Rose Anderson's Blog, page 69

February 12, 2013

My books, My links, a Cup of Tea, & a Smile.

The Heartbreaker Hop is over and a few new visitors stopped by my blog. Tomorrow I’ll sort through the comments and pick a winner for my ebook. You’ll hear from me if you’ve won. Thanks for participating everyone! Follow this link to see if you’ve won the BIG prizes. http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/

I’ve just finished my sequel and tomorrow I’ll send it off to the editor for a once over. It’s funny, you can read and read and read then reread and still miss little things. The fabulous cover is done. Loving Leonardo – The Quest comes out soon. Yay!

And so does part two in the Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo saga. Just waiting on the cover. Busy busy.

Hopefully, I’ll get back to the blog to post something by the weekend. Until then, here are my books, my links, a fanciful character interview, and something to make you smile.

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I was recently a guest on fellow author Brynna Curry’s blog where my literary character had an interview. This is my third such interview where in answering the questions as our characters might, we get to see how they see their world. I think they’re fun little exercises for the imagination. Enjoy!

Tea with Nicolas

I had an unusual experience the other day. It was a quiet day at home, inside and out. The snow was falling in that slow magical sort of way. It was just cold enough that snowflakes landing against my windowpane lingered a second longer as perfect six-pointed stars before falling to accumulate on the sill. I’d spent the morning seeing to author obligations and chipping away at my work in progress. Taking a much deserved break, I decided I’d enjoy a cup of tea.

I have a small collection of British fortuneteller teacups and saucers. They’re fun and fanciful little things for reading tea leaves back in the day. Several in my collection are from the Victorian era. That day, I chose the Aynsley bone china cup. I’ve been in a Victorian England frame of mind lately, unavoidable considering I’m wrapping up book two in my unusual Victorian polyamorous romance – Loving Leonardo.

Loving Leonardo is one of those color outside the lines stories for me. I like to stretch my abilities as a writer and I especially love challenges. The impetus for Loving Leonardo came right out of the headlines last summer. The US elections were underway and lines were drawn as political opponents dug their heels on key social issues. It got me thinking. Here it was 2012 and who you love, and who you wanted to commit your love to, were still hot issues as if love itself was a social condition and not a deeply personal thing.

At the time, the news was also filled with women’s issues and negative talk of “progressives”. I’d heard the term women’s issues combined with progressive before. That was the point to the Suffragettes 100 years ago! Before I knew it, I had a very American, very unorthodox, Victorian progressive heroine named Ellie.

My hero Nicolas Halstead is an art historian working for the famed Ashmolean museum. Nicolas leads a somewhat normal life as of a man of means, though he takes pains to hide his homosexuality from the world. He has to. Even though it’s no longer a death sentence, his nature is still a criminal offense at this time. One day Ellie, the daughter of an American consul, comes to call and confronts him with her knowledge of his particular predilection. To his incredulous disbelief, she proposes marriage. But there’s method to her madness. It turns out she wants him to help her rescue a previously unknown work of Leonardo da Vinci – a book of love poems and erotic sketches from Leonardo to his gay lover Salai. How can Nicolas refuse?

Thus begins their unorthodox marriage and abiding friendship. The book is held by a man who has plans to destroy it for the vulgar thing he sees it as, so they race to Venice and devise a plan on their journey. They didn’t count on meeting Luca, himself a historian. Secrets are revealed as they share their common interest in Leonardo da Vinci. While they come to redefine their long-held notions of themselves, a man with a dark obsession comes into their lives. The story continues in the second book. I’ve enjoyed these characters so much, they may very well return for other adventures.

So as I sat with my tea, my mind revisited previously written story threads searching for that perfect crescendo to end with. Wouldn’t you know, Nicolas Halstead appeared beside me. What else was there to do but ask my Victorian gentleman questions?

Nicolas: Rose! Good afternoon.

Rose: Hello Nicolas, what brings you out on a day like this?

Nicolas: You, my dear.

Rose: Oh, I guess I did. How silly of me. I’m having a little trouble ending this adventure of yours. Any insights you could share that might point me in that direction?

Nicolas: Hmm…what would you like to know?

Rose: Well, let’s start with the women in your life. What can you tell me about them?

Nicolas: There’s my grandmother, Lady Augusta Halstead. I’d describe her as a woman of stately dignity, for she takes her role as Dowager quite seriously. A week doesn’t pass where she doesn’t make the rounds to visit the Halstead tenants and parsonage. I’ve never found her affected or stuffy, though there’s no denying she has her finger on the pulse of society. She’s always ready to laugh and is affectionate in her own reserved way. I don’t know what else to say other than I love her. That, and she loves to play mahjong with her friends.

Rose: She raised you.

Nicolas: Yes she did. At a young age I’d lost both my parents and nanny to a coach accident. I’d have to say however, that my housekeeper Mrs. Fletcher played a far greater role in my upbringing. With my parents and nanny dead and my bones broken, I was naturally inconsolable. Grannie was dealing with her own grief, after all she’d lost her only son. Mrs. Fletcher’s tenderness saw me through my pain and loss. In fact, I’d bonded so thoroughly with that loving woman that my grandmother dismissed her hastily hired nanny and left me in Mrs. Fletcher’s care. Though I was too young to understand it at the time, I’d learned much later that Mr. Fletcher had passed just a month before I arrived in my sorry state. She’d needed me as much as I’d needed her. That Grannie made this small unconventional adjustment to her household was a demonstration of her concern and affection for the both of us.

Rose: That was unusual for the time.

Nicolas: Quite. Mrs. Fletcher still looks out for me. She was very fond of my parents and with Grannie’s help raised me in my father’s image. I couldn’t love her more than I do. To me, she is the only mother I remember.

Rose: And what about Ellie? Ah, that made you smile!

Nicolas: I’ll begin by saying her marriage proposal impacted my life in ways I hardly thought possible, and that she’s singlehandedly brought me immense happiness. She’s helped me to discover myself. Not only do I adore her views and perspective, I consider Ellie a true partner in life and love. She’s opened my mind to things I’d never thought about before – women’s rights for example. I doubt half the men in my own House of Lords are as well versed in Britannia’s policies as she is in the politics of your America. My wife is by far the most intelligent women of my acquaintance, present company excepted of course.

Rose: Thanks.

Nicolas: You’re welcome, my dear. Ellie is delightfully refreshing. In general, I find Americans aren’t as stodgy in their mannerisms as we English are. My wife can be as bold as brass, but that’s one of the reasons I love her so completely like I do. She’s quick and witty and kind, and has a tremendous capacity for love.

Rose: And that brings me to Luca.

Nicolas: As you are well aware, Luca is a sensitive soul who’s been through much pain and isolation. I’d do anything to keep him safe and ease his mind. He’s compassionate, loving, and thoughtful. And to those he cares for, he’s self-sacrificing to a fault. In many ways, he and I are cut from the same cloth in our interests and views. But where I am reserved, Luca is bold and brave, far braver than I. He’s a man anyone would be proud to know, let alone love. Ellie feels that sentiment as well. It’s trite to say, but we three complete one another in ways we hardly realized were incomplete a mere six months ago. They love me unconditionally, and I love them for that and more.

Rose: It’s impossible not to feel that love between you. How does Thomas fit into this picture?

Nicolas shook his head and as quickly as he appeared, he was gone. He had his reasons. I refilled my cup and went back to my laptop.

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And now this will make you smile. I just love dogs.

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Published on February 12, 2013 19:19

February 7, 2013

Oh Those Heartbreakers

After a short hiatus filled with guest spots and interviews, book covers, and wrapping up a sequel, I’m back to the blog and taking part in the Heartbreaker blog hop this week.

This looks like a fun one.

The theme, of course, is the heartbreaker.

300 authors have giveaways on their blogs and scrumptious posts dedicated to those the Urban Dictionary defines as: A person who can break hearts easily. Because they are so beautiful, everyone wants them. But not everyone can have them.

Follow this link to a huge list of participants. http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/

The Heartbreaker Hop has 3 grand prizes. Be sure to go to EACH blog and comment with your email address to be entered to win. You can enter 300 times if you like! Take a gander at these prizes:

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more! Gotta love swag!

