Sherry Morris's Blog, page 22
March 25, 2013
Melanoma is the #1 Cause of Cancer Deaths for Young Americans
By Sherry Silver
This article was written in 2005 with 2007 & 2013 updates
The largest mole on the left shoulder blade was my melanoma in situ which is the very earliest Stage 0. It looked like a normal mole to me. If my nurse practitioner hadn’t suspected it, I’d be walking around with invasive cancer now, oblivious until it settled into my lungs, liver or brain. Notice how white I am. I’ve never had a suntan and always use sunscreen. I apologize for not having a close up of the mole. This photograph was taken so I could see the back of my hair at the Love & Hope Ball. I didn’t take a before and after picture of the malignancy because I never in a billion years dreamed it would be cancerous. I’m still in shock that I have Melanoma, I didn’t think I was at risk.
That’s correct. My dermatologist advised me Melanoma is the leading cause of cancer deaths for Americans between the ages of twenty and forty. Everyone fears breast cancer and prostate cancer. Why isn’t the media getting the message out? Most of us think skin cancer is preventable. We limit our sun exposure between ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. We apply sunscreen. We use cosmetic tanning creams, go to tanning spray salons or lay in UV-free tanning beds. I’ve never been a sun goddess. I do my gardening early in the morning or late in the evening. I take the kids to the pool after four p.m. and liberally slather on the sunscreen. I’ve never sported a suntan. I don’t smoke, drink, drug or fool around on my hunky husband. I have skin cancer. My risk factors were strawberry blonde hair, blue/green eyes and two bad sunburns during my sixth summer, when our wonderful neighbors took me to the beach in Ocean City, Maryland with their kids. How many of you have blue, green or hazel eyes? Blonde or red hair? Get yourselves and your loved ones to see a medical professional ASAP. Skin cancer can creep up on anyone at any age. Even you tall dark and handsome types. All ages, races, skin tones, eye and hair colors are at risk. Human? Get checked.
Like many of you, I thought Melanoma was the curable, no big deal cancer. They remove the mole and it’s gone. No problem. Wrong! Melanoma begins in the surface of the skin, travels down through the layers to the lymph nodes, where it hops on and is transported to the lungs, liver and brain. Cancer that originated in the skin is still Melanoma in the other organs, and it is just as deadly as if the cancers originated in them. This is how people die of Melanoma. Yes, non-smokers, non-drinkers and non-thinkers do contract lung, liver and brain cancer. At my annual well-woman check-up, I asked my nurse practitioner to take a look at some itchy raised ugly lesions on my back that were bugging me. I thought they were Seborrheic Keratsois, which are benign lesions most people eventually get. She confirmed this. I asked her to recommend a dermatologist. She did, and said, “While you’re there, have him look at this mole on your shoulder blade…” The initial biopsy showed a severely irregular nevus. The dermatologist explained this could turn into Melanoma, so he wanted to remove it ASAP. The total excision a week later confirmed Melanoma in Situ in the epidermis, the top layer of skin. Yep, that mole which I took no notice of was Melanoma. It didn’t look like any Melanoma photo I’d seen. It wasn’t black and blue and red and crusty and bleeding. Those photos are what the advanced stages look like. The early stage looks like a normal mole, but has a slight irregular shape to it or a subtle color difference of hues within. I can’t even guess how many seemingly healthy people are walking around with early Melanoma and they have no clue. I was stunned. How could I have Melanoma? What about all of the little-black-bikini-moms sautéing themselves poolside all day? They were bronzed beauties and just fine. I was a pasty white frump and I had skin cancer. I endured three operations at the primary site. All layers of skin and some fat were removed, along with a margin of healthy tissue. Stitches in my shoulder blade prohibited me from doing so many activities. Tying my shoe. Yanking clothes in and out of the washer & dryer. Unloading the dishwasher. Pulling weeds. Typing! Oh that hurt so much. Two pathologists agreed all cancer cells have now been excised. I was very fortunate the cancer was only in the very top layer of skin and hadn’t begun to penetrate. I won’t need to undergo radiation, chemo or immuno therapies. God bless my gynecologist nurse practitioner, Brenda Hagan, for suspecting this mole. My dermatologist tossed me onto a surgery-go-round. Every two weeks I had one or two suspicious moles excised or re-excised. The sutures were removed in seven to fourteen days, and then I had another round. This dragged on for six months in 2005. I joined a Melanoma Yahoo Group. The other sufferers and their loved ones basically told me that Melanoma always comes back. They remove it all, and then in a few years, or maybe even a decade or more, it comes back. This time in the lymph nodes, or worse. I eventually had to unsubscribe, it was too sad. The local news didn’t help my mood. A 27 year old pregnant woman who had Melanoma removed as a teen, wasn’t feeling well. She went to the emergency room, and they found Melanoma in her brain. She lapsed into a coma that night. Her husband quit his job and stayed at her side. They kept her on life support until her fetus grew large enough for a premature delivery. She died when her baby girl was born. The baby died five weeks later. According to the National Cancer Society, the average person with Melanoma has a reduced life expectancy of 18 years. Factoring in my parents’ and grandparents’ long lives, that takes me to around 62, just when I will be eligible to receive my deferred pension. I might not live long enough to receive the first check. It’s doubtful I’ll ever draw Social Security, since I’ll have to be 67 to receive full benefits. But then again, that’s the statistical median. Half the people live longer. Half die sooner. Once the shock of the cancer diagnosis sank in, I didn’t cry and freak out. I educated myself, and looked back at the lifestyle changes I’d made over the years. I’m going back to brewing a pitcher of iced tea daily. It’s rich in antioxidants. I’m tired of diet soda anyhow. I did get grouchy and annoyed at the inconvenience, pain and limitations suddenly imposed on my daily life. I never did the Why me? drill. I’ve had other devastations to endure, and I learned early in life there is no answer to the riddle Why do horrendous things happen to good people? I’ve accepted my disease and that I have a little less time to go. I have chosen to spend the rest of my life on the sunny side of my dreams. I want to take a great big bite out of life with my blue-eyed blonde family. I am having a hard time swallowing the two bad childhood sunburns caused my Melanoma. Yes, I have been lightly sunburned and peeled a few other times in my life, but never a severe blistering burn. I have kept my sun exposure to a minimum and applied sunscreen. Yet I know many people who sunburn every year before tanning to a dark brown and they don’t develop this in the prime of their lives. Are UV rays really the sun cancer villain? Could something in the sunscreen cause it? Every house I’ve ever lived in has tested positive for radon gas in the basement. We tested our current home. A normal radon reading is below 4. Two tests indicated our radon level was 20! We stopped spending time in the basement until my husband and son installed a fan to vent the radon out from under the house up through the roof. The next test came back at a reading of 1.2, which is comparable to what the radon concentration is outdoors. I’m very proud of their hard work and proper installation. The fan runs continuously, I hear the hum in our master bathroom as it is adjacent to the attic where the pipe vents through the roof. Could radon gas exposure have been the culprit or catalyst that triggered my Melanoma? Do any of you with Melanoma have radon exposure? My husband has his peanut butter theory. Everyone who has ever contracted cancer has eaten peanut butter. His point being we are probably poisoning ourselves and are clueless.I have skin cancer. I want to get the word out to everyone. I’M TALKING TO YOU! Each time you see a doctor or nurse, for any reason, ask them to look at your moles. Don’t insist “Oh, mine are fine. I won’t get skin cancer.” Everyone is at risk… Update March 15, 2007 I had another follow-up full-body-check today. My dermatologist wants to biopsy a mole on the right side of my neck, near my jaw line. He’s concerned it could be basal cell carcinoma. I had one on the opposite side, same location removed in 2005. That one was a severely irregular nevus, which was on its way to turning into melanoma. Basal cell carcinoma is not usually deadly like melanoma is. Basal cell carcinoma can be disfiguring if left untreated. I’ve had a lot of benign seborrheic keratosis popping up and I don’t like the ones on my face. He froze three today.
