Comprised of two novels, Deep Kiss of Winter combines the talents of Kresley Cole and Gena Showalter in to a compelling, riveting two story novel full of romance and drama. In Cole’s Untouchable, Murdoch Wroth will stop at nothing to claim Daniela the Ice Maiden — the delicate Valkyrie who makes his heart beat for the first time in three hundred years. Yet the exquisite Danii is part ice fey, and her freezing skin can’t be touched by anyone but her own kind without inflicting pain beyond measure. Soon desperate for closeness, in an agony of frustration, Murdoch and Danii will do anything to have each other. Together, can they find the key that will finally allow them to slake the overwhelming desire burning between them? In Showalter’s Tempt Me Eternally, Aleaha Love can be anyone — literally. With only skin-to-skin contact, she can change her appearance, assume any identity. Her newest identity switch has made her an AIR (alien investigation and removal) agent and sends her on a mission to capture a group of otherworldly warriors. Only she becomes the captured. Breean, a golden-skinned commander known for his iron will who is at once dangerous and soul-shatteringly seductive, threatens her new life. Because for the first time, Aleaha only wants to be herself.

My Review of Deep Kiss of Winter

Genre: Fiction – Paranormal Romance
Finished: December 21, 2009
Rating: 3 Stars

Untouchable was my first experience with Kresley Cole. I am always a little hesitant, too, when authors add a lexicon or a glossary to their books when the book isn’t a series. Yet, I dove into Untouchable with an open mind and a significant amount of interest in this world Cole had created. I rather liked the idea of there being a ‘Lore’ full of strange creatures and magical beings. Though, I have to say that I wish the book were a fantasy series, and not paranormal romance. I think the world, the creatures, and the premise was excellent, but the overdone romance elements takes away from the pure fantasy creativity behind it. Or maybe that is just my biased dislike of romance in general talking. Let me not make it seem as if I did not like the story, because I did! I thought it was excellent. The characters were great, the plot was amazing, and I just fell in love with the world Cole created, which is why I totally plan to read more of the Immortals After Dark series that the book is a part of.

Cole’s world seems complicated, but it breaks down into a few easy things. You have the Lore, which are these creatures. Within it are creatures such as Valkyrie, Vampires, Demons, and Icere. Vampires are on an eternal search for a Bride (I guess there are no female vampires out there looking for Grooms?), who will once again make his heart beat and his passion boil. Once he meets his bride, he is blooded to her. His longing for her is almost unbearable. Well, Murdoch the Sexy becomes blooded to a half ice fey, half Valkyrie woman he cannot touch because touch burns her cold skin. They can’t do it, naturally, since his touching her would cause her a lot of pain and possible death. So, not only must they work together to overcome other preternatural creatures, but also learn how to surmount their difficult romance.

I admit, I did get a little annoyed with how the storyline just moved from one thing to the next. There was this great build up about wars and vampire rivalries and then, out of nowhere, the book just moves on past them and says, “oh well, everything was fixed” and introduces all new plots. It was very disappointing and made me wonder why all the build up for a resolution we don’t even get to experience?

Showalter’s story Tempt Me Eternally is part of her Alien Huntress series, though I have never read any of the other books in the series and walked in to it sort of clueless as to Showalter at all. I have heard the name before since a few of my friends are fans of her other series’, but I was a Showalter novice until this point. In the novel, Aleaha Love is a shapeshifter of sorts, but she cannot let anyone know for fear of her own life. This is romance, though, so a hot, hunky guy has to come in somewhere. And that guy is Breean, a Rakan, who imprisons Aleaha in the hope of using her for ransom in order to be allowed to live on Earth since they cannot return to their own home planet. It is only natural in the course of a romance plotline for the Rakan Breean and Aleaha to decide they like each other complete with the banter of two people who are opposites but eventually discover they are perfect for each other.

Okay, so the endings of romance novels are very predictable. How often do the couple decide not to be together? Or that their differences are too insurmountable? Or hey, someone dies? Not often, and only in a series when there is lots of time to work everything out by the end to wrap up a happy ending. I like happy endings, I do. Which is why books like Deep Kiss of Winter are so fulfilling. You get what you want! No anti-climactic endings to make you walk away numb and disappointed. Though, of course, the nature of predictability gives very little in surprises. Which is why, of course, authors have to ultimately make up for this shortfall by creating good plots, great characters, and amazing stories. Cole and Showalter did. Excellent book!

