1st Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card 2nd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack filled with paperbacks, ebooks, bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!
And, you’ll find more prizes on each of the blogs. My prize is anauthorgraphed copyof any of my four ebooks.Your choice!
As always,be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
One last bit of luck lore — the kiss! As far as humans go, a kiss expresses sentiments of love, passion, friendship, and affection. In many cultures, a kiss is also an overture of peace. On top of all that, a kiss is a symbol of good luck.
As a writer of romance, I work out the mechanics of kisses with words. The following is my favorite kiss from my first novel, Hermes Online. In this scene Vivienne writes out her ideal kiss to her new penpal, the enigmatic man she knows only as S. It’s my favorite because I wrote the kiss from life. Yes, the kiss in the museum is based upon a real kiss I shared with my then new boyfriend at Chicago’s Field Museum 36 years ago. We’ve been together a long time he and I, so I’d say the kiss was lucky!
I hope you enjoy.
I flexed my fingers and crafted a scene from the sizzling phantom fire playing over my lips. Having experienced amazing kisses in my life added just enough realism to the blend of movie kisses. I told the screen, “So, you want a kiss, eh? Then what will you think of this?”
S,
There is so much more to kissing for the first time than meets the eye. The would-be lovers laugh and smile and delight in each other’s company. They talk, getting to know each other, trying to find the choicest morsels of their life and personality to share. They might hold hands for hours as they wander here and there. And when they sit side by side, perhaps on a bench at a museum, they’ll look in feigned interest at the passersby, glance again and again at the exhibit, but not really seeing it. First, one will turn inward, the movement slight, barely noticeable. And then with no clear knowledge of doing so, the one will magically mirror the other. Their knees may touch, and one set of clasped hands might rest innocently upon a knee. And then a noise, a temporary distraction, might take their attention for a second, and both heads will turn to the sound, inadvertently closer now than before. When one turns back, their faces will be mere inches apart. Their eyes, green and gray, will hold each other’s gazes, darting from one sparkling pupil to the other. They might unfocus to drink in the entire face for a second, perhaps lingering on the person’s smile before meeting the gaze once more, a gaze noticeably warmer than a moment ago.
One face may turn a little, and in mirrored image, the other follows, only slightly tipped in the opposite direction. And the eyes ask the silent question as two thoughts become superimposed — May I kiss you? Will you kiss me? The answer is subtle, missed by nearly everyone passing by, everyone save the smiling elder couple holding gnarled hands and assisted by their canes. Perhaps they, too, once shared a kiss sitting there, or plan to again later. But locked in their own world, they don’t notice the elder pair walk by.
They are aware now only of each other, aware of little things, the flush on her cheeks, the gleam in his eye, the color of her moist lips, the imperceptible flare of his nostrils as he subconsciously reminds his body to breathe. They touch now. The kiss is at first soft, the lips asking permission for the firmness they crave. Another kiss grants this and another and another as faces turn to fit around chins and cheeks and noses. And then loose and pliable, those lips part now to make way for tentative tongues. These too begin their searching, gently at first then becoming bolder as they instinctively react to the warmth of each other’s mouths and thrust as hands cup cheeks and arms wind around shoulders, drawing each other ever inward into the private space that shuts the waking world out and lets the dream begin.
V
Why not visit all the blogs today? And…be sure to comment with your email to win!
When you’re all done visiting the Lucky in Love authors today, stop by my satellite blog for a full 1st chapter from Book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo saga.My Other Blog I’m taking part in The Romance Reviews 2nd Anniversary Party, my part comes at the end of the month. Lots of prizes and one from me too. Learn the details there.
Feeling Lucky? I am. I’ve recently launched a new novel — The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo (Book2 Eluwilussit) Because of that, I’m doing two things at once on my blog today — the Sneak Peek Sunday AND the Lucky in Love Blog Hop.
First, here’s my Sneak Peek – Setting the Stage: It’s the morning after Ash’s declaration of love for Livie. He’s also confessed he’s been living in her house as the wolfish dog she accidentally hit with her car. In this scene, he tells her the ancient shaman who murdered his wife and unborn child 3000 years before still lives.
“What do you mean, we must leave?” So distracted since Ash had come to her door last night, she’d completely forgotten Cora’s words. She remembered them now. He told me to go home and pack. We’re headed north to the reservation. She asked suddenly, “Ash, why did John and Cora go to the reservation?”
“I sent them there.”
Olivia considered those words. While Ash looked at least ten years younger than John, he was actually an elder — elder was an understatement — and John had the deepest respect for his elders. If Ash had sent them north, he’d go with little or no questions asked. She, however, needed answers. “Why?”