I also have benign skin tags on my neck which I want snipped. My doctor will remove them when he does the biopsy. Then I’ll be all set for ponytails and up-doos this Summer.
Please, please, please! Even if you have always slathered on sunscreen and stayed in the shade, like I did, have your moles checked. Anyone of any race can develop melanoma. Its a silent epidemic.
Yesterday I was contacted by a textbook author who had visited my website. I granted her permission to publish my above photo in two medical terminology textbooks. One for high school, the other for community college. I feel like Lucy Ricardo in the I Love Lucy episode where she writes a novel and they want to use it in a book about how not to write a novel. Nobody wants to be in a medical textbook. I’m giggling inappropriately and I don’t know why.
Update March 25, 2013 My father was diagnosed with Melanoma at age 91. It didn't kill him, he died of heart failure after a long life in the sun as a farmer, cowboy, Marine and police officer.
As I wrote in 2005, I'm still suspicious that environmental factors in addition to the sun contributed to my early Melanoma. Now there is a lot of talk of the chemical BPA in plastics and lining food and drink metal cans. I rid our home of all plastic that didn't say 'BPA free', the vehement protest of my Disney daughter who loved all of her cups she'd collected from the theme parks. Good news. I did save them and they have a "5" recycling symbol. I just learned that "7" is the one that might contain BPA, so the cups are back in use. Now to use up all the canned food and soft drinks then start buying only frozen or in glass or plastic containers.
Nobody has said BPA causes cancer. There have been studies that show is a hormone disruptor, and in small doses is not dangerous. Still, I don't want it in my body. I just had another six month full body check. For the first time in eight years, there were no suspicious moles to be biopsied. Usually I have three done: one mole the doctor is concerned about, one I'm concerned about and one that spooks us both. This is my second visit to this dermatologist and I really like her. I have lots of seborrheic keratosis, which are wart like benign lesions on my trunk and a few on my face and elsewhere. It was always a bother for the male docs/physician's assistant to freeze a few off with liquid nitrogen. At my first visit to her last year, this lady doc froze sixty from my back. She allowed her nurse to freeze eighty-five yesterday! Pretty much all that we could find. You'd think liquid nitrogen would feel cold. It actually stings like a bee with a blow torch as she zaps each spot for x amount of seconds which seems like a minute but I know it isn't. I flinched and curled my toes and made fists and scrunched up my face but kept a stiff upper lip. She apologized continuously for the pain, but I wanted them gone. The immediate reaction was redness and swelling, I looked like I had hives. And it burned for several hours, I felt as though I was on fire. I took one dose of Aspirin when I arrived home. The pain subsided and now I'm just left with the brown and red spots (some of which bled, probably due to the Aspirin). They will dry out and flake off during the next thirty days. Then I'll look so much better in my summer clothes this year with all of them gone. And it will be easier to keep an eye on changes to my moles and freckles since there won't be so much to look at. Yippee!
The largest mole on the left shoulder blade was my melanoma in situ which is the very earliest Stage 0. It looked like a normal mole to me. If my nurse practitioner hadn’t suspected it, I’d be walking around with invasive cancer now, oblivious until it settled into my lungs, liver or brain. Notice how white I am. I’ve never had a suntan and always use sunscreen. I apologize for not having a close up of the mole. This photograph was taken so I could see the back of my hair at the Love & Hope Ball. I didn’t take a before and after picture of the malignancy because I never in a billion years dreamed it would be cancerous. I’m still in shock that I have Melanoma, I didn’t think I was at risk.That’s correct. My dermatologist advised me Melanoma is the leading cause of cancer deaths for Americans between the ages of twenty and forty. Everyone fears breast cancer and prostate cancer. Why isn’t the media getting the message out? Most of us think skin cancer is preventable. We limit our sun exposure between ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. We apply sunscreen. We use cosmetic tanning creams, go to tanning spray salons or lay in UV-free tanning beds. I’ve never been a sun goddess. I do my gardening early in the morning or late in the evening. I take the kids to the pool after four p.m. and liberally slather on the sunscreen. I’ve never sported a suntan. I don’t smoke, drink, drug or fool around on my hunky husband. I have skin cancer. My risk factors were strawberry blonde hair, blue/green eyes and two bad sunburns during my sixth summer, when our wonderful neighbors took me to the beach in Ocean City, Maryland with their kids. How many of you have blue, green or hazel eyes? Blonde or red hair? Get yourselves and your loved ones to see a medical professional ASAP. Skin cancer can creep up on anyone at any age. Even you tall dark and handsome types. All ages, races, skin tones, eye and hair colors are at risk. Human? Get checked.
Like many of you, I thought Melanoma was the curable, no big deal cancer. They remove the mole and it’s gone. No problem. Wrong! Melanoma begins in the surface of the skin, travels down through the layers to the lymph nodes, where it hops on and is transported to the lungs, liver and brain. Cancer that originated in the skin is still Melanoma in the other organs, and it is just as deadly as if the cancers originated in them. This is how people die of Melanoma. Yes, non-smokers, non-drinkers and non-thinkers do contract lung, liver and brain cancer. At my annual well-woman check-up, I asked my nurse practitioner to take a look at some itchy raised ugly lesions on my back that were bugging me. I thought they were Seborrheic Keratsois, which are benign lesions most people eventually get. She confirmed this. I asked her to recommend a dermatologist. She did, and said, “While you’re there, have him look at this mole on your shoulder blade…” The initial biopsy showed a severely irregular nevus. The dermatologist explained this could turn into Melanoma, so he wanted to remove it ASAP. The total excision a week later confirmed Melanoma in Situ in the epidermis, the top layer of skin. Yep, that mole which I took no notice of was Melanoma. It didn’t look like any Melanoma photo I’d seen. It wasn’t black and blue and red and crusty and bleeding. Those photos are what the advanced stages look like. The early stage looks like a normal mole, but has a slight irregular shape to it or a subtle color difference of hues within. I can’t even guess how many seemingly healthy people are walking around with early Melanoma and they have no clue. I was stunned. How could I have Melanoma? What about all of the little-black-bikini-moms sautéing themselves poolside all day? They were bronzed beauties and just fine. I was a pasty white frump and I had skin cancer. I endured three operations at the primary site. All layers of skin and some fat were removed, along with a margin of healthy tissue. Stitches in my shoulder blade prohibited me from doing so many activities. Tying my shoe. Yanking clothes in and out of the washer & dryer. Unloading the dishwasher. Pulling weeds. Typing! Oh that hurt so much. Two pathologists agreed all cancer cells have now been excised. I was very fortunate the cancer was only in the very top layer of skin and hadn’t begun to penetrate. I won’t need to undergo radiation, chemo or immuno therapies. God bless my gynecologist nurse practitioner, Brenda Hagan, for suspecting this mole. My dermatologist tossed me onto a surgery-go-round. Every two weeks I had one or two suspicious moles excised or re-excised. The sutures were removed in seven to fourteen days, and then I had another round. This dragged on for six months in 2005. I joined a Melanoma Yahoo Group. The other sufferers and their loved ones basically told me that Melanoma always comes back. They remove it all, and then in a few years, or maybe even a decade or more, it comes back. This time in the lymph nodes, or worse. I eventually had to unsubscribe, it was too sad. The local news didn’t help my mood. A 27 year old pregnant woman who had Melanoma removed as a teen, wasn’t feeling well. She went to the emergency room, and they found Melanoma in her brain. She lapsed into a coma that night. Her