Tantalizing Tuesday

T.L. Mitchell

To say this past week has been a "blur" is an understatement. Besides having gone by faster than I even noticed, with my new glasses falling apart and my using my older pairs, even more blurry than that. I used my previous pair which was 3 steps weaker than my new pair, and the transition back has been full of headaches, so I haven't done much reading. Then on Monday, yesterday, I remembered something that the doctor said about one of the other older pairs of glasses I still had sitting around. It was 2 steps stronger than my previous pair, which would make it only 1 step weaker than my new pair, so I put them on. After most of the day, I noticed a reduction in headaches and was finally able to read again - yay! That's kind of what I was doing today. I picked up Dark of kNight by T.L. Mitchell, our guest for today and found myself very absorbed in the story.

While it isn't dialogue driven as is the newest trend in books, it is in a first-person pov and, while I'm not sure I have a clear picture of what the main character looks like yet, I happen to be in her head and pretty-well able to see what she sees. If it isn't picture perfect I can write it off to the notion that maybe she isn't all that observant when it comes to her own surroundings, as not everyone is observant all the time, especially in times of crisis, like what Julie (the main character) finds herself having to deal with when the book begins.

Her father has died and it is a family friend, and his long-time business partner, that tells her. To say he is controlling is an understatement, but he has a soft-spot for his daughter, Casey, and that much is evident.

I really like how this story pulls you along through the main character and really lets you see what she feels as she feels it. If the rest of the book is this way, it should be a fascinatingly good read!

Let's get to the reason you're here, the interview! In honor of April 15th being tax day, we’re asking 15 questions this month.

ME: Speaking of taxes, are you’re taxes finished, or do you procrastinate with them? Do you do them yourself or do you have a taxman do them for you?

TRACEY: My taxes are finished for the year. I do always try to file them on time after I have received all my information. I have always completed my tax returns myself.

ME: As it says, “April showers bring May flowers”. What flowers do you hope to see the first thing in spring?

TRACEY: The flowers I love to see in the spring are Daffodils and Tulips. Growing up, we always had a spring garden filled with a variety of colors of these flowers.

ME: Do you plant your own garden? Why or why not and where is it (are they) located?

TRACEY: Yes, I do plant my own garden. I love gardens and enjoy the work. In the past I have usually planted several small gardens around the house.

ME: Do you prefer plants or seeds? Does it matter where you get them, or do you have a favorite place to go? What’s the name of the place and why do you prefer to go there?

TRACEY: I prefer plants. Seeds take a little too much time and I have never had much success with them. It really doesn’t matter where I buy the plants, it just depends on what I’m looking for at the particular time. Specialty colored roses I usually order from Jackson & Perkins. I look for specific colors and like hybrid roses.

ME: What will you plant (or have already planted) this year and why?

TRACEY: Since I have just moved, I don’t think I will be planting a flower garden this year. Maybe after I am more settled I will start planting.

ME: Do you have any plants that are must haves for your garden, ones that it just won’t be complete without?

TRACEY: For me, the musts are roses, bearded iris, daffodils, bleeding hearts and lilacs.

ME: For your produce, is the local grocery store just fine, or do you like to hit your local farmer’s market? What is your favorite fruit or vegetable that you do like to get?

TRACEY: I seriously have a problem with the local produce at the grocery store. I prefer to buy my produce at a local farmers market or grow it myself. My ideal choice of shopping when I lived in Florida was an Organic Grocery store called Evermann’s. My favorite fruit varies. It depends on what I have a taste for that week. I love pineapple, bananas, mangos and papaya. For vegetables, summer squash is my favorite.

ME: Now that we've learned a bit about you, let's learn a bit about your writing. What is your main genre (erotica, erotic romance, romantic suspense, etc.)? What was the draw for you?

TRACEY: My main genre is paranormal romance.

ME: Besides your main genre we just discussed, what elements do you prefer to use in a story and why those elements over others?

TRACEY: The elements I use in my story are mystery and suspense. Personally, I love to read a story with both. I figure if I can write a story that will keep me interested, I know it will keep the readers interested.

ME: Do you prefer red roses or black roses? If so, does that show in your writing? If so, how? If roses aren’t your style, what flowers are? Do they influence your writing? If so, how?

TRACEY: I prefer red roses. I would say it does show in my writing. Red roses represent love. Actually, in my novel Dark of kNight I mention roses. The rose I speak of is a white rose. It’s name is called peace. In the prologue and a dream scene the heroine, Julie Knight dreams of a rose garden. Her life has changed so drastically …not to give any spoilers out, but she looks for peace. In the dream, she sees this white rose, its scent is so delicate and she recognizes it as Peace. The last statement she makes, “I reached my hand through the fog to collect my prize; my peace.” It is a very strong statement for a young woman who has gone through so much in her life in such a short time.

ME: The jury’s still out on this question, so we’re still asking it! - Who decides what you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one planting the seeds? How do you cultivate those seeds regardless of who plants them?

TRACEY: I find myself very fortunate to have a publisher who allows me to write the stories I enjoy. My publisher, Wild Horse Press, and I stay in close contact with one another when I’m working on a new project or idea. Sometimes, if a story hits me - I just write it. Prime example, The NightMan. The NightMan was story that burned to be told.

Personally I have heard complaints from readers who are reading cookie-cutter books. The characters of these books maybe different but the story is still the same. Readers want variety and something new and fresh. As a writer, I believe you lose your creative flare when you are told what to write. To make an impression on readers I believe you have to set your heart free as a writer. The vision you create for your readers is important. They want to feel apart of the characters, feel emotion and see a vivid picture of events. I don’t think I could ever write for a publisher who dictated “what” I needed to write. If that were ever the case…I would open my own publishing company. J

ME: In your opinion, what author had the most influence on your writing? What about their writing did you find so influential and why?

TRACEY: OMG, I’m caught between two authors. When I first started writing many years ago, it was Stephen King. I read so many of his books and developed his flare for horror and suspense. Quite a few years ago I was introduced to Karen Marie Moning and her books. Moning’s writing was exactly what I loved. She carried the mystery, suspense and humor in her stories. Along with a wonderful romantic tale.

ME: While authors can definitely influence us, inspiration can be everywhere for a writer, but specific people, places and events can inspire certain characters, personality traits or things that happen in our stories. In your current story that we’re promoting here today, Dark of kNight, did any one particular person, place or event inspire you? If so who/what was it (were they), how did it/they inspire you and how is this inspiration reflected in your story?