He covered both of her hands in his. “Remember the story John told yesterday, the story of my life as it once was? There was a man—”
“Aiyanna’s murderer?”
Ash nodded. “Long ago when I knew the man, his name was Eluwilussit.”
You can’t beat 2 grand prizes, unless you add in 300 additional prizes! And that’s what you’ll find on the other blogs. My prize is anauthorgraphed copyof any of my five ebooks.Your choice!
1st Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card 2nd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack filled with paperbacks, ebooks, bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!
(And, you’ll find more prizes on each of the blogs.) As always,be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
So to finish my discussion of three, as represented by the three-leaf clover, I did a little research. From Poseidon’s Trident to Odin’s Trefot, significant threes have always been around. The ancient civilizations were full of them. Just off the top of my head I have: three Fates, three Furies, three Graces, the three-headed dog Cereus guarded Hades, and the three trials of Jesus.
The number three figured prominently in Euclidian geometry too. This is the mathematical system attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid. In other words, we wouldn’t have triangles without three. I won’t even go into pi or Fibonacci.
On the fun side, the number 3 is the mystical, magical, and spiritual number featured in many folktales. Aladdin gets three wishes from the genie. The queen only gets three guesses to figure out Rumpelstiltskin’s name. Goldilocks takes advantage of the three bears, and the three billy goats gruff do a number on the troll. Three little kittens lost their mittens, three blind mice go wandering, and we can’t forget that Winkin, Blinkin and Nod went to sea, or the Butcher, Baker, the Candlestick maker all took a bath in a tub. What’s more, we all know what happens to the three little pigs and their shoddy home construction. Fun stuff, three.
As far as three goes. I experimented with three in my own writing and painted a broader portrait of love in Loving Leonardo. My Victorian trio’s tale continues with the soon-to-be released Loving Leonardo – The Quest.
>>><<<
Tomorrow…blurbs! Be sure to visit all the blogs each day — you never know what you’ll find.
And…be sure to comment with your email to win!
When you’re all done visiting the Lucky in Love authors,
stop by my satellite blog for a full 1st chapter from Book 1.
I’m taking part in The Romance Reviews 2nd Anniversary Party,
my part comes at the end of the month.
Lots of prizes, and one from me too. Learn the details there.
1st Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card 2nd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack filled with paperbacks, ebooks, bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more! And, you’ll find more prizes on each of the blogs. As always,be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
“If a man walking in the fields find any four-leaved grass, he shall in a small while after find some good thing.” – Sir John Melton More on lucky clover ~ So the odds of a four-leaf clover existing are estimated to be 1 mutation to 10,000 normal three-leaf clovers. As mentioned yesterday, the rare occurrence makes them special. (Sort of like how platinum occurs less frequently than aluminum, so that ring is worth more than your Pepsi can.) Each leaf on the four-leaf clover represents something: one for faith, one for hope, one for love, and one for luck. But there was a time when humble three-leaf clover held its own special meaning.
To the ancient Celts, the three leaves represented the goddess triads, that is, it represented the Mother of All in three divine forms or aspects — the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. It represented the the cycle of all things — birth, life, and death. The beginning, middle, and end. The past, present, future. To the Celts, carrying a clover talisman allowed you a measure of protection from malevolent spirits that brought hardship, illness and harm (another 3!) . These things of ill-will were made visible by the clover charm and if you could see them, you could avoid them.
After the Christian church appropriated the Celtic charm, it became associated with the Trinity — father, son, and holy ghost. This association is said to have been devised by St Patrick himself.
>>>OoOoO<<<
About Me~
I love words and choose them as carefully as an artist might choose a color. My active imagination compels me to write everything from children’s stories to historical nonfiction. As a persnickety leisure reader, I especially enjoy novels that feel like they were written just for me. It’s hard to explain, but if you’ve ever read one of those, then you know what I mean. I tend to sneak symbolism and metaphor into my writing. You might say it’s a game I play with myself when I write. And I so love when readers email to say they’ve found something. I’d like people to feel my stories were written just for them, for that’s the truth. These hidden insights are my gift to my readers.
My book teasers on youtube. All four stories are uniquely different.
Tomorrow…I’ll post about the significance of three around the world and across disciplines. Be sure to visit all the blogs each day — you never know what you’ll find.
Be sure to comment with your email to win!
I have a new release!
The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo
(Book2 Eluwilussit)
When you’re all done visiting the Lucky in Love authors,
stop by my satellite blog for a full 1st chapter from Book 1.
I’m taking part in The Romance Reviews 2nd Anniversary Party,
my part comes at the end of the month.
Lots of prizes and one from me too. Learn the details there. My Other Blog
1st Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card 2nd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack filled with paperbacks, ebooks, bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!