husband quit his job and stayed at her side. They kept her on life support until her fetus grew large enough for a premature delivery. She died when her baby girl was born. The baby died five weeks later. According to the National Cancer Society, the average person with Melanoma has a reduced life expectancy of 18 years. Factoring in my parents’ and grandparents’ long lives, that takes me to around 62, just when I will be eligible to receive my deferred pension. I might not live long enough to receive the first check. It’s doubtful I’ll ever draw Social Security, since I’ll have to be 67 to receive full benefits. But then again, that’s the statistical median. Half the people live longer. Half die sooner. Once the shock of the cancer diagnosis sank in, I didn’t cry and freak out. I educated myself, and looked back at the lifestyle changes I’d made over the years. I’m going back to brewing a pitcher of iced tea daily. It’s rich in antioxidants. I’m tired of diet soda anyhow. I did get grouchy and annoyed at the inconvenience, pain and limitations suddenly imposed on my daily life. I never did the Why me? drill. I’ve had other devastations to endure, and I learned early in life there is no answer to the riddle Why do horrendous things happen to good people? I’ve accepted my disease and that I have a little less time to go. I have chosen to spend the rest of my life on the sunny side of my dreams. I want to take a great big bite out of life with my blue-eyed blonde family. I am having a hard time swallowing the two bad childhood sunburns caused my Melanoma. Yes, I have been lightly sunburned and peeled a few other times in my life, but never a severe blistering burn. I have kept my sun exposure to a minimum and applied sunscreen. Yet I know many people who sunburn every year before tanning to a dark brown and they don’t develop this in the prime of their lives. Are UV rays really the sun cancer villain? Could something in the sunscreen cause it? Every house I’ve ever lived in has tested positive for radon gas in the basement. We tested our current home. A normal radon reading is below 4. Two tests indicated our radon level was 20! We stopped spending time in the basement until my husband and son installed a fan to vent the radon out from under the house up through the roof. The next test came back at a reading of 1.2, which is comparable to what the radon concentration is outdoors. I’m very proud of their hard work and proper installation. The fan runs continuously, I hear the hum in our master bathroom as it is adjacent to the attic where the pipe vents through the roof. Could radon gas exposure have been the culprit or catalyst that triggered my Melanoma? Do any of you with Melanoma have radon exposure? My husband has his peanut butter theory. Everyone who has ever contracted cancer has eaten peanut butter. His point being we are probably poisoning ourselves and are clueless.I have skin cancer. I want to get the word out to everyone. I’M TALKING TO YOU! Each time you see a doctor or nurse, for any reason, ask them to look at your moles. Don’t insist “Oh, mine are fine. I won’t get skin cancer.” Everyone is at risk… Update March 15, 2007 I had another follow-up full-body-check today. My dermatologist wants to biopsy a mole on the right side of my neck, near my jaw line. He’s concerned it could be basal cell carcinoma. I had one on the opposite side, same location removed in 2005. That one was a severely irregular nevus, which was on its way to turning into melanoma. Basal cell carcinoma is not usually deadly like melanoma is. Basal cell carcinoma can be disfiguring if left untreated. I’ve had a lot of benign seborrheic keratosis popping up and I don’t like the ones on my face. He froze three today.
I also have benign skin tags on my neck which I want snipped. My doctor will remove them when he does the biopsy. Then I’ll be all set for ponytails and up-doos this Summer.
Please, please, please! Even if you have always slathered on sunscreen and stayed in the shade, like I did, have your moles checked. Anyone of any race can develop melanoma. Its a silent epidemic.
Yesterday I was contacted by a textbook author who had visited my website. I granted her permission to publish my above photo in two medical terminology textbooks. One for high school, the other for community college. I feel like Lucy Ricardo in the I Love Lucy episode where she writes a novel and they want to use it in a book about how not to write a novel. Nobody wants to be in a medical textbook. I’m giggling inappropriately and I don’t know why.
Update March 25, 2013 My father was diagnosed with Melanoma at age 91. It didn't kill him, he died of heart failure after a long life in the sun as a farmer, cowboy, Marine and police officer.
As I wrote in 2005, I'm still suspicious that environmental factors in addition to the sun contributed to my early Melanoma. Now there is a lot of talk of the chemical BPA in plastics and lining food and drink metal cans. I rid our home of all plastic that didn't say 'BPA free', the vehement protest of my Disney daughter who loved all of her cups she'd collected from the theme parks. Good news. I did save them and they have a "5" recycling symbol. I just learned that "7" is the one that might contain BPA, so the cups are back in use. Now to use up all the canned food and soft drinks then start buying only frozen or in glass or plastic containers.
Nobody has said BPA causes cancer. There have been studies that show is a hormone disruptor, and in small doses is not dangerous. Still, I don't want it in my body. I just had another six month full body check. For the first time in eight years, there were no suspicious moles to be biopsied. Usually I have three done: one mole the doctor is concerned about, one I'm concerned about and one that spooks us both. This is my second visit to this dermatologist and I really like her. I have lots of seborrheic keratosis, which are wart like benign lesions on my trunk and a few on my face and elsewhere. It was always a bother for the male docs/physician's assistant to freeze a few off with liquid nitrogen. At my first visit to her last year, this lady doc froze sixty from my back. She allowed her nurse to freeze eighty-five yesterday! Pretty much all that we could find. You'd think liquid nitrogen would feel cold. It actually stings like a bee with a blow torch as she zaps each spot for x amount of seconds which seems like a minute but I know it isn't. I flinched and curled my toes and made fists and scrunched up my face but kept a stiff upper lip. She apologized continuously for the pain, but I wanted them gone. The immediate reaction was redness and swelling, I looked like I had hives. And it burned for several hours, I felt as though I was on fire. I took one dose of Aspirin when I arrived home. The pain subsided and now I'm just left with the brown and red spots (some of which bled, probably due to the Aspirin). They will dry out and flake off during the next thirty days. Then I'll look so much better in my summer clothes this year with all of them gone. And it will be easier to keep an eye on changes to my moles and freckles since there won't be so much to look at. Yippee!
March 20, 2013
Blocking Matilda
I've done it. I've reached my dreamy goal of having ten thousand Twitter followers. Hooray! Thank you so very much.
I went into social networking hoping to sell a few of my dozen published books. You see, I've been trying all kinds of ways to get my titles out there. Without the clout and marketing budget of a major publisher, I'm pretty much stuck selling my books to my acquaintances. Sound familiar?
At first, I loved tweeting. It was great for my undiagnosed OCD. 140 characters and I was good to go on to be distracted by something else. No big investment like group blogs, which I really enjoyed until I ran out of material. But this week I've had to block three people. I've probably only blocked that many in a whole year.
I schedule my book promo posts in advance using Hootsuite. So while it looks like I am tweeting 24/7/365, I'm not. Unless I'm retweeting your tweets or bantering with you, chances are I'm out living a real life with my real friends and enemies and family.
I mention this because there are people on Twitter who do not understand. The ones with 16 followers who believe you, dear author, are their new best friend and confidant. The ones who tweet something interesting, you respond, and then it's an endless rapid fire conversation.
Honestly, I don't mean to rudely leave the virtual room, but there is a real woman here on my end. Someone with a family to tend to. And places to go. Like the potty or bed or vacation or the gym or the dermatologist.