TRACEY: The story of Dark of kNight began as a series of dreams, actually nightmares. The dreams were so vivid and clear, some mornings I would wake up with my heart pounding in my chest. I couldn’t understand why I was having these series of dreams. After about the third dream I started writing them down. Before long, I realized this may make a good book. After writing the first draft a friend of mine read over the story and loved it. She encouraged me to keep writing and finish it into a full length novel. Which after the final draft, I ended up with Dark of kNight. The story was truly based on a series of haunting dreams.

ME: Without giving away anything pertinent to the story, tell us about the hero and heroine (s) of your story. What do they look like? How do they meet (or “did” if this is a second book with these same characters)? What are their personalities – Are they comical cut-ups, are they serious or are they a mix of the two? Please give us a little bit of dialogue from the story that can illustrate this. (Not much, but just a few lines and from a different section than the main excerpt – Thanks!)

TRACEY: The heroine and hero of Dark of kNight is Julie Knight and Daniel Maxwell. Julie is tall, slender built( a little on the athletic side), long dark brown hair and light brown eyes. She has olive/tan skin (which is answered in Fall of kNight). Daniel Maxwell, handsome, tall (6’4”), well built- not overly but very smooth, his hazel green eyes complements his black hair. Which he does have somewhat of a dark appearance.

Daniel and Julie have always known one another. Their families were close- even when they were children. Daniel has always loved Julie from the first kiss. He has never wanted anyone else other than Julie. The two went their separate ways - only to be reunited by the death of her father. Years had passed between the two of them, but the love Daniel had for Julie remained. This time he wasn’t going to fail.

OH comical cut ups? Of course! This is one thing I love about writing. There are quite a few between Julie and Daniel. But my favorite is with their friends Jason and Heather. Now, if you could picture a group of wolf shape shifters, young and out for a good time at a very nice restaurant, you would have something like this:

“Several stories crossed the table of Daniel and Jason’s fishing expositions. One of which was the story of the big one getting away. Not to mention how drunk they were one night when they thought they saw the Loch Ness Monster. Daniel said it was the moon moving on the waves of the lake. Jason swore it was Nessie which had tipped the boat and caused him to fall into the lake. We all laughed as Daniel reminded his dear friend he had never seen such a brave heart as his friend pulled his trousers down to moon the so-called monster when he fell backwards over the boat.”

ME: The main characters are usually great, but sometimes, secondary and tertiary characters are known to steal the scenes. Who are the secondary/tertiary characters in your story and what do they look like? What’s unique about them? What is their relationship to the hero/heroine? Have any of these gone on to become scene-stealers? If so, who and how did they do it? (Again, please give us a small bit of dialogue to illustrate this – thanks!)

TRACEY: I have been very pleased with the response to my cast of secondary characters. Like I mentioned above Jason and Heather McLaughlin. Jason is a purebred Irish pup and he has the personality of someone who will make you laugh even when you don’t want to. Heather, is petite just a little over 5’4”, she has a pixie-like hair cut. She is not Irish, but loves her purebred Irish wolf lad Jason. She is not as wild as Jason, but they make for a very cute couple and compliment each other wonderfully.

Jason and Daniel met in Scotland, while Daniel was working on bio-genetic research. They are both scientists and are employed by a company co-owned by Daniel and Julie’s father.

Scene stealers? If you read the book you will notice Heather is a little reserved. So this particular scene was a stealer for her. CAUTION SPOILERS* This scene happens immediately after Julie and Daniel discover the vampires (Richard and Nathaniel). Richard shows a particular interest in Julie, which causes Daniel to become very protective over his wolf girl.

I turned toward Daniel and he looked to me in concern.

“I don’t like that Richard.” He huffed.

“Because he has a thing for me?” I teased.

“I better be the only one that has a thing for you!” He growled. “Besides can a vampire actually have an erect…”

“Daniel!” I shot at him in surprise.

“Well, I was just wondering.” He shot back.

Heather and Jason walked up to us. “Rumor has it, they are huge.” She said as she laughed and darted off changing into her wolf image.

Jason roared loudly with laughter as he followed her changing into his wolf image. There was no way I could contain my laugh when I looked into Daniel’s astonished face. I unzipped his robe and slid it off his shoulders. The shock was still on his face. Smiling I slipped out of my robe. I began to walk away from Daniel.

I turned my head slightly to the side. “Darling, you have nothing to worry about.” I purred as I laughed and burst forth into my wolf image.

ME: Okay, so let's get down to the blurb and excerpt!

BLURB:

*Julie Knight never really knew how much her life would change after the death of her father.

After returning home to Spring Place, FA, the mysterious animal attacks begin. The small town is in an uproar over the horrific killings.

Julie finds herself in danger when the truth of who she is has been revealed. The last of a thousand year old bloodline of Lycans, Guardians of the mysterious Fort Mountain.

Daniel Maxwell, the handsome, dark, yet mysterious scientist returns home for the funeral. He has changed, but his love for Julie remains the same. She is what he has always wanted. She is what he needs. He would die for her. He would kill for her.

The passions begin to flare and so does the romance between Julie and Daniel. Joining forces with a mysterious group of moon-eyed people, together they must prepare for the ultimate battle- the battle against a deadly pack of werewolves.

Can Julie and Daniel‘s love be strong enough to protect them from their dangerous desires? Or will they be forever lost in the Dark of kNight?*

EXCERPT:*PREFACE

I knew one day I would reach this place in my life; I just didn’t realize it would be so soon. Love, I suppose, has no rules and yields to no boundaries. Never knowing when it will strike.

Never before would I have imagined I could love someone as deeply as I love him. I would fight for him. I would die for him. This is what I believed. This is the Lycan way. Yes, I could say I love this man more than my own life. It was odd that I would fall in love with someone who needed me as much as I needed him.

My world as I knew it stopped when my father died. I was not ready to lose anyone else again. I couldn’t bare the loss of the one who is so dear to my heart. He is my angel and my love. If I were to lose him then my life would end. I knew I would die.

As I stood in the rose garden, one rose stood out among the rest. It was a beautiful pure white rose. Its name was Peace. Never before have I seen such a delicate rose. Its scent was by far more fragrant than its neighboring roses. It was a scent that drew me in like the scent of my lover.

