Mad Stone snippet! and coming soon

The Neuri return! In between Animal Attraction and Red Queen, an interlude in which many things go wrong. Mad Stone is a novelette that will be out, well, as soon as things like cover and formatting are dealt with. This is a joint project with Sasha White, Delilah Devlin, Myla Jackson and myself, all with stories set in our own worlds featuring rocky romance.

Snippet:

“This is a bad idea,” David said, his tone as flat as the gunmetal grey his eyes had gone. We were both in the back seat of Zach’s car, now parked at our destination. A limo would’ve been too out of place at biker bar.

“I don’t like it much myself, but we’re short on time and options,” I pointed out. I adjusted the zipper on my black leather jacket and flexed my feet in the steel-toed boots I wore. I’d already tested the give in my jeans by doing a couple of high kicks before getting in the car; pants that were too restrictive to fight in no longer belonged in my wardrobe.

“She said she’d talk to Chandra if she came in alone,” Zach said from the driver’s seat. “If one of us goes with her, we might not only lose a shot at the stone, we could find ourselves with a new set of enemies. We don’t want to provoke them by seeming aggressive on their home turf.”

“What you said,” I nodded at Zach, and tried to project confidence at David. “Besides, compared to psychotic rogue shapeshifters, how bad can a few hairy guys with leather fetishes be?”

“Bad,” David stated.

“I have a black belt in Kenpo,” I said, as much to make myself feel better as to reassure David. I sent a silent thanks to my adoptive father for enrolling me in martial arts at age five.

“Which will not help you against bullets.”

“No, but unless they’re packing silver, I’ll live.” I twisted to peer at Zach. “Do you think they’re packing silver?”

Zach was silent for a beat longer than I expected. “Probably not.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and bit back curses. “How does a biker gang know about us, anyway?” Angelica had known exactly who I was when she returned my call, and our first conversation hadn’t led me to expect the beginning of a beautiful friendship when I showed up to meet her at the bar.

“She is a witch,” Zach reminded me.

“I thought she was probably a fake.”

“Look on the bright side. Since she’s the real thing, she’s much more likely to have a powerful stone.”

“Yes, but will she give it to us?” That was the big question, and we weren’t going to get an answer until I got out of the car and went inside.

“I guess that depends on you.” Zach’s eyes met mine, and I knew he hated that every bit as much as David did. Maybe more, since it went against his alpha nature to sit and wait while his mate went into danger. When this was all over, I was going to have some major beast-soothing to do.

Never mind the snow, start your seeds

I don’t care what the white stuff on the ground says, it’s spring. Days are lengthening, things are budding, and it’s time to start germinating seeds for summer gardens.

Gardening is good for the mind and body. Which makes it a particularly good thing for writers, who tend to be very hard on both in the course of writing books. There’s also the money-saving aspect of growing produce, but really, just messing in dirt soothes the soul.

Last spring I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I just knew I was tired. I spent three months laboring in a garden and by the end of that, I felt sane again and I knew what I wanted to do. And then I got pregnant, but don’t let that stop you from grabbing your hoe and peat moss. I doubt I’d be having a third child if I was still constantly freaking out from stress, though.

Gardens can be big or small and anybody can benefit from the experience regardless of space. Even if you have no yard or enough light for a container garden, you probably have some nook for a hanging Sweet Potato Vine.

As for us, the 5 yr old and I germinated apple seeds which are now ready for a tiny pot of their own. Someday those seeds will be trees, and by the time they produce fruit, I’ll be glad to have something to remind me of the little girl who was so excited about saving and sprouting apple seeds.

5 Good Things

As you can tell by the fact that it’s been nearly a week since my last blog entry, it’s been One Of Those weeks. So, to start this one off, Five Good Things:

1. Iron clears the brain fog and exhaustion. Yay iron.

2. Sleepless child slept last night.

3. Mailed Mom’s birthday present before her birthday.

4. Dr.’s office called to say last week’s ultrasound was “very reassuring”, i.e. no need for follow-up testing.

5. Story is not done, but what is done is good. And today, there will be more story accomplished.

Share your good things!

5 things make a Tuesday post

1. Did you know you can pre-order Patricia Briggs’ River Marked now
for massive savings
on the hardcover? You’re welcome.

2. It does not pay to get behind on book-buying and adding titles to Goodreads. But I am now caught up. I think.

3. Plodding along on writing. Plod. Plod. Plod.

4. A simple step like menu planning really has made my life better. I don’t know why it took me so long to do this, but suspect it had to do with never having time to sit down and write a menu plan.

5. Now that I have fabulous walking shoes, the weather keeps conspiring against me. Good thing there is yoga indoors.

Reading

I’ve just finished reading three good books, two by Patricia Briggs and one by a new to me author, Sarah Allen. I picked up Allen’s Garden Spells on a whim, because it was on sale and a genre I enjoy. I’d never heard of either author or title, and I like gardens, so I took a chance. Glad I did, since I will now be collecting the rest of her available books.

By Patricia Briggs: the Hurog duology (Dragon Bones, Dragon Blood). Both excellent reads, and I do not recommend picking up one without the other unless you can download the missing title before the shakes set in. Loved the world, the characters, the story. More, please.

Garden Spells features a Southern family with magical abilities, their garden, and the tree of knowledge it contains which can play havoc with people’s lives. This is a good story for both fantasy and romance fans.

Read any good books lately?