Sela Carsen's Blog, page 9

Carolina Pearl is here!

Carolina Pearl

A family legend could lead to a treasure more precious than pearls…or get them killed.

Between babysitting her very pregnant sister-in-law and fending off her mother's nagging about her marital status, Blair Moreau is going insane. Her only hold on sanity is her daily walk for a guilty peek at her crush, the sexy neighbor who's fixing up the old Cotesworth place.

Conn Lucas, the bastard son of Culford's leading family, got way out of town a long time ago. When the only relative who didn't despise him leaves him her 250-year-old house, Conn plans to refurbish it, flip it, and get back to Connecticut as soon as possible. Until a local beauty with a rare talent for DIY gives him a hand with some stubborn siding.

When he makes her mad enough to swing a two-by-four at his head, he realizes Blair is better than perfect. Especially when his efforts to keep her from killing him explode into an erotic rush of adrenaline that unleashes desires they've both kept hidden.

Breaking through Conn's tough shell isn't as difficult Blair's next hurdle—telling him she's a werewolf. First, though, they've got to deal with meddling ghosts and a bad ol' boy cousin who isn't above taking what he wants at nail-gun point…

Product Warnings

This book contains a smokin' hot werewolf chick with serious DIY know-how and a man who thinks that's sexy; illegal use of nail guns; things to do in a claw-foot tub; pirate references; piddling Dobermans and meddling ghosts. Which is better than meddling Dobermans and piddling ghosts.



Read an excerpt!



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Moroccan Meatballs with Poached Eggs

I actually posted this recipe a loooong time ago, but I've tweaked it since then, so you're getting the updated version now. It's based on a recipe I found in Modern Moroccan by Ghillie Basan. We've made several of the recipes in there and this one pops up every couple of months as a Sunday late lunch. Casual, but interesting. Plus, my kids will eat it. [image error]

A couple of notes first. The original recipe calls for ground lamb. Please. Like I'm going to pay for lamb. I use ground beef. Also, it has one hard to find ingredient. The sauce calls for a rather obscure spice mixture called ras el hanout. You might be able to find it in a fairly fancy grocery store, or in a global foods market or a Middle Eastern market. In the absence of ras el hanout, I suggest an Italian or Greek spice blend. (And I just realized that it sounds like that Liam Neeson bad guy in Batman.)

1 lb ground beef

1 smallish onion, finely chopped. And I mean finely. If you chop the pieces too big, the meatballs will fall apart.

4 oz fresh breadcrumbs. This is why God invented the food processor.

6 eggs. You only need 2 for the meatballs and the others are for poaching.

1 to 2 tsp ground cinnamon. Yes, cinnamon in meatballs. Trust me. I would not steer you wrong.

Freshly chopped parsley if you have it.

A sploosh of olive oil and a bit of butter. This is why I don't write real recipes for cookbooks.

1 can diced tomatoes.

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp ras el hanout

Small bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped. Or not, if you hate it. I use a wee pinch of it since I think too much overpowers the dish.

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh crusty bread for serving.

In a bowl, knead the ground beef with the onion, breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, cinnamon, parsley and salt and pepper until well mixed. Lift the mixture in your hand and slap it down into the bowl several times. This is extremely satisfying on a visceral level. Take a small amount of mixture and shape it into a small ball about the size of a walnut. Repeat with the remaining mixture to make a bunch of meatballs.

Heat the olive oil with the butter in a large heavy NONSTICK frying pan. Sometimes, I am ashamed to say, my meatballs fall apart. Whether I chopped the onions too big or didn't use enough binding, it happens. The nonstick thing helps. I have heard from others that they will actually bake their meatballs. This seems like a most excellent idea. I haven't done it yet, but I think it's a worthy experiment.

Fry (or bake) the meatballs until nicely browned, turning them occasionally so they cook evenly.

If you baked them, now you need to put them in a large, preheated frying pan. Don't forget to pour in a little bit of the juices/oils that baked out if you did them in the oven. That's extra flavor and yummy mouthfeel! Stir in the tomatoes, sugar, ras el hanout and however much cilantro you want. Bring to the boil, cook for a few minutes to reduce the liquid, and roll the balls in the sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Make room in the pan to poach the remaining eggs. Just crack them into the spaces between the meatballs. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and cook for about 5-6 minutes, or until the eggs are set the way you like them. I like poached eggs on the runny side, but my family wants them hard. Whatever works for you.

Serve immediately with chunks of fresh bread for scooping up the yumminess.

