, thanks so much for having me as guest. And thanks to the readers for reading and stopping by today. 

Next for the blog: I thought I’d talk about psychic vampires because my demons are an extreme variety of a psychic vamp. They crave and need lifeforce energy to survive.

Psychic vampires need energy instead of blood from an external source. That energy is the lifeforce from another person, animal and also nature: trees, rivers and earth. Some believe psychic vampires actually exist. I think they do. They’re energy predators. And we may not realize we’ve fallen prey to their attacks. Ever feel drained or exhausted after being around a certain person? The result to the victim can be an emotional, mental and physical drain. They may not even be aware they’re a psychic vampire. Other symptoms include: headache, dizziness, loss of consciousness, disorientations, depression, weakness and tiredness.

In vampire lore, there are those who aren’t capable of generating their own energy and don’t store it either. They must draw that energy in order to sustain themselves.

How to block a psychic vampire.

We all have the ability to control the inward and outward flow of energy with practice and meditation. A quick way to protect from psychic vampire attacks is to visualize a bright white light surrounding you like a large bubble. And with clear intend, make the bubble your guardian shield against all attacks and harm.

Another technique is called the Finger Interlock Technique. Create two circles by touching the middle finger and thumb together of each hand. Then interlock these two circles forming a link. Imagine a pure white light surrounding you and say, “I am now fully protected and energized.” This technique is also a good mini-meditation to help focus before an exam, an interview, before a performance, anywhere you need extra confidence and positive energy. The immortal demons in DAMNED AND DEFIANT, my latest release from Ellora’s Cave (8/12) behave like very bad psychic vampires. They draw lifeforce energy from mortals through sexual encounters to sustain their world. If they collect too much, their prey can die. It’s best that these demons don’t get emotionally attached to their prey, called Kithra, because the risk of killing them becomes higher. Dante breaks that rule when he meets Haley. 


Damned and Defiant by Kathy Kulig

Blurb: Book 3 in the Demons in Exile series. 

Mortal women surrender to Dante’s seductions. He is a Drone, an immortal who feeds off their lifeforce energy—the chi that keeps his kind alive. When his dimension is on the edge of destruction, Dante must seek the help of one special woman.

Haley Moore is a Sha Warrior—a mortal with excess lifeforce energy. She has always had a strong attraction to Dante and when they meet again he thinks luck is on his side because his quota of chi energy would be obtained after one scorching scene with this mortal. But the problem is that he is overwhelmingly attracted to her and once with this woman won’t be enough.

Haley tries to draw out the man buried deep within the demon. Their fierce, undeniable passion unravels his plans and threatens her life. Can Dante bear to abandon her when he leaves Earth forever? Dante will have to choose whether to return to his world or to give up his immortality and share his future with Haley.


EXCERPT

The skinwalker—part man, part coyote—shifted into his human form as he gazed upon the young woman, his quarry. She removed her clothes and dropped them onto the cool, desert sand. She gave him a lustful glance as if she was the one controlling the seduction. 
“Nice trick with the coyote. Are you a magician?” Her words were slurred. But the trance hadn’t taken hold.

“Something like that,” he answered. He felt a flush of heat on his face. How the hell was she still aware? Something wasn’t right. This Kithra was different than the others, and he wasn’t sure why. He slid his hands over her arms and sparks skidded across her skin.

“I love the desert at night,” she added as her eyelids flickered. The air around her body crackled with electricity, her short, blonde hair stood out from the static. Not his usual choice for Kithras. He preferred ones with long, dark hair like the Drones from Prygos. It had to be her level of energy that drew him to this one.

“Yes,” he murmured, then waved his hand over her face, deepening the trance with little effort. He extended a finger and ran it down the side of her cheek, her neck, between her small breasts and cut diagonally across her flat stomach to her narrow hips.


Bio: Kathy Kulig is the award-winning author of sexy paranormal and contemporary romances. She has published over a dozen novels and novellas and her work has appeared in eBook, print and anthology. Kathy is a science geek by day and writer of erotic fiction at night. Her interest in mythology, quantum physics and the supernatural, and also her extensive background in science, provide inexhaustible material for new projects in the paranormal realms. Besides her career in writing, she’s a cytotechnologist and has  worked as a research scientist, medical technologist, dive master and stringer for a newspaper. When she’s not writing or dreaming up her next steamy story, she enjoys traveling, relaxing by the beach with a book, mountain biking, movies and dinners out. She resides in eastern Pennsylvania with her husband and lives in a 100-year-old Victorian home which has a garage built of rejected tombstones.


Damned and Defiant Ellora’s Cave: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-10267-damned-and-defiant.aspx  Amazon: http://amzn.to/MFNFJs B&N: http://bit.ly/NU3h0m 
Visit Kathy at: 
http://www.kathykulig.com
http://www.kathykulig.blogspot.com 
http://www.facebook.com/kathykulig http://www.facebook.com/kathykuligauthor 
http://www.twitter.com/kathykulig 
PRIZE INFORMATION:
Kathy will be awarding one eBook from her backlist to a randomly drawn commenter at every stop, and two grand prizes: a $20 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and a tote bag of books including Something Wicked this Way Comes (an Amazon bestseller with Laurann Dohner, Jaid

Black and others and includes my short Tattoo Witch), Dial B for Bondage Anthology with Emerald Dungeon, Desert of the Damned and Damned and Desired print books, a few other surprise goodies to another commenter (US only).
Follow the tour and comment; the more you do, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2012/08/virtual-book-tour-damned-and-defiant-by.html

It's Here!

Click Here!

Hey folks, this is the first year I'm participating in Lucy's Online Reader Retreat so I'm really excited about this. Lots and lots of fun, events and prizes and it all begins Monday morning! 

I've got Alivia doing little chores in my woman cave this...

I've got Alivia doing little chores in my woman cave this morning. She's always eager to help out so I've been giving her one thing to do at a time. She doesn't know that I'm going to give her a little piggy bank food when she's done:)