So what’s my prize?

An ebook copy of my first novel Hermes Online

a CataRomance Sensual Reads Reviewer’s Choice Winner

So…in keeping with the theme, Hermes Online just happens to have a heartbreaker! Here’s Vivienne’s cherished memory:

Loving a Heartbreaker:

Once in my life, and granted it had been nearly a half dozen years ago, I had been kissed just like that. The kind of kiss that throws your back to the wall and sends buttons flying from clothing in a fevered race to shed them just so your skin could make contact with his, to send that kiss to every nerve in your body. Remembering my short-lived romance in Greece, I sighed. That was real. I trembled, I shook, I think I even cried out in the throes of passion. It had been glorious and he had been magnificent. My heart fluttered over images I had stored away, keepsakes of wild romantic love and hot sizzling sex. A man who knew how to really make love was a gift. That man was like Christmas morning.

Yes, I’d felt that once. My chest constricted with the memory of the architectural study tour one magical autumn in Greece and the amazing man assigned to my class. Wincing, I remembered the circumstance that ended the budding transcontinental relationship begun with such wonderful potential. My sensually handsome teacher had proposed to a woman he had been in a long relationship with just prior to leaving for Greece.

Neither of us planned to fall in love. It just happened when we found ourselves separated from the rest of the tour on the island of Delos. Waiting for the next ferry, we discovered a connection, one the entire pantheon of gods must have had a hand in, for it was incredibly beyond our control. But as blissful as that week had been, I knew from the onset there was no hope for anything else between us. His prior commitment was on the table. As surely as the seasons turn, my month-long class was over and with it came a return to cold reality. I felt his loss even now. As brief as our intense liaison had been, I had loved that man and he loved me and it was the kind of love you only got once in a lifetime. Broken-hearted, I left Greece without looking back and I didn’t leave my contact information for future study tours just in case I’d meet him again as a married man.

See you tomorrow!

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Published on February 07, 2013 18:55

January 14, 2013

Taking a Breath Before the Plunge

Well that’s it on the blog hops for a while. I’ve been tallying the stats to see how blog hopping works for authors and will post that soon.

What a crazy, stress-filled, and oddly long week it’s been! Honestly, I can’t remember such a week that seemingly went on forever. I started out with an erroneously suspended blog and frantic hours trying to figure out why and get things up and running again before my USA Today debut. I had the blog hop coming mid-week too. This Blog Has Been Suspended just looks plain bad!

Thankfully the Happiness people (yes that is their title) at WordPress fixed their error and the blog got back up. Then blog hop fell into place. (Authors, I can’t say enough about doing all your blog posts at once as drafts and just posting as you go). The USA Today article was very well received. My fingers are crossed that this builds momentum. The nice thing is, it’s there forever. It’s even in the new Library at Alexandria! How cool is that?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1016_021016_alexandria.html

Bibliotheca Alexandrina — the new Library at Alexandria

*****

I got my flu shot and felt like hell for two days, then my arthritis went nuts in my left hand and right ankle Thursday. (It’s an RA thing) Predictably, the household stuff I see to every day followed suit. Stress does that sometimes. *sigh* But today is a new day and the start of a new week. I beat the 1000+ email monster living in my email’s inbox back to a reasonable proportions this past weekend, so for the time being I have some semblance of control there. I’m glad I did! I found two guest appearances I’m scheduled for in the next few days. About that business of keeping track of things like guest posts and interviews. I found a terrific tool. It’s an organizer that you can load with your dates online, then send yourself an email copy or print it out to have on hand. So much more useful than the sticky notes I had plastered all over my desktop! It’s free but has upgrade options you pay for. For now the free version works fine for me.

http://www.keepandshare.com

After an icky few days, I’m feeling pretty good this morning so I expect a productive week. *knock on wood* My Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo comes out in paperback today. I think I’ll clean house to celebrate. lol Maybe I’ll dance while I work…no one’s here to see.

Speaking of…

Cute huh? I guarantee I’m not that flexible. You might have to watch this directly on youtube because of the song it’s playing. Still, the short jaunt is worth the smile.

Coming soon — some nice reviews and where I’ve been around town. If you’d like to learn more about my books, thoughts, future projects, and things I’ve found to navigate the author’s world, pour yourself a spot of tea and dig into my blog. You’re sure to find something useful or entertaining things.

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Published on January 14, 2013 07:44

January 12, 2013

Last day – Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop!

Today’s the last day of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. There’s still time for one lucky winner to win the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and for two winners to win $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites: Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound

Follow this link to the Hop

All the authors participanting in the hop are offering prizes. For this hop. Mine is a copy of my latest –

book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo.

Scroll back to my previous post to see the book trailer, or go to Amazon.com for a peek inside the book

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFFFESI

My post can still be found in the Life section of the USA Today in the Happy Ever After Blog. There I explain how I came to write The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo — a story inspired by the urban legend of the Wisconsin wolf man. Here’s the link for a quick peek:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2013/01/09/rose-anderson-the-witchy-wolf-and-the-wendigo/1822015/

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The theme for this Hop is naughty and/or new. With naughty in mind, I consulted Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com to gain some insight on the word. In case you hadn’t heard this before, the thesaurus declares naughty a pretty impressive word. So am offering peeks into my stories through the naughty lens. Yesterday was evil naughty (yes, the thesaurus says evil is a synonym of naughty), the day before unorthodox naughty, the we started with playful naughty. Today is errant naughty. Errant, as in straying from proper standards.

Today I’d like to introduce an errant naughty snippet from Hermes Online - the CataRomance Sensual Reads Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner of 2011. Hermes Online was deliberately crafted to capture a publisher’s attention, and it did. This is the novel that opened the door to my becoming a multi-published author. Overcome by a broken heart and a confidence-shattering breakup, Vivienne tells the story in her perspective. But first, here’s the book trailer to explain the details –

S and Vivienne are enjoying their daily email exchanges. She’s lived the last several months in a drab haze of self-doubt, but S sets in motion an inner healing when he asks her to describe her self in full-colored, richly-worded, detail. At this point , the tenor of their conversation is beginning to change. There’s some wooing going on! In this scene, a good bit of conversation you’re not seeing here has taken place in S’s email.

…..And now I suspect there is far more to you than you realize, dearest V. Your sensual nature filled in where your paints left off, but is there more color to be had, I wonder?

Let’s take this further, shall we? For tomorrow… I enjoy kissing. Wield your pen. Describe a kiss from your luscious pink lips, and I shall do the same. Tell me, how do you sleep? Do your linens caress your bare skin? If not, allow yourself this treat tonight. For now, sweet dreams, lovely one.

I turned off the computer feeling that nature-driven lassitude that makes a woman drowsy after her climax. Smiling inside, I headed to bed. While I stood in my bathroom brushing my teeth, I eyed the hook that held my nightgown. I thought about his words. Never in my life did I recall deliberately sleeping nude. Yes, at various times after intimate exchanges in my past relationships, I fell asleep as naked as the body next to mine, but never did I set out to sleep without pajamas or nightgown at the end of the day. For some reason, the simple thought felt rather heady.

Being one of those people who actually takes the two minutes each morning to make my bed, for no other reason than not wanting to sleep in a jumble of sheets and blankets at the end of the day, I left the nightgown on the hook and turned down the sheets. My skin felt very hyper-aware as I stripped from the robe and snuggled in. The fabric softener scent lingered on my cotton sheets still, and the smooth flat surface of the fitted sheet felt cool against the remnant of my earlier sexual fever. I rolled over on my belly, one leg bent, one arm hugging the spare pillow that gave the illusion I didn’t sleep alone. I laid there assessing. My whole being felt lighter. For the first time in a year, I didn’t give Dan power over my dreams.

* * * *

I woke the following morning realizing I didn’t wake in the middle of the night as was my habit. In fact, I slept like the proverbial rock. It had been months since I slept through the three o’clock grief hour, that subconscious middle of the night wake-up call experienced by the grieving. As I took a languid stretch, I briefly contemplated revisiting last night’s date with the electric company. The corners of my mouth turned into a smile at the thought. Not now, I said to myself, tucking the option away and thinking I just might bring myself off later. The anticipation of another sensually charged email grabbed me. I found I relished the idea of writing…and reading…a kiss.