Sometimes when I have nothing left I can possibly say, I'll just retweet you and go to bed. But you don't always accept that. I'll wake up to "I see you didn't reply to my last tweet :(". In case you don't realize it, that's creepy and makes me very uncomfortable.
Well, no I didn't respond. I have no idea when you actually finished your avalanche. It was lost in my Twitter stream with the other 10,000 people who where sending their fascinating promo, wisdom and wisecracks.
So I block you.
I don't read Direct Messages. Because they all look like spam and are a waste of time. If you have something to say to me, tweet me publically and if I see it, I will probably respond. If I've never met you in person and we've never even tweeted, don't tweet me every hour "Check your DM". That's creepy.
I'll block you.
This last one is something every writer will encounter. When you tweet a line of your professionally edited and published novel for promo, someone will tweet "Wouldn't it be more active to reword it this way..." or "This is not grammatically correct." Umm... the first time this happened to me it was like a kick in the gut. It was by an English professor. After I got over my hurt feelings, embarrassment and gone through the feelings that I was a complete hack, I thanked her. But the second time it happened, it was from another author. And I just felt like she was trying to one-up me. What do these people want me to do? The novels are in MY VOICE. There are a thousand ways to say everything. If we all were "correct" to the "unwritten rules of the day" we would be very generically boring. So, what did I do?
I blocked you. And I will in the future if anyone else publically and unsolicitedly "corrects" my prose. It's insulting.
I'll also block people who tweet things that grossly offend me. Can't elaborate because everyone's threshold is different.
Just to put it out there, I get blocked by people to. It's shocking to me when I click on the follow button and find out I've been blocked. I have no idea who the person is or when I followed them and offended. Sorry, buddy.
Who do you block?
Follow me on Twitter. I'll probably follow you back, I'll probably retweet you and I probably won't ever block you :)
I went into social networking hoping to sell a few of my dozen published books. You see, I've been trying all kinds of ways to get my titles out there. Without the clout and marketing budget of a major publisher, I'm pretty much stuck selling my books to my acquaintances. Sound familiar?
At first, I loved tweeting. It was great for my undiagnosed OCD. 140 characters and I was good to go on to be distracted by something else. No big investment like group blogs, which I really enjoyed until I ran out of material. But this week I've had to block three people. I've probably only blocked that many in a whole year.
I schedule my book promo posts in advance using Hootsuite. So while it looks like I am tweeting 24/7/365, I'm not. Unless I'm retweeting your tweets or bantering with you, chances are I'm out living a real life with my real friends and enemies and family.
I mention this because there are people on Twitter who do not understand. The ones with 16 followers who believe you, dear author, are their new best friend and confidant. The ones who tweet something interesting, you respond, and then it's an endless rapid fire conversation.
Honestly, I don't mean to rudely leave the virtual room, but there is a real woman here on my end. Someone with a family to tend to. And places to go. Like the potty or bed or vacation or the gym or the dermatologist.
Sometimes when I have nothing left I can possibly say, I'll just retweet you and go to bed. But you don't always accept that. I'll wake up to "I see you didn't reply to my last tweet :(". In case you don't realize it, that's creepy and makes me very uncomfortable.
Well, no I didn't respond. I have no idea when you actually finished your avalanche. It was lost in my Twitter stream with the other 10,000 people who where sending their fascinating promo, wisdom and wisecracks.
So I block you.
I don't read Direct Messages. Because they all look like spam and are a waste of time. If you have something to say to me, tweet me publically and if I see it, I will probably respond. If I've never met you in person and we've never even tweeted, don't tweet me every hour "Check your DM". That's creepy.
I'll block you.
This last one is something every writer will encounter. When you tweet a line of your professionally edited and published novel for promo, someone will tweet "Wouldn't it be more active to reword it this way..." or "This is not grammatically correct." Umm... the first time this happened to me it was like a kick in the gut. It was by an English professor. After I got over my hurt feelings, embarrassment and gone through the feelings that I was a complete hack, I thanked her. But the second time it happened, it was from another author. And I just felt like she was trying to one-up me. What do these people want me to do? The novels are in MY VOICE. There are a thousand ways to say everything. If we all were "correct" to the "unwritten rules of the day" we would be very generically boring. So, what did I do?
I blocked you. And I will in the future if anyone else publically and unsolicitedly "corrects" my prose. It's insulting.
I'll also block people who tweet things that grossly offend me. Can't elaborate because everyone's threshold is different.
Just to put it out there, I get blocked by people to. It's shocking to me when I click on the follow button and find out I've been blocked. I have no idea who the person is or when I followed them and offended. Sorry, buddy.
Who do you block?
Follow me on Twitter. I'll probably follow you back, I'll probably retweet you and I probably won't ever block you :)
March 17, 2013
Recipe: Apple Pie Baked in an Apple!
My daughter just made these for a birthday celebration at work. I don't know where she got the recipe from. She said they raved over them and there were none left. ~APPLE PIE BAKED IN APPLE~5-6 Granny Smith apples (make sure they can stand on their own)
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp. brown sugar
pie crust (homemade or pre-made)
1) Preheat oven to 375F.
2) Cut off the top of 4 apples off and discard. Remove the inside of each apple with a spoon or melon baller very carefully, as to not puncture the peel.
If you’re a skilled interior apple excavator, salvage as much as you can so you can use it for Step 2. I, on the other hand, am not skilled so I just had to throw my interior apples away and chop up additional apples for filling.
3) Remove skin from remaining apple(s) and slice very thinly. These apple pieces will give you the additional filling needed to fill the four apples you are baking.
Mix sliced apples with sugars and cinnamon in a bowl. If you prefer more or less cinnamon make adjustments as desired. Same goes for the sugar.
Scoop sliced apples into hollow apples.
4) Roll out pie crust and slice into 1/4 inch strips. You can also add a strip of pastry inside the top of the apple almost like a liner to add a little more texture/sweetness to the pie.
Cover the top of the apple in a lattice pattern with pie crust strips.
5) Place apples in an 8×8 pan. Add just enough water to the cover the bottom of the pan.
Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and sliced apples are soft.
Makes 4 baked apple pies (in the apple).
Persuasive Lips is Free in the USA
For Adults Only!
Persuasive LipsBy Sherry Silver
Prequel to The Good Girls of Washington Series
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords Sony
I said I wouldn't do anymore free promos but my sales this month are a whopping 5 and it's the 17th. On a good month, I average one sale per day. I've done a huge promo effort over the past year and 2012 was indeed my biggest year ever. I grossed $600 in royalties from my Indie and small press royalties. Too bad the start-up costs for publishing 11 books exceeded that. You know, cover art, editing and the fee for expanded distribution. $600 for the whole year. A US worker making minimum wage in an entry level job makes that much in one week.
I've been at this since the turn of the century. I have two first drafts tucked away. The sequel to Fully Involved Fire and a medical thriller. No sense in wasting time polishing and publishing more books nobody wants to read.
Anyhow, if history repeats itself and I only have a few hundred people download Persuasive Lips, the WWII Historical Romance prequel to my Good Girls of Washington series: Hundred Dollar Bill, Thousand Dollar Pharaoh, The Immaculate Deception and The Master Manipulator, I'll stop writing, publishing and promoting to move on to something fun that isn't a waste of my time. And yours.
There is a strange phenomenon out there with free books. People tend to leave scathing one star reviews for books which they never would have paid to read, yet they find it entertaining to scoop up the freebees so they can desecrate them. I can only pray for these people, they must have very sad lives. And I can also hope someday karma bites their big bully behinds in a prolifically painful public way.