(And, you’ll find more prizes on each of the blogs.) As always,be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
So what’s the big deal about a four-leaf clover? Aside from the perplexing “luck” of a dead rabbit’s foot, no other symbol says luck like the four-leaf clover. Why? Because clover, aka trifolium, is by nature a three-leafed plant, and that makes extra leaves uncommon. You know how some people seem to have fortune in one form or another always smiling on them, while others seem to walk around with their own personal storm cloud over their heads? Well, I have a theory that goes with the rarity of extra leaves on clover — Not everyone can be lucky at the same time. Think about it. If they were, there would be no unlucky to contrast lucky with. Therefore no one would be lucky! Luck needs to be rare so we feel fortunate and lucky when it’s ours. LOL I’m a writer. I ponder these things! But there’s good news for the unlucky among us – four-leaf clovers are uncommon, but not impossible to find. Just about every patch of clover has at least one extra leaf buried in the normal clump.
Living with the same patch of clover in my yard for approximately 25 years, I was completely unaware of the luck just waiting to be plucked. My eyes opened the day we had a guest who’d been a an expert clover hunter as a child. He proceeded to find one, then another, and another. He went on to explain that the genetic variation that produces extra leaves, will continue to produce extra leaves for the life of the plant. And as they all flower, pollinate, and seed in the same spot, the likelihood of the trait recurring exists. True? I don’t know, but that made sense to me. His explanation seemed to fit my experience with the clover patch. I looked and sure enough, I found one, then another, then one with 7 leaves. Every year, the odd clover comes back, though some years produce more multiple leaves than other years. So…do I feel extraordinarily lucky? Yes I do. I’ve been lucky in love, lucky in family and friends, lucky in my place in the world. Fortunate indeed. Everyone knows it can always be worse!
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most leaves on a single clover stem is 56! Wow. Shigeo Obara of Japan found it 2009. He’s also the previous record holder in this category. That clover had 19 leaves. Makes me wonder how lucky he is! Extra details here: Guinness World Records: most-leaves-on-a-clover
Tomorrow…I’ll post about lucky traditions associated with three-leafed clover. Be sure to visit all the blogs each day — you never know what you’ll find.
And…be sure to comment with your email to win!
I have a new release!
The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo
(Book2 Eluwilussit)
When you’re all done visiting the Lucky in Love authors,
stop by my satellite blog for a full 1st chapter from Book 1.
I’m taking part in The Romance Reviews 2nd Anniversary Party,
my part comes at the end of the month.
Lots of prizes, and one from me too. Learn the details there. My Other Blog
It’s day three of the Swept Away Valentine Blog Hop!Follow this link to over 140 authors and the prizes given away on each of their blogs. As always, be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
My prize is anauthorgraphed copy of my most recent release The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo – a tale about an ancient Native American shaman who finds love in the modern world.
So what better to sweep you away than love at first sight?
Here’s a bit from Loving Leonardo the new 2012 CataNetwork Sensual Reads Reviewer’s Choice Winner in Historical Romance. It’s an unusual bisexual, polyamorous, Victorian love story with a touch of reader-interactive art history. After hopping with all of us, hop on over to Amazon and take a peek inside: Loving Leonardo
I sat Ellie and pulled a chair for Mrs. Ormont as she waited for her husband. A moment later, Colonel Ormont brought the historian to our table and made introductions. Luca Franco, late of Florence, was a Professor of Antiquities returning from London. I found the Italian quite the attractive fellow, impeccably dressed as he was. When in the presence of true beauty, my mind often imagines the person unclothed as the artists of the ages might have seen him. Sitting at my table was a statue carved in marble by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; an artist known for his remarkable ability to capture the essence of a narrative moment. And I found Luca Franco to be exactly that — a moment indelibly captured in time — a moment of meeting the mind could revisit in its entirety.
From every angle, he was beautifully made: black-haired, of medium build, and physically fit. He possessed a warm hue to his skin, his lineage no doubt stamped centuries past by the darker Moors or Turks. In startling contrast, and quite handsomely framed by black lashes, he had striking eyes the color one might see in a shadow falling across snow — not quite sky blue nor exactly steel gray, but a blending of the two in gradated rings.
I rose to shake his hand and felt the unmistakable current of compatibility. If this man weren’t forward in his mutual attraction, it was there nonetheless. I watched him bow over the ladies’ hands and found it curious that he lingered over Ellie’s fingers a tad longer. It made me smile. I had the distinct impression I was in the presence of a fellow dual-nature like myself.
It’s day two of the Swept Away Valentine Blog Hop!Follow this link to over 140 authors and the prizes given away on each of their blogs. As always, be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
My prize is anauthorgraphed copy of my most recent release The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo – a tale about an ancient Native American shaman who finds love in the modern world.
