Spectacular Monday

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Silver James

cute-puppy-pictures-hello-im-here-to-make-your-monday-suck-lessFor those of you who didn’t hear me screaming on Valentine’s Day (or see my news on Facebook or Twitter), I am now a Harlequin author. An editor I’ve wanted to work with forever called Friday and offered me a two-book deal with the Desire line. I’m still having odd moments of Snoopy Dancing(tm) and Squee!

There will be cowboys. And cowgirls. And hopefully way more than the two books–since those two brothers have four more like them at home. 😉 For the time being, the working title of the series is For the Love of a Cowgirl. The first book is COWGIRLS DON’T CRY and the second book is THE COWGIRL’S SWEETHEART. Revision letter arrives tomorrow and I can’t wait to get started. Trust me, there will be lots of updates on the project. This has been in the works for quite awhile but I’ve played it rather close to the chest because I didn’t want to jinx anything! 😆

Should I mention that I first submitted to Harlequin back in 1991? Or thereabouts. I’ve slept since them. While they turned that book down, they were encouraging. Life kept intervening, then other stories and opportunities, but I’ve come full circle and I’m just thrilled to be able to say, “Why yes, I DO write for Harlequin!”

In other news, I was asked to participate in a Christmas anthology for Wild Rose Press. Guess who is finally going to get his own story! Why yes, it would be that wily fae harper, Abhean. Look for more announcements and the book around Christmas 2014.

Lawyer Guy is on the mend, though still splitting time between home and hospital. NRCA books are going in the mail tomorrow. I didn’t win the Powerball, though it felt like I won the lottery this weekend between the call from Charles at Harlequin and LG’s swifter-than-expected recovery.

Books. I’ve read them! I finished Christine Warren’s HEART OF STONE. I liked it. I’ll stay with the series, but probably continue getting the books from the library. Finished Jayne Ann Krentz’s GRAND PASSION, a 1994 book of hers. While a contemporary, it was fun to see that some of her ideas for more current books/series of the Arcane Society variety seemed rooted in earlier works. I also finished JB Lynn’s THE NEUROTIC HITWOMAN HUNTS A GHOST. Haven’t gotten the review done yet but I will. If you love your mystery with some light comedy and talking animals–well technically, only Maggie, the heroine, can hear them–you should read the series. I’m currently reading Donnell Ann Bell’s THE PAST CAME HUNTING, a romantic suspense. Good stuff so far!

That’s pretty much my weekend. What did the rest of you do?

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A Kiss is NOT Just a Kiss

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Silver James

Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy this A to Z of movie kisses. You definitely want to stick around for Z. It’s one of my favorites!

May you always have romance in your heart!

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Universal Calm and Fear

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Silver James

universeI may or may not be around. Lawyer Guy was admitted to the hospital yesterday afternoon. Nothing earth-shaking but I’ll be betwixt and between with family obligations and I may not have anything fun for tomorrow. Just depends on how much computer time I get.

In the meantime, these are two messages from the Universe that I’d like to expound on but since they can probably stand alone and I’m in a hurry? This is what you get. Make of it what you will.

Everyone’s scared, Silver.

Few carry on. Keep calm, 
 The Universe

I mean really carry on, Silver, as if it were your reason for being.

Behind your greatest fear, Silver, lies your greatest gift.

You’re welcome,
The Universe

And your greatest gift, Silver, will be the example you become.
© http://www.tut.com ®

Like I said, LG’s health is not life-threatening but on-going and stuff happens. But I think the Universe may be on to something in the overall scheme of things. Feel free to talk among yourselves. 🙂

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Wednesday’s Words – I’m Reading

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Silver James

ShareTheBookLoveI finished off my RITA and Golden Heart judging/reading and now I’m back to reading for pleasure. Here’s a few odds and ends that caught my eye or that Iffy made me write down so I wouldn’t forget. 😉

From Christine Warren’s newest book, HEART OF STONE (though she “stole” the title to Roman’s book) about a gargoyle guardian and the human female he falls in love with.

