Thursday Thoughts: BOOK BIRTHDAY!

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Silver James

It’s always fun to celebrate when a new book comes into the world! My latest, BROTHERHOOD PROTECTORS: MONTANA MOON is now live on Amazon. Part of Elle James’s (no relation but a good friend) Kindle World, I get to introduce her readers to my Moonstruck world and not only to Wolf shifter Tait McCord, fans of the Wolves will get to touch base with some old friends, as well as meet some new ones. In addition, my readers will get to meet characters from Elle’s BP world, and I hope y’all will check out Hank, Kujo, and all the members of the Brotherhood Protectors.

The good news is, Amazon priced the book at $1.99 even though it’s 40K words of shifter goodness! You can also read it free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Want to read it? Click on the cover pic! What’s it about? Here’s the blurb:

A lone Wolf doing a favor…
When Tait “Shooter” McCord, Wolf shifter and former SEAL, agrees to repay a debt by tracking down a woman in trouble, the last thing he expects to find is a curvy bundle of femininity who drives his inner wolf wild. Man and beast have one goal in mind—protect their mate from the enemies chasing her tail.

A lone woman on the run…
Lauren Reilly is exceptional at her job as a historical archivist at the Pentagon. Except her mad skills lead to discovering files so top secret that her life is now forfeit. That old joke “If I tell you, I have to kill you”? Yeah, turns out it’s not so funny when it’s real. After an attempt on her life, she reaches out to a friend of a friend for help. When assistance arrives in the form of a hot bodyguard from the Brotherhood Protectors, Lauren is so far out of her comfort zone she wants to turn tail and run.

Discover they aren’t alone after all.
Under a Montana Moon, a moonstruck Wolf can depend on friends old and new to help rescue the woman he loves. Even if they have to burn down the world saving her from their enemies.

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Wednesday Words: April Showers

Posted on April 4, 2018 by Silver James

I have to admit, I’m starting to like Wednesdays for something more than being Hump Day. Playing #1lineWed over on Twitter is a great way to skim through my WIPs to find the overused words and the awkward sentence structure. Since today’s snippet comes from MONTANA MOON (which releases tomorrow!!), I’m pleased to say there’s nothing I’d really change. Oh! I need to tell y’all today’s theme, don’t I? The words is SHOWER. And yes, my characters seem to take a lot of them. 😆 To set the scene, after a short prologue, this is the opening to Chapter 1. I hope you enjoy and I hope you’ll snag your copy tomorrow when it goes live!
****
The phone rang and rang and rang. Tait thrust an arm dripping with soap and hot water out of the shower to grab the damn thing. He checked the caller ID before turning it off. He’d already emailed a partial report. The rest of the debrief could wait until morning. He dropped the phone back onto the counter and retreated under the scalding water pouring from the shower head. He’d been back from the retrieval Hank Patterson, his occasional employer at Brotherhood Protectors, sent him on for all of thirty minutes. Two spoiled rich kids decided to hit the road in Mommy’s Mercedes. He caught the brats on the other side of the Mexican border, minus the Mercedes and in the hands of a cartel far more interested in human trafficking than was good for the two teen-aged girls. Despite saving their lives and other things, they’d bitched at him all the way back to a multi-million dollar log mansion in Aspen, where the father of the car thief handed over a cashier’s check with lots of zeros.

What the hell was wrong with young people today? Tait snorted and pictured himself in a rocking chair on his front porch shaking a cane at those young whippersnappers. Laughing ruefully, he leaned his hands on the granite tile lining his walk-in shower, head bent so the steaming liquid sluiced across his neck and shoulders. He was beat, as he was going on close to 72 hours with no sleep. Back in the day when he’d been running special ops with the SEAL teams, that had been a walk in the park. Even his wolf half was tired. The critter wanted a rare steak, the man a six-pack of beer, and both about 24 hours of curling up in front of the fire and snoozing. Sounded damn fine idea.

Tait “Shooter” McCord was a Wolf. He carried the lupi versi pellis gene on his Y chromosome and that weird little DNA anomaly gave him the ability to shift from man to wolf and back again. He never got sick, healed faster than normal when injured—and considering he’d been a SEAL for almost 20 years, he’d needed that special kick more than once. Tonight, though, he was feeling his age—emotionally if not truly physically. He’d come back to the Crazy Mountains in Montana to lick his wounds after that last mission in Bumfuck, Afghanistan. The operation had been a Charlie Foxtrot from the git-go. They’d only lost two men but the entire unit had been shot up, with half of the team sustaining career-ending injuries. Had he been human, his injuries would have resulted in a medical discharge. He’d received the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. All three medals made him feel like a fraud. Getting his teammates out wasn’t heroic. It was part of the job. So he’d retired and returned to a place that had been home once upon a time.
****
Things are about to get crazy for our intrepid hero. So what about y’all? Any shower words?