So what better to sweep you away than a kiss?
Here’s my favorite PG kiss from my first novel Hermes Online. Vivienne describes a kiss for her penpal. After hopping with all of us, hop on over to Amazon and take a peek inside: Hermes Online
I closed the Word document and absently twirled my hair, lost in thought. There was so much of me in there, even the decorations in the house said much about me. The fact that Lily looks identical to me was rather Freudian too, come to think. I laughed out loud at the thought. It’s funny how our subconscious mind tells us what’s what sometimes. The subconscious mind intuits what the conscious mind misses at first glance. Yes, the story was a whim, and who would have thought six years later, it would help me find my way back to myself? I wished in that moment my pen pal stood right here so I could say thank you. I’d thank him for lighting the match that eventually relit the candle of my self-confidence. I’d kiss him for real.
I pressed my fingers to my lips, imagining this curious and compelling green-eyed, chestnut-haired, large-handed, well-endowed man kissing me. And unbelievably, my panties got soaking wet. I flexed my fingers and crafted a scene from the sizzling phantom fire playing over my lips.
Having experienced amazing kisses in my life added just enough realism to the blend of movie kisses. I told the screen, “So, you want a kiss, eh? Then what will you think of this?”
S,
There is so much more to kissing for the first time than meets the eye. The would-be lovers laugh and smile and delight in each other’s company. They talk, getting to know each other, trying to find the choicest morsels of their life and personality to share. They might hold hands for hours as they wander here and there. And when they sit side by side, perhaps on a bench at a museum, they’ll look in feigned interest at the passersby, glance again and again at the exhibit, but not really seeing it. First, one will turn inward, the movement slight, barely noticeable. And then with no clear knowledge of doing so, the one will magically mirror the other. Their knees may touch, and one set of clasped hands might rest innocently upon a knee. And then a noise, a temporary distraction, might take their attention for a second, and both heads will turn to the sound, inadvertently closer now than before. When one turns back, their faces will be mere inches apart. Their eyes, green and gray, will hold each other’s gazes, darting from one sparkling pupil to the other. They might unfocus to drink in the entire face for a second, perhaps lingering on the person’s smile before meeting the gaze once more, a gaze noticeably warmer than a moment ago.
One face may turn a little, and in mirrored image, the other follows, only slightly tipped in the opposite direction. And the eyes ask the silent question as two thoughts become superimposed — May I kiss you? Will you kiss me? The answer is subtle, missed by nearly everyone passing by, everyone save the smiling elder couple holding gnarled hands and assisted by their canes. Perhaps they, too, once shared a kiss sitting there, or plan to again later. But locked in their own world, they don’t notice the elder pair walk by.
They are aware now only of each other, aware of little things, the flush on her cheeks, the gleam in his eye, the color of her moist lips, the imperceptible flare of his nostrils as he subconsciously reminds his body to breathe. They touch now. The kiss is at first soft, the lips asking permission for the firmness they crave. Another kiss grants this and another and another as faces turn to fit around chins and cheeks and noses. And then loose and pliable, those lips part now to make way for tentative tongues. These too begin their searching, gently at first then becoming bolder as they instinctively react to the warmth of each other’s mouths and thrust as hands cup cheeks and arms wind around shoulders, drawing each other ever inward into the private space that shuts the waking world out and lets the dream begin. V
Little did I realize when I began this kissing scene that I would abandon the amalgamated movie kisses. I stopped and read those words, my words, my kiss. That kiss had been real, as had the love behind it. My eyes filled with tears, but I sent it on. Feeling alone, I rose from my chair and walked away.
Ah Cupid, you busy little fellow.Today begins the Swept Away Valentine Blog Hop! Follow this link to over 140 authors and the prizes given away on each of their blogs. As always, be sure to leave your email address when you leave comments.
My prize is an authorgraphed copy of my most recent release The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo – a tale about an ancient Native American shaman who finds love in the modern world. You’ll find the trailer further down in this post.
So let’s talk Cupid.
Depending on which mythology you ascribe to, this pudgy little deity is the immortal son of Venus (Aphrodite) and Mars (Ares) – an allegorical blending of love and war. Because he was the uniting power of love and therefore the bringer of order and harmony to the universe, some mythic tales make him a fundamental contributor in the formation of the world. A little known detail that gets overlooked as the lover’s holiday approaches: Cupid carries two arrows in his quiver – one of love and another of hate.
To the Orphic and Greek philosophers, he was the son of Nyx (Night) and Boreas the North Wind – the first complete manifestation of Divinity. In other depictions, Cupid is considered a primordial god – an old one who came before Zeus and even before Zeus’ grandparents Gaia and Uranus. From the very beginning, even before the fabric of the universe was woven, Cupid personified love.