Later in the day I received a call from the county board president. It seemed my thoughts on creative reuse of the old Hornsby mansion had stirred more than one imagination on the board. In fact, so intrigued were they by my proposal that the house coming down was on hold for the time being. He wanted to let me know that my idea had become an agenda item on the special meeting he called this coming Thursday. Then to my ultimate surprise he paid me a compliment. “Honestly, Vivienne, I just have to tell you, I haven’t seen an idea come out of Planning and Development with this much potential in years. Your idea was inspired.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. For one, they’d suspended the tear-down, two, they’d called a special meeting, three, the board members I’d met with the other day had spoken favorably to their contemporaries, and four, I’d just gotten an extremely rare compliment from a guy who probably never even said “good boy” to the family dog. My idea was inspired!

Filled with possibility as I was, the ride home from work had my lips tingling as scenes from the world’s best movie kisses played over my head. To me the best were desperate I’ll-die-if-I-don’t-kiss-you kisses. My mind played with the concept for a mile or so.

My tenuous emotional state couldn’t bear lingering here. In self-defense, I shook the bittersweet thought away and flipped on a talk radio station with its topic on how to get raccoons out from under your porch. Ignoring the rush hour traffic under my forced emotional silence, I got off at my exit and let my mind open to the conversation the experts were sharing with listeners. Twenty minutes went by as I learned about the nocturnal habits of raccoons. Who knew? The uninvited raccoons were exactly the distraction I hoped for as my sad thoughts of lost love sunk back into the dusty scrapbook of my memory. Three miles later, raccoons and opening deer season cleared my mind enough to think about the present. I turned the radio off and got to work crafting my perfect kiss, attempting to borrow from Hollywood rather than personal experience.

I settled on the fiddle-tempo kiss from Last of the Mohicans and combined it with the wave-crashing beach kiss between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. That was nice, intensely hot. I then superimposed the kiss in the rain from The Notebook, and a bit of the library-shelf-climbing kiss from Atonement. “Wow,” I said, feeling electrified from the image I had woven.

Taking only enough time to do all the odds and ends one must do, such as making dinner, changing into more comfortable clothing, seeing to a load of hand-wash-only laundry and other less pressing bits on my weekly to-do list, I kept my computer at arm’s length until I had enough of a kiss in mind to write about. Two hours later, my computer fired up and so did my mind. I had mail.

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Fun Fact: When I came up with the title for this novel, the only thought I had in mind was the Greek myth of Hermes delivering messages from the gods. Flash forward to today and emails magically appear in our inbox. Add to that the fact my character Vivienne went to Greece as a student and I was quite pleased with my unusual title. Notice I said was. The title has been a source of a few chuckles along the way. First off, just about everywhere I’d posted a guest blog post about this book in 2011, the host tells me they’ve had a tremendous amount of hits on their blog for that day. That was nice to learn.

I’m also signed up for Google Alerts which tells me when my title is mentioned on the internet. In theory that should work, right? To date I’ve never received notice of this book being anywhere, but I do get a DAILY notice of who’s selling Hermes handbags, purses, and clutches online! lol I suspect the uncharacteristically high volume of hits on all those blogs might have been from people hunting down handbags. Every once in a while someone will ask where the Greek gods are in the story.

FYI: The gods are there, but it’s not their tale.

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The following links lead to terrific authors participating in the hop.

Be sure to comment and leave your email address to win their prizes too!

Adriana Kraft

Adriana Kraft
Alisha Paige/Ruby Vines

Addicted to

Genre Bending
Ann Cory

Ann Cory

Cassandra Carr

Hot Blogging

with Heart
Cherie Noel

Great Expectations
Diane Thorne

Diane Thorne

- Erotic Romance

Author

Donna George Storey

Sex, Food,

and Writing
Donna Michaels

Romaginative Fiction

-Donna’s Dish
Elise VanCise

Gladiator’s Pen

Harlie Williams

Harlie Williams,

Writer
Helena Harker

Open the Door

to Your Fantasies
Jennifer

Wright

Jennifer

Wright’s Blog

Justus Roux

Where Love and

Erotic Know

No Boundaries
Kayelle Allen

Unstoppable Heroes
Kelli

Scott

Lip

Service

Kendall McKenna

Love and Dog Tags
Lisabet Sarai

Beyond Romance
Lisa Carlisle

Lisa Carlisle’s

News

Lyndi Lamont

Lyndi’s Love Notes
M. S. Spencer

M. S. Spencer

Tale Spinner
Marie

Sexton

Marie

Sexton

May Water

May Water’s

Erotica
Michelle Moon

Ink Dipped Moon
Mona Karel

Mona Karel

Blog

Naomi Bellina

Naomi Bellina

Adventurous Erotic

Romance
Nicole Morgan

Bringing Passion

To Life
Rose Anderson

Calliopes

Writing Tablet

Roz Lee

Roz Lee
S. Dora

S. Dora
Sapphire Phelan

Sapphire Phelan’s

Passion Corner

Stormie Kent

Stormie Kent’s

Musings
Suz deMello

Fearless,

Fast-paced Fiction
Synithia Williams

Synithia Williams

Victoria Pinder

Victoria Pinder

Romance Author
Virginia Nelson

Virginia Nelson,

Author

I’ll contact the winner of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo sometime this week. Thank you for joining me in the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. Follow The blog hop link above to see who’s won the prizes.
Subscribe to my blog for updates, author and publishing insights, reviews, laurels and skinned knees, and just about anything that captures my fancy. And more Hops! I’m participating in two Valentines Day hops. I should have two new releases out by then too!
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Published on January 12, 2013 22:45

Day 3 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop!

It’s day 3 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. One lucky winner will receive the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and two other winners will receive a $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites: Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound

Follow this link to the Hop

All the participants are offering prizes. For this hop, I’m offering an ebook copy of my latest –

book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo.

Scroll back to my previous post to see the book trailer, or go to Amazon.com for a peek inside the book..or do both!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFFFESI

http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2013/01/09/rose-anderson-the-witchy-wolf-and-the-wendigo/1822015/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

So as mentioned before, this is a themed Hop. Post something naughty and/or new. The newest thing in my life has been the USA Today article. But for naughty, I consulted Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com to gain some insight on the word. I love words and often haunt dictionaries and encyclopedias looking for new ones. What I found was Naughty is a pretty impressive word as far as the thesaurus was concerned. I’m offering several shades of naughty from my books. Yesterday was unorthodox naughty, the day before playful naughty, and today is evil naughty (yes, the thesaurus says evil is a synonym of naughty).

Today I’d like to introduce an evil naughty snippet from my Contemporary/Victorian ghost story Dreamscape. But first, here’s the book trailer –

In this scene, Lanie O’Keefe examines the derelict mansion she’s bought. Jason Bowen (deceased) watches the woman who’s moved into his house and remembers the treacherous wife responsible for his death more than 100 years before.

He’d watched the pair as they walked around the grounds with pens and paper in hand presumably making notes for repairs. While assessing the pavers that lined his walkway, she looked up at his window curiously as if seeking something. Jason frowned. Did she see him standing there? How odd. He could only be seen when he wanted to. And he did not yet wish to be seen.

After the man had driven away in his automobile, the woman retrieved her bags from another smaller vehicle. He watched her coming up the walkway only to take another glance his way. She was smiling.

Hmm.

Below, the front door opened and closed, so he headed there, curious about the woman who at this very moment was moving into his house. He was grateful for two things, the first being he’d no longer be alone with only an occasional mouse for company. The second, this young woman bore no resemblance to his beautiful, black-hearted wife.

He thought about her from time to time, his duplicitous wife Cathy, her lover Richard Mason, and his sister Bertha, his murderers. He spent many a night listening to their congratulatory recounting of how they’d set him up, duping him into marrying a woman who from the onset had a lover in the wings. Like the Masons, Cathy too was born and raised in the south at the time of reconstruction and was reared on tales of the glory days. Their sole purpose from the onset in taking his life was so she would inherit all.