The hour-and-some minutes’ drive back to Vancouver convinced Ella of two things: one, in spite of his human size and shape, Kees could still do a pretty damned fine impression of a mute, motionless statue; and two, curiosity probably hadn’t actually killed the cat, just driven it to suicide. Ella certain intended to kill something if she didn’t get answers to at least a few of her questions pretty damned quick.

A couple of notes here. Kees rhymes with “peace” and he was in human guise because his bad ol’ gargoyle self wouldn’t fit in the SUV. 😉 This is a new series for Ms. Warren. So far, its okay. I like Ella, the heroine. She’s snarky.

A favorite line from the Princess Bride that came up in a different context:

I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I do not know what to do with the rest of my life. ~Inigo Montoya

Tell me there’s not a story there!?! Which is why I wrote it down. Inspiration for “some day.” 😀

And finally, one from me that will go in a future book but I’m not telling which one. *bwahaha*

This was a dark and silent mourning. The pale faces around him stayed closed, locked up tight. Emotion had no place here.

So what are y’all reading today? Any good words to share?

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Tuesday Tease – Sade’s New Orleans

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Silver James

I finally got around to downloading the photos I took in New Orleans back in December so I thought I’d share a few of them with y’all today. I have them in thumbnail to save room and band width. You can click on the photo to enlarge it and then just hit the back button of your browser to return to this post. 😉

Deja VuView from Sade's booth Deja VuFirst up, this is Deja Vu–the bar and restaurant that Sade called home when she lived in NOLA. Her apartment was on the 2nd floor and she could use the balcony. And the second pic is the interior view from her corner booth. If you remember the opening scene from THAT OL’ BLACK MAGIC, this would be Sade’s sightlines to the door.

And while Sade is more a dog person, the cats of New Orleans fascinate her–as they do me. 😆

NOLA Fine Art CatNOLA shop catNOLA street cat

And finally, one of her favorite places at Jackson Square–Psychic’s Row, which is the promenade between the Square and St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, and the Presbytere. This is one of the benches where she would sit and people watch, a puddle reflection of the cathedral’s steeple, and finally, a doorway that intrigues us both. 😉

Jackson Square BenchSt. Louis Cathedral steeple reflectionNOLA Door small HDR

I have more pics to share sometime in the future. Until then, enjoy this little virtual vacation to New Orleans, courtesy of Sade and the Penumbra Papers.

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Introducing Cathy Tully – And Training Travis

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Silver James

It’s Monday. We’ll talk about the weekend tomorrow. Today, I’m happy to share the blog with author Cathy Tully. Please give her a big welcome! It’s all yours, Cathy. 🙂

Cathy Tully AuthorA few years ago I listened to a woman speak at one of the writer’s conferences I attend every year. She had twenty plus books published so I figured there must be something I could take away from her talk and put to use. Guess what? There was…

She encouraged our group to think about how our hero/heroine might become more relatable–more three-dimensional–and how it would be easier for your reader to sympathize with because they’re so real? Long after this workshop I thought about what the speaker had said and something clicked. It was my light bulb moment. So, I took her advice and incorporated a part of who I am into my next book, and like they say, the rest is history 🙂

My first book, All You Need Is Love features, Little Man, my family dog, who we lost to illness. It is the biggest tribute I can pay him and his cuteness jumps off every page. I love dogs, always have, and through no planning of my own, a dog pops up in every book I write. In my mind, dogs are better than human secondary characters because they make people vulnerable without saying a word. We’re allowed to be our true selves around them without any judgment; and their unconditional love brightens the darkest day.