As his Roman counterpart Eros, he was known far and wide as the god of passionate love, and fertility cults, among other things, rose in his honor. Some tales even have him with multiple heads, four eyes and various animal attributes. In other mythic versions, Cupid is blindfolded, and only the truest hearts will draw his blindly shot arrows. I had no idea Cupid was such a multifaceted little amorino.
When I met the love of my life, it was literally love at first sight for us both. I wasn’t looking, he wasn’t looking. It was fate. The arrow struck us both and it was totally unexpected. I write that love in my romances. I can see Cupid in my mind’s eye… his arrow notched on his bow. He’s tucked behind a tree or rock, poised to let his charmed arrow fly at just the right moment. When it hits, it’s totally unanticipated. It’s fate. Sometimes love is like that. Sometimes love waits in unexpected places.
After a short hiatus filled with guest spots and interviews, book covers, and wrapping up a sequel, I’m back to the blog and taking part in the Heartbreaker Blog Hop this week. This looks like a fun one.
The theme, of course, is the heartbreaker.
300 authors have giveaways on their blogs and scrumptious posts dedicated to those the Urban Dictionary defines as — A person who can break hearts easily. Because they are so beautiful, everyone wants them. But not everyone can have them. Follow this link to a huge list of participants. http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/
The Heartbreaker Hop has 3 grand prizes. Be sure to go to EACH blog and comment with your email address to be entered to win. You can enter 300 times if you like! Take a gander at these prizes:
1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet 2nd Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card 3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!Gotta love swag!
So what’s my prize? An ebook copy of my first novel Hermes Online a CataRomance Sensual Reads Reviewer’s Choice Winner So…in keeping with the theme, Hermes Online just happens to have a heartbreaker! Here’s Vivienne’s cherished memory:
Loving a Heartbreaker:
Once in my life, and granted it had been nearly a half dozen years ago, I had been kissed just like that. The kind of kiss that throws your back to the wall and sends buttons flying from clothing in a fevered race to shed them just so your skin could make contact with his, to send that kiss to every nerve in your body. Remembering my short-lived romance in Greece, I sighed. That was real. I trembled, I shook, I think I even cried out in the throes of passion. It had been glorious and he had been magnificent. My heart fluttered over images I had stored away, keepsakes of wild romantic love and hot sizzling sex. A man who knew how to really make love was a gift. That man was like Christmas morning.
Yes, I’d felt that once. My chest constricted with the memory of the architectural study tour one magical autumn in Greece and the amazing man assigned to my class. Wincing, I remembered the circumstance that ended the budding transcontinental relationship begun with such wonderful potential. My sensually handsome teacher had proposed to a woman he had been in a long relationship with just prior to leaving for Greece.
Neither of us planned to fall in love. It just happened when we found ourselves separated from the rest of the tour on the island of Delos. Waiting for the next ferry, we discovered a connection, one the entire pantheon of gods must have had a hand in, for it was incredibly beyond our control. But as blissful as that week had been, I knew from the onset there was no hope for anything else between us. His prior commitment was on the table. As surely as the seasons turn, my month-long class was over and with it came a return to cold reality. I felt his loss even now. As brief as our intense liaison had been, I had loved that man and he loved me and it was the kind of love you only got once in a lifetime. Broken-hearted, I left Greece without looking back and I didn’t leave my contact information for future study tours just in case I’d meet him again as a married man.
Today’s the last day of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. There’s still time for one lucky winner to win the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and for two winners to win $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites:Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound
My post can still be found in the Life section of the USA Today in the Happy Ever After Blog. There I explain how I came to write The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo — a story inspired by the urban legend of the Wisconsin wolf man. Here’s the link for a quick peek:
The theme for this Hop is naughty and/or new. With naughty in mind, I consulted Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com to gain some insight on the word. In case you hadn’t heard this before, the thesaurus declares naughty a pretty impressive word. So am offering peeks into my stories through the naughty lens. Yesterday wasevil naughty (yes, the thesaurus says evil is a synonym of naughty), the day before unorthodox naughty, the we started with playful naughty. Today is errantnaughty. Errant, as in straying from proper standards.
Today I’d like to introduce an errant naughty snippet from Hermes Online - the CataRomance Sensual Reads Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner of 2011. Hermes Online was deliberately crafted to capture a publisher’s attention, and it did. This is the novel that opened the door to my becoming a multi-published author. Overcome by a broken heart and a confidence-shattering breakup, Vivienne tells the story in her perspective. But first, here’s the book trailer to explain the details –
S and Vivienne are enjoying their daily email exchanges. She’s lived the last several months in a drab haze of self-doubt, but S sets in motion an inner healing when he asks her to describe her self in full-colored, richly-worded, detail. At this point, the tenor of their conversation is beginning to change. There’s some wooing going on! In this scene, a good bit of conversation you’re not seeing here has taken place in S’s email.