Please if you download my eBook for free or anyone's ebook for free and you don't like it just delete it and forget it. Please don't leave a one star review. A real person's heart and soul and many months/years of his/her life went into it. You crush us all the way to our inner child. You also doom the book for failure. It takes more than a dozen 5 star reviews to negate that one bad one, and since nobody bothers leaving good reviews for my free books, the one bad one pretty much murders it. Amazon took away my Like buttons and Tags so they leave me with nothing but reviews for readers to judge.
Amazon has price matched Persuasive Lips as Free tonight but I don't know how long they will keep it. It is free everywhere else. I will leave it free until the downloads dwindle or the one star reviews kill it off.
Then again, there might be readers who enjoy it. I sure loved writing it. My critique group giggled all the way through.
Bottom line: This is truly my last effort in promoting my books. If you like Persuasive Lips, the prequel to my Good Girls of Washington series, perhaps you'll start reading Hundred Dollar Bill, book one. Or one of my stand alone novels, Inappropriate or Fully Involved Fire. If not, oh well.
I've been doing everything I can think of and borrowing promotion tips from every writer I have come across online and in person since 2005. I have twelve books published and two more written and tucked away. It's obvious I don't write books anybody but me wants to read. With a wounded heart, the time has come for me to finally smile, accept it and move on to something unrelated to writing that doesn't get my hopes up only to stomp them down.
Cheers.
Onward and upward!
Persuasive LipsBy Sherry Silver
Prequel to The Good Girls of Washington Series
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords Sony
I said I wouldn't do anymore free promos but my sales this month are a whopping 5 and it's the 17th. On a good month, I average one sale per day. I've done a huge promo effort over the past year and 2012 was indeed my biggest year ever. I grossed $600 in royalties from my Indie and small press royalties. Too bad the start-up costs for publishing 11 books exceeded that. You know, cover art, editing and the fee for expanded distribution. $600 for the whole year. A US worker making minimum wage in an entry level job makes that much in one week.
I've been at this since the turn of the century. I have two first drafts tucked away. The sequel to Fully Involved Fire and a medical thriller. No sense in wasting time polishing and publishing more books nobody wants to read.
Anyhow, if history repeats itself and I only have a few hundred people download Persuasive Lips, the WWII Historical Romance prequel to my Good Girls of Washington series: Hundred Dollar Bill, Thousand Dollar Pharaoh, The Immaculate Deception and The Master Manipulator, I'll stop writing, publishing and promoting to move on to something fun that isn't a waste of my time. And yours.
There is a strange phenomenon out there with free books. People tend to leave scathing one star reviews for books which they never would have paid to read, yet they find it entertaining to scoop up the freebees so they can desecrate them. I can only pray for these people, they must have very sad lives. And I can also hope someday karma bites their big bully behinds in a prolifically painful public way.
Please if you download my eBook for free or anyone's ebook for free and you don't like it just delete it and forget it. Please don't leave a one star review. A real person's heart and soul and many months/years of his/her life went into it. You crush us all the way to our inner child. You also doom the book for failure. It takes more than a dozen 5 star reviews to negate that one bad one, and since nobody bothers leaving good reviews for my free books, the one bad one pretty much murders it. Amazon took away my Like buttons and Tags so they leave me with nothing but reviews for readers to judge.
Amazon has price matched Persuasive Lips as Free tonight but I don't know how long they will keep it. It is free everywhere else. I will leave it free until the downloads dwindle or the one star reviews kill it off.
Then again, there might be readers who enjoy it. I sure loved writing it. My critique group giggled all the way through.
Bottom line: This is truly my last effort in promoting my books. If you like Persuasive Lips, the prequel to my Good Girls of Washington series, perhaps you'll start reading Hundred Dollar Bill, book one. Or one of my stand alone novels, Inappropriate or Fully Involved Fire. If not, oh well.
I've been doing everything I can think of and borrowing promotion tips from every writer I have come across online and in person since 2005. I have twelve books published and two more written and tucked away. It's obvious I don't write books anybody but me wants to read. With a wounded heart, the time has come for me to finally smile, accept it and move on to something unrelated to writing that doesn't get my hopes up only to stomp them down.
Cheers.
Onward and upward!
March 10, 2013
Retro Romance
In the early 21st century, I jumped onto a new frontier: eBooks. Before the eBook readers hit the market in any large way. Back when people scratched their heads "What's an eBook?" and politely tuned me out. They would never read something on their computer. It couldn't be a real book. They had no interest in a hand-held electronic gadget. Waste of money.
Anyhow, while I was waiting to be signed by the top New York literary agents and editors, my friends whispered "Sex Sells!". I surfed the publishing guidelines for all the new eBook publishers, added whatever hot move du jour they wanted to some hopelessly stalled works in progress, rewrote them into short stories under the pen name Pamela Downs and received my first contract quite literally overnight, from the now defunct Venus Press. I subsequently sold several stories to Phaze, an imprint of Mundania Press which is still going strong.
Anyhow, I have my rights back and have Indie published these steamy short stories. I can't really call them erotic anymore, since Oh-my how tastes have changed in the last decade with the proliferation of those grey books.
Oh, and I'm no longer waiting to be signed by those top New York literary agents and editors. I'm Indie all the way, baby.
A Town Called Night
Diet Another Day
Son of a Preacher Man
Wish Upon a Djinn
Starry Starry Night
Anyhow, while I was waiting to be signed by the top New York literary agents and editors, my friends whispered "Sex Sells!". I surfed the publishing guidelines for all the new eBook publishers, added whatever hot move du jour they wanted to some hopelessly stalled works in progress, rewrote them into short stories under the pen name Pamela Downs and received my first contract quite literally overnight, from the now defunct Venus Press. I subsequently sold several stories to Phaze, an imprint of Mundania Press which is still going strong.
Anyhow, I have my rights back and have Indie published these steamy short stories. I can't really call them erotic anymore, since Oh-my how tastes have changed in the last decade with the proliferation of those grey books.
Oh, and I'm no longer waiting to be signed by those top New York literary agents and editors. I'm Indie all the way, baby.
A Town Called Night
Diet Another Day
Son of a Preacher Man
Wish Upon a Djinn
Starry Starry Night
March 6, 2013
$1 Snow Sale! Today Only!
The Washington, DC Metropolitan area has it's first snow of the Winter today, 6" - 9" with white out conditions and I live in smack in it! So, while I've got my arm chair turned toward the birdfeeder in my backyard, I'm reading and want you to have a taste of my muse.
Today, Wednesday March 6th, 2013, I am offering THE IMMACULATE DECEPTION and THE MASTER MANIPULATOR for $1 each. I have changed prices at all retailers, click the links to see which ones actually have picked them up.
The Immaculate DeceptionBy Sherry Silver
U.S. eBook: Apple ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyU.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle Apple
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle Apple
Canadian Paperback: Amazon
After her SUV meets the business end of a deer, Oh-Donna is pulled into an exciting dreamland far away from her peon job and selfish siblings--where mystery, murder and romance take over. Her debonair angel takes her time traveling through the sordid pasts of her Secret Service Agent mother and her genius medical researcher father--who was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. Oh-Donna discovers she is the first baby born from an ovarian transplant. She must sleuth out the dark secrets of her D.N.A. and close an unsolved murder.
This book won a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award Best Small Press Paranormal Romance
Nook Review: *****Wow! I've never been a real super natural, other worldly type kind of reader. Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. So creative and enjoyable!