The fog had begun to settle in, moving slowly through the rose garden. I reached my hand through the fog to collect my prize. My peace.*

Mystic Monday

Fire in the Sky

Yes, this may be the name of a movie about alien abduction, but it's also what I slept through on April 14th at 10pm.

Maybe you've heard about it, maybe you haven't, but apparently it's been the talk of the town and possibly even the country. To look at on video is awe inspiring and scary because of the fact that it had to be about 3 feet in diameter to make that picture as it entered the atmosphere.

Astronomers and spectators weren't the only one enjoying this, but so were religious fanatics - at least for what they could get out of it anyway. No, this is not the beginnings of a path death and destruction or hellfire and brimstone. It was just a fact of nature, a fact of science. While most meteors are usually the size of a grain of sand or a pea (yeah, I wasn't too believing of this fact, but it is fact), ones the size encountered in the Milwaukee skyline only hit the earth 10 times a year.

While I wanted to embed the video, the Channel 12 feed wouldn't let me, but I did find one without sound to embed from CNN feed. This one is cool because it offers views from different locales, including Iowa.

If you're interested in hearing the Channel 12 feed and locals' reactions, here's the link: Channel 12 Meteor Story on youtube

Yeah, I slept through the neatest thing in our astronomic history! Murphy's Law biting my ass I can sure tell you that because not long before that, my glasses spontaneously fell apart last Wednesday night. Yeah, I was typing on the computer when all of a sudden, there was this loud, "boing!" and my eyeglass frame came apart at the right temple, causing the right lens to fly to the floor, bounce off the floor and land on my pants leg. The "boing!" and subsequent crash were so loud that my husband thought there was something wrong with the laptop - yeah, it sounded that weird. I couldn't find the screw, hell I was lucky I was able to find the lens as I couldn't really see very well at all. It certainly wasn't something I expected from my brand new $500 pair of progressive bifocals. Grrr!

Okay, so yeah, on the eve of the 14th, my glasses break, and I get overcome with this insane bout exhaustion that causes me to fall asleep at the computer at like 9:30-9:45pm, to which I go to bed and sleep straight through until 6am go to the bathroom and turnaround and go back to bed for another 9 or so hours and I don't wake up until about 3pm that day.  Oh, and I have been sick ever since then, but that's probably just a nasty coincidence compliments of Murphy himself! The whole thing wouldn't have been bad, but I had Dana Davis' interview to post that Thursday, and well, I was really, really, really late at getting to it.

I'm still completely annoyed that I fell asleep through that spectacle. It does give me a great storyline that I might share someday...he he he....

SUPERNATURAL SUNDAY

Please welcome author, Christine McKay into the moonlight today. Christine is the author of a host of other novels, a handful of which are, Loch Dragon’s Lady, Carnal Magic, The Earth’s Edge, and A Taste of Summer Magic. But those few are only a smidgen of what she’s published, so visit her website and learn more about Christine and her books. Click here to visit her website.

In honor of April 15th being tax day, we’re asking 15 questions of our guest bloggers this month, so we hope you enjoy learning more about the authors and their books. Feel free to ask some questions of your own!

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GRACEN: Speaking of taxes, are you’re taxes finished, or do you procrastinate with them? Do you do them yourself or do you have a taxman do them for you?

CHRISTINE: I used to do my own taxes but it’s become difficult for me to keep abreast of the new farm tax laws ( I own a farm). I have a CPA do my taxes. While I’m there, she takes care of my writing ones too. (She’s a closet writer so the annual tax appointment is a good time to chat and compare progress).


GRACEN: As it says, “April showers bring May flowers”. What flowers do you hope to see the first thing in spring?

CHRISTINE: I love lilacs. We have over 100 bushes. When the lilacs are blooming, I know spring has finally arrived in northeastern Wisconsin. Pansies, daffodils, and tulips will bloom in the snow. Lilacs – not so much.


GRACEN: Do you plant your own garden? Why or why not and where is it (are they) located? What type(s) will it (they) be and where is it (are they) located on your property?

CHRISTINE: I do garden – poor plants. I have plants tucked all over the place, trying to keep them out of the wind.


GRACEN: Do you prefer plants or seeds? Does it matter where you get them, or do you have a favorite place to go? What’s the name of the place and why do you prefer there over other places?

CHRISTINE: I plant mostly seeds, but some plants. I love Baker Creek Heirloom seeds. A full color catalog with hundreds of rare seeds, everything from prickly yellow cucumbers to blue pumpkins from Australia.


GRACEN: What will you plant (or have already planted) this year and why?

CHRISTINE: The rule of thumb where I live is to not plant until Memorial Day weekend. Anything before that time is subjected to frost or possibly snow. That said, I have my tomato seeds started inside and a few pumpkin and squash varieties that need 90-120 days of growth (questionable up here).

A raspberry patch is on the list to get planted this year as is an asparagus patch. As far as other things, I’m a huge tomato fan – will be planting over 10-20 different tomato varieties. Also have over an acre of pumpkins and various squashes. Peas always get planted and I have minimal success with carrots, but they’re going in the ground whether they want to or not. And of course, there’s herbs all over the place. Chives – you can’t kill chives. Ditto on mint and catnip. I have that growing wild all over the place, thanks to 3 plants I purchased ten years ago. Lavender grows very sullenly here, but it grows. I have myrrh, dill, wormwood, pinks, soapwort, and other sturdy plants.


GRACEN: Do you have any plants that are must haves for your garden, ones that it just won’t be complete without?

CHRISTINE: Tomatoes. The store bought ones have no flavor!


GRACEN: What is your main genre (erotica, erotic romance, romantic suspense, etc.)? What was the draw for you?

CHRISTINE: Fantasy and paranormal romance sometimes with a horror /occult element. I cut my teeth on shelves and shelves of Andre Norton, Patricia McKillip, Anne McCaffrey, Robin McKinley, Terry Brooks, and C.J. Cherryh, but I also love Nora Roberts, Stephen King, and a host of other one-book authors. Hence the marrying of many genres.


GRACEN: Besides your main genre we just discussed, what elements do you prefer to use in a story and why those elements over others?