Marrying Mr. Right, my first novella, has a heroine, Missy Modesto, who is similar to a good friend I’ve known my whole life. Missy is a strong woman with a heart of gold and although years may pass between visits, when we do meet, it feels like only yesterday 🙂 Training Travis, my new contemporary romance, is about a divorced dad who gains custody of his fifteen year old daughter after his ex-wife’s untimely death. And even though I can’t personally relate to being divorced, I am the mother of two girls, so I can relate to Travis’ fifteen year old daughter and the mood swings of a teenage girl 🙂

My work in progress is a woman’s fiction about a menopausal mother of two. Candy is a substitute teacher and decides she’s fed up and wants a career of her own. So begins her journey into interior design 🙂 My old stomping grounds twenty years ago. Putting a piece of ourselves or our life’s experience into our stories enriches the readers experience because the characters jump off the page. I’ve gotten great feedback on my characters and their journeys, if you’re a writer, try putting ‘a type’ of someone you know into one of your stories. I guarantee it will not only be fun for you as a writer, but your reader will love it too 🙂

perf5.000x8.000.inddTRAINING TRAVIS BLURB

Rebecca Evans resents Travis McGill. Not only did he break her heart years ago, but he and his daughter represent the family she lost. Now, all the caffeine in the world wouldn’t prepare her for his permanent move back to the hometown, Golden, PA, they once shared.

Due to the untimely death of his ex-wife, Travis McGill receives full custody of his fifteen year old daughter. He can kiss the quiet lifestyle he’s come to enjoy goodbye when he must live full-time with a teenager. Soon, renovations not only begin on the old Victorian he’d purchased, but on Travis’ heart.

TRAINING TRAVIS EXCERPT

Travis sat opposite Becca so he could watch her cook. When she turned to place the bottle on the counter, he noticed she was wore a pair of pointy high heels. Damn. She looked good in anything she wore. He couldn’t help think she looked great in everything that was underneath too.

In an effort to get his mind off her curves and avoid the embarrassment of being caught staring, he said, “So where did you learn to cook?”

Rebecca opened the broiler and turned the pork chops. “Television.” She placed the fork on the spoon rest and covered the cooked carrots with foil. “What’s so funny?”

His laugh was husky and low. “That’s where I learned. I’m surprised Liz hasn’t bragged about my culinary skills by now.”

Rebecca smiled. “She has mentioned you make one mean marinara sauce.”

He shook his head. “Leave it to a kid to only remember spaghetti sauce.” She held out a wooden spoon filled with salad greens she had just tossed for him to taste.

When Travis’ tongue flicked over his lips, her knees went a little weak.
“What is this dressing? It’s delicious.” He took the spoon from her hand and ate the remainder.

When he licked his fingers, she groaned inwardly.

“Homemade vinaigrette,” she answered weakly.

Travis handed her the wooden spoon and the tips of their fingers touched. Hers tingled. Now more than ever, she knew whatever barrier she had thought she put between them no longer existed.

God help her.

****

Silver here. Interested in Cathy’s book? You can buy it HERE! Something tells me I might fix spaghetti for dinner. Just sayin’… 😉

If you have any questions or comments, I’m sure Cathy will be checking in to say hi.

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First Friday Forensics – Blood Types

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Silver James

Police LinesUhm…my bad. I forgot that I’d planned on doing a blog about forensics on the last Friday of the month. I blanked that out last Friday. I blame it on the cough medicine. But…since I am the owner, curator, writer, and chief bottle washer of this blog, I get to change the rules! So now we’re going to do forensics on the FIRST Friday.

Today, I’m going to talk a little about how forensics work in the Penumbra world–specifically, about vampires, DNA, and blood typing. From SEASON OF THE WITCH, and Sade’s POV:

If people had known about vampires back in the day, there would have been no need to develop DNA testing. A vampire’s palate can’t be fooled. Not when it comes to blood and genetic typing. Her godfather, Mathias, knew from the barest taste of her blood that his accountant, William Marquis, was her father. That her mother, Tracie, had been the mistress of King Oberon at the time of her birth didn’t help matters. Of course, the King and Queen of Glitter Land weren’t satisfied with the outcome. Oberon and Titania, the most royal of the royal Seelie Court. Faeries. Sade’s life would be so much simpler without the fae mucking about in it.