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Tuesday Treats: Creamy Turkey Noodles

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Silver James

Since Mother Nature isn’t convinced it’s time for spring, I thought I’d share this warm and gooey dinner idea. It’s great for pot lucks, feeding a family, or for making and freezing portions for later. You don’t even have to cook the turkey! How’s that for easy peasy?

Prep Time: 30 min.
Total Time: 1 hr.
Servings: 16 servings, 1 cup each

As the fine folks from the Kraft Kitchens say, “Our Creamy Turkey and Noodles is an easy way to feed a crowd. Get out the frozen mixed veggies and the bow-tie pasta, and we’ll show you how.”

What You Need
1 pkg. (16 oz.) farfalle (bow-tie pasta), uncooked
1/4 cup butter
1 onion, chopped
1 pkg. (16 oz.) frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, corn, green beans, peas)
6 Tbsp. flour
2 cups milk
2 pkg. (7.5 oz. each) OSCAR MAYER CARVING BOARD Oven Roasted Turkey Breast, chopped
2 cans (10-3/4 oz.) reduced-sodium condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup BREAKSTONE’S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
1 pkg. (8 oz.) KRAFT Shredded Three Cheese with a TOUCH OF PHILADELPHIA

Make It
Heat oven to 350ºF.
-Cook pasta as directed on package, omitting salt.
-Meanwhile, melt butter in Dutch oven or large deep skillet on medium heat. Add onions; cook and stir 4 min. or until crisp-tender. Add frozen vegetables; cook 4 min. or until thawed, stirring frequently. Stir in flour until blended; cook and stir 1 min. Gradually stir in milk; bring to boil. Cook and stir 2 min. or until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in turkey, soup and sour cream.
-Drain pasta. Add to sauce; stir until evenly coated. Spoon into 2 (13×9-inch) pans sprayed with cooking spray; top with cheese. Cover.
-Bake 30 min. or until heated through, uncovering for the last 10 min.

For all the nutritional information, CLICK HERE. Even though Lauren Reilly, the heroine from my upcoming release MONTANA MOON, is a single woman working in the wilds of Washington D.C., she’s big on cooking a big batch then freezing single serve portions for quick defrost/heating in the microwave. And she’d NEVER eat an entire turkey, though she LOVES turkey so the Carving Board turkey is perfect for her. No buy links today because her story doesn’t release until Thursday. Or maybe tomorrow because sometimes Amazon Kindle Worlds sneaks in the roll out of titles! I’ll be posting buy links all over the KW page here on the website, FB and Twitter when it goes live.

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Monday Fools

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Silver James

It’s Monday. I don’t have a whole lot to say so this is going to be a bit of a ramble. 😆

Yesterday was Easter and April Fool’s Day. I can’t quite wrap my head around that.

I watched “Atomic Blonde” Saturday night. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that either. I’d been looking forward to seeing it ever since I saw the first trailer. The soundtrack is sublime. I’ll admit I LIKE 80’s music and one of my all-time favorite songs was featured: George Michael’ “Father Figure.” As Lawyer Guys said, it had all the feel of a graphic novel without the obvious trappings, a la the Sin City franchise. I remember so well the night the Russians and East Germans lost control and the Berlin Wall came down. That features in the movie about Cold War spies. And the whole movied was a total mind f#*k. I sat there after it was over and stared at LG and kept saying, “WTF?” Over and over. If you get the chance, watch the movie.

My Cards finally won a game yesterday, after dropping 2 games to the Mets. I’d like to think it was because of the weather change and it took them four days to get acclimated.

Is basketball done yet? And what’s the deal with the way the NHL picks the teams going to the play-offs? I need to Google/Bing search what’s up with that.

It’s freakin’ cold. What happened to spring? And yeah, I figure last nights freeze pretty much ended any chance my wisteria would bloom this year. Ah well.

Haven’t watched much TV but I am blowing though Jennifer Ashley’s Shifters Unbound series. I don’t remember how many books in I am but she’s yet to repeat herself and that says a lot about her talent. I’m currently on book 7.25 but it’s like the 11th or 12th actual story. Something like that. Anyway, I’m enjoying listening to them. That said…

Vacation is over. Today is a full day of writing. No. Really. It’s crunch time. And speaking of writing–or publishing, actually. MONTANA MOON releases this Thursday! I’m part of a FB launch party and my takeover time is around 5 o’clock central, Thursday afternoon. I think. I probably should double check the sign-up sheet, huh?

And…I think that’s all the rambling randomness I’ve got for today. What about y’all? What’s random in your life?