When a rusty old tin box is unearthed at the Covington Homestead, longtime housemates Grace, Amelia, and Hannah discover that it contains letters and diaries written by two Civil War soldiers, one Union and one Confederate. The friends are captivated by the drama revealed. The soldiers were found dying on a nearby battlefi eld by an old woman. She nursed them back to health, hiding them from bounty hunters seeking deserters. At the end of the war the men chose to stay in Covington, caring for their rescuer as she grew frail. But while their lives were rich, they still felt homesick and guilty for never contacting the families they’d left behind. Christmas is coming, and the letters inspire Amelia with a generous impulse. What if she and her friends were to fi nd the two soldiers’ descendants and invite them to Covington to meet? What better holiday gift could there be than the truth about these two heroic men and their dramatic shared fate? With little time left, the ladies spring into action to track down the men’s families in Connecticut and the Carolinas, and to make preparations in Covington for their most memorable, most historic Christmas yet.

My Review of A Blue and Gray Christmas

Genre: Fiction – Historical
Finished: December 15, 2009
Rating: 2 Stars

Three friends, Grace, Amelia, and Hannah, come across a box once buried full of the letters and diaries of two Civil War soliders: Tom from the South and John from the North. Both soldiers were injured during the war and ended up abandoning together, hiding deep in the Appalachian mountains that they made their home. Tom felt he had nothing to go back to and John chose to leave his wife and daughter to begin a new life. The letters the three women read and share with others express friendships, fears, loves, and the dramatic after effects of war. John is left with severe post traumatic stress, so he has to completely rebuild himself after the horrors of war he experienced.

When Tom and John decided to stay in the mountains, they took on a new last name to begin their lives anew. When Grace, Amelia, and Hannah find the letters and learn about the break up of families, they decide together that it would be the perfect Christmas treat to reunite the families and share with them the letters and diaries of their long lost ancestors, believed to have been killed in the war. It is not an easy thing for the women to do, and they search through records and graveyards to find and connect people together. A lucky break happens when they meet a relative of John’s, Milo, who came from the line descended from John’s second marriage. The threads start coming together for the women, and it seems all too soon that they are going to get the Christmas they want.

The best part of the book is the Civil War letters. Reading about the experiences and lives of Tom and John was very emotional for me. I chose to participate in the book’s blog tour because I am a student of history and absolutely love a good historical fiction novel. The Civil War is in itself a very emotional war, so being able to read about it in such a personal way was very tender, sometimes sweet, sometimes painful. I felt especially bad for John who had such a hard time forgetting everything he’d seen and done. The intimacy of the letters really made me feel like I had connected with the two men on some level.

Unfortunately, I felt that I connected very little with the story apart from the letters. While I enjoyed very much the progression of Tom and John’s lives, I found some other aspects of the novel quite not to my liking. The story line moves along in a way that is not only too quick, but entirely unbelievable. Everything just seems to fall into place and the initial roadblocks are obligatory. Something about the dialogue put me off, too. But what I disliked the most was that the book is full of unnecessary detail and lacks where there should be detail. We are given a paragraph about baking and the ingredients that go in and in what order, but the actual plot itself is rushed along. I would have liked a little less unnecessary dialogue and action and a little more that had actual substance or contributed to the plot.

Nevertheless, it is a very sweet book. One of those quick rainy or snowy day reads that will leave you feeling warm inside at the end of it all.

About Sins of the Flesh

Caterina Shaw’s days are numbered. Her only chance for survival is a highly experimental gene treatment-a risk she willingly takes. But now Caterina barely recognizes herself. She has new, terrifying powers, an exotic, arresting body-and she’s been accused of a savage murder, sending her on the run. Mick Carrera is a mercenary and an expert at capturing elusive, clever prey. Yet the woman he’s hunting down is far from the vicious killer he’s been told to expect: Caterina is wounded, vulnerable, and a startling mystery of medical science. Even more, she’s a beautiful woman whose innocent sensuality tempts Mick to show her exactly how thrilling pleasure can be. The heat that builds between them is irresistible, but surrendering to it could kill them both . . . for a dangerous group is plotting its next move using Caterina as its deadly pawn.

Blogtalk Radio Program with Caridad Piñeiro:
Visit website: Caridad.com.

My Review of Sins of the Flesh

Genre: Fiction – Paranormal Romance
Finished: November 19, 2009
Rating: 3 Stars

Catarina (Cat) Shaw is a famous and talented musician, her love of the cello as much a part of her as her body. When she finds out that she has a brain tumor that will kill her, she elects to take part in a radical gene therapy treatment. The results are not what she has expected. Cat has found that she possesses strange powers such as to be able to chameleon herself against her surroundings. She is stronger, faster, quicker to heal, and also has iridescent blood. When she escapes the medical facility that she is being kept in, private detective forces are hot on her tail with the order to collect her for the violent murder of one of the lab’s doctors.