When they met she had been such a sweet and shy little beauty, the shyness he later learned to be false. When she comforted him over the untimely death of his father, he’d been surprised by how quickly he fell head over heels for her. Though she’d never voiced it while he was alive, he was well aware of her desire to live in the affluent manner in which her parents and grandparents had lived before the war took it all away. To that end, seeking to win her timid heart and encourage the comfort that would eventually lead his wife into his bed, he gave into Cathy’s every whim. No more than two months had passed before he was compelled to offer her marriage. No more than four before he found himself dead with his spirit walking the halls.

He played the details of their courtship over and over in his mind, for what else did he have to occupy his thoughts? Cathy Ames had accepted his proposal eagerly, despite her less-than-enthusiastic response to his advances. These always met with a cool reserve he erroneously mistook for maidenly shyness. But Cathy didn’t possess a shy bone in her body. No, far from it. He’d seen them together in bed, his wife and his murderer. Seen for himself the eager way she spread her legs, the way she clutched his body to hers and treated him to a carnal knowledge that obviously developed from years of knowing. Not only did it shock his senses to see his shy wife play whore and play it well, it sickened him. What a fool he’d been. Because of that he kept to the only room they never visited—the cupola at the top of the house—and decades passed there with little concern, because time ceased to have meaning for the dead. Yes, they continued on with their merry lives, raised their foul brood, and got away with murder.

But all that changed with the last of them. Margaret, the great-granddaughter of his wife, and her accomplice had never married, and like the living, aged over time. He never minded Margaret Mason. How could he when she was as lonely as he? He appeared to her from time to time when the loneliness got the best of both of them. When she grew old, and became the last of Richard Mason’s miserable line, he eventually told her the truth of her great-grandparents’ treachery. The night she died in her sleep she called him to her side and told him she arranged her estate to his benefit as best she could. It was the least she could do after the wrong her family had done him.

Standing invisible on the stairway, he looked over his new house guest. What a pretty creature with her tight curves, porcelain skin, and lustrous raven hair. More than one hundred years had passed since a beautiful woman walked these halls, for Richard Mason sired unfortunate-looking souls who passed on their regrettable looks to each generation, including poor Margaret. Blood will out. Evil definitely had a way of marking the man’s legacy as surely as Cane himself had been marked.

Following her into the kitchen, he watched her rummage for pots. She filled them at the tap then heated the water on the stove. He leaned against the wall appraising her. In all the years of his life, and certainly all the years after, this had to be the most beautiful woman he’d laid eyes on. She wore tight clothing, far tighter than he recalled women’s clothing to be when he saw them on Margaret’s television device. In fact her blue trousers fit her like a glove. These declared her legs to be slender and shapely and her bottom delectably rounded. Her breasts sat high and firm, and he found himself imagining what she looked like unclothed. The thought surprised him. He certainly harbored no such notion when the Mason horde lived here.

Hmm. In this fair company, he found himself still very much a man, despite being a dead one.

Fun fact: On the outside, Dreamscape, with its haunted house and gentleman ghost, is a story set between two time periods. But on the inside, it’s actually much more than that. This unlikely love story is also a murder, a suspense, a mystery, a time travel (via dreams) and if all that wasn’t enough, it’s also an Easter egg hunt for readers. Easter eggs, in this sense, are intentionally hidden messages. I tried to make them as visible as I could and in such number that readers would say to themselves, Was that intentional? It must mean something!

Why did I write a secondary story running parallel to the ghost story? Growing up, I was a huge fan of author Agatha Christie’s work. Many of her books were filled with arrows pointing at clues. Some of these were veiled, some intentionally hidden in plain sight, and all pointed to the truth even if details around them said otherwise. I remember my delight the first time I discovered a clue left out in the open for the reader to trip over. With that moment of discovery in mind, I wrote Dreamscape to tickle the imagination while turning expectations on their ends.

Tomorrow I’ll share another shade of naughty from Hermes Online.

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

The following links lead to terrific authors participating in the hop.

Be sure to comment and leave your email address to win their prizes too!

Did you know you can read your ebook prizes

even if you don’t have an eReader?

Free Kindle for PC download

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

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Published on January 12, 2013 04:17

January 11, 2013

Day 2 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop!

It’s day 2 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. Join us for fun posts and prizes. One lucky winner will receive the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and two other winners will receive a $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites: Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound

Follow this link to the Hop

All the participants are offering prizes. For this hop, I’m offering an ebook copy of my latest –

book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo.

Scroll back to yesterday’s post to see the book trailer, or go to Amazon.com for a peek inside the book

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFFFESI

http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2013/01/09/rose-anderson-the-witchy-wolf-and-the-wendigo/1822015/

۞>>>>۞<<<

In the spirit of the Hop theme, I consulted Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com to gain some insight on the word Naughty. I’m a Wordie so that little bit of research appealed to me. Naughty is a pretty impressive word with lots of nuance and for the duration of this Hop, I’ve decided to offer several shades of naughty in my writings. Yesterday was playful naughty, and today is unorthodox naughty.

Today I’d like to introduce an unorthodox naughty snippet from book 1 of my Victorian polyamorous love story Loving Leonardo. But first, here’s the book trailer –

In this scene, Nicolas Halstead, a confirmed bachelor quite comfortable with his secret sexual preference for men, meets a most unusual American, Miss Elenora Schwaab, and nearly chokes at her unorthodox and outrageous proposal.

The clock below stairs chimed once, then twice. Miss Elenora Schwaab would arrive at any moment. Sure enough, the bell rang in the front hall and shortly after, I met the woman in my library where Mrs. Fletcher had deposited her.

In a color scheme that would have inspired Pierre-Auguste Renoir to fetch a blank canvas, she wore a cream-and-blue cotton confection accented by a blue-and-cream rose-bedecked bonnet, reticule, and parasol. Excitement shone brightly in eyes the pale turquoise-blue of a clear autumn sky. Ripping off her cream lace gloves, she jumped from her chair to thrust her hand at me. “Sir Nicolas! Thank you for receiving me on such short notice.”

Americans. Chuckling to myself, I bowed over her smaller hand. “Miss Schwaab, what a pleasure to see you again.” They had the oddest mannerisms. Not rude, exactly; rather forthright without the stodgier affectations of the Empire. On the whole, Americans reminded me of impressionist artists. The artists violated the rules of academic painting, and Americans violated the rules of conventionality. As a student of nuance, I very much liked it.

Mrs. Fletcher entered with the tea. Addressing my guest she said, “I wasn’t sure if you’d like lemon or milk, Miss, so I’ve set the tray with both.”

“Why, thank you ma’am.”

The housekeeper turned to me with a smile sparkling in her eyes. I could tell the sparkle came from being addressed formally when she considered herself only a housekeeper. She said, “And that bread is warm from the oven as you like it, and the butter’s fresh from the dairyman this morning. Is there anything else, Master Nicolas?”

“No dear, this is quite fine. Thank you.”

Alone now, I buttered my bread and addressed the lady busily adjusting her tea to taste. “So Miss Schwaab, you say you’ve a venture in mind…”

“Please, Sir Nicolas. Call me Ellie as all my friends do.”

I smiled at what she implied. I could certainly see us as friends. “Very well, how can I be of service, Ellie?” I took a bite and nearly choked at her next words.

“To be blunt Sir, I’m in need of a mandrake. I need you.”

My mind raced. The chit was declaring me homosexual. “I beg your pardon?”

She smiled a rather unsettling sentient smile. And in those pale intelligent eyes, I could see her thoughts forming like clouds before a rainstorm. In fact, I could almost smell the ozone in the burning machinery of her mind. When she spoke, her thoughts were perfectly ordered.

“I’m not one to beat around the bush, Sir Nicolas. Not being forthright wastes time, and time may very well be short. Last June, I overheard a rather intimate verbal exchange between you and another man. I didn’t see who he was exactly, but I did see you.”

I felt a hollow sensation in my chest. In it, I could hear the echo of my up-tempo heartbeat. “Miss Schwaab, I—”

She held up a hand to interrupt me. “Please, hear me out. I consider myself to be a progressive. You see, I don’t care what adults do behind closed doors. An individual’s nature and sexuality form the most intrinsic core of their person. And who are we to take issue with another’s nature? Only a fool would see one path to human intimacy. We are naked apes after all, and apes have no issue with homosexuality.”

