Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Research...skydiving style:)

Image result for one room schoolhouse
So...back to school.
Those three little words that create excitement for some, terror for others.
I'm a teacher, and I fit into both categories. I love the students, well, most of them, and I love to teach, well, most of the time, but I can't write as much during the school year, so that 's a major minus in my book of pros and cons.

Still, the summer has been great, and I had written a sky diving scene into one of my books, a year ago, and I'm in the editing process now, so - call it research - I went skydiving, and the scene is so much better now, and I literally felt the jump all over again as I wrote the scene.

Now, that doesn't mean I'd want to live out every scene in all my books, but wow, this research and living it up was very cool. I can't wait to do it again. I'm fifty, and my kids want to go with me. It's on their bucket lists. It was never one mine. I just went with my cousin one day to pick up her boyfriend that works and the airfield/sky diving business, and ...the next thing I knew was in an air plane, a perfectly good one, and jumping out of it.

So, if you gotta research, go for it, like I did...:)
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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Book Review: Charlotte Boyett-Compo

     

 In Wild Rain, Charlotte Boyett-Compo spins a yarn that is a boot stompin’ good time set in a period reminiscent of the Wild West, but time warped into a futuristic world where the hero and heroine, Rain and Kirree, must come to terms with their pasts and figure out what they want to do with their futures. If it were only that simple, and so many people weren’t out to not only destroy their but kill them, and wipe out everyone they love as well. This story is one filled with terror and pain, instituted by the bad elements, but the good people are overflowing with love and kindness and understanding, fighting off evil from all sides, not just from their own townspeople but from the surrounding cults and intolerant cultures that can’t seem to find a way to mix and mingle and get along…until Rain and Kirree force them to join together and accept their forbidden love. A love which is contagious and thrilling, shown to the reader through the art of Charlotte Boyett-Compo’s work, a book I couldn’t put down once I picked it up. Thank you Charlotte for telling Rain and Kirree’s story, and give us more, please.


Monday, July 20, 2015

Blurb:

          March Morgan still believes in true love, but her faith in finding her soul mate is slowly vanishing.  She’s been married but never in love.  So, it is a miracle to find that fantasy exists on the last page of a glossy women’s journal.  Mayfair Electronics, Ltd., in black and white, offers Love for Sale.  The London firm has engineered sentient androids indistinguishable from human.  She flies to England and meets the man she has been searching for her entire life.

Christian requires no programming to love March at first sight.  He’s handsome, cultured…absolutely perfect…and a little different from the other androids.  He has an unexpected independent streak.

March signs on the dotted line, buying her dream man.  They return to Houston, but soon her past and his future threaten their Happily Ever After—indeed their lives.

Excerpt:


At a light touch on her shoulder, she spun. He stood inches from her, the airspace between them electric charged. “Liz was here, and in my bedroom! Why? Were you doing her in my bed?”

“No.” He had the decency to look stunned, his eyes widening and darkening. “She was teaching me to dance. The closet doors are mirrors.”

March resisted the urge to slap his perfect face. “Why? You aren’t going to be a stripper.”

He shrugged. “You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust her.” March’s face felt hard and cold. God, how she hated the emotions seething in her. She was almost physically ill.

“She cannot tempt me.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes glittering blue. “Don’t you understand I am attuned to you alone?”

“You weren’t supposed to be able to get angry.” She was unraveling, like a ball of yarn thrown across a room. “You did.”

Her heart shattered as he turned and walked away. Grief winded her. At the door, he glanced over his shoulder, again shaking his head. He was stunningly handsome, looked sad and hurt, but there was no apology in his intense gaze. Hands fisted at her sides, she tried to control the storm of fear, anger, resentment and pain.

“Where the hell are you going?” Her voice came brusque, short.

“For a walk to let you think and cool down.” Light and shadow chiseled his face, and her breaking heart skipped a beat. “I am not going to Liz. I have learned all I need to know from her. I shall never see her again.”

“You can’t walk out. It is impossible for you. You are faulty in some circuit somewhere. I’m going to return you.”

The most beautiful man in the world froze with his hand on the door. “Please don’t. This is a misunderstanding.” He blew out a long breath. “However, if that is what you want, I must advise you that Mayfair Electronics, 21 Dover Street, London, W1S 4LT will accept return of a flawed unit for a full refund.”

“Stop! You sound like a robot.” Her fisted hands struck the air.

He didn’t flinch. “I am a robot. That’s why this is an inane conversation.”

“Inane? I find you with another woman in the bedroom, and this conversation is silly? Oh, no, Christian. Did you invite her here?” Why couldn’t she stop hurting herself and let him go, lock the door and email Mayfair for a courier pickup?

Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the door. “She knocked. I answered and kept her outside until it started to rain. She was talking about the club and telling me, again, that I’d be a success as a male dancer. Being a success at something would be a bloody miracle. At any rate, half-jokingly, I asked her to teach me to dance. The End.”

“Not quite. Why did you slip her out behind my back?”

“I wished to avoid a scene like this.” His voice shaded deeper, darker. “And I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“There, it’s said. You can come back in now and stop pretending you’re leaving.” She waved a hand, half-heartedly beckoning. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”

He inhaled sharply as if she had punched him in the stomach. “I’m quite aware of that fact. I do not like seeing you this upset. Please call Mayfair tomorrow. I’ll voluntarily deactivate. They will dispatch a FedEx pickup for me.”

She raked a hand through her hair. “Oh, my God, what have you done and why? What have I done? Paradise Lost.”

“Why can’t you trust me?” His sad expression pierced her heart.

Nearly human. Though he didn’t have a heart, his emotions could be damaged.

“Because I don’t trust men.” An angry sob caught in her throat. When she could again speak, she croaked, “In general. Well, almost. I learned that lesson at my mother’s knee.”

“I’m not even almost any man.” He lifted his hands in a pleading gesture. “Return me to Mayfair for reprogramming. I don’t care. I only want to stay with you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” she said in a lethal whisper, her voice then rising in outrage. “If I’d been earlier or later, would I have found you bucking in bed?”

Looking stricken, he stood silent and straight, a bare-chested god with ice blue eyes.

Available on Amazon in print and eBook or from The Wild Rose Press

For a free, continuing vampire story, visit my web site at http://www.lindanightingale.com.  Thanks for stopping by!  Check back. I will be hosting giveaways!  Linda

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Would you like to be a monthly blogger on my blog?
We can pick out a day of the month you'd like to blog each month, and you upload the blogs and control the content on your own. Just let me know via rebeccadraco.com contact form.