Enter Mick Carrera, who has been hired to find Cat and bring her back. At first, he is startled to find out that she is not quite human. However, he has a sense of decency that transcends the rather rough job he does. Mick finds himself taking care of her, always cautious, yet at the same time wondering if Cat is really capable of what she is accused of. There is no mistake, though, that Cat is in danger. And if she is not guilty of the murder, why would they be accusing her? What is their goal? What else may they be engineering? And who really did kill the doctor and why? So much mystery begins to swirl around the two that we are pushed into a complex and layered plotline that moves fast and hard, with the action intense, the mystery solid, and the characters defined.

Naturally, as a romance novel, this book has its fair share of hot and botheredness. I am always a bit annoyed when characters come to attraction so early. While I don’t mean to negate the idea of love at sight, but I prefer that romance and passion come as part of a long running evolution of emotion rather than, “is this her in the picture? Hot. I want her intensely and with all of my being.” See what I mean? So, I was kind of put off by that when it happened in this book, yet the author slowed it down from there and let it happen in due time. There was no rush. The romance was redeemed! And, naturally, as soon as the romance began, it was good. The scenes are smoking hot, guys, I mean it.

This was my first taste of the paranormal of this brand. Usually the paranormal is about vampires or witches or some other sort of were/shifting creature. While Cat is part animal(s) and human, she is no shifter. This book is therefore more scientific, sort of ‘man playing God and this is what we get.’ I really enjoyed that this book had a scientific lean while not being too science fiction based, as that is not a genre I particularly like. All in all: good book, hot romance, non-standard characters that actually seem real and with depth, and an all around great mystery with tons of adventure.

Giveaway!!

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If you do all of the above, you will get ten entries. That’s ten chances to win.

Winners will be selected on 11:59pm EST on December 4th. I will be using Random.org to select the winner. When you win, I will send you an email asking for your physically mailing address, which you have 3 days to respond to before new winners are selected. No PO Boxes. This contest is open to the US and Canada only.

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About Elizabeth Hoyt

Elizabeth Hoyt is a USA Today bestselling author of historical romance. She also writes deliciously fun contemporary romance under the name Julia Harper. Elizabeth lives in central Illinois with three untrained dogs, two angelic but bickering children, and one long-suffering husband. Please visit her websites for chapter excerpts, book extras, and author appearances: www.elizabethhoyt.com and www.juliaharper.com. Also, listen to an audio interview by Hoyt.

About To Desire a Devil

Reynaud St. Aubyn has spent the last seven years in hellish captivity. Now half mad with fever he bursts into his ancestral home and demands his due. Can this wild-looking man truly be the last earl’s heir, thought murdered by Indians years ago? Beatrice Corning, the niece of the present earl, is a proper English miss. But she has a secret: No real man has ever excited her more than the handsome youth in the portrait in her uncle’s home. Suddenly, that very man is here, in the flesh-and luring her into his bed. Only Beatrice can see past Reynaud’s savagery to the noble man inside. For his part, Reynaud is drawn to this lovely lady, even as he is suspicious of her loyalty to her uncle. But can Beatrice’s love tame a man who will stop at nothing to regain his title-even if it means sacrificing her innocence?

To read an excerpt go here.

My Review of

Genre: Fiction – Historical Romance
Finished: November 10, 2009
Rating: 3 Stars

The year is 1765, and the place England. The son of an earl and heir to the title Earl of Blanchard, Reynaud St. Aubyn, once a carefree youth, went to war where he was reportedly murdered by Indians in the American Colonies. After the death of his father and without Reynaud there to inherit, the title passed on to the Uncle of Beatrice Corning. Beatrice, protective of her kind and not-too-healthy uncle, as well as a great deal many others, are shocked when a haggard and sick looking Reynaud burst through the doors at tea demanding his father. It was almost too much to tell him of his father’s death. With the heir of the title returned, Beatrice has no idea what will happen to her and her uncle.

Beatrice’s feelings are further complicated by her infatuation with a man she has only seen in a painting. This painting she is so fond of looking at is of Reynaud before he went off to fight. She cannot consolidate her feelings for the handsome young man in the picture to the disheveled and brutish rouge who now wants to reclaim his title and estate.