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Friday Sinema: Romance in the Air

Posted on March 30, 2018 by Silver James

It’s Good Friday and Sunday is Easter so I went in search of something Easter-y. Found nada. So then I just started clicking on various videos and ended up with this one. I am soooo going to use this scenario in one of my books. 😉 Enjoy your weekend!

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Thursday Thoughts: Universal Rhythm

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Silver James

There are times I feel like I’m tapdancing in a minefield. Others, it’s all 3/4 time as I waltz through the day. And what is that old saying about angels dancing on a pinhead? The Universe decided to weigh in on this…

Indeed, anything is possible. Anything and everything, Silver! Yet it takes wisdom to understand that the potential for all things happening is not equally distributed.

Life has a rhythm; there’s already momentum. The world has needs and expectations as do you, creating some likelihoods that are vastly more predictable and smaller in number (though still infinite) than others. And for those who see this and work within these “likelihoods,” dancing to their own beat within life’s greater rhythm, heaven shall appear at their feet and abundance shall come as easily as breathing.

Alakazam,
    The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®

No, Silver, I meant “heaven” metaphorically.

Just like life, writing also has a rhythm. There’s easy-going or snappy sentence structure, the ebb and flow between dialogue and narrative, the pacing of the plot. Characters act and react, grow and change, their fictional lives a well-choreographed ballet orchestrated by the author. There’s also a rhythm to the way words translate from the brain to fingertips to keyboard (or pen and paper if one prefers) that translates into word counts. There are times when the words pour from the imaginantion, the story flowing like a well-rehearsed Broadway musical. Then come the times when the words are like a shy girl sitting in the corner at the high school dance–hoping someone will come ask her to dance but not making it easy for any potential suitors. Lately, my words aren’t only wallflowers, they stayed home to read a good book. I need to lure them out with a good Argentine Tango, or even better, a foxtrot because I have thousands of words to write between now and then.

What dance are you doing today?

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Wednesday Words: RAINdrops Fallin’ On My Head

Posted on March 28, 2018 by Silver James

Who’s ready for Hump Day and more #1lineWed words on Twitter? The RAINdrops all fell yesterday, and we needed them! And if we’re lucky this week’s theme won’t RAIN on anyone’s parade even if the RAIN in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Can you guess what the theme is? **RAIN** of course. However, I’m sensing a theme in the #1lineWed prompts–first it was Earth, Wind & Fire. Now it’s Fire & Rain… 😆

But let’s get to the snippet. This is from one of several Nightrider WIPs. Gunner has been mentioned a time or two in previous NR books. In his book, he’s sent to Oklahoma City as a nomad enforcer to help Lucky out with a situation. He rents half a duplex and his landlady, Harper, lives in the other half. She’s a war widow, attracted to a man for the first time in years. Gunner needs to break off things with her for…reasons. Too bad he picked the wrong night to do so…

****
Harper

Rain dripped off my umbrella and the chill wind raised goosebumps on my skin. I rapped on Gunner’s door hard enough to bruise my knuckles. I was shivering by the time it opened a crack.

“I saw you come home,” I began.

He cut me off. “Yeah, and?”

From his expression and tone of voice, I could have been a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his boot. Too late, I understood I’d made a huge mistake. I wanted to say I’d been scared about the storm, about him getting caught out in it. He’d never given me his cell phone number so I couldn’t call and check on him. I’d watched for his arrival from my window. Considering how much I hated storms, that said a lot. Not that he cared.

“What do you want, Harper?”

He sounded testy, irritated. And definitely tired of me. I should have seen this coming. We’d had two weeks of…what? Fantastic sex? Fun and games? I should have seen the signs. Except I was out of practice. The one man I’d loved left me, through no fault of his own. Dying in a war wasn’t walking away from me. Not like my father, my brothers, and every man I’d been involved with before Rob. And silly me. I thought Gunner was different. My big, bad biker with a heart of gold. Yeah, right.

“I was worried about you. I…” I swallowed hard, seeking my pride, which was in extremely short supply at the moment. Good thing the wind blew rain into my face. He couldn’t see the tears. “Sorry I bothered you. I won’t again.” Thank goodness my voice hadn’t cracked. I pivoted, my body so stiff I could barely walk back toward my side of the duplex.

I heard Gunner’s door slam shut, then his muffled, “Fuck.”

I didn’t turn around. Three steps. Breathing like I’d just run a marathon, I made my feet keep moving. Five steps. Seven. Arms grabbed me. I almost passed out from relief. He’d changed his mind. Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Those arms…they didn’t belong to Gunner. I screamed.

“Harper!”