Moroccan Meatballs with Poached Eggs

I actually posted this recipe a loooong time ago, but I've tweaked it since then, so you're getting the updated version now. It's based on a recipe I found in Modern Moroccan by Ghillie Basan. We've made several of the recipes in there and this one pops up every couple of months as a Sunday late lunch. Casual, but interesting. Plus, my kids will eat it.

A couple of notes first. The original recipe calls for ground lamb. Please. Like I'm going to pay for lamb. I use ground beef. Also, it has one hard to find ingredient. The sauce calls for a rather obscure spice mixture called ras el hanout. You might be able to find it in a fairly fancy grocery store, or in a global foods market or a Middle Eastern market. In the absence of ras el hanout, I suggest an Italian or Greek spice blend. (And I just realized that it sounds like that Liam Neeson bad guy in Batman.)

1 lb ground beef

1 smallish onion, finely chopped. And I mean finely. If you chop the pieces too big, the meatballs will fall apart.

4 oz fresh breadcrumbs. This is why God invented the food processor.

6 eggs. You only need 2 for the meatballs and the others are for poaching.

1 to 2 tsp ground cinnamon. Yes, cinnamon in meatballs. Trust me. I would not steer you wrong.

Freshly chopped parsley if you have it.

A sploosh of olive oil and a bit of butter. This is why I don't write real recipes for cookbooks.

1 can diced tomatoes.

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp ras el hanout

Small bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped. Or not, if you hate it. I use a wee pinch of it since I think too much overpowers the dish.

Salt and pepper to taste

Fresh crusty bread for serving.

In a bowl, knead the ground beef with the onion, breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, cinnamon, parsley and salt and pepper until well mixed. Lift the mixture in your hand and slap it down into the bowl several times. This is extremely satisfying on a visceral level. Take a small amount of mixture and shape it into a small ball about the size of a walnut. Repeat with the remaining mixture to make a bunch of meatballs.

Heat the olive oil with the butter in a large heavy NONSTICK frying pan. Sometimes, I am ashamed to say, my meatballs fall apart. Whether I chopped the onions too big or didn't use enough binding, it happens. The nonstick thing helps. I have heard from others that they will actually bake their meatballs. This seems like a most excellent idea. I haven't done it yet, but I think it's a worthy experiment.

Fry (or bake) the meatballs until nicely browned, turning them occasionally so they cook evenly.

If you baked them, now you need to put them in a large, preheated frying pan. Don't forget to pour in a little bit of the juices/oils that baked out if you did them in the oven. That's extra flavor and yummy mouthfeel! Stir in the tomatoes, sugar, ras el hanout and however much cilantro you want. Bring to the boil, cook for a few minutes to reduce the liquid, and roll the balls in the sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Make room in the pan to poach the remaining eggs. Just crack them into the spaces between the meatballs. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and cook for about 5-6 minutes, or until the eggs are set the way you like them. I like poached eggs on the runny side, but my family wants them hard. Whatever works for you.

Serve immediately with chunks of fresh bread for scooping up the yumminess.

Does this place look weird to you?

Because it looks weird to me! It's all red, no white background…

I totally screwed it up. All I wanted to do was fix my sidebar! I swear, I didn't touch anything else! So now I'm waiting for my ever-patient web guru to help me fix it because I'm terrified that if I try to do anything else, I'll 'splode the entire Interwebz.

Bear with me. It's a good thing I'm not this incompetent at other stuff.

Day that is the Day Before Veteran's Day

Which would normally be a blip on my calendar, even though I'm married to a veteran, but Veteran's Day also happens to be my anniversary! 16 years tomorrow!

It's pretty much  a given that I won't be winning NaNo this year, but I'm okay with that. Because, despite not making 50K in a month, I'm still getting the words down.

The Gentleman's Club is part of a Western Steampunk trilogy that I have … planned seems like such a concrete word. Not planned. Dreamed. Imagined. Was apparently on hallucinogenic medication when I thought it up.

Anyway, it's one of my 3 stories. And as I was writing, I discovered that 1) it's actually the second story and 2) I have no freaking clue what I'm doing. None.

So I decided that rather than stew over what I don't have, I'd fiddle with one of the other two stories. One of them is one I've messed with on and off for years, so I didn't want to work on it. I wanted something fresh, which is Story 3, temporarily known as Earthshaking. I had two paragraphs of synopsis and half a page written. Turns out that I just chucked both of them and started over.

And wrote probably the most racially offensive intro in romance novel history. The thing is, it all went to character and it was all easily explained by page two, but then I realized that if I tried to actually submit the story like that, not only would the editor throw it out the window before reading half the first page, she'd call all her friends and colleagues and tell them to immediately shred anything I sent them.