CHRISTINE: I use a lot of magic and magic practitioners in my stories. I have friends who are practicing witches (or Wiccans – depending on the person’s individual preference) and they seem to get a bad rap 99% of the time. Think of the Disney films and count how many bad witches there are versus good witches (and no, fairies and fairy godmothers don’t count). I have other friends who travel the astral plane, speak to animals (which then talk back to them), and have seen ghosts.

When not entirely set in the fantasy world, I like to think my stories portray these sort of people as they are: normal folks with gifts many of us don’t understand and probably don’t believe in.


GRACEN: Do you prefer red roses or black roses? If so, does that show in your writing? If so, how? If roses aren’t your style, what flowers are? Do they influence your writing? If so, how?

CHRISTINE: Actually if we’re talking roses – yellow are my favorite. They’re cheery without going overboard. If I received red roses for no reason at all, I’d be thinking “Okay – what did you do that I don’t know about?” But yellow roses – they’ve always been a pick-me-up flower.

I think herbs and cooking influence my style more than, say, flowers, though don’t get me wrong – I’m a girl – I like flowers.


GRACEN: The jury’s still out on this question, so we’re still asking it! - Who decides what you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one planting the seeds? How do you cultivate those seeds regardless of who plants them?

CHRISTINE: My muse inspires me, but I ultimately decide when and what to write. I have a problem with reining in my characters, however. They like to take over the story and run amok.

If I run into a plotline snag or what not, I’ll sleep on it. Generally, by morning, I have my answer.

I’m an avid reader. Nonfiction. Fiction. The backs of cereal boxes. Tons of magazines. I clip pictures from Smithsonian and National Geographic. They’re inspiring.


GRACEN: In your opinion, what author had the most influence on your writing? What about their writing did you find so influential and why?

CHRISTINE: This is a tough one and would really depend on where I was at mentally in certain stages of my life. Initially, my gut reaction would be to say C.J. Cherryh. But there were times when Nora Roberts, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey, and Robin McKinley were must reads. And I went through my Bertrice Small stage as well.

I think C.J. Cherryh appeals to my technical nature. I do have a computer background and am quite good at tinkering with them. Her writing also has a rhythm that reminds of me the old stories…and by old, I’m talking Beowolf.


GRACEN: While authors can definitely influence us, inspiration can be everywhere for a writer, but specific people, places and events can inspire certain characters, personality traits or things that happen in our stories. In your current story that we’re promoting here today, The Genesis Clock, did any one particular person, place or event inspire you? If so who/what was it (were they), how did it/they inspire you and how is this inspiration reflected in your story?

CHRISTINE: I love the History and Discovery channels. I watched a program some years back on Naj Tunich and became fascinated by its mysteries and drawings. I read a lot of books on the subject and that started me thinking…just how much do we know about our ancestors?

The characters in this book do a lot of traveling, gun-toting, and even horseback riding. As a former endurance rider (25-100 mile cross-country races on horseback), I used my experience in that area to write the riding scene. I also spent a fair part of my childhood in a indoor rifle range. What can I say? Some kids play hockey or basketball in winter. I participated in a Junior Rifle program.

For details on places I hadn’t physically been too, I relied on my aunt who is a world-wide traveler.


GRACEN: Without giving away anything pertinent to the story, tell us about the hero and heroine (s) of your story. What do they look like? How do they meet (or “did” if this is a second book with these same characters)? What are their personalities – Are they comical cut-ups, are they serious or are they a mix of the two? Please give us a little bit of dialogue from the story that can illustrate this. (Not much, but just a few lines and from a different section than the main excerpt – Thanks!)

CHRISTINE: You’re going to laugh, but I pictured my hero as Hugh Jackman, in his shaggy version from the movie, Van Helsing. This makes for an easy excuse: “No honey, I have to have this huge photo of Hugh in my office – it’s inspiration.” And so Aaron Sparta was born.

For my heroine, I snipped a photo from a magazine of a very sharp-eyed, pony-tailed blonde-haired blue-eyed girl-next-door type woman. This became Evelyn “Evie” Wright. I like using nicknames. It seems to help define a character. You’ll always get folks who aren’t “Missy” or “Mel” but always “Melissa”. That tells you something about them.

Evie’s a bit sarcastic and free-wheeling, continent-jumping into dangerous countries and situations as if she has a death-wish, and personally, I think she sort of does. She’s been running her entire life, from the shattered memories of her mother’s death, from her father and his expectations and craziness, from becoming special to anyone. She basically has an attachment anxiety.

Unbeknownst to her, Aaron has known her her entire life. Now he’s been ordered by his superiors to kill her.


She rolled her eyes and experimentally tugged on the handcuff. Despite the crappiness of the car, the handle was firmly attached to the frame. “You have nothing better to do than watch me?”

“Actually I have five other things I need to be doing. But you happen to top my list. Congratulations.”

The number wasn’t lost on her. Her eyes narrowed. “Who hired you? Why are they looking for the clock’s stones?”

“You aren’t in the position to be asking questions.”

Glancing into his rearview mirror, he turned onto a side street and parked behind a seedy motel. Actually, according to its sign, it was an “ote”—both the “M” and the “l” were missing. Pieces of the M still dangled from the advertising board. Once the siding had been painted a mint green. Now the only parts of it still totally green were bathed in the perpetual shadow from the surrounding buildings. Moss thrived on shingle and fiberboard.

“You think Edensteen’s going to let you walk away with me in broad daylight?” Especially after she’d shown Spencer the garnet.

He grinned, his straight white teeth lighting up his face. “I just did.”

She swore at him in five different languages.

“Music to my ears, baby. It just makes you more valuable.”


GRACEN: The main characters are usually great, but sometimes, secondary and tertiary characters are known to steal the scenes. Who are the secondary/tertiary characters in your story and what do they look like? What’s unique about them? What is their relationship to the hero/heroine? Have any of these gone on to become scene-stealers? If so, who and how did they do it? (Again, please give us a small bit of dialogue to illustrate this – thanks!)

CHRISTINE: I try to make my secondary characters well-rounded, but not so much that they become scene stealers.

Evie’s father serves as a ghostly secondary character. Every action, right down to his death, has shaped Evie’s actions. So even though you don’t physically see him strutting around, his presence is felt throughout the story.

And then there’s Spencer. Spencer is Evie’s casual lover and their employer’s watchdog. Picture a well-dressed, well-spoken, cultured and British (of course!) techno-geek. Glasses are mandatory. As I’ve mentioned, Aaron Sparta is our hero, so there is some natural animosity between these two men.