…..And now I suspect there is far more to you than you realize, dearest V. Your sensual nature filled in where your paints left off, but is there more color to be had, I wonder?
Let’s take this further, shall we?For tomorrow… I enjoy kissing. Wield your pen. Describe a kiss from your luscious pink lips, and I shall do the same. Tell me, how do you sleep? Do your linens caress your bare skin? If not, allow yourself this treat tonight. For now, sweet dreams, lovely one.
S
I turned off the computer feeling that nature-driven lassitude that makes a woman drowsy after her climax. Smiling inside, I headed to bed. While I stood in my bathroom brushing my teeth, I eyed the hook that held my nightgown. I thought about his words. Never in my life did I recall deliberately sleeping nude. Yes, at various times after intimate exchanges in my past relationships, I fell asleep as naked as the body next to mine, but never did I set out to sleep without pajamas or nightgown at the end of the day. For some reason, the simple thought felt rather heady.
Being one of those people who actually takes the two minutes each morning to make my bed, for no other reason than not wanting to sleep in a jumble of sheets and blankets at the end of the day, I left the nightgown on the hook and turned down the sheets. My skin felt very hyper-aware as I stripped from the robe and snuggled in. The fabric softener scent lingered on my cotton sheets still, and the smooth flat surface of the fitted sheet felt cool against the remnant of my earlier sexual fever. I rolled over on my belly, one leg bent, one arm hugging the spare pillow that gave the illusion I didn’t sleep alone. I laid there assessing. My whole being felt lighter. For the first time in a year, I didn’t give Dan power over my dreams.
* * * *
I woke the following morning realizing I didn’t wake in the middle of the night as was my habit. In fact, I slept like the proverbial rock. It had been months since I slept through the three o’clock grief hour, that subconscious middle of the night wake-up call experienced by the grieving. As I took a languid stretch, I briefly contemplated revisiting last night’s date with the electric company. The corners of my mouth turned into a smile at the thought. Not now, I said to myself, tucking the option away and thinking I just might bring myself off later. The anticipation of another sensually charged email grabbed me. I found I relished the idea of writing…and reading…a kiss.
Later in the day I received a call from the county board president. It seemed my thoughts on creative reuse of the old Hornsby mansion had stirred more than one imagination on the board. In fact, so intrigued were they by my proposal that the house coming down was on hold for the time being. He wanted to let me know that my idea had become an agenda item on the special meeting he called this coming Thursday. Then to my ultimate surprise he paid me a compliment. “Honestly, Vivienne, I just have to tell you, I haven’t seen an idea come out of Planning and Development with this much potential in years. Your idea was inspired.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. For one, they’d suspended the tear-down, two, they’d called a special meeting, three, the board members I’d met with the other day had spoken favorably to their contemporaries, and four, I’d just gotten an extremely rare compliment from a guy who probably never even said “good boy” to the family dog. My idea was inspired!
Filled with possibility as I was, the ride home from work had my lips tingling as scenes from the world’s best movie kisses played over my head. To me the best were desperate I’ll-die-if-I-don’t-kiss-you kisses. My mind played with the concept for a mile or so.
Once in my life, and granted it had been nearly a half dozen years ago, I had been kissed just like that. The kind of kiss that throws your back to the wall and sends buttons flying from clothing in a fevered race to shed them just so your skin could make contact with his, to send that kiss to every nerve in your body.
Yes, I’d felt that once. My chest constricted with the memory of the architectural study tour one magical autumn in Greece and the amazing man assigned to my class. Wincing, I remembered the circumstance that ended the budding transcontinental relationship begun with such wonderful potential. My sensually handsome teacher had proposed to a woman he had been in a long relationship with just prior to leaving for Greece.
Neither of us planned to fall in love. It just happened when we found ourselves separated from the rest of the tour on the island of Delos. Waiting for the next ferry, we discovered a connection, one the entire pantheon of gods must have had a hand in, for it was incredibly beyond our control. But as blissful as that week had been, I knew from the onset there was no hope for anything else between us. His prior commitment was on the table. As surely as the seasons turn, my month-long class was over and with it came a return to cold reality. I felt his loss even now. As brief as our intense liaison had been, I had loved that man and he loved me and it was the kind of love you only got once in a lifetime. Broken-hearted, I left Greece without looking back and I didn’t leave my contact information for future study tours just in case I’d meet him again as a married man.