Reynaud has a great many wounds that need healing. He suffered a great deal of horror while in captivity and suffers from trauma and flashbacks that put him always on his guard. As such, he is not an easy one to get close to and Beatrice, despite his threatening of her very livelihood, tries to help him. She wants to see him return to the smiling youth she is so familiar with via his painting. Others feel that Reynaud needs to be reaccelerated to aristocratic society. Feelings soon begin to grow between Beatrice and Reynaud. It seems she could be just what he needs to return to his old self. Of course, not everyone hopes for the best for them. There are others with invested interests in keeping Reynaud from regaining his title, which sweeps the pair up into political intrigue and danger.

I generally liked the story, especially Reynaud and his dramatic story. I always like a man with a bit of a complex, I suppose. Beatrice is likable as far as female romance leads go, as they can all too often exhibit a cookie-cutter vapidity that I find puts me off of the romance genre as a whole. Though honestly I feel that the romance aspect moved a little too fast and in a manner that wasn’t very realistic. It was just too easy and too forced. And when Reynaud proposed, the dialogue between the two was unbelievable and simple. I like things to be drawn out. There was something about the moment that rang as unbelievable to me.

All in all, though, it was a fun read. The passion is hot and the romance is sweet. Ladies, Reynaud is one passionate man who knows how to work the body of a woman… Beatrice, what a lucky woman! Dangerous and romantic at the same time, Reynaud can be as rough and demanding as gentle and smooth. And fortunately, there is a happy ending to be found, and I do so love happily ever after.

Giveaway!!

1.) Leave a comment below telling me that you’d like to win.
2.) Blog about this contest and leave a comment with the links.
3.) Add me on twitter (@morbidromantic) and Tweet this contest then comment with a link to the Tweet or your username.
4.) Stumble this giveaway or my main site and comment with your StumbleUpon username.
5.) Rate my blog at Blogged. Click here or find the graphic on the sidebar under ‘ranks.’
6.) Add my RSS reader here and leave me a comment telling me that you subscribe to my feed.
7.) Comment on and rate (rating is found in the header of the post) any of my previous book reviews and leave me a comment telling me that you have.
8.) Add me to your Technorati favorites: .
9.) Add me on LibraryThing, Good Reads, Shelfari, Book Blogs, or BookBlips and leave a comment telling me where you’ve added me and (if you can), your username/name.
10.) Answer this question: have you ever loved someone by sight alone before meeting them?

If you do all of the above, you will get ten entries. That’s ten chances to win.

Winners will be selected on 11:59pm EST on November 25th. I will be using Random.org to select the winner. When you win, I will send you an email asking for your physically mailing address, which you have 3 days to respond to before new winners are selected. No PO Boxes. This contest is open to the US and Canada only.

Other Participating Sites:

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http://justanothernewblog.blogspot.com

http://bookinwithbingo.blogspot.com

http://www.readingwithmonie.com

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http://bookfan-mary.blogspot.com

http://seductivemusings.blogspot.com

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http://myfoolishwisdom.blogspot.com

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http://booksoulmates.blogspot.com

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http://www.eclecticbooklover.com

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http://juniperrbreeeze.blogspot.com

http://dixie-afewofmyfavoritethings.blogspot.com

Author of Across the Endless River

How much do we know for certain about the life of Sacagawea? The answer is: almost nothing. She was born “around 1788.” She was abducted by the Hidatsa “when she was about 12.” The date of her death is similarly uncertain: the prevailing view is that she died in 1812 at Fort Manuel Lisa on the Missouri, but others contend that she lived well into her 90s and died at the Wind River Reservation in 1884. Even the pronunciation and meaning of her name are still disputed, a reflection of the unknowable transliteration that both Clark and Lewis tried to capture in written syllables.

Lewis & Clark — The Written Record Shapes All
The most reliable primary documents that have come down to us concerning Sacagawea are, of course, the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, through which she has entered the public imagination as an improbable but key player on the stage of American history. But even the journals, famed as they are, give us only fleeting glimpses of this young woman. She was one of Toussaint Charbonneau’s several “squaws”, a usage that covered everything from absolute servitude to common law marriage. In historical accounts, she is most frequently described as his “wife”, but the fact remains that we have no way of knowing the human contours of their relationship.

The instances of her mentions in the journals are themselves full of dramatic details: a difficult labor for her first child, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, born on February 11, 1805 in the bitter cold far-northern reaches of the Upper Missouri; her dire illness and near death in June of that year, when Lewis dosed her attentively from his meager medicine kit; her vote as an equal member of the expedition about the location of their winter camp once they reached the Pacific; her insistence at being allowed to accompany the party dispatched by Clark to the shore of the Pacific to investigate what meat might be recovered from a beached whale.