Okay, maybe not that bad. But it was bad.

Today it's back to the drawing board. Also, I'm lunching with Ladies Who Write, aka friends from my MORWA group. Yay for lunch!

Day…What day is this?

It's the 6th, right? Or is it the 7th? Eh. Whichever. Which may tell you a little about how NaNo is going right now.

I stayed up too late for too many nights and it caught up with me. Friday was a total loss. I got 90 words. 90. And they weren't even part of the ms. It was notes on an idea for some conflict that I'll layer in later in the story.

Yesterday? Please. I Did Nothing. I did read Nalini Singh's Mine to Possess, which must be the only one of her Psy-Changeling series I hadn't read. I love the series, but I've read most of them at the library. Now, usually I'll read one or two of a series at the library and if I love it that much, I'll start buying them. But for some reason, I just kept checking her books out instead of plunking down the cash. No more. I'm actually going to start buying them because I haven't read one that isn't keeper-worthy. So I'm late to the game, but I made it.

Well, I did go to a wine tasting. Does that count? We picked up a really nice Riesling that had a good balance of green-apple acidity to balance the sweetness. The 2008 Ayler Kupp Riesling-Spätlese for $15. Last year we poured a really good Gewürztraminer for Thanksgiving and it went over well even with our non-wine-drinking family. This year I don't think we're collecting people for the feast, so we'll crack open my new Riesling!

I guess that makes it a pretty good day. Wine, a good book, and a hot bath before bed. We even watched a family movie. Igor, which isn't great, but it's cute enough.

So 2 days of not writing puts me desperately behind. Stoopid story. Stoopid writing.

And did I mention that I have a new story releasing in, like 3 weeks? And have I done any promo? No. No, I haven't. Because I'm an idiot.

So this week is all about writing AND lining up some promotional stuff. The second part makes me want to find a deep hole. You'd think after four releases, I'd be better at this. *sigh*

Day 3

Almost 2K words yesterday!! I'm up to almost 3000 on my NaNo Word Count!

Remember how I said I was going to an informal Write-In at my local library? No one else came. Oh well. I got a ton accomplished! Then I went to Borders and bought books. Then I had lunch at the mall. Then I went back through Borders and bought more stuff! It's all good.

Today we're off to a funeral, so I'm going to try to write in the car.

Did I mention that the above-mentioned 3K words are absolutely suckarific? I mean stiiiiinky. And I don't care. I'm just writing forward. I can fix it later.

Day 2

Yes, yes, I missed Day 1. Honestly, did you expect anything different?

Day 2 of what, anyway? NaNo. Yes, bloglets, your favorite goofball blogger is doing NaNo. Because I have officially lost my mind.

Here's the thing. September and October were, on the whole, pretty awful. And November hasn't started out all fuzzy bunnies, either. My FIL passed away on Sunday — he had been ill for a long time — so DH has been trying to help organize the aftermath.

In the meantime, here I am, trying to write. I was hoping for no more than the normal amount of chaos. No such luck. But I'm off today to a NaNo write-in at one of my local library branches, so we'll see how much I can accomplish. And I'd like to note that despite yesterday's fuss, I still managed just under 1K words! Going to have to step it up, though!

I ab still sig BUT

October is nearly over. Thank God. September and October have both been horrible months and I'm so glad to see the back of them.

DS had his birthday party yesterday and it went really well!

We went to the Roger Waters concert last night and had a blast! The crowd was mostly in their 40s and 50s, but very enthusiastic. Note: Not sure mohawks are a good look once you're over 40, but to each his own.

I rode the Metro for the first time, too, and it was actually nice. Clean, efficient and cheap. Can't ask for more.

Best thing? Ended up getting awesome brainstorm during the 2nd half of the concert for my Steampunk worldbuilding. My current world is too nice and clean. I'm going to dystope it up a bit.

I ab sig

I hab a code. I feel oooooogy.

And of course, tomorrow is DS's 10th birthday, plus I'm going to my very first rock concert. Yes, I'm 40 and I've never been to a rock concert. Opera, theatre, symphony, chamber music, all kinds of classical – but I've never been to a concert with actual popular music.

Roger Waters is in town and DH is over the Dark Side of the Moon, if you get my Pink Floyd pun, there.

Naturally, I feel like poop. But I don't have time to feel like poop, so I'm going to pretend I don't. We'll see how far that gets me before I run out of steam!

Also, tomorrow I'm blogging at Beyond the Veil and have NO idea what I'm talking about. Maybe I'll continue my last post about labyrinths, but on a more symbolic level. Whew. Topic decided. Now all I have to do is write it.