I couldn’t fault her logic. “So, what do you propose Miss Schwaab? Blackmail?” Though my obvious concern wasn’t humorous in the least, she laughed merrily.

“Please, call me Ellie.”

“Ellie. I believe that was a reasonable question.”

The same smile was back and with it, sparkling eyes. “I want you to marry me.”

Completely dumbfounded, I just looked at her. “You can’t be serious Miss…”

“Ellie.”

“You can’t be serious, Ellie.”

Her laugh was filled with mirth. “Oh, but I am!”

Finding that impish gleam in her eye irritating in that moment, I set my plate aside. In my mind, this meeting could go one of two ways — she’d out me for a sodomite if I didn’t do as she asked, or I’d be saddled with an insane wife. While Parliament abolished the death penalty for deviants like me years before I was born, my truth wasn’t fodder for the masses. “You have me at a disadvantage, madam. What madness would spur you to make such an outlandish proposal?”

She set her cup down and leaned forward as a man might when sharing an inside stock tip. I found myself oddly attracted to her forthright and almost mannish American attitudes. Looking me square in the eye, she said, “You are an authority on Leonardo da Vinci, correct?”

“On his artworks, I am.”

“Then I assume you are familiar with Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno?”

I suppressed a smile at her halting Italian. Gian Giacomo Caprotti was da Vinci’s protégé. Affectionately called Salai or the little devil by the master himself, it was said when Leonardo painted nudes and phalluses, they were modeled by his young lover Salai. The most telling of these — the sketch called Angelo-Incarnato or Angel Incarnate, which depicts the little devil himself with a substantial erection. On the back, da Vinci wrote out his turbulent feelings for the young man in Greek: astrapen, bronten, and ceraunobolian. His metaphoric choices literally translated: lightning, storms, and thunderbolts. I nodded.

She smiled. “And I assume, although not in your field of expertise, you must also be aware of such erotic artworks as Japanese pillow books and the Kama Sutra. One chapter of which was so recently translated by your celebrated orientalist, what’s the fellow’s name?”

Field of expertise? I took her question to mean I was unaccustomed to erotic works depicting women. Beyond my proclivity and given profession, of course I knew of these ancient works of erotica. I named the man for her, “Sir Richard Francis Burton—”

She cut in, “Yes, that’s the man!”

“And yes, I am aware of such books.” It was obvious when her pretty smile widened that she could see she’d hooked me like a trout. In fact, I had the impression this woman had somehow studied me at length. Though my interest was piqued, I couldn’t fathom what she was driving at, nor could I see a connection between ancient Asian renderings and da Vinci’s longtime lover… let alone a connection to a proposal of marriage to me. “And what does Salai have to do with these works?”

She smiled that smile again and this time I was met with a sense of familiarity I couldn’t quite identify, like there was more to it than what was seen upon the surface. My focus redirected when she explained, “My father is in the American Consul, you see. And now with my elder sister Luise Marie wed to Jean-Paul, I’ve become my father’s hostess when he entertains here. I don’t mind it, though listening to men talk trade and commerce mostly bores me. Anyway, enough about that.” She waved her hand and shook her head, as if determined not to go off point. “The other night my sister and her husband joined us when we entertained an Italian merchant and his relation by marriage. The former, a Signore Ambrosini, deals in raw fibers such as cotton and jute from India and is seeking business relations in the New York textile industry. I found him a likeable man. The latter… well, there was just something not quite right about him. His name is Carlo Posateri. He…”

My mind could barely keep up with the twists and turns Miss Schwaab’s mind was wont to take. Then too, I was somewhat surprised that this conversation was being piloted by a woman at all. Women of my acquaintance steered clear of most sexual topics, though every one of them would perk if the focus of conversation leaned in that direction. Sifting through her rambling recount of that night, I learned this Signore Posateri hated all things homosexual in nature, including the works of the masters. Apparently the man took pride in influencing Pope Pius IX to castrate the statues in the Vatican for the homosexual thoughts they provoked. Out of sight out of mind, I’d say, or a gloss on the phrase Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: The man doth protest too much, methinks. In my experience, them that had the most to say against a thing often coveted that very thing. Her next words pulled me from my contemplation.

“To put it simply, I plan to steal it.”

Fun fact: I wrote Nicolas and Ellie to be like Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles, the mystery solvers made famous in the 1934 detective novel — The Thin Man. As Nicolas and Ellie’s personalities unfolded, I discovered I really enjoyed their banter (it’s a writer thing lol). I decided early on we could very well have more adventures together in the future. Luca, charming in his own right, might also go for another story. Loving Leonardo - The Quest, book 2 in the Loving Leonardo mini series, is scheduled to be released late January or early February. If you’re interested, do subscribe to my blog for updates.

Tomorrow I’ll share another shade of naughty from Dreamscape.

۞>>>>۞<<<

The following links lead to terrific authors participating in the hop.

Be sure to comment and leave your email address to win their prizes too!

Did you know you can read your ebook prizes

even if you don’t have an eReader?

Free Kindle for PC download

۞>>>>۞<<<

View more on Rose Anderson's website »

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Published on January 11, 2013 04:33

January 10, 2013

I’m still hopping! Day 1 – Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop

It’s the second week of a new year and I’m still hopping! Thanks for stopping by my blog for day 1 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. Authors Jennifer Wright and Lizabet Sarai have put this together and opened it to a handful of authors. Including me! Thanks Jen and Lizabet. One lucky winner will receive the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and two other winners will receive a $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites: Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound

Follow this link to the Hop

Join us for 3 days of fun posts and prizes. For this hop, I’m offering an ebook copy of my latest –

book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo.

Here’s the trailer:

Go to Amazon for a peek inside the book

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFFFESI

>>>o<<<

To participate in this themed hop, I’m supposed to talk about new (as in new year) or naughty. Or even a combination of the two! New is self explanatory, but what is naughty exactly? Dictionary.com says several things about the word, everything from not eating your vegetables naughty, to mischief naughty, to vulgar naughty. The sister site Thesaurus.com offers a lot more from A to Z – well almost to Z. I found Aberrant to Wicked and a crazy amount of nuanced meanings in between. There are shades of naughty!

So, armed with a load of naughty variants, I’ve decided to offer several shades of naughty in my writings. I’m also offering insights into new things I’m up to in 2013.

As far as new goes, today I have a post in the Life section of the USA Today in the Happy Ever After Blog. There I explain how I came to write The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo — a story inspired by the urban legend of the Wisconsin wolf man.

Here’s the link for a quick peek:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2013/01/09/rose-anderson-the-witchy-wolf-and-the-wendigo/1822015/

And…

Here’s a “playful” naughty snippet from book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo. I won’t go into what happened prior to this scene, but Olivia still doesn’t know the wolfish dog she’s petting on her bed is a 3000 year old immortal native American shaman. She thinks he’s simply the dog she hit with her car — a dog whose severe injuries miraculously healed in a matter of days…

…they found her brother Jack already there with her car. To Olivia’s surprise her brother was trying to get the wolf-cross to chase a stick. The dog wasn’t having any of it.

“Hey look at you! Nice lump you’ve got there, Sis.” Jack smiled and hugged her.

Olivia gave the dog a cursory once-over. He looked fit as a fiddle. Turning to her brother she said, “Yeah, I do. Though it’s better than yesterday. Thanks for bringing my car home. Where’d you find my dog?”

“Your dog?”

“Mine, temporarily. We haven’t found his owner yet.”

“He was waiting at the door. Does he have a name?”

“I’m sure he does, but I don’t know it.”

Jack petted the wolf-cross’s big head. “I’ll take him, if no one comes for him. He’s a good dog. Aren’t you, big fella?”

Ash’s eyes never left Livie. She looked well, beautiful in fact, despite the bandage she wore. He wagged his tail and lolled his long pink tongue. He’d lived the equivalent of sixty lives of men and not once in all that time did he think of anyone but his wife. In the past few days he’d been thinking of this woman almost to the exclusion of all else. He found it curious.