“Close your eyes,” she repeated.

“I beg you, at least let me book the flight first.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I have a surprise for you.”

His fingers toyed with a loose lock of hair. Tucking it behind her ear, he grazed her cheek with his knuckles. “Temptress.”

“I promise it’ll be worth your while.”

His lips twitched and he closed his eyes. “Very well then.”

She slipped off his lap, glancing to make sure he still had his eyes closed. He did. Pulling her purse out from under the bed, she removed the garnet. It lay like a frozen puddle of blood in her hand. Shivering at the mental analogy, she walked back to Spencer and sat on his lap. “Let’s see those hands.”

He obediently held them out. She laid the jewel in his cupped palms. “What’s this?” he murmured. He opened his eyes. “Dear God in Heaven.” He bobbled the stone.

She caught it before it hit the floor. “And you want to be a curator?”

“You can’t just drop that in my hand and expect me to do nothing.” He adjusted his glasses and took the stone from her. “Is this it?” He held it up, examining the indentations in the base of the stone.

“The Ark’s Beacon,” she confirmed. Plucking it from his hands, she held it up to the desk’s reading light. A shaft of pure red shot across the room, illuminating the bed. “Mood lighting.”

“My lord,” he murmured. “You may be comfortable with the stuff of legend, but I’ve never seen its like.” He touched it with a fingertip but didn’t attempt to take it away from her. “How did you get it? Where did you get it?”

“My father sent it to me,” she said smoothly, hopping off his lap. “I bet Edensteen’s going to shit bricks when he sees it.”

“Definitely worth soiling one’s trousers over,” Spencer agreed.

There was a knock at the hotel door. Spencer glanced at Evie’s attire. “I’ll get it,” he offered.

She stepped toward the bed, dropped the stone into her purse and started to slip into her pants.

The door slammed open before it was completely unlatched, the chain ripping from the doorframe. Spencer struck the wall. Aaron Sparta walked in, pointed a pistol at Evie and said, “You, out.”

“How many of those frickin’ things do you have?” she complained, not at all cowed. If he wanted to kill her he would have done it last night when she was alone, not in front of a potential witness. Slipping into her shoes, she hesitated. Leave her purse in the hotel room and risk Spencer rummaging through it and finding her father’s notes? Or take it along and hope she could escape before Aaron did the same thing? Who was the lesser of two evils? She grabbed her purse.

Distrustful wench. Quakoralina laughed.

Evie ignored her.

The gun’s barrel swung toward Spencer. “Don’t try it,” Aaron cautioned. Spencer held a shoe in one hand. “Get a move on,” Aaron growled to her.

She hurried to Aaron’s side, stepping over Spencer.

“Where are you taking her? Who are you?” Spencer pulled himself to his feet. “I can write you a check of any amount you need. Money’s over there.” He nodded toward the computer.

“Your money’s worthless to me,” Aaron said. Grabbing her by the arm, he yanked her out the door.

Wincing under Aaron’s tight grip, she said, “Spencer, my .22’s in the bathroom under the towels.”

Spencer nodded and lunged for the bathroom door. She jerked in Aaron’s grasp, throwing off his aim. His shot rang as silently as a BB gun, a pop that could easily be mistaken for a cork blowing off a champagne bottle.

Damn it, couldn’t she keep a partner alive for even a day?



BLURB:

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Time marches ever forward, unmindful of the humanity it condemns to death, looking only to the future. What if someone had the power to not only stop time, but reverse it?

Those who built the legendary Tower of Babel found a way. But the hand of God crushed the tower before the Genesis Clock’s power could be harnessed. Its pieces were scattered across the world, guarded by creatures and societies long since forgotten or shrouded in myth.

Evie’s father spent his life searching for the clock’s parts. Now it’s left to Evie to distinguish between fact and fiction, friend and foe, and to determine if her father’s quest is worth her life. She can’t lose her soul—that she already bartered away when she assumed the role of priestess to the sex-starved Star Goddess—but if she’s not careful, she could lose her heart to the man sent to kill her…

Because not everyone wants to see the clock resurrected.


EXCERPT:

Chapter One

The sun relentlessly flogged the back of Evie’s neck. Reprieve from the roasting temperatures, tennis racket-sized creepy-crawlies and bacteria-breeding moisture was a rare luxury and in this part of South America, usually ill-gotten. She ignored the unpleasantness the best she could, though she’d kill for a Popsicle about now. A minor exaggeration but not far off the mark. The bit of hide she held in her hands might lead her to enough treasure she could afford to treat all the villagers to Popsicles. Then again, it just might get her killed. Either offered her amnesty.

Only a handful of people, mostly forgotten old men with too much unoccupied time on their hands, could read the variation of Vartanian script written on the hide. Even less could write it. Thanks to her father, she could do both.

Hide didn’t survive thousands of years in this climate. The aforementioned niceties often contributed to its demise. More likely someone had viewed the original script on a chunk of stone and copied the symbols to the hide to facilitate traveling. Rock made a poor traveling companion, particularly when hacking a path through the brush.

Why would anyone bother to copy it if they couldn’t read it? Unless they intended to find someone who could. The writing explained how to safely navigate the perils of Nantuk’s tomb. The Vartans revered Nantuk, priestess to the star goddess Quakoralina, though archeologists quarreled on whether it was out of fear of her mistress or for her supposed supernatural skills. Rumors of gold and jewels, including the goddess’s headdress, had sent more than one unwary treasure hunter on a meandering goose chase ending in an undesirable death.

If she had been her father—god forbid that particular nightmare ever came to pass—she would already be rushing to commandeer the village’s sole Jeep. She had learned from his actions exactly what not to do. Caution and careful planning led to results. Results garnered sponsors. Without results and sponsors you were just another crackpot spouting off tales of treasure in the hopes a bored and clueless millionaire wanted to live vicariously through your adventures. In her case, she also had to sort through the true financiers and the wannabe fuck buddies.

Feet shifted, beating an impatient rhythm on the hard-packed path.

Raising her head, she wiped sweat out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “Tell me again. Where’d you find this?”