We won’t mention how Mathias came to taste Sade’s blood when she was a baby. He claims it was for protection. I know it’s because he’s a control freak. Shhh. 😉

Anyway, having “worked” a few crime scenes back in the day, forensics fascinate me. There are whole classes on blood–blood splatter, blood typing, blood testing (for drugs and alcohol). And maybe because I’m adopted and had to bow out of those simple DNA tests in biology (there was one I still remember about determining eye color–my dad’s were brown, my mother’s green, and my brother’s green–mine are blue…hrmmmm) because I had no bloodlines to compare, I find the study interesting. Positive and negative. A, B. AB, O… You can follow THIS LINK for a fairly easy to understand overview and population clusters. And THIS LINK discusses blood donor compatibility and genetics.

But what does this have to do with vampires in the world of Penumbra? Vampires are blood snobs. Type O positive (O+) is like the beer of bloods, with O- like craft beers. The majority of humans have O+ blood pumping in their veins. Curious as to what would be the Dom Perignon of blood to a vampire? AB-. That’s the rarest blood type. And no, I wouldn’t do that to Sade. 😉 Despite her sterling qualities, she’s plain ol’ O negative. Hey, I had to give her a bit of flavor. shifty-eyes-ani2faster

By now, y’all are probably sitting out there wondering how warped I am to sit here thinking about this stuff. I confess, I do. The forensics behind my books might never appear in print, beyond generalizations, but to me, they make the world more real…and realistic. As a reader, I appreciate a writer who understands the intricacies of their world. As a writer, I’m more comfortable if I know the…well, for lack of a better word, the physics of the world I’ve created.

So, happy first Friday! Have a great weekend. Stay warm. Read books. Watch movies. And come visit on Monday with my special guest, Cathy Tully.

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Universal Comparisions

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Silver James

universeWhen one labors in a business built on popularity and sales and competition, invariably, one begins to compare things. It’s human nature. And when one–okay ME!–makes comparisons, it seems almost inevitable that jealousy rears it’s head. Hey! I’m just as good a writer/storyteller/author/fill-in-the-blank as so-and-so. Why is s/he on the NYT list or getting six figure advances and not me?!? And up pops the Universe to put me in my place…

Comparisons, Silver, are odious, because they presume all other things are equal – which is never the case.

Between me and you,
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®

You know, Silver, comparisons between people, pastries, or pansies, but especially people.

Yeah. I needed the reminder, or a swift kick in the seat of my pants. Things AREN’T equal. This business isn’t fair. I see marvelous writers languishing with either low sales or unable to break into the business. I see others who are content to rest on their laurels, as it were and so it seems to me, and just “phone in” manuscripts. My opinion. Some of these folks are friends, others I admire and respect. One part of me is ecstatic over their success. But there’s still a part that whines, “Why not me?!?!?!?”

But ya know? I can’t control any of that. I can’t control what readers buy/like/review/want-more-of. I can’t control what agents and editors decide. I CAN control what I write. I can control my talent. It’s up to me to put the best “product” I can out there. I can control the time I spend wasting effort and thoughts on the things I can’t control. Sort of a reverse Catch-22, what? Yeah.

I know there will be times when the inner brat rears its ugly head and whines. But I’ll stifle it and get back to work on the things I can control. And I’m sure the Universe will be there to remind me if I forget.

Now if the Universe would only send a little heat! 😉

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Wednesday’s Words – Opening Lines

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Silver James

Writer's MindStudies show that readers have short attention spans and a writer has to grab them within the first few pages if not actually the opening paragraph. With that in mind, I thought I’d share the openings of some of my favorite reads. I’m tempted to post them and let y’all guess what books/authors but I won’t be mean like that.