The Master Manipulator(Dying to Love Him) By Sherry Silver
U.S. eBook: Apple ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords U.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle Apple
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle Apple
Canadian Paperback: Amazon After her father's death, socialite Tammy Payne returns to her suburban Washington, DC apartment to find she's been evicted. Realizing her black sheep sister Donna had control over the finances and must have cut her off, Tammy storms Donna's Virginia townhouse. Something is not right. The dog is emaciated. Donna is sprawled out in a coma.
What Tammy doesn't realize is that Donna is in a special dreamland far from her miserable life, peon job and selfish siblings. A debonair dream weaver is romancing Donna through her family's sordid pasts, where mystery, romance and karma collide.
Their pompous brother, Judge Perry Payne, knows a family secret. He is playing both sisters against themselves in a dirty diabolical scheme which will net him billions--if it works out in the end.
Today, Wednesday March 6th, 2013, I am offering THE IMMACULATE DECEPTION and THE MASTER MANIPULATOR for $1 each. I have changed prices at all retailers, click the links to see which ones actually have picked them up.
The Immaculate DeceptionBy Sherry Silver
U.S. eBook: Apple ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyU.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle Apple
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle Apple
Canadian Paperback: Amazon
After her SUV meets the business end of a deer, Oh-Donna is pulled into an exciting dreamland far away from her peon job and selfish siblings--where mystery, murder and romance take over. Her debonair angel takes her time traveling through the sordid pasts of her Secret Service Agent mother and her genius medical researcher father--who was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. Oh-Donna discovers she is the first baby born from an ovarian transplant. She must sleuth out the dark secrets of her D.N.A. and close an unsolved murder.
This book won a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award Best Small Press Paranormal Romance
Nook Review: *****Wow! I've never been a real super natural, other worldly type kind of reader. Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. So creative and enjoyable!
The Master Manipulator(Dying to Love Him) By Sherry Silver U.S. eBook: Apple ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords U.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle Apple
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle Apple
Canadian Paperback: Amazon After her father's death, socialite Tammy Payne returns to her suburban Washington, DC apartment to find she's been evicted. Realizing her black sheep sister Donna had control over the finances and must have cut her off, Tammy storms Donna's Virginia townhouse. Something is not right. The dog is emaciated. Donna is sprawled out in a coma.
What Tammy doesn't realize is that Donna is in a special dreamland far from her miserable life, peon job and selfish siblings. A debonair dream weaver is romancing Donna through her family's sordid pasts, where mystery, romance and karma collide.
Their pompous brother, Judge Perry Payne, knows a family secret. He is playing both sisters against themselves in a dirty diabolical scheme which will net him billions--if it works out in the end.
March 4, 2013
Finally! Some Good Reviews
I get lots of 'likes' clicked for my books, but nearly every review is one star. And this is usually after a free promo. What is it about readers who read free books that fires them up to trash the story and author so quickly? If I can't give a book at least 3 stars, I won't review it. I will not crush an author.
Anyhow, I've learned my lesson. Don't expect anymore free books anytime soon from me.
It's been awhile since I've done a free promo and I have found some people do like my books well enough to take the time to type out a 5 star review, squee!
I suppose I trigger something emotional in readers. Either they HATE my books or the LOVE them. If they are expecting the normal NYT bestselling commercial fiction, that's not what they are getting. My books are quite different. I don't write a book that I feel will appeal to the masses. I write the story that comes deep from my demons and angels. I can't help it.
Anyhow, here are a few 5 star reviews I've discovered:
"EXCELLENT I loved this orginal story. Time travel, romance, evil villians, and strange family secrets made for a real page turner or screen tapping. Well done author." "Wow! I've never been a real super natural, other worldly type kind o reader. But, figured it was free so I'd read and ditch if I didn't like where the story was going. Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. So creative and enjoyable!" The Immaculate DeceptionBy Sherry Silver
After her SUV meets the business end of a deer, Oh-Donna is pulled into an exciting dreamland far away from her peon job and selfish siblings--where mystery, murder and romance take over. Her debonair angel takes her time traveling through the sordid pasts of her Secret Service Agent mother and her genius medical researcher father--who was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. Oh-Donna discovers she is the first baby born from an ovarian transplant. She must sleuth out the dark secrets of her D.N.A. and close an unsolved murder.
This book won a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award Best Small Press Paranormal Romance
Read the First Chapter!
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyU.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canadian Paperback: Amazon ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I read the reviews and didn't know if I would like the book or not. I really liked the book. A surprise at the end. Good job. Thanks for the good read. :) J" Son of a Preacher Manby Pamela Downs A powerful clergyman helps a wrongfully convicted cop killer escape from prison and he takes care of everything. When she's finally pardoned by the governor, it's time for her to visit the reverend, and retrieve what he was keeping for her. Too bad she can't get near the good man of the cloth. Desperate, she sets her sites on getting an audience with the preacher through his bad boy son. Junior is just a means to an end. If only he weren't so darned irresistible.
US eBook: Kobo Diesel Sony Kindle Nook iTunesUK eBook: Kindle Nook iTunesAU eBook: iTunes CA eBook: Sony Kindle iTunesDE eBook: Kindle iTunesNZ eBook: iTunes ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read January 12, 2013 By Pamela K Kinney
Format:Kindle Edition
"Hundred Dollar Bill is set during the Forties--one of my favorite eras. It has a spunky heroine, Chloe Lambert, who also happens to be a Secret Service agent working undercover to find the counterfeiter ring in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. She must flee when the man she became involved with and found out is married, is killed by his wife and she is framed for the murder by the counterfeiters. Thanks to help from her landlady, she travels to Miami Beach, Florida where she gets a room above a bakery and a job in a bank, counting pennies. The setting may be glamorous but her life is no longer that. But things change.
She runs into an old flame and fellow agent, Mike Taurus. He doesn't believe she is guilty of killing anyone or even being treasonous. But others do believe this, including possibly the current president, Franklin Roosevelt. Mike joins Chloe in a madcap endeavor to solve this caper. Worse, there are bad guys after them, plus it seems her murdered boyfriend is not dead as she was lead to believe. Things couldn't get more complicated for the hero and heroine, but this adds more fun for the readers.
If you enjoy watching the Lucille Ball madcap comedies or any of the great mysteries/comedies of the Thirties/Forties, plus read a good romance, then this book is for you. Ms. Morris does a dandy fine job with the storyline and sucks you into it and you don't stop until the HEA end."
5.0 out of 5 stars A Hilarious Ride Through 1945 October 6, 2010 By Diane Scott Lewis Format:Paperback "When Secret Service Agent Chloe Lambert is framed for murder by counterfeiters, she follows their devious trail from Washington DC to Miami. Complicating her mission is Mike Taurus, a handsome man from her past, who's also an agent. Chloe and Mike collide in several interesting ways as she struggles to clear her name and solve the crime which involves the White House of President Roosevelt. Kick back and enjoy this amusing caper where you'll never know who might show up: the intrepid First Lady for one." Hundred Dollar BillBy Sherry Silver The year is 1945. Roosevelt is President. World War II is coming to a head. Thieves, spies and other wise guys are working everywhere…including in branches of the U.S. government.Chloe Lambert is a sweet little thing whom mothers love to love and sailors love to pinch. She's also a sharp-tongued Secret Service agent—a Secret Service agent who has been framed for murder by a band of counterfeiters. Mike Taurus, also an agent, is tough as nails, cool as ice and devilishly handsome. He also has a past with Chloe. As the two of them make a mad dash from Washington, D.C. to Miami Beach, they'll stop at nothing to solve this monumental caper. It's a made-for-the-movies adventure that Alfred Hitchcock could only wish he'd dreamed up himself! Read the First Chapter!