Evie stood a full head taller than her bronze-skinned companion. She’d taken to wearing a huipil, the natives’ version of a blouse, heavy with elaborate embroidery, but shucking her cargo pants in favor of their long skirts wasn’t going to happen. Nor was she willing to risk snake or insect bites to run around barefoot. No matter what she did, be it speak their language—which she did fluently—or adopt their dress, she wouldn’t blend in. With the usual fair skin that accompanied the blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she stood out like a gringo tourist on market day.

Tolto knew how to write his own name and not much else. But he had the heart of a true buccaneer. Without him she would have stumbled into a few of those unmentionable deaths others before her had. Without her he wouldn’t be wearing commercially made thick-soled leather boots and packing a Glock 25 pistol. Oh, he’d still be armed, just not in style.

Add a dash of sex and it would have been the perfect arrangement. Only Tolto’s tastes didn’t run to gangly fair-skinned women who wore pants and wielded guns and knives just as well as a man. Pity. She rather liked Tolto.

“Pedro picked it off a body west of the stelae we uncovered last season.”

So not all Houltan villagers were squeamish of dead men’s ghosts. She tucked the knowledge away. “Did he say how the man died? Was he local?”

Tolto shook his head, straight black hair swinging around his face. “Not local. Too dark-skinned. Others say the man died of fright. No apparent wound on the body though the lizards had gleaned the tender parts.” He grinned, a wide white smile. Tender parts included eyeballs, nose, fingers and toes.

The stelae, tall narrow sandstone pillars carved by the Mayan, didn’t bear Vartanian marks.

“What does it say?” Tolto asked.

“It’s a description of a tomb.”

“Does it lead to treasure?”

“Perhaps. Death, more likely.”

The news earned her another wide grin. Leave it to Tolto to ignore her warning. “I knew it!” He wanted to purchase a bit of property at the edge of town and establish a respectable business. Many Houltan women inspected a man’s dwelling before even agreeing to a date.

“Don’t get all starry-eyed. It’s Nantuk’s tomb. We’ve been through this already. It’s too risky.” She was fairly certain they knew where the tomb was. The fact that it was carved into Wiskingsly Gorge was deterrent enough for most. The mound of skeletons stacked at its entrance usually stopped the rest that rappelled down.

“But you have directions now.”

“What if they fudged a symbol?”

“I trust you.”

She carefully rolled the hide up and secured it with the agave string it came with. Tucking it in her pack, she snagged her walking stick and headed toward the village. She needed a drink and some time to think.

Tolto, familiar with this side of her, followed in silence.

“Did Pedro find any identification on the person?”

“None.”

“You report him to the authorities?” Without identification and fingerprints the dead man became just another picture in a file thick with unidentified corpses. Unless he had wealthy relatives seeking him, he wasn’t worth the paper the photo would be printed on. At least not to the authorities.

Tolto shrugged. “I did not ask.”

“How much did you pay for the hide?”

Tolto gave her a sly glance. That long straight nose and those finely chiseled bones could have served as a template for pictures painted on ancient Mayan ruins.

“Tolto?”

“Pedro owed me a favor.”

She rolled her eyes. Everyone owed Tolto favors. Had the man been born in the States, he’d have been a successful bookie or salesman or infomercial rep.

Last season’s excavation site was a good day’s ride from the village. That was assuming the roads were open. An overly wet season paired with already rutted roads mired anything on wheels. Traveling by horse would take an extra couple days. She could already feel the calluses on her ass protesting.

“Would Pedro take us to the body?”

Tolto crossed himself. “Why would you want that?”

“To see if he missed anything.”

“The bones will likely be picked clean.”

It was her turn to shrug.

“You have no respect for the dead,” Tolto muttered. “I will send word to Pedro.”

“Thank you.”

“When do we leave?”

“When we know Pedro will guide us to the dead man.” She caught sight of her hut and quickened her pace. She needed to add another layer of sunscreen to the one she’d already sweated off.

“If we are heading to the gorge, it is out of our way.”

She paused. “There’s only a handful of people who know how to read Vartanian.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “My father, myself, some crusty British scholar my father works for and a couple of monks somewhere in France, I think. They weren’t a brilliant race. The bulk of what they wrote that we’ve found fills less than a notepad, and there’s around six hundred symbols in their alphabet.”

Frankly, she didn’t know why her father bothered with it. The Mayans and Incas amassed hordes more wealth than the Vartans. While all the early civilizations had their own deity rites upon which life often revolved, the Vartans were the ones who were obsessed with them. Hunting and farming took a backseat to religion and in a region like this that was tantamount to signing one’s own death warrant. She shrugged. That was why their civilization—no more than an eccentric extended family of the Toltecs really—died out in less than two hundred years. A blip on the South American radar…or it would have been if the Mayans hadn’t taken over some of their sacred sites.

Tolto was staring at her expectantly.

“I want to know who has an interest in the Vartans and why.”

“I will do my best.”

“Thanks.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “You always do.”

“I have a vested interest.” He headed off to his own hut.

If there was another treasure hunter haunting her sites, she wanted to know about it. She was meticulous, not omnipotent. If one of her former excavations had yielded the hide’s symbols, she needed to know how she missed it.

Gods above, sometimes she wondered how she’d ended up here, sponsorless, funding digs off the finds from previous ones. A hand-to-mouth existence at best. Gambling, that’s all it was. Most times she didn’t mind. When she stumbled over a better-financed dig—the men who actually had use of their own Jeep, rather than the local village’s cobbled-together deathtrap—the green-eyed monster set in. She had guns and the local villagers’ support. They, oftentimes, had soldiers, also with guns and the government’s consent. The lack of sponsors gnawed at her. It wasn’t as if she had a lack of buyers. On the contrary, she maintained a list rivaling Heidi Fleiss’ black book in its breadth of clients. It was just that her reputation now scared away more public funding of her work. She would starve before she prostituted herself in exchange for a sponsor.

She sighed, surveying her life’s work. Photos were tacked up on the bamboo walls, more as art than any sort of record. Her reed bed was rolled up in one corner, the remnants of her breakfast fire still smoldering in the fire ring’s center. Tree stumps and a car’s hood served as her desk.

She could be working on tenure at Setonville University. A steady paycheck, hours probably only half as long as the ones she kept here, no chance of getting bitten by poisonous snakes. Probably a real desk too. Bet at the university she’d own more pens than guns. Pulling off her shoulder holster, she hung it on a peg on the wall.