She looked at him, not knowing what to think. The fact of the matter was he’d been seriously injured just four days before. The compound fracture alone should have taken weeks to heal, yet here he was with no sign whatsoever that the jagged leg bone had pushed through the skin and necessitated surgery. Somehow he managed to chew off his bandages and run away the first chance he got. Just thinking about it made her head throb. That’s all she remembered. The dog ran off and she drove after him. She must have driven off the road and hit her head. Maybe a deer ran in front of the car.

Her family saw Olivia fed, settled in bed, and set up with a stack of garden magazines.

Her father asked. “What else can I get for you, Pumpkin?”

She smiled at him. “Would you mind opening the window a crack? After that stuffy hospital room, I need some air.”

“Sure.” Appraising the old ill-fitting panes, he added, “I’ll come by next week and we’ll see about putting up some insulation. This old house is too drafty and winter is coming.” When her mother came in with a large glass of water and a new bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol, Olivia knew they must have sent Jack to the store. It was confirmed when her mother said, “Take these if your head starts hurting. Be sure you drink enough. Your brother picked up juice and popsicles, too.”

Jack said from the doorway, “Yeah, prune juice, and all green ones.”

Olivia laughed, then winced. When they were kids, the green popsicles were everybody’s least favorite choice. Needless to say, that was often all that was left.

Her brother patted the furry animal beside the bed. “Your dog never leaves your side, does he? I bought him a can of dog food but he wasn’t hungry. He wouldn’t even eat a piece of cheese.”

Olivia looked at the wolf-cross sitting there, watching like he fully understood their conversation. “He’s kind of picky. After I nap, I’ll make something for both of us.”

Not the sort to take “no” for an answer, all three tried valiantly once more to convince her she’d be better off at home. They even offered to take the dog, too. She thanked them, kissed them goodbye, and sent them on their way by assuring them all she was going to do was sleep. Alone now, Olivia patted the bed beside her. “Come up here, big guy.”

Ash leapt onto the bed and lay beside her. He stared at her expectantly.

The small movement bringing that painful ache to life in her temple, she pressed a knuckle into her throbbing eye socket. “God, my head. Listen, I have no idea how I got this lump on my head, but no more running away. Understand me?” His tail thumped the bed.

Olivia rubbed his ears and patted him and smiled when he rolled over on his back. Her fingers gently combed through the thick fur to the pink skin underneath. No sign of his recent stitches. She felt his foreleg from shoulder to toes. No swelling. She moved it carefully with one hand while pressing her palm flat where the bone had been broken. No grinding bone on bone. For all intents and purposes, this dog had never been in an accident nor had surgery. It defied logic. She absently rubbed his belly, her mind on every implausible detail since she’d run him over.

Ash closed his eyes to Livie’s caress. Her hand swept up and down from his neck to just below his navel and he found his soul awakening to it. His body stirred too.

This was a very happy male dog. It was impossible not to notice, with the telltale evidence making an appearance. Olivia leveled a look at him. “You will not lick yourself on my bed, buster.”

Ash rolled side to side, his tail wagging and teeth bared. Livie laughed, and it made him pause. He’d heard her laugh when she talked with Jenni, but he hadn’t heard her laugh like this, and never for him alone. The sound was merry and genuine and it made him happy. To his surprise, he wanted more. He craved her touch. He craved her. He nuzzled his nose under her hand. Touch me Livie.

“How did you heal so quickly? This just doesn’t make sense.”

Ash knew she spoke more to herself than to him but listening to her eased him. Heal? Yes, that’s what’s was happening. He felt the flutter in his chest and knew it for what it was. His heart was healing. He’d loved his wife with his heart’s every beat. He’d loved their precious child with his every breath. He always would. But because of this gentle, caring woman, he felt his shriveled heart expand for the first time since that monster stole his family from him.

After a while her hand stopped its gentle caress and Ash knew she had fallen asleep. Listening to Livie’s regular breathing, he crawled up beside her and laid his heavy head across her chest. He closed his eyes and let her heartbeat lull him.

Was it so? Did he have room to love another? He needed to seek the Manitou. He must know if this were meant to be. But more than that, he needed to visit Aiyanna in his dreams again. A short time later he dreamed his life, dreamed of falling in love, dreamed of every memory of his wife he owned. Then of his own doing, he took his dreams to the very last day they shared…

fun huh?

Tomorrow I’ll share a different shade of naughty from another book.

>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<
The following links lead to terrific authors participating in the hop.

Be sure to comment and leave your email address to win!

Adriana Kraft

Adriana Kraft
Alisha Paige/Ruby Vines

Addicted to

Genre Bending
Ann Cory

Ann Cory

Cassandra Carr

Hot Blogging

with Heart
Cherie Noel

Great Expectations
Diane Thorne

Diane Thorne

- Erotic Romance

Author

Donna George Storey

Sex, Food,

and Writing
Donna Michaels

Romaginative Fiction

-Donna’s Dish
Elise VanCise

Gladiator’s Pen

Harlie Williams

Harlie Williams,

Writer
Helena Harker

Open the Door

to Your Fantasies
Jennifer

Wright

Jennifer

Wright’s Blog

Justus Roux

Where Love and

Erotic Know

No Boundaries
Kayelle Allen

Unstoppable Heroes
Kelli

Scott

Lip

Service

Kendall McKenna

Love and Dog Tags
Lisabet Sarai

Beyond Romance
Lisa Carlisle

Lisa Carlisle’s

News

Lyndi Lamont

Lyndi’s Love Notes
M. S. Spencer

M. S. Spencer

Tale Spinner
Marie

Sexton

Marie

Sexton

May Water

May Water’s

Erotica
Michelle Moon

Ink Dipped Moon
Mona Karel

Mona Karel

Blog

Naomi Bellina

Naomi Bellina

Adventurous Erotic

Romance
Nicole Morgan

Bringing Passion

To Life
Rose Anderson

Calliopes

Writing Tablet

Roz Lee

Roz Lee
S. Dora

S. Dora
Sapphire Phelan

Sapphire Phelan’s

Passion Corner

Stormie Kent

Stormie Kent’s

Musings
Suz deMello

Fearless,

Fast-paced Fiction
Synithia Williams

Synithia Williams

Victoria Pinder

Victoria Pinder

Romance Author
Virginia Nelson

Virginia Nelson,

Author

Did you know you can read your ebook prizes

even if you don’t have an eReader?

Free Kindle for PC download

>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<

View more on Rose Anderson's website »

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Published on January 10, 2013 03:29

January 9, 2013

Hat Trick

I harbor a lifelong love of learning, but I didn’t enjoy school. In fact, I could count on three fingers those times I was actually inspired by a teacher. I say that because I can only remember three.

The twinkle of a notion that I could write stories appeared long ago, and it all started in school with a J.R.R. Tolkien book in my high school English class. We were to read The Hobbit and then write a short story in Tolkien’s style. It was the very first time a class assignment was more than a regurgitation of rote facts and dates. It was also the first time I put imagination to pen. I wrote about an emerald-scaled dragon waiting for her egg to hatch. I’d been inspired so I really got into it. It’s amazing what a little inspiration can do for creativity.

The next day, the teacher held me back after class to praise my story one on one. She asked if she could keep it or have a copy. Of course I said yes to her keeping it. In the days before Xerox, I wasn’t about to write it all out again! She left me with this thought. “You’re good enough to be published one day.” I shelved that idea for fourteen years before I took her compliment to heart. And with disappointment, I tabled it again as an impossible undertaking when manuscripts sent didn’t get a nibble. That was nineteen years ago. All told this trip has taken 38 years. I’m glad I tried again and was successful, but wish I’d started sooner. It’s not for the reason you might think.

I’ve long determined there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish the often overwhelming pile of things authors have to do to establish a solid footing in the publishing world. Years ago, the only thing an author needed to do was write a book and send the manuscript to a publisher. If they accepted it, the publisher did all the work and that included promoting.

It’s not enough now to simply write the book. You have to put on hats! Of course you must wear the writer’s hat, but there’s also the publicist’s trunk full of hats to wear — the blogger hat, social media hat, and the webmaster hat. Then we have the personal assistant’s hat and all the smaller hats that go with it. If you self-publish, there’s far more than one publisher’s hat to wear! There are days when i feel buried under hats. lol

The publishing world is the vertical slope. To make a success in his business is metaphorically like climbing K2. It’s not impossible, but boy it’s not easy with that column of hats balanced on your head!

