S.A. Reid's Blog, page 9
November 5, 2012
FREE READ: Honesty
Warnings: m/m, sex, unbelievably hot characters.
Word Count: 2692
Copyright 2012 by Theo Fenraven. Feel free to pass it around or reblog in its entirety but this is an original work, and as such, belongs to me and cannot be published or posted under any name but Theo Fenraven.
Images are public domain (as far as I know!)
Chapter 1…
From my friend Theo Fenraven...
November 4, 2012
Knight of Wands is Released and Two Photos
The second book in the Precog in Peril series is now available for $2.99.
Buy links: Amazon, Smashwords, ARe
Gray Vecello and Cooper Key are back in the exciting sequel to Three of Swords. Graham’s treasure is only the tip of the iceberg as a thief helps himself to a hidden stash of cash, Jolly Roger makes another appearance, and the guys finally meet others with special abilities when an emergency meeting of the group is called.
My friend Theo Fenraven's latest release...
October 24, 2012
From Hags to Hogwarts: How witches have evolved in literature
Reblogged from tarawestauthor:
Oh, my SQUEE!!! My article “From Hags to Hogwarts: How witches have evolved in literature” is actually featured on Wattpad this week on the front page! Please click here to read it, and while you are there, you can read Sophie’s Secret for FREE. I wrote this article while researching The Salem Witch Trials for Whispers, Book Four, Visions of the Witch (2013).
My friend Tara West wrote this article, which was featured yesterday on the front page of WattPad. It mentioned my friend Heather Adkins, too!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette (4)
Silhouette of Chinese buildings of ancient architecture, against the moonlight and by the river in the ancient town of FengHuang (Phoenix City) . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Filed under: Stephanie Abbott
Great picture...
October 21, 2012
Ed's Casual Friday: TGII & Book Five
Today on Ed’s Casual Friday over at Indies Unlimited, I ruminate a bit about why I am so happy to be working on Book V of the Norothian Cycle (shooting for an early 2013 release), sing the praises of Indie authorship, and generally frolic in my glee.
Filed under: Stephanie Abbott
Worth reading because Ed is "frolicking in his glee."
Cover Reveal: THE BECOMING: GROUND ZERO Re-Issuing With New Cover!
Just like The Becoming is getting a new cover, so is The Becoming: Ground Zero!
This cover. What can I say about this cover? (I mean, really, I’m speechless lol.) I’d love to know your thoughts on it!
As always, The Becoming: Ground Zero is available from assorted retailers for $7.99, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords…
Jessica knows I am sincere when I say, I love this cover...
Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette (2)
This silhouette taken at Venice captured a moment which you would want to last forever. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .
Filed under: Stephanie Abbott
Stunning...
October 18, 2012
Fill The Shelves - A Great New Initiative To Help Underfunded School Libraries
Reblogged from David Gaughran:
Chronic under-funding of school libraries has led to the tragic spectacle of empty shelves, leaving children with nothing to read; but a new initiative called Fill The Shelves hopes to change all that.
This story starts in a Pennsylvania K-8 school called Pittsburgh Manchester, where the librarian – Sheila May-Stein – decided to do something about the empty shelves in her own school (pictured left – that was the…
October 9, 2012
FAERIES, Raiders, and Amazon Gift Cards
Reblogged from Shéa MacLeod, Author - Everything's Better With Dragons:
Faerie by Delle Jacobs
Super awesome contest going on over at Delle Jacobs’s blog in celebration of the Montlake release of FAERIE. You can win a Barbie and Ken collector’s set, or some Amazon gift cards. Check it out. AND check out Delle’s new book. Sounds AMAZING! Can’t wait to read it.
Filed under: Stephanie Abbott
Oh, you have to check this out!
October 8, 2012
Once again, since my contribution to the Eclective’s Haun...
Once again, since my contribution to the Eclective’s Haunted Collection is a Victorian horror story, here are some Victorian factoids from a post I wrote in 2011…
Cold air and foul smells caused illness. Or so most believed. This was the “miasma” theory. Because disease was carried by bad smells, surgeons felt free to operate while wearing the same coat, growing ever more stiff with blood and body fluids, for years. Joseph Lister, inventor of aseptic technique (the notion surgeons should wash their hands, don gloves, and avoid cross contamination while poking about in peoples’ innards) once famously rebuked a physician who, after each surgery, wiped his scalpel on the bottom on his boot before going on to the next patient. I doubt the offending doctor listened. Many of Lister’s fellow physicians considered him a neat freak, a scold, and a bit of hysteric. But he still got “Listerine” named after him.
That Victorian character described as having a “squint” or a “cast to the eye”? Nowadays, we’d call he or she cross-eyed. In the 1800s, there was no surgical intervention possible, so society was far more accepting of those with an eye that turned in toward the nose or drifted out toward the wall. It wasn’t even a detriment to romance. Once I read a novel which mentioned a pretty blonde girl “with a cast to her eye” dancing with all the eligible young men. Misaligned eyes, like cataracts or sudden blindness (probably from glaucoma or retinal detachment) were just part of life.
The leading cause of death in the nineteenth century was … Tuberculosis. A female between the ages of 15 and 35 had a 50% chance of dying of consumption. (Just like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!) But around mid-century, Victorians won a huge victory against another scourge, smallpox. In an astonishingly inclusive move, Parliament soon acted to make vaccination free. But human nature being what it is, they eventually had to make not getting vaccinated against the law.
Victorian novels, personal diaries, and letters are filled with complaints of headaches. Some believe those headaches came from all the ARSENIC. Even a gracious home was filled with it — in the carpet, the wallpaper, and the upholstery, not to mention books, paint, cosmetics, and toys. Makes you wonder if two hundred years from now, folks will marvel how we managed to live so long while consuming high fructose corn syrup and walking around with mobile phones pressed to our skulls.
Opium was readily available, legal, and stamped with the British Imperial seal. Which was probably good, considering whatever ailed you wasn’t likely to be cured, only endured. The Victorian Era had an interesting libertarian slant. People felt free to lecture you about vices — tobacco, prostitutes, gin, and the hookah. But all were still legal.
The uterus made females acutely prone to melancholia, mania, and of course — hysteria. “Female hysteria” was a catch-all phrase for almost anything, including sadness, defiance, angry outbursts and disobedience. Eventually some doctor decided the appropriate treatment was — wait for it — south-of-the-border massage. The only problem? Many docs felt the process was extremely time-consuming, not to mention tedious, bringing their patients to that climatic finale. (Is it any wonder some of these ladies kept behaving badly and returning to their physicians for treatment?) By 1870, someone finally invented a vibrating machine, sold only to doctors, to satisfy the female hysterics more quickly and increase patient turnover. Read The Technology of Orgasm for more.
Men never showed weakness. Which probably subtracted as many years off their lives as anemia and overwork combined. The rules for a man were mostly emotional. He could be bright but not smart. He could be neat but not foppish. He couldn’t show too much interest in his children (effeminate) or expect his wife to welcome his attentions in the bedroom. He could never show fear or shed tears, even when injured. And a man who disgraced himself through bad investments or public humiliation had only one recourse: to shoot himself. Remember during the stock market crash of 1929, all those ruined Wall Street executives — mostly middle-aged men — tossing themselves out of windows? They were the sons of Victorians. In general, I hope the idea that financial ruin necessitates suicide died with them. Though I wouldn’t have minded if Bernie Madoff had decided to carry on the tradition.
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Filed under: Eclective, Emma Jameson, facts. victorian, London, victorian, Writing Tagged: eclective, emma jameson, grave robber, haunted collection, Victorian era, victorian facts
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