My tenuous emotional state couldn’t bear lingering here. In self-defense, I shook the bittersweet thought away and flipped on a talk radio station with its topic on how to get raccoons out from under your porch. Ignoring the rush hour traffic under my forced emotional silence, I got off at my exit and let my mind open to the conversation the experts were sharing with listeners. Twenty minutes went by as I learned about the nocturnal habits of raccoons. Who knew? The uninvited raccoons were exactly the distraction I hoped for as my sad thoughts of lost love sunk back into the dusty scrapbook of my memory. Three miles later, raccoons and opening deer season cleared my mind enough to think about the present. I turned the radio off and got to work crafting my perfect kiss, attempting to borrow from Hollywood rather than personal experience.
I settled on the fiddle-tempo kiss from Last of the Mohicans and combined it with the wave-crashing beach kiss between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity. That was nice, intensely hot. I then superimposed the kiss in the rain from The Notebook, and a bit of the library-shelf-climbing kiss from Atonement. “Wow,” I said, feeling electrified from the image I had woven.
Taking only enough time to do all the odds and ends one must do, such as making dinner, changing into more comfortable clothing, seeing to a load of hand-wash-only laundry and other less pressing bits on my weekly to-do list, I kept my computer at arm’s length until I had enough of a kiss in mind to write about. Two hours later, my computer fired up and so did my mind. I had mail.
۞>>>>۞<<<<۞
Fun Fact: When I came up with the title for this novel, the only thought I had in mind was the Greek myth of Hermes delivering messages from the gods. Flash forward to today and emails magically appear in our inbox. Add to that the fact my character Vivienne went to Greece as a student and I was quite pleased with my unusual title. Notice I said was. The title has been a source of a few chuckles along the way. First off, just about everywhere I’d posted a guest blog post about this book in 2011, the host tells me they’ve had a tremendous amount of hits on their blog for that day. That was nice to learn.
I’m also signed up for Google Alerts which tells me when my title is mentioned on the internet. In theory that should work, right? To date I’ve never received notice of this book being anywhere, but I do get a DAILY notice of who’s selling Hermes handbags, purses, and clutches online! lol I suspect the uncharacteristically high volume of hits on all those blogs might have been from people hunting down handbags. Every once in a while someone will ask where the Greek gods are in the story. FYI: The gods are there, but it’s not their tale.
I’ll contact the winner of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo sometime this week. Thank you for joining me in the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop. Follow The blog hop link above to see who’s won the prizes.
Subscribe to my blog for updates, author and publishing insights, reviews, laurels and skinned knees, and just about anything that captures my fancy. And more Hops! I’m participating in two Valentines Day hops. I should have two new releases out by then too!
It’s day 3 of the Something New, Something Naughty Blog Hop.One lucky winner will receive the grand prize of a $60 gift certificate to EdenFantasys (adult store) and two other winners will receive a $25 gift certificates to their choice of the following book sites:Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, or Total-E-Bound
All the participants are offering prizes. For this hop, I’m offering an ebook copy of my latest –
book 1 of The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo.
Scroll back to my previous post to see the book trailer, or go to Amazon.com for a peek inside the book..or do both! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFFFESI
My post can still be found in the Life section of the USA Today in the Happy Ever After Blog. There I explain how I came to write The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo — a story inspired by the urban legend of the Wisconsin wolf man. Here’s the link for a quick peek:
So as mentioned before, this is a themed Hop. Post something naughty and/or new. The newest thing in my life has been the USA Today article. But for naughty, I consulted Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com to gain some insight on the word. I love words and often haunt dictionaries and encyclopedias looking for new ones. What I found was Naughty is a pretty impressive word as far as the thesaurus was concerned. I’m offering several shades of naughty from my books. Yesterday wasunorthodox naughty, the day before playful naughty, and today is evil naughty (yes, the thesaurus says evil is a synonym of naughty).
Today I’d like to introduce an evil naughty snippet from my Contemporary/Victorian ghost story Dreamscape. But first, here’s the book trailer –
In this scene, Lanie O’Keefe examines the derelict mansion she’s bought. Jason Bowen (deceased) watches the woman who’s moved into his house and remembers the treacherous wife responsible for his death more than 100 years before.
He’d watched the pair as they walked around the grounds with pens and paper in hand presumably making notes for repairs. While assessing the pavers that lined his walkway, she looked up at his window curiously as if seeking something. Jason frowned. Did she see him standing there? How odd. He could only be seen when he wanted to. And he did not yet wish to be seen.
After the man had driven away in his automobile, the woman retrieved her bags from another smaller vehicle. He watched her coming up the walkway only to take another glance his way. She was smiling.
Hmm.