Lunch was waiting for her on two legs, pecking and scratching at the bit of corn she left it this morning. She pulled a knife out of the sheath strapped to her thigh.

Just another day at the office.

* * * * *

What was that crazy woman up to now? Lowering his binoculars, Aaron Sparta rubbed his chin. Evelyn Wright’s motives were as much an enigma as any woman’s. But most American women didn’t earn multiple Master’s degrees at record pace only to vanish into the Honduran bush stocked with no more than the clothes she was wearing and enough firepower to give the local police pause.

She had an artist’s eye, an archeologist’s careful hand, the reckless courage of a child and the heady aspirations of a drug runner sampling his own supply. She had uncovered more sites in the last five years than most archeologists tackled in their lifetime. And why not? She didn’t seem burdened by any sort of social conscience. She photographed, took what could be most easily sold on the market and moved on. What she was looking for, gods only knew.

It was why he’d been sent to watch her…again.

Not a single villager could be bribed to raid her hut. Either they respected or feared her too much. He wondered which it was. He thought he’d steered her away from Nantuk’s tomb years ago. So why was she hanging from a completely inappropriate harness over Wiskingsly Gorge?

Shouldering his coil of rope, he headed down the slope. Careful surveying of the site had yielded another possible opening to the tomb. He couldn’t remember how many people had attempted to break into it over the years. No amount of funding or high-tech equipment kept them from dying. What made Evie think she could cheat not only Death but the rumored curse the Vartans left to guard their most cherished possession?

He ground his teeth. Why couldn’t the Sentinels have sent someone else? He had no such death wish.

Enki help him, he’d been half in love with her since the day she’d scaled old Château Gaillard armed with nothing but a bundle of tied-together bedsheets and a busted compass. Nearly broken her neck too. Not that it was the first time—nor, judging from her current precarious perch, anywhere close to the last—that she’d tempted death.

The locals called her Gees de Dood, Death’s Ghost. Fitting enough. She played in its shadow her entire life.

He raked the hair out of his eyes. Evie Wright was forbidden fruit, daughter of a deserter. Why couldn’t she find a nice desk job in the States and stay the hell out of his life?

Eyes raised, he offered up a silent prayer.

* * * * *

Dangling two hundred feet over Wiskingsly Gorge put her life’s work into perspective. She, Evie Wright, was certifiably crazy. Above, Tolto played out more rope. Maybe she shouldn’t have picked an assistant who believed so wholeheartedly in her. Maybe she should have dismissed the idea as soon as the dead man’s body disappeared. But as Tolto had pointed out, many things vanished into the jungle’s leafy maw. Just as many people recklessly plunged over cliffs.

The writing appeared authentic, though her knowledge of the language wasn’t as intimate as her father’s. She had swallowed pride and a whole heap of bitterness and placed a very expensive international call to her father only to reach his answering machine. She’d hung up without leaving a message. He probably wouldn’t have helped her anyway.

A review of the stelae site hadn’t turned up any clues either. Her private marks on the site were undisturbed. If anyone had tried to excavate there, she’d have known.

Tolto was most likely right. She was neurotically distrustful.

She banged her hip into a dagger-shaped rock and cursed, a stream of English sprinkled with more inventive words she’d learned along her travels. A skeleton half-draped over the cliff entrance’s edge beckoned to her, its arm waving in the breeze.

Come on in, it teased. Jewels the size of eggs and enough gold to plate your coffin await.
So did death and an ancient curse. She could wait.

The sun had to set before she entered the tomb. That’s where so many had failed. Entering unfamiliar ground at dusk went against every rule she’d established. Then again, it was a cave. Odds were it was going to be dark regardless of the outside conditions. Tolto wasn’t exactly in a safe position either. The jungle’s bigger predators preferred night’s mantle. Navigating the tomb of a possessed priestess or hunkering on the edge of a cliff in the dark? She didn’t know which death she preferred.

Her fingers scrabbled to find handholds in the shale cliff face while the wind plucked at her rope, her clothes and anything else it could get its breathy fingers on. She was going to be motion sick before she touched down. A thorny vine snagged her pants leg. She shook it free. If everything she unearthed was as difficult to reach, she might have retired already.

Nah. Who was she kidding?

The sun vanished behind the lip of the gorge, dyeing stone, river and brush shades of burnished gold in one last spurt of energy. She turned her face toward its rays, feeling its warmth on her flushed cheeks and chapped lips.

This time tomorrow she might be kicked back in her hut enjoying a bottle of bubbly with Tolto and maybe even some meat she didn’t have to cook and clean herself first. Her mouth watered. She’d kill for a good beef steak. Funny how everything circled back to killing.

Dusk settled on the gorge. Balancing on the cliff wall parallel to the tomb entrance, she glanced at her watch. Showtime. Tolto’s face was just a blur above her. She swung into the entrance, landing on her back and skidding like a hockey puck down the center of the shaft. It angled downward and, rather than slowing, she increased speed. Elbows, shoulders and tailbone struck stone. She grunted.

She was thankful for the darkness. It blurred the glimpses of bones, skulls and ghoulish drawings.

When she stopped moving she carefully unzipped her pack, secured to her chest in anticipation of her fall. Her headlamp came first, followed by her pair of Glock 26s, a fuzz lighter than Tolto’s model with a sizable clip capacity. She slid them into holsters at each hip. Flicking on her headlamp, she glanced around. It appeared the cave was shallower than she’d anticipated. She’d slid into the back wall.

In the yellow light, the cave’s interior sparkled like millions of unblinking eyes. Crystals nestled in carved grooves, jammed helter-skelter on walls and ceiling. She recognized several constellation patterns. A skull, whittled spike jutting through its forehead, glared down at her like a macabre planet.

She carefully sat up, transferring her pack to her back. Her gloved fingers ran lightly over the sidewall, feeling the crystals wiggle in their niches. A handful of crystals lay at the foot of the wall just inches from a decapitated skeleton and its outstretched bony hand.
Note to self: Leave crystals alone. She didn’t even pick up the loose ones, tempting though they were.

Inching forward, she ran her hands along the back wall. Grooved depressions marked a series of handholds and footholds. A crevice separated the wall from the floor, barely wide enough for her body. She reached into her pack, pulled out a chemical flare and cracked it open. Holding it at the edge, she shined it down the hole. There was nothing but blackness. She dropped the flare. It fell, struck something gold-colored and spun madly, like a firecracker vomiting sparks. Another strike. Another gleam of gold. The flare hit the bottom. The blank glare of hundreds of empty eye sockets stared back at her.