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Nook Sony Smashwords U.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canadian Paperback: Amazon ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Hilarious Romp
March 26, 2012 By Diane Scott Lewis Format:Paperback"If you enjoy quirky characters and unpredictable plots, you'll love this book. Sandra Faire joins a writers conference on a train to get her "crappy" life in order and pursue her dream of being a cozy mystery author. But nothing goes as she hopes, including her run-in with the most inappropriate man, a hunk of a detective she calls Lt. Hottie. Plus, her meddlesome mother barges in on the journey to make matters more complicated. People end up dead and Sandra scrambles to uncover the truth in her own calamity of a mystery.
Sandra is the hapless everywoman with a lousy job and a non-existent love-life. Suspend belief and join her on this madcap romp as she weaves her way through one mishap after another. And this all starts with her finding a body on the beach. Extremely funny." Inappropriateby Sherry Silver By day, Sandra plucks trash off Cocoa Beach, points tourists to the restrooms and sometimes discovers dead bodies. By night, she’s a cozy mystery author wannabe. Sandra has an aversion to cops, one homicide detective in particular. They have nothing in common except pheromones. She was eighteen the first time he kissed her and the last. Five years ago, he answered his cell and ran off to work, leaving her panting on the kitchen table with a hurricane looming.
Lieutenant Hottie is married to his career. He moved up the ranks early and engrossed himself in bringing murderers to justice. Serious relationships are out of the question, he’s too busy and not interested. The only woman he wants is off limits. He has built a wall around his heart and won’t let himself be hurt again.
Sandra is attending a writers conference aboard private rail cars. It was organized by the wife of a popular televangelist. The writers are traveling alongside devout Christians on their cross-country crusade. Sandra's loving but hyper-critical mother has finagled a ticket to ride. The morning before departure, Sandra finds a dead sailor on the beach. On the train, Sandra must keep her lips off Lieutenant Hottie and unmask the murderer before another soul derails. All aboard! Read the First Chapter!
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyU.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canadian Paperback: Amazon ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Apr 30, 2012 Brenda Cothern rated it
Shelves: action, free, m-f, other, romance, short-story "Excellent! It was nice to read a good free story for a change! Thank you! I am looking forward to checking out more of Sherry Silver's work!"
Fully Involved FireBy Sherry Silver
Have a tall drink of water handy to put out the fire when you read Fully Involved Fire, a poignant story of the after effects of September 11th.
Johnny Newman is one of New York City’s finest; the Fire Department's most eligible bachelor. He’s been in love with his best friend’s widow for years. Johnny feels he has given her enough time to get over Brandon, but will his playboy reputation ruin his chances?Susan Cervini is caught up in trying to locate a missing cousin through a website for an aging pop star. When Susan begins to have irrational feelings for her best friend, Johnny, she is afraid she will ruin their friendship, but she can’t seem to stop feeling an overpowering need for his touch. Can they have a torrid affair and go back to being friends, or will the feelings they have for each other change Susan’s mind about love and marriage again?Johnny Newman is a real American hero; strong in his beliefs, dedicated to helping others, and loyal to the woman he loves above all others. He is sexy but unaware of his appeal, chivalrous without being conscious of it, and a wonderful friend; the way he unselfishly dedicates himself to Susan’s needs. She is a very caring woman who is afraid of losing again. Her restoration of faith was a long and hard journey but was well worth the wait. Her love for Johnny is a beautiful thing to behold, culminating in a climactic coming together. Read the First Chapter!
United States US eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyUnited States US Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
Australia AU eBook: iTunesBrazil BR eBook: Kindle iTunes
Canada CA eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canada CA Paperback: Amazon
German DE eBook: Kindle iTunes
Denmark DK eBook: iTunes
Spain ES eBook: Kindle iTunes
France FR eBook: Kindle iTunes
Italy IT eBook: Kindle iTunes
Japan JP eBook: KindleNew Zealand eBook: iTunes
Sweeden SE eBook: iTunes
United Kingdom UK eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
United Kingdom UK Paperback: Amazon
Anyhow, I've learned my lesson. Don't expect anymore free books anytime soon from me.
It's been awhile since I've done a free promo and I have found some people do like my books well enough to take the time to type out a 5 star review, squee!
I suppose I trigger something emotional in readers. Either they HATE my books or the LOVE them. If they are expecting the normal NYT bestselling commercial fiction, that's not what they are getting. My books are quite different. I don't write a book that I feel will appeal to the masses. I write the story that comes deep from my demons and angels. I can't help it.
Anyhow, here are a few 5 star reviews I've discovered:
"EXCELLENT I loved this orginal story. Time travel, romance, evil villians, and strange family secrets made for a real page turner or screen tapping. Well done author." "Wow! I've never been a real super natural, other worldly type kind o reader. But, figured it was free so I'd read and ditch if I didn't like where the story was going. Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. So creative and enjoyable!" The Immaculate DeceptionBy Sherry Silver After her SUV meets the business end of a deer, Oh-Donna is pulled into an exciting dreamland far away from her peon job and selfish siblings--where mystery, murder and romance take over. Her debonair angel takes her time traveling through the sordid pasts of her Secret Service Agent mother and her genius medical researcher father--who was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. Oh-Donna discovers she is the first baby born from an ovarian transplant. She must sleuth out the dark secrets of her D.N.A. and close an unsolved murder.
This book won a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award Best Small Press Paranormal Romance
Read the First Chapter!
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyU.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canadian Paperback: Amazon ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I read the reviews and didn't know if I would like the book or not. I really liked the book. A surprise at the end. Good job. Thanks for the good read. :) J" Son of a Preacher Manby Pamela Downs A powerful clergyman helps a wrongfully convicted cop killer escape from prison and he takes care of everything. When she's finally pardoned by the governor, it's time for her to visit the reverend, and retrieve what he was keeping for her. Too bad she can't get near the good man of the cloth. Desperate, she sets her sites on getting an audience with the preacher through his bad boy son. Junior is just a means to an end. If only he weren't so darned irresistible.
US eBook: Kobo Diesel Sony Kindle Nook iTunesUK eBook: Kindle Nook iTunesAU eBook: iTunes CA eBook: Sony Kindle iTunesDE eBook: Kindle iTunesNZ eBook: iTunes ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read January 12, 2013 By Pamela K Kinney
Format:Kindle Edition
"Hundred Dollar Bill is set during the Forties--one of my favorite eras. It has a spunky heroine, Chloe Lambert, who also happens to be a Secret Service agent working undercover to find the counterfeiter ring in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. She must flee when the man she became involved with and found out is married, is killed by his wife and she is framed for the murder by the counterfeiters. Thanks to help from her landlady, she travels to Miami Beach, Florida where she gets a room above a bakery and a job in a bank, counting pennies. The setting may be glamorous but her life is no longer that. But things change.
She runs into an old flame and fellow agent, Mike Taurus. He doesn't believe she is guilty of killing anyone or even being treasonous. But others do believe this, including possibly the current president, Franklin Roosevelt. Mike joins Chloe in a madcap endeavor to solve this caper. Worse, there are bad guys after them, plus it seems her murdered boyfriend is not dead as she was lead to believe. Things couldn't get more complicated for the hero and heroine, but this adds more fun for the readers.
If you enjoy watching the Lucille Ball madcap comedies or any of the great mysteries/comedies of the Thirties/Forties, plus read a good romance, then this book is for you. Ms. Morris does a dandy fine job with the storyline and sucks you into it and you don't stop until the HEA end."