All of these scenes have survived in the clear and dispassionate prose of the two captains, and while they offer tantalizing glimpses of how Sacagawea reacted under pressure, they of course come from the pens of those whose business it was to give the expedition shape in daily journals. While history is indeed written by the conquerors, perhaps here it would be more apt to say that history is first written by those who can write. How would she have described the captains? Nothing certain remains from Sacagawea’s oral tradition, so the accounts of those whose language included an alphabet were bound to prevail.

Sacagawea, Repository of Legends
Even so, the degree to which the slender and infrequent mentions of Sacagawea in the Lewis & Clark journals have subsequently been weighed down with meaning is astounding. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, and gathering steam well into the twentieth, there developed an elaborate literature of wonder, almost of awe, around her being. She has come to represent resilience, courage, patience, loving motherhood, feminine independence . . . the list is virtually endless. It has been said that more images of her adorn public places than that of any other American woman. The latest iteration of her imagined likeness, the young mother bearing her papoose who graces the U.S. dollar coin, is as close as American culture is ever likely to come to an indigenous Madonna and Child.

And yet most of this is pure fabrication, a projection of our own changing needs and perceptions of the past. I am reminded of the elaborate hagiography that has built up in France around Joan of Arc, just enough of it based on the startling and dramatic facts of her life to lay the groundwork for a complete mythology. In that sense, Lewis & Clark is our own founding myth, and the individual actors in its story assume the proportions of legend as we embroider the fragile facts we have with our own imaginings. Sacagawea dances around the edges of the narrative: innocent, strong, pure of heart, and ultimately unknowable, an undying receptacle for our dreams about both past and future. The beaten and abducted young squaw stands alongside the mother of a mixed-race son, the determined woman who saved Lewis & Clark from failure by bargaining for horses with the tribe from which she had been torn. Could any refracted image we fashion to express our hopes be more ambiguous, or more captivating?

©2009 Thad Carhart, author of Across the Endless River

Author Bio
Thad Carhart, author of Across the Endless River, is a dual citizen of of the United States and Ireland. He lives in Paris with his wife, the photographer Simo Neri, and their two children.
For more information please visit www.thadcarhart.com

Sylvia Engdahl is best known as the author of highly-acclaimed Young Adult science fiction novels, one of which was a Newbery Honor book and a finalist for the 2002 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Rediscovery category. However, her trilogy Children of the Star, originally written for teens, was republished as adult SF, and she is now writing fiction only for adults.

Engdahl is a strong advocate of space colonization and has maintained a widely-read space section of her website for many years. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, and currently works as a freelance editor of nonfiction anthologies.

For more information about Sylvia Engdahl, visit her website here. If you would like to read up more about Stewards of the Flame, visit the book website here.

About Stewards of the Flame

When burned-out starship captain Jesse Sanders is seized by a dictatorial medical regime and detained on the colony planet Undine, he has no idea that he is about to be plunged into a bewildering new life that will involve ordeals and joys beyond anything he has ever imagined, as well as the love of a woman with powers that seem superhuman. Still less does he suspect that he must soon take responsibility for the lives of people he has come to care about and the preservation of their hopes for the future of humankind.

This controversial novel—winner of a bronze medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher (IPPY) book awards—deals with government-imposed health care, with end-of-life issues, and with the so-called paranormal powers of the human mind. Despite being set in the distant future on another world, it’s not intended just for science fiction fans. Blogcritics said, “The story is compelling, and drew me in from the first few pages. . . . Stewards of the Flame is a thought-provoking novel that may make you question the authority and direction of modern Western medical practices. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading genre fiction with some substance to it.”

Guest Post with Sylvia Engdahl

I’ve always had ideas about the future, and about humankind’s relation to the universe, that I wanted very much to express. More often than not, my view of such issues contrasts with prevailing views. I’m inspired mainly by the wish to explore them, but I want to do it through the thoughts and feelings of characters who have to deal with them, rather than in the abstract. It’s generally hard for me to think of events — action — through which the characters can confront them; I’ve come up with story ideas during only a few short periods of my life. But when I do get a plot idea, then I’m completely absorbed in the story until it is finished.