She swallowed a small scream. She preferred the living to the dead. Bullets deterred the living. Skulls served as surrogate home to all sorts of creepy crawlies. Sometimes she could be such a girl.

Her walkie-talkie hissed, a string of sputtering words with an edge of panic to them. Unhooking it from her belt, she brought it to her lips. “I made it. The tomb slopes downward. I’m going to keep going.”

Garbled crackling echoed her words.

Damn radio. They could put a man on the moon but they couldn’t get a radio signal to penetrate rock? She resisted the urge to smash it. Expensive equipment was hard to replace and while nothing would satisfy her more than beating its squeaky speaker in with a rock, she’d regret it later. She hooked it on her belt.

Taking off her pack, she slung it at her waist. The crevice wasn’t wide enough to accept the added bulk. She’d have to put up with it banging her hip. Nerves jangling like it was her first time, she descended into the tomb.

* * * * *

Aaron felt like a glob of ground meat being squeezed into a sausage casing. The access passages to the tomb were built to accommodate midget bodies. He wasn’t a big man but in order to wiggle through the stone passageway he had to bend body parts like a contortionist. Shoulders rolled forward, his elbows dug into his stomach while wrists and hands supported his weight.

The constricting stone walls abruptly vanished. He dropped onto a rock ledge, hearing the mad whirl of rubble as it tumbled over some as-yet-unseen precipice. Unhooking a flare from his belt, he cracked it open and held it up.

He was on a narrow line of rock, along one edge of a sunken chamber. The glint of gold reflected back his fluorescent light. One misstep and he’d have fallen directly into the chamber. No more than a foot wide, the ledge he stood on must have supported the artists that carved the elaborate relief on the rock behind him.

No sign of Evie Wright.

He wondered if she’d made it through the upper chamber. The thought of her skewered and dying alone in the dark made his stomach twist. He shook his head, clearing the vision. It wasn’t his job to rescue her from every little disaster anymore. She chose this adventure.

Lowering the flare to his chest, he carefully turned around. More pebbles tumbled to their death. Gods and demons, he wished he had a camera. A full night sky was etched on the rock face, complete with constellations, planets, shooting stars and comets. Shortly, the explosives strapped to his body would damn the art to the netherworld.

Seemed like such a waste. Then again, how many people had already damned themselves trying to reach it? Or guard it? Or even earlier, build the foundations to house it? The Sentinels should have blown the god-touched trap to bits years ago. Sentiment shifted as the years passed and their numbers dwindled. What was acceptable now would have been unthinkable centuries ago. Better to rid the world of the menace before it took another life.

Before Evie Wright died here.

He set his first charge and inched along the ledge. He didn’t see another entryway other than his yet. Pulling out another flare, he cracked it open and flung it across the chamber. It spun, a flaming pinwheel, and landed on the ledge opposite him. No gaping maw there. He didn’t want to waste all his light but in order to know where to best place the charges he needed to get a better visual of the chamber than the crumbling sketch he’d seen on the surface.

His last flare tumbled into the center of the chamber, landing on a gilded divan. The fine fabrics covering it had long ago rotted away but its foundation remained. Its high back mimicked the moon’s crescent shape, the arms sinuous ripples set in a mosaic of precious stone. Beside it, on its own throne, rested Quakoralina’s headdress. Ropes of gold threaded with diamonds spilled over one edge of the band. A star carved from diamond and meant to rest in the center of the wearer’s forehead overshadowed a thin disk of gold.

Three steps down the dais lay the equally gilded sarcophagus of Nantuk, an island of gold surrounded by a pool of black water. He wondered what sort of nasties were camouflaged beneath the pool’s smooth surface.

The formal entryway arched beyond that. If Evie successfully navigated the passages above—and he had no reason to think she wouldn’t, given her skill at evading death—she’d enter beneath that carved arch. He needed to blow it shut before she got that far.

Inching along the ledge, he set another charge. If all went as planned the wall would collapse into the chamber, burying tomb, headdress and treasure beneath an insurmountable pile of rubble. Just in case it didn’t, he’d packed extra explosives. It never hurt to be prepared.

The swirl of stone stars changed here, forming words. He held his light a bit higher. Share your body. Share my soul. Accept my magic. Forfeit your soul.

“Nice touch, ‘Lina,” he said out loud. By the time someone entering the tomb found the warning it’d be too late. But the goddess hadn’t broken the rules. A warning needed to be set in stone. And here it was. Fifty feet above the main floor. It might as well be worlds away from the headdress.

The darkness swallowed his words. He couldn’t shake the otherworldly feeling of being watched. Quakoralina was a powerful deity in her own right. The Vartans had worshipped her above all others. The Star Goddess. Keeper of the Heavens. Mistress of the Moon. A dozen other titles scrolled through his head, ending with the less pleasing ones. The unexpected death of her priestess had trapped her in the human realm. She’d been waiting ever since.

The darkness pressed around him. She didn’t want to be denied life again. A woman searcher was coming. Finally.

Not if he had a say in the matter.

The rock crumbled beneath his foot. Lurching forward, he dropped his flare, hands scrabbling against the rock. His fingernails dug into an elaborate stone swirl. His other foot tried to find purchase but the rock was littered with rubble. It was like skating on marbles. His fingernails broke. He plummeted fifty feet to the chamber floor below.

Silent laughter filled the chamber.

Starlight Saturday

Weekly Book Review

If this book sounds familiar, it should as it's author, Jessie Colter, is featured in the YA Room this week. Haven't seen her feature yet? Click here.

As you may have learned in her feature spot or from her webpage, she's not new to the writing scene, just to the YA world. She has written a few very steamy books. One of them, A Slave to Her Passions, was reviewed a couple of weeks ago. Missed it? Want to check it out? Click here if 18 and over.

From the get go, the Colter's ability to write a blazing, sexy scene and create sexual tension catches you and keeps you flipping the pages. While the couple have some decent make-out sessions, fate seems to intervene to keep it from becoming more than that. Not bad, just frustrating from the standpoint of an adult reader - but a great example of how a teenage boy should respect a teenage girl. Because of the