><><><><><><><><

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Published on January 09, 2013 07:48

January 8, 2013

Leaning on Technology…a little too much.

What a week!! I went straight from a successful blog hop to discovering my blog suspended by WordPress. What?? Yep, somehow a “spam check” said the blog I’ve had for nearly two years violated some Terms of Service rules. Of course I never did. The content has been the same all along – basically book chitchat, publishing info, updates, and the occasional point of view piece. It was an error on their part and they reinstated me and gave a nice apology too.

To say I was frustrated would be putting it mildly. I have a big promotional opportunity this week and all I could think was people would come to my blog and see “Suspended”. I mean really, how does that look? WordPress is pretty self-contained. The forums have everything covered. But I couldn’t use the forums because I was locked out. I couldn’t find a soul to talk to directly. Wacky things were happening with other WordPress users and I thought for sure I’d been hacked or the main WP brain had been hacked.

There was a point there where I doubted my filled out help request forms were going to the support people. (WordPress support people, if you find your way here through my desperate carpet bombing of pleas for help, thanks.) That’s the thing about being hacked, you sometimes can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Anyone who’s ever used ebay or paypal should know what I’m talking about. How many times a year do you get some cyberjerk pretending to need sensitive information from you on emails and site links that look spot-on perfect?

So for tonight I’ll leave you with a little animated gif that gruesomely says everything just so. It’s an oldie, but ghoul that I am, I laughed when I first saw it more than 10 years ago. A friend sent it to me at a time when I was trying to learn code for building a very important website. I’d mentioned jokingly that I’d entered so much code, I’d typed my fingers down to stubs. lol sometimes a picture says it all. This was me trying to find answers after I learned my blog and my precious domain name were taken off the web. Tomorrow it’s business as usual. G’night all.

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Published on January 08, 2013 19:41

January 5, 2013

Last Day of the Naughty New Year’s Blog Hop!

Wrapping up the Naughty New Year’s Blog Hop!

Follow to the Naughty New Year’s Blog Hop

There’s still time to visit the participating blogs and leave a comment and your contact email on that day’s post. Be sure to visit every blog on the list and comment today to increase your chances of winning the grand prize: a $100 Gift Card to EdenFantasys.com (an adult toy store), and a 10-book bundle of ebooks.

Every author is offering additional prizes on their blogs. My offering is an ebook copy of Loving Leonardo – An unusual polyamorous, bi, Victorian love story with a touch of interactive art history. This part one in a two-book story.

Loving Leonardo — The Quest comes out soon.

Scroll down for a peek at part two.

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>>>>:::<<<<

So, over the past few days I’ve introduced you to my current novels. I hope you’ve enjoyed my book trailers and little peeks into each story. For news on what’s happening next, I invite you to subscribe to my blog. My entire author’s journey is in here. You never know what you might find!

And here’s what’s next:

Loving Leonardo — The Quest

Nicolas, Ellie, and Luca take in their first night in Paris.

Blurb:

With Leonardo da Vinci’s book of love poems and sketches safe in their possession, lovers Nicolas, Ellie, and Luca discover the book harbors a secret – carefully disguised declarations of love from Leonardo to his long-time lover Salai. The trio begins a quest to follow the book’s clues to other hidden messages of love tucked into well-known da Vinci masterpieces now scattered across Europe. Their quest is cut short however, when a tragic turn of events reveals a terrible truth – Count Bruno lives and is bent upon revenge.

(unedited) Excerpt:

We left the theater an hour later. What a mistake that had been. While the play was entertaining and the theme interesting enough with its occult undertones, the ending had left a bad taste in my mouth. After finding their treasure, Axël the hero and his heroine Sara fall in love then decide their dream is far too magnificent to be fulfilled in the unimaginative reality of their lives. With no dream to live for, they killed themselves as the sun rose and the curtain fell.

Apparently unfazed, my companions discussed the story at length as we walked back to the hotel. I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to our lives though I was certain the dark thoughts were mine alone. It didn’t help that we passed a mortician’s window with the latest embalming on display as a macabre advertisement to the skill to be had there. Beside the door a glass frame filled with memento mori photographs. In general, I found the practice of posing the dead in life-like attitudes a disturbing one. Especially the staring facsimile eyes painted upon closed lids.

Seeking a distraction from my thoughts, I used the tip of Eiffel’s tower as a guide and led us across the street and down an alley. We passed a beribboned one-man music show reminiscent of a May Day mummer, a raucous game of Three-card Monte taking place on an upturned dustbin, and Luca received a blatant sexual proposition by a ponce seeking work for his whore. Turning the corner, we chanced upon two women, one either quite old or quite world-worn. Both were obviously Roma dressed as they were in colorful rustic clothing one might see on country folk. The younger of the two rocked a baby. The elder told us in heavily-accented English that her tarot cards held a message for Luca and me specifically.

Unused to Gypsies that peddled their wares across Europe, Ellie was enchanted by the idea. She tugged on my sleeve and encouraged a card reading. Luca shrugged and I found myself placing a coin on the scarf-covered folding table.

The elder’s smile revealed several missing teeth. She shuffled her worn cards and said, “The cards speak to you first, Englishman.” These she handed to me and I cut the deck into three piles as directed. I realized then, that this deck of cards was not only quite old, it was hand-painted. Restacking them into her hand, she dealt three cards – the three of cups, the six of swords and the Tower in reverse. I looked at the woman expectantly.

I felt Ellie’s eyes on me and I squeezed the hand she rested on my arm.

“Well madam, what do the cards say?”

“The cards call for caution, Englishman.” She tapped the three of cups with a gnarled finger. “You’ve gained fortune in love. But this card is your past.”

Ellie looped her arm through mine. I could feel her thoughts. As far as she and I were concerned, it was our present and future.

The old woman tapped the six of swords. “Your trip will be postponed and sadly there is nothing to be done for it.” She stared at the cards a moment then tsked. She shook her head and tapped the last. “The card sees imprisonment.”

Ellie looked at me with wide skeptical eyes that danced with mirth, the smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she tried to keep a straight face. Luca slapped me on the back in humor, and said, “You’d best watch yourself Nicolas.”

I chuckled, but inside my unsettled mind absorbed it.

She gathered the cards again and shuffled them. After Luca cut the deck into three piles, she laid them out as before. The first was the two of cups. “Your recent past shows harmony, man of Venice.” Luca nodded, apparently missing the fact the woman knew where he was from. I didn’t miss it. There was nothing in his accent that I was aware of that hinted a particular region of Italy. She set the next card beside the first. It was the eight of wands. “There is jealousy in your life now,” she told him.

He looked at me and then at Ellie. There was no jealousy between us. Proof again these mystic pastimes were nothing more than parlor games. The last card was the king of cups. She looked up into his face and for the first time I realized she had a glass eye that didn’t quite follow the other. The real eye looked him up and down, and the perusal made me very uncomfortable. I couldn’t say why that was, even if I’d been asked. She suddenly scooped up the cards and declared the reading completed.

Luca chuckled. “Madam, you’ve not read my last card.”

The baby fussed. The older woman turned to the younger and said something in a language I did not recognize but possessed rounded syllables found in the Latin languages, Romanian perhaps. The young woman nodded and replied, then bared her breast to suckle her babe. The old woman turned back to us. “The king of cups tells of a powerful man…” The younger woman said something that effectively stopped the elder mid-sentence.

How strange. We looked at one another. Ellie dug into her reticule and set a coin on the table. “I’d like my fortune read too, if you please.”

The old woman shook her head.

“Why not? I’ll pay…”

Chuckling, Luca set another coin on the cloth. Obviously deliberating, the old woman stared at the coins and pursed her lips. In the end, the prospect of more money won out. She shuffled the cards and set the deck on the table. Her one eye moved from person to person at last settling on Ellie. She told her, “One card only, lady.”

Ellie turned over the single card and set it on the scarf. The lovers in reverse. The old woman said, “Separation,” and quickly scooped up the deck and scarf and snapped the folding table closed. The card reading was officially over.

“Wait, what does that mean?” Ellie asked obviously confused.

I hooked my arm in hers and said, “It means nothing my dear, it’s merely a game.”