I don’t write, or even read, typical science fiction. My novels are not action/adventure stories, and they focus neither on strange environments nor on the details of hypothetical technologies. They’re about characters portrayed like real people of today. Stewards of the Flame is set on a world colonized in the distant future by settlers from Earth. Its problems are more like today’s problems, extended just a little beyond today’s reality, than how the distant future will really be. But the story required a separate planet with a history of prior generations, and interstellar travel isn’t going to occur for centuries considering that we’re still dragging our feet on colonizing Mars, so I had no choice about its placement in time. In many ways the novel appeals more to readers of mainstream fiction than science fiction fans, but there is just no way to market a book about the future on another planet as mainstream; no matter what I say about it, it gets an SF genre label, making it hard for readers not looking for that genre to find. I hate the “genre” concept, but that’s another topic. . . .

I combined two issues I wanted to explore in fiction when writing Stewards of the Flame. In the first place, what might be the logical conclusion of today’s trend toward government control of health care? My own feeling is that it could end in the takeover of the government (at least in a small colony) by medical authorities, depriving the citizens of their personal freedom. The people of the story live under what is essentially a dictatorship, but it wasn’t imposed on the population by force — they voted it in through misguided placement of health issues above all other values. The protagonists can’t aim to overthrow it because it was established democratically, so they oppose it in another way, which involves the development of “paranormal” mind powers. I don’t think of such powers as weird or supernatural. To me, they represent the future evolution of humankind. My view of the future is less pessimistic than the one common today, and I’m impatient with fiction that suggests we’re not progressing. That, more than anything, impels me to create fiction of my own.

The world ends on 11.15.09 – that’s when award-winning indie comic publisher Heske Horror (www.coldbloodedchillers.com) releases its anticipated doomsday anthology “2012: Final Prayer.”

Just like Armageddon, this release promises to be a “global event” with cataclysmic graphic tales, short stories and brief essays from creators from around the world: US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Scotland and South Africa.

Click this URL to see what lies ahead …

http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=17811

or

Click the UK Variant cover below to see what lies ahead …

Amongst girlfriends.

I have been blessed with many good friends in my life. When I was in my thirties and forties I had five best girlfriends. I truly loved each of these ladies and they loved me. Each one thought that I was their best friend and to me they were all my best friends. I guess there was one that stood out more than the other and if they should read this, they would automatically say, “That was me.”

At other times in my life, such as my teenage years, I also had a group of wonderful girlfriends. These girlfriends were the ones I grew up with and I loved them all and they loved me. I am happy to say that two still remain my close friends but the others moved and we lost touch.

Then there were the wonderful friends I had raising my kids; we shared our stories about bringing up babies and developed a social life around them. They knew my children and I knew theirs and the bond was strong.

So where are all of these girlfriends now? I must admit that the majority of them have disappeared from my life and two, sadly, are deceased. Perhaps I am the cause of why they are no longer in my life. For example, one turned out to have a difficult life and manipulated me into being there for her during these times but excluding me from good times. It became an unpleasant friendship according to her terms.

Another friend was the cheapest woman I ever met. She would not even treat herself to a glass of water and she had lots of money. It became discouraging as she sat in front of me with her mouth watering as I ordered dinner. In the beginning I would treat her, and then I realized I was only playing into her neurosis. She liked sitting with me but refused to order. The friendship broke up when she saw the man I was crazy about with another woman and told me. It devastated me at the time and found it not to be necessary for her to tell me.

My best high school best friend disappeared as soon as we got married. When she came back it was thrilling, but no sooner did we connect, she would disappear again; and the same disappearance happened with my other best high school friend who I have not seen or heard from since high school.

Now I have new friends and at 73 years old which is my age, I am lucky to connect with these terrific ladies. They have come to me in the last two years and each one is divine. One is my last boyfriend’s prior lady, and the others I met at Mah Jongg. I stopped playing for thirty five years and now we are have come full circle. We have also connected on a different level and have become friends. We all have our individual lives but when we see each other we thoroughly enjoy one another and have fun. They are also wonderfully supportive of me as an author.

So is this the way it is supposed to be? Is it me who has let them go or is it them that have let me go? Is it because we change over the years or is it because I have not been a good friend or accepting of their ways.

I often thought how great it would be to bring all of my old friends together. Maybe we can all get in a circle and play what we used to play in grammar school. I don’t like you because: But even told the truth, at this late date would we change or should I just be grateful for who I was and who they were at the time. Are relationships meant to last?

For more information about Carol Sue Gershman’s blog tour here.

Story strumpet, tome loving tart, eccentric night owl…these are all words that can describe freelance writer and erotic romance author Roxanne Rhoads.

When not fulfilling one the many roles being a wife and mother of three require, Roxanne’s world revolves around words…reading them, writing them, editing them, and talking about them. In addition to writing her own stories she loves to read and review what others write. She operates a book review site, Fang-tastic Books, dedicated to her favorite type of book- anything paranormal. Her favorite genres are paranormal romance and urban fantasy but she’ll read just about anything featuring vampires, ghosts, witches and whatnot.