First up, a couple classics:

I was running away. I was running away from England, from my childhood, from the winter, from a sequence of untidy, unattractive love-affairs, from the few sticks of furniture and jumble of overworn clothes that my London life had collected around me; and I was running away from drabness, fustiness, snobbery, the claustrophobia of close horizons and from inability, although I am quite an attractive rat, to make headway in the rat-race. In fact, I was running away from almost everything except the law. ~Ian Fleming, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (and no, that’s not Bond narrating.) 😉

And the book I cut my romantic suspense teeth on, though that wasn’t a “genre” way back then…

It was the egret, flying out of the lemon grove, that started it. I won’t pretend I saw it straight away as the conventional herald of adventure, the white stag of the fairy-tale, which bounding away from the enchanted thicket, entices the prince away from his followers, and loses him in the forest where danger threatens with the dusk. But, when the big white bird flew suddenly up among the glossy leaves and the lemon-flowers, and wheeled into the mountain, I followed. What else is there to do when such a thing happens on a brilliant April noonday at the foot of the White Mountains of Crete;… ~Mary Stewart, THE MOON-SPINNERS

And now a few that are more current. I’ve already quoted one of my favs from NAKED IN DEATH HERE so no repeating it. Instead, some new openings:

Death has nipped at my heels like a disobedient dog since I was fourteen. ~Lori G. Armstrong, BLOOD TIES (the first Julie Collins book)

And one that made me laugh:

There was a dead clown sitting in my living room. Since I wasn’t particularly fond of clowns, and it was way too early for anything coherent to come out of my mouth, I pretended not to notice him. ~Darynda Jones, THIRD GRAVE DEAD AHEAD, Charley Davidson series

Plus one that put me right into the spirit of the novel:

Later she will remember him so: impatient with the waiting, restless feet carrying him back and forth in the grassy space in front of the fountain. She will remember the murmur and splash of fall water, the fragrance of roses, her own heart fluttering against the wall of her chest. ~Kerry Schafer, BETWEEN (Dreamworld series)

And finally, one of my own.

This was only Day One of what was shaping up to be a bloody weird week and the gods had been drinking again. Too bad Sade Marquis didn’t have that option. She was on duty. Dammit. Not to mention it was only ten in the morning. However, if things got any stranger, she might change her mind. ~Silver James, THAT OL’ BLACK MAGIC (Penumbra Papers)

Okay, time to share–either the opening of a book that really grabbed your attention or one of your own. Why? Because it’s Wednesday and it’s all about the words. 😀

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Teasing Tuesday’s Taste Buds

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Silver James

Baby, it’s cold outside. I think we need to talk comfort food. What’s your favorite snowy-day food? A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Chicken Pot Pie and gave my recipe for that. Other food items on the list include chili, spaghetti, and beef stew. Thing is, I don’t use recipes for those. It’s a little of this, a lot of that, some of those, and voila! After much tasting, we have dinner. But you know what goes really good with savory food for dinner? Hot, homemade brownies for dessert. 😉

So…here’s an easy brownie recipe.

BrowniePreheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 9″ baking pan. Prep time: 5-10 minutes. Bake time approximately 30-35 minutes.

1 stick butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate (Hershey’s works best if you can find it–just make sure it’s UNSWEETENED chocolate. Semi-sweet makes for glop.)
1 cup sugar
dash salt
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup chopped nuts (we use pecans)

Melt butter and chocolate in medium saucepan. Add sugar, salt, flour, and vanilla. Stir until mixed well. Remove from heat. Quickly stir in eggs. If you want nuts IN the brownies, add now and stirl. Pour into pan. If you want nuts on top, sprinkle on top now. Bake until sides pull away from sides and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Eat warm. Store in air-tight container if any are left over. Number made depends on what size you cut them. 😉 (And yes, that’s a picture of the real thing I took yesterday afternoon because I had to go make a batch after writing about them. 😛 )

So, what’s your favorite cold weather food and dessert?

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