The gypsy cackled. “A mistake many make.”

I tugged Ellie away. “Come love, let’s see about our dinner.”

۞>>>>۞<<<

And…

The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo book 2

Still working on the blurb. Here’s what I have so far:

After revealing his true nature as an ageless shape-shifting shaman to Livie, Ash is overjoyed to find she accepts him as he is. But within his new-found happiness lurks an ancient enemy, with a new terrible power and the singular intention of taking all Ash holds dear. Certain his lover and friends would be safer on the reservation, Ash sends them north and plans to meet his adversary head on. Eli’s hatred was set in motion nearly 3000 years before, and now two magical shaman face an inevitable confrontation.

Excerpt:

Winston’s tail thumped on the floor a moment before the screen door opened with a squeak.

Knowing all the sounds in the house, especially those made by her husband and sons, Mayweather announced from the kitchen, “Jo is here.”

Coming around the corner at the mention of his name, Jo kissed his mother’s cheek before grabbing for a hot biscuit. “Good Morning Ma.”

“Ssst,” she hissed her disapproval at him and playfully slapped his hand. “Where did you leave your manners today, maji?”

Jo laughed. He loved that she still called him a little devil. “I am a bachelor, Ma. The only time I eat good food is at home!”

She grinned. “I made extra for you to take back to the station. None of you boys eat well.”

“Jo needs a good wife, Auntie May,” Cora commented matter-of-factly.

Jo spun around, and quick as a shot gave Cora a squeeze that lifted her off the floor, making Winston bark playfully. Jo told her, “I need a nice waabiingwe girl like you. Maybe Livie, hey? Did you bring her with you?” He peeked over the top of her head hopefully.

With her red hair, Livie certainly was a pale girl. John said Jo’s crush on Livie was obvious, and seeing that hopeful look in his eye, Cora knew it was true. But unfortunately for Jo, Livie’s heart was now occupied. When they’d been in the bookstore waiting on John to have his talk with the shape-shifting dog — Livie had confessed falling head-over-heels for Ash. Ash was the dog. Not in a million years did she see that coming. Despite no proof in this bizarre set of circumstances, Cora responded to Jo honestly. “I’m afraid Livie’s heart has been stolen away, just like mine was, by a wily Indian.”

Disappointment flickered in his eyes. “She’s seeing a red man?” At her nod, he grabbed her and made her squeal. “Then maybe I’ll have to steal you from John!” Lifting her, he made to run out the door. The women laughed and seeing opportunity for fun, Winston ran to get his ball.

John came into the kitchen followed by his uncle. He said, “Are you trying to steal my wife again, Jo?”

“Yeah, you’re too citified. Cora needs a wilder Indian. What do you say Cora? Wanna see my wigwam? Ow! Hey Ma! I was just kidding!”

“Do not be rude.” Mayweather spun her dish towel again, an action akin to recoiling a whip. She loved Cora too much to let her cheeky son innocently insult her. Having grown up on tales of the Indian schools, you never knew what white folks took seriously. While her nephew’s sweet-natured wife was different than most, with scant few exceptions, in her experience mostly they were a breed apart.

John chuckled, “Smack him again for me, Auntie!”

“Ow! Ma!”

“Put her down, maji. Go get some jam from the cellar, please.”

“Yes ma’am. Come on Winston, you can look for mice down there.” The dog, happily wagging his tail, followed him out.

Abbie laughed. His wife steered her boys with a dish towel as accurate as a mule driver’s whip. After his sister-in-law Rosa’s long illness and death, and the tragic mistake that killed his brother Hank, he’d raised John and his Fay as his own beside his three boys. With his twin sons at college and Fay away completing her internship, the house was far too quiet. He took the oven mitt and lifted the large steaming coffee boiler from the stove. “Grab some cups. I want to hear Johnny’s story.”

Twenty minutes later, Jo exclaimed, “John, you are shitting me!” No sooner did the words come out of his mouth than did he feel his mother’s ire. He quickly said, “Sorry, ladies.” Mayweather shook her head at him and pushed the biscuits and jam his way, as if to say, fill your mouth, do not speak with it.

“It’s true,” John continued, “I saw him change right before my eyes. One minute he’s a wolfish-looking dog, the next he’s a naked man on my floor. It blew my mind.” He shook his head. “Absolutely blew my mind.” He relayed much of his conversation with Ash, adding he’d taken him to the Wal-Mart.

Abbie asked, “And you are certain this Midewi is Ashkewheteasu?”

“He confirmed it. He was amazing, Uncle. So confident and sure of who and what he is. I was in awe.”

Mayweather put her fingers to her lips in wonder. “And he calls you friend. My goodness John, such an honor.”

John nodded. “It is, Auntie. It’s a great honor to help him.”

“So he knows about the legend now?” Abbie asked. “He is okay with that?”

“I told it to him. I’m not as good as Old Edgar, but I remembered enough details. He said much of it was true.”

Abbie smiled. He’d always believed the old stories had literal truth in them.

John ran a hand across his face. “But there’s so much he needs in our world, I don’t know where to begin. I bought him clothes and shoes, sure. But what now? What do I do now? He’s going to need help.”

This was huge. Jo’s mind filled with legalities. Ash would need I.D., for starters. He suddenly remembered there was more to this story. He looked at John. “What about the Spider? Does he know the Spider is coming?”

“He knows. That’s why he sent us up here, where we’ll be safe while he handles the Spider. He wants to bring Livie too.”

Understanding filled Jo. He looked at Cora with wide eyes. “Ashkewheteasu is Livie’s new beau?”

Cora nodded.

Halting the conversation with his hand, John cut in, “We don’t know if she’s okay with that yet. But even if she’s not, Ash said she’s still in danger. Spider wants to take everything from him. All that will matter to Spider is Ash’s feelings for Livie. Not whether she returns them.”

A wave of unease washed over Jo. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

Abbie said, “Ash is going to need papers. He cannot just come into this time and not have them.”

Cora said. “You’re right, Uncle. You never know what might come up and he has no way to explain who he is that won’t make him sound crazy and get him locked up or worse.”

Mayweather shook her head. “Maybe you could convince him that he should live here, Johnny. You know the laws are different on the rez.”

John nodded. “Yes they are, Auntie. But no. He made it clear to me that he plans to stay in my area.”

Considering his cousin’s words, Jo let out a long breath. “He should be here with his people. You know we would welcome him with open arms. There is so much he could teach us and so much we could learn—”

John interrupted, “Jo, he’s an elder. The elder. It’s not for me to tell him anything. I can suggest, but that’s all I can do.”

Cora said, “He wants to stay near Livie, Jo. He’s in love with her and last night she told me she’s in love with him.”

The words gave Jo a pang. “But what kind of life can he offer her? From all you’ve said, he doesn’t have even basic knowledge about the world we live in.”

John knew where Jo’s apprehension was coming from and he felt bad for it. From what Cora had said, Livie was clearly head-over-heels for Ash. If last night went well and she wasn’t freaked out by the truth of him, then she wouldn’t be opposed to Ash’s affection. “I don’t think this is something we need to worry about. His mind is amazing. In just the few hours we talked last night, his understanding and comprehension grew right before my eyes. He told me the ability to learn all situations quickly was part of the Manitou’s gift. If we help him, it won’t take him long to assimilate. I have no problem offering him a place in the clinic if he likes. From what Cora and Livie tell me, he’s remarkable with animals, too. ”

Cora agreed. “He is. I’ve never seen anxious animals calm so quickly.”

Feeling that there might be a stable future for Livie, Jo nodded. “Okay. I’ll see what the tribal council thinks about forging documents. There are enough babies born on the rez with two birthdays — the actual birth date and the legal date on the paperwork. How much different can it be?”

“Three thousand years, give or take.”

Not realizing the age of the legends Ash was a part of, they all looked at John in wide-eyed surprise. Jo laughed. “Oh, boy. Well, they’ll either think I’m crazy or you are!”

Abbie said, “You do know the tribal elders will want to meet him first, hey?”

John nodded. “Like Auntie said, helping Ash is a great honor. They should meet him.”

I’m aiming for late January – February release dates for the final installments of both stories. Aiming…

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Published on January 05, 2013 21:18

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