Roxanne writes everything from articles to web content as a freelance writer and poet. Her erotic and romance stories and poems have appeared in Playgirl Magazine, several print anthologies, in ebooks and on numerous Web sites including: JustusRoux.com, OystersandChocolate.com, TheEroticWoman.com, FortheGirls.com, AssociatedContent.com/roxanne, BareBackMag.com, LucreziaMagazine.com, and RuthiesClub.com

She has several ebooks available through Eternal Press: Tasty Christmas Treats, Eternal Desire, the soon to be published Insatiable and 2 of her short paranormal erotic stories appear in the anthology Sexy Paranormal Bedtime Stories. All of these can be purchased in print at Amazon.com.

Her story “The First Brick” appears in Lasting Lust: An Anthology of Kinky Couples in Love available at RavenousRomance.com

A double shot of her paranormal erotica- Torrid Teasers Volume 59 is available through Whiskey Creek Press Torrid.

When not reading or writing Roxanne loves to hang out with her family, craft, garden and search for unique vintage finds.

You can visit her at www.roxannesrealm.blogspot.com and www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com.

About Eternal Desire

Liz Beth, a paranormal researcher, is haunted by the seductive vampire, Quillon, who may or may not be real. She arrives in New Orleans the week of Halloween to search for the elusive vampire of her dreams and instead encounters a handsome stranger, Christien, with whom she begins a passionate affair with.

In New Orleans at Halloween anything is possible.

To read a blurb, go here.

View the trailer:

The novella is scheduled to be released October 7, 2009 through EternalPress.ca.
E-books can be purchased at EternalPress.ca, Fictionwise.com and BarnesandNoble.com
Print copies can be purchased at Amazon.com

Guest Blog by Roxanne Rhoads

I guess I’ve always been attracted to the dark side, even when I was really young my favorite things were witchy, spooky and creepy. I can remember rushing home every day after to school to watch Scooby Doo my all time favorite cartoon. I laugh at my husband because he said he couldn’t watch Scooby when he was little because it scared him. He still isn’t a big fan of scary movies either. Though he can handle going to all the crazy Halloween haunted houses when I can’t. Weird.

Anyway, I digress.

When I was a child my bookshelves were lined with all kinds of creepy, spooky and scary ghost stories and kids books about Halloween and anything just a little supernatural. By the time I was 10 I was already reading Steven King and Dean Koontz.

I loved watching Tales from the Darkside, Twilight Zone, and of course- reruns of The Munsters and The Addams Family. Morticia Addams and Lily Munster were idols of mine, dark, scary, beautiful. Especially the original Morticia (not so much Angelica Houston).

Then later came Elvira- now there was a frightening figure of femininity that men everywhere lusted after.

The “Otherness” portrayed by these women was always intensely sexual. Lily was a nurturing mother but like mother nature her sexuality was apparent. Morticia was always appeared so slinky and darkly beautiful, and the refreshing flirtation between her and Gomez is something to hope for in a relationship isn’t it? And Elvira, well, she was just sex incarnate wasn’t she?

Did you know that Lily and Herman Munster were the first television couple to actually appear in bed together and Morticia and Gomez were always sexy and flirtatious while all the other couples on television sit coms during that time period (1960s) had no apparent sex lives and were never seen in bed together. With television showing such bland lifestyles how could you not want dark sexiness in your world?

For a little girl who dreamed of wild times and fantastic places emulating the dark beauties promised a much more interesting life.

And now look at the popularity of paranormal erotica and paranormal erotic romance today. These books are flying off the shelves. A lot of people are catching on to the allure of the dark side of sex and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

For those fans of vampires and other supernatural sexiness I hope you’ll like my new novella, Eternal Desire.

Here’s a quick blurb:

Liz Beth, a paranormal researcher, is haunted by the seductive vampire, Quillon, who may or may not be real. She arrives in New Orleans the week of Halloween to search for the elusive vampire of her dreams and instead encounters a handsome stranger, Christien, with whom she begins a passionate affair with.

In New Orleans at Halloween anything is possible.

E-books can be purchased at EternalPress.ca, Fictionwise.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Print copies can be purchased at Amazon.com

Would you like to win a free pdf of Eternal Desire?

Then tell me: What character, from books, movies, or television is the most darkly sexual? What supernatural character would you gladly cross over to the darkside for?