5.0 out of 5 stars A Hilarious Ride Through 1945 October 6, 2010 By Diane Scott Lewis Format:Paperback "When Secret Service Agent Chloe Lambert is framed for murder by counterfeiters, she follows their devious trail from Washington DC to Miami. Complicating her mission is Mike Taurus, a handsome man from her past, who's also an agent. Chloe and Mike collide in several interesting ways as she struggles to clear her name and solve the crime which involves the White House of President Roosevelt. Kick back and enjoy this amusing caper where you'll never know who might show up: the intrepid First Lady for one." Hundred Dollar BillBy Sherry Silver The year is 1945. Roosevelt is President. World War II is coming to a head. Thieves, spies and other wise guys are working everywhere…including in branches of the U.S. government.Chloe Lambert is a sweet little thing whom mothers love to love and sailors love to pinch. She's also a sharp-tongued Secret Service agent—a Secret Service agent who has been framed for murder by a band of counterfeiters. Mike Taurus, also an agent, is tough as nails, cool as ice and devilishly handsome. He also has a past with Chloe. As the two of them make a mad dash from Washington, D.C. to Miami Beach, they'll stop at nothing to solve this monumental caper. It's a made-for-the-movies adventure that Alfred Hitchcock could only wish he'd dreamed up himself! Read the First Chapter!
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Nook Sony Smashwords U.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canadian Paperback: Amazon ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Hilarious Romp
March 26, 2012 By Diane Scott Lewis Format:Paperback"If you enjoy quirky characters and unpredictable plots, you'll love this book. Sandra Faire joins a writers conference on a train to get her "crappy" life in order and pursue her dream of being a cozy mystery author. But nothing goes as she hopes, including her run-in with the most inappropriate man, a hunk of a detective she calls Lt. Hottie. Plus, her meddlesome mother barges in on the journey to make matters more complicated. People end up dead and Sandra scrambles to uncover the truth in her own calamity of a mystery.Sandra is the hapless everywoman with a lousy job and a non-existent love-life. Suspend belief and join her on this madcap romp as she weaves her way through one mishap after another. And this all starts with her finding a body on the beach. Extremely funny." Inappropriateby Sherry Silver By day, Sandra plucks trash off Cocoa Beach, points tourists to the restrooms and sometimes discovers dead bodies. By night, she’s a cozy mystery author wannabe. Sandra has an aversion to cops, one homicide detective in particular. They have nothing in common except pheromones. She was eighteen the first time he kissed her and the last. Five years ago, he answered his cell and ran off to work, leaving her panting on the kitchen table with a hurricane looming.
Lieutenant Hottie is married to his career. He moved up the ranks early and engrossed himself in bringing murderers to justice. Serious relationships are out of the question, he’s too busy and not interested. The only woman he wants is off limits. He has built a wall around his heart and won’t let himself be hurt again.
Sandra is attending a writers conference aboard private rail cars. It was organized by the wife of a popular televangelist. The writers are traveling alongside devout Christians on their cross-country crusade. Sandra's loving but hyper-critical mother has finagled a ticket to ride. The morning before departure, Sandra finds a dead sailor on the beach. On the train, Sandra must keep her lips off Lieutenant Hottie and unmask the murderer before another soul derails. All aboard! Read the First Chapter!
U.S. eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyU.S. Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
U.K. eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
U.K. Paperback: Amazon
Canadian eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canadian Paperback: Amazon ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Apr 30, 2012 Brenda Cothern rated it
Shelves: action, free, m-f, other, romance, short-story "Excellent! It was nice to read a good free story for a change! Thank you! I am looking forward to checking out more of Sherry Silver's work!"
Fully Involved FireBy Sherry Silver
Have a tall drink of water handy to put out the fire when you read Fully Involved Fire, a poignant story of the after effects of September 11th.
Johnny Newman is one of New York City’s finest; the Fire Department's most eligible bachelor. He’s been in love with his best friend’s widow for years. Johnny feels he has given her enough time to get over Brandon, but will his playboy reputation ruin his chances?Susan Cervini is caught up in trying to locate a missing cousin through a website for an aging pop star. When Susan begins to have irrational feelings for her best friend, Johnny, she is afraid she will ruin their friendship, but she can’t seem to stop feeling an overpowering need for his touch. Can they have a torrid affair and go back to being friends, or will the feelings they have for each other change Susan’s mind about love and marriage again?Johnny Newman is a real American hero; strong in his beliefs, dedicated to helping others, and loyal to the woman he loves above all others. He is sexy but unaware of his appeal, chivalrous without being conscious of it, and a wonderful friend; the way he unselfishly dedicates himself to Susan’s needs. She is a very caring woman who is afraid of losing again. Her restoration of faith was a long and hard journey but was well worth the wait. Her love for Johnny is a beautiful thing to behold, culminating in a climactic coming together. Read the First Chapter!
United States US eBook: iTunes ARe Diesel Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords SonyUnited States US Paperback: Amazon Barnes and Noble CreateSpace Books A Million
Australia AU eBook: iTunesBrazil BR eBook: Kindle iTunes
Canada CA eBook: Sony Kindle iTunes
Canada CA Paperback: Amazon
German DE eBook: Kindle iTunes
Denmark DK eBook: iTunes
Spain ES eBook: Kindle iTunes
France FR eBook: Kindle iTunes
Italy IT eBook: Kindle iTunes
Japan JP eBook: KindleNew Zealand eBook: iTunes
Sweeden SE eBook: iTunes
United Kingdom UK eBook: Nook Kindle iTunes
United Kingdom UK Paperback: Amazon
February 13, 2013
Writing Exercise #2
Townhouse
Take the following paragraph and revise it. Rewrite it into your favorite setting. Add description, dialogue, emotion, action and narration. Make it your own.
We set up housekeeping in his townhouse on Frishburg Place. I hung a wreath with jingle bells on the front door. The next morning, it was gone. In the Spring, someone picked my tulips the day they would have opened. I never knew what color. He wanted a single family home. So did I.
Take the following paragraph and revise it. Rewrite it into your favorite setting. Add description, dialogue, emotion, action and narration. Make it your own.
We set up housekeeping in his townhouse on Frishburg Place. I hung a wreath with jingle bells on the front door. The next morning, it was gone. In the Spring, someone picked my tulips the day they would have opened. I never knew what color. He wanted a single family home. So did I.
February 12, 2013
Writing Exercise #1
He Moves Me
Take the following paragraph and revise it. Rewrite it into your favorite setting. Add description, dialogue, emotion, action and narration. Make it your own.
Winter. A very long time this year. Just a tease or two of not so frigid temperatures, then back down to sub-freezing. So much discontentment, and fear because it's time to be thrust into the unknown. Again. He's uprooting me, for the hmm...lets see, how many buildings have we lived in?
Take the following paragraph and revise it. Rewrite it into your favorite setting. Add description, dialogue, emotion, action and narration. Make it your own.
Winter. A very long time this year. Just a tease or two of not so frigid temperatures, then back down to sub-freezing. So much discontentment, and fear because it's time to be thrust into the unknown. Again. He's uprooting me, for the hmm...lets see, how many buildings have we lived in?
February 11, 2013
Book Review: Heads in Beds
HEADS IN BEDS A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles and So-Called Hospitalityby Jacob TomskyMy husband commented "I hate it when you find a really good book." 'Cause I had trouble putting this page-turner down. I thoroughly enjoyed following the author from his first job as a parking valet in New Orleans to his last job as a front desk guy in New York. All the little behind-the-scenes politics, minutiae and fun, without being gross or scary.
I highly recommend this read for all writers, travelers and hospitality industry workers. Writers, you will absolutely glean little nuggets of realism to bring your setting and characters to life. Bravo, Mr. Tomsky!
I read the Nook version.
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