Gunner yelling was the last thing I heard.
****
Nothing like a good cliffhanger, right? *bwahaha* And now I want to work on Gunner’s book instead of Gravedigger’s. Dang it. Any of you have rainy words to share?

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Tuesday Treats: Fluffy Easter Cheesecake

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Silver James

Easter is this Sunday. With the arrival of the hated Daylight Savings Time, days are getting longer and warmer and we’re all busy with family, friends, and our own stuff. This Easter Cheesecake recipe is quick and easy and so scrumptious you might want to forego using a fork and grab a spoon instead to get every last yummy bite.

Prep Time: 10 min.
Total Time: 3 hr. 10 min.
Servings: 8 servings.

Try a Fluffy 2-Step Easter Cheesecake in a graham cracker crust for a great springtime treat. Top this Easter cheesecake with jelly beans & you’re all set!

What You Need
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed
1 ready-to-use graham cracker crumb crust (6 oz.)
16 jelly beans

Make It

Beat cream cheese and sugar in medium bowl with whisk until well blended. Stir in COOL WHIP. Spoon into crust.
Refrigerate 3 hours or until set. Top with jelly beans just before serving.

CLICK HERE for the complete nutritional information at Kraft Recipes. When I checked with my characters to see who wanted to claim this recipe, I got the stink-eye from Hannah. She stood there, hands fisted on her hips, chin jutting and everyone else ducking for cover. “Jeez,” she groused. “How hard is it to whisk a few ingredients up and dump them in a store-bought pie crust thingy. Wait. Do ground-up graham crackers count as pie crust? Never mind. It says it is on the package so…whatever. Wait a minute. This is a cheese cake. Wouldn’t that make it a cake crust? Do cakes have crusts? Whatever. Plus, I don’t have to bake it so it doesn’t get burned. Everyone frickin’ loves it. If they don’t, they know better than to come around and ask for a piece. And if I don’t have jelly beans, I use M&Ms or Hershey Kisses. Works just as good and nobody complains. If they do, they know to do it out of earshot.”

Yeah, that’s our irascible but loved Hannah Jackson McIntire. If you haven’t already but would like to, you can read about her romance with her Wolf shifter mate, Ian “Mac” McIntire, and their son, Liam, plus all the Moonstruck Wolves and their mates in MOONSTRUCK: SECRETS. It’s still on sale everywhere for $2.99. Grab it now before it goes up to $4.99 next month. Just click on the cover for the universal link to all the stores.

What’s an Easter dessert your family enjoys?

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It’s Another Monday

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Silver James

I have no idea why I continue to obsess over Monday. It’s not like I have an 8-5/M-F job these days? In fact, I haven’t had one of those for a long time now. I think people just get hardwired that way. Monday? Ugh! First day of the week after lazing all weekend. Gotta go to work. Drag outta bed, hit the ol’ job and be productive. Except I’m a writer. I pretty much work every day because trying to make money in the noveling business is Hard. Freaking. Work. 95% of writers don’t live glamorous lives. We struggle to make ends meet. We do our best to write stories and books people will pay money for to read because we don’t pay our bills otherwise.

Yeah, my sales suck right now, why do you ask?

So, it’s Monday. I did take Saturday off because Stormageddon, aka 4nado, had his 4th birthday party. Star Wars themed, with hot dogs and cake and lots of screaming kids having a blast. Only and Baseball Boy put together a fun party. Sunday, it was back to work. These stupid books don’t write themselves. Dammit.

Sports and TV hasn’t changed in past week, though we are closer to Opening Day. I could gritch and moan about MLB and the stupidity of their blackout policies but there’s no point. MLB doesn’t listen to me. *shrug*

I am reading…or listening to books. I discovered Jennifer Ashley’s Unbound Shifter’s series. Interesting take on the creation and existence of shifters–made by Fae magic, now “collared” by Fae magic by humans and treated like second-class citizens. I’m on book #3.5, but technically, it’s the 5th book in the series. I’m enjoying it, especially since I can get all the books either through my Audible Romance subscription or from the library. I’ll probably work my way through the whole series while waiting for a couple of new releases I’ve got on my wish list to come out.

And that’s pretty much my life. Boring as all get out. And people wonder why I like living in my head with either the characters other people create that I read about or the ones I create to write about. Not a bad place to be.

How was your week/weekend? What are you reading or writing? Or doing? Life keeping you busy?

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Friday Sinema: #MakeADateWithHarlequin

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Silver James

Another video in the Make a Date With Harlequin series has been unveiled. What would you do if a prince asked you to lunch in the park?

Want to see all the videos so you can pick your favorite?

Highlander:

Cowboy:

Viking:

My favorite parts are the innuendos and the looks on the bystanders’ faces! Have a great weekend.

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