Below, the front door opened and closed, so he headed there, curious about the woman who at this very moment was moving into his house. He was grateful for two things, the first being he’d no longer be alone with only an occasional mouse for company. The second, this young woman bore no resemblance to his beautiful, black-hearted wife.
He thought about her from time to time, his duplicitous wife Cathy, her lover Richard Mason, and his sister Bertha, his murderers. He spent many a night listening to their congratulatory recounting of how they’d set him up, duping him into marrying a woman who from the onset had a lover in the wings. Like the Masons, Cathy too was born and raised in the south at the time of reconstruction and was reared on tales of the glory days. Their sole purpose from the onset in taking his life was so she would inherit all.
When they met she had been such a sweet and shy little beauty, the shyness he later learned to be false. When she comforted him over the untimely death of his father, he’d been surprised by how quickly he fell head over heels for her. Though she’d never voiced it while he was alive, he was well aware of her desire to live in the affluent manner in which her parents and grandparents had lived before the war took it all away. To that end, seeking to win her timid heart and encourage the comfort that would eventually lead his wife into his bed, he gave into Cathy’s every whim. No more than two months had passed before he was compelled to offer her marriage. No more than four before he found himself dead with his spirit walking the halls.
He played the details of their courtship over and over in his mind, for what else did he have to occupy his thoughts? Cathy Ames had accepted his proposal eagerly, despite her less-than-enthusiastic response to his advances. These always met with a cool reserve he erroneously mistook for maidenly shyness. But Cathy didn’t possess a shy bone in her body. No, far from it. He’d seen them together in bed, his wife and his murderer. Seen for himself the eager way she spread her legs, the way she clutched his body to hers and treated him to a carnal knowledge that obviously developed from years of knowing. Not only did it shock his senses to see his shy wife play whore and play it well, it sickened him. What a fool he’d been. Because of that he kept to the only room they never visited—the cupola at the top of the house—and decades passed there with little concern, because time ceased to have meaning for the dead. Yes, they continued on with their merry lives, raised their foul brood, and got away with murder.
But all that changed with the last of them. Margaret, the great-granddaughter of his wife, and her accomplice had never married, and like the living, aged over time. He never minded Margaret Mason. How could he when she was as lonely as he? He appeared to her from time to time when the loneliness got the best of both of them. When she grew old, and became the last of Richard Mason’s miserable line, he eventually told her the truth of her great-grandparents’ treachery. The night she died in her sleep she called him to her side and told him she arranged her estate to his benefit as best she could. It was the least she could do after the wrong her family had done him.
Standing invisible on the stairway, he looked over his new house guest. What a pretty creature with her tight curves, porcelain skin, and lustrous raven hair. More than one hundred years had passed since a beautiful woman walked these halls, for Richard Mason sired unfortunate-looking souls who passed on their regrettable looks to each generation, including poor Margaret. Blood will out. Evil definitely had a way of marking the man’s legacy as surely as Cane himself had been marked.
Following her into the kitchen, he watched her rummage for pots. She filled them at the tap then heated the water on the stove. He leaned against the wall appraising her. In all the years of his life, and certainly all the years after, this had to be the most beautiful woman he’d laid eyes on. She wore tight clothing, far tighter than he recalled women’s clothing to be when he saw them on Margaret’s television device. In fact her blue trousers fit her like a glove. These declared her legs to be slender and shapely and her bottom delectably rounded. Her breasts sat high and firm, and he found himself imagining what she looked like unclothed. The thought surprised him. He certainly harbored no such notion when the Mason horde lived here.
Hmm. In this fair company, he found himself still very much a man, despite being a dead one.
Fun fact:On the outside, Dreamscape, with its haunted house and gentleman ghost, is a story set between two time periods. But on the inside, it’s actually much more than that. This unlikely love story is also a murder, a suspense, a mystery, a time travel (via dreams) and if all that wasn’t enough, it’s also an Easter egg hunt for readers. Easter eggs, in this sense, are intentionally hidden messages. I tried to make them as visible as I could and in such number that readers would say to themselves, Was that intentional? It must mean something!
Why did I write a secondary story running parallel to the ghost story? Growing up, I was a huge fan of author Agatha Christie’s work. Many of her books were filled with arrows pointing at clues. Some of these were veiled, some intentionally hidden in plain sight, and all pointed to the truth even if details around them said otherwise. I remember my delight the first time I discovered a clue left out in the open for the reader to trip over. With that moment of discovery in mind, I wrote Dreamscape to tickle the imagination while turning expectations on their ends. Tomorrow I’ll share another shade of naughty from Hermes Online.
Feeling Lucky?
Why not visit all the blogs today?
Rose Anderson ~ Love Waits in Unexpected Places