I have loved a lot of vampires, but on television I really loved Henry from Blood Ties. He portrayed such a strong character that didn’t apologize for who or what he was. Now I am loving Mitchell from Being Human. Dark and brooding and I love the hint of the Irish accent that is apparent from time to time.

Make sure to leave your contact info so I can send you the book if you win. Thanks.

Bob Brooker and Kaye O’Dougherty have been adventuring together for a lot of years now. They first met at a recording studio on 42nd Street. Yes, that 42nd Street. They recorded a commercial for E.J. Korvette’s, who went out of business soon thereafter.

Bob is an old saloon singer who, as Bobby Brookes, recorded for Victor and Capital back in the day. Kaye has trouble carrying a tune in a bucket. Nevertheless, over the years, as Brooker and O’Dougherty, the two have collaborated on a variety of theater projects, performing, writing, directing, managing, and producing. In keeping with the changing times, they have even created a cyber alter-ego named eBobb.

Recently, Bob and Kaye both took long-overdue turns at being rather mature college kids. Kaye now holds a Bachelors Degree in the Humanities from St. Peter’s College in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Bob was graduated magna cum laude from Montclair State University with a BA in Theater, and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

For more information:
Footballforlovers.com
Blog

About Football is for Lovers

The good news is that Football is for Lovers makes the basics so . . . well, so basic that learning the game is easy as eating an ice cream cone. And just as much fun.

With anecdotes, illustrations, and a lot of laughs, Football is for Lovers not only makes it easy to understand the game, but also shows you how to put an end to the TV clicker wars, improve your relationship, and spice up your love life.

It just takes looking at the game of football a little bit differently.

Then again, since Football is for Lovers contains references to football great Jerry Rice in a pink tutu, images of paintings by French artist Jean Dubuffet, an alert about the dangers of speaking Northeastern Mandarin, an explanation of the value of M & M’s in a relationship, and a Burma Shave sign, to say it looks at football “a little bit differently” may be something of an understatement.

But if your football-obsessed partner has been making you a ‘football widow’ from August NFL pre-season through the February Super-Bowl, thus convincing you that you hate football, this little book may be just the ‘different look’ you need to discover that, after all, Football really is for Lovers!

Guest Post by Robert Brooker & Kathleen O’Dougherty

When you hear that a shared cause can keep a relationship flourishing, more than likely what springs to mind is sharing Grand Things like stamping out global hunger, or achieving world peace.

Sharing football is likely not to have made it into your top ten.

But maybe football deserves a recount.

And no: we’re not just saying that because we wrote Football is for Lovers.

Actually, it’s more why we wrote Football is for Lovers.

It occurred to us that many of you may not have made the connection between the condition of your relationship and the condition of the planet.

Which brings us back to what we see as the key to a truly electric relationship: sharing.

Sadly, we appear to be to the ill-manner born. From the time we’re mere babes, we’re pretty much gimme sort of guys. Ever see the frown on the face of a toddler when she’s told she has to share her Tommy the Talking Truck with her playmate?

Ah, but then we fall in love. And we realize – amazingly! – that we are actually seeing someone else as being at least as important to us as we are to ourselves!!!

Wow!!!

Better than that: it doesn’t just feel good. It feels positively EUPHORIC!!!

Egos melt. Suddenly, we want to give our dearly beloved the world!! Hey, he can have our Tommy the Talking Truck if he wants it.

Because now we see – no, make that now we feel – how wonderful sharing can be.

But we’re willing to bet that you still don’t see the connection between Tommy, football, and World Peace.

Well, there is one.

And since we’re also betting that you’re feeling just a bit skeptical along about now, we’re bringing in the Big Guns: Vladimir Solovyov. Hey, with a name like that, you just gotta take him seriously, yes?

Well, you should. He’s considered to be one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century.

Vladimir said, “. . . sexual love is the highest flowering of individual life.” Oh, that Vladimir!

But more than that, he said that love is “the beginning of the embodiment of true ideal humanity.”

That is, Vladimir sees this human physical love of ours as the doorway to that true ideal humanity that really would feed the hungry and end all war.

Didn’t know you had it in you, did you?!

Okay. So love is a heck of a lot more heavyweight than you thought it was. But still: why football?

We say, why not? Isn’t it a grand way to ease yourself into the bigger stuff? It can rev up all that sharing energy you’ll need for those anti-war protests and collecting canned goods to send to Wall Street.

Don’t understand the game? If you’re a little shaky on the fundamentals, Football is for Lovers will teach you all you need to know. Quick and easy.

So let yourself go! Cheer! Hug! Roll around on the rug a little.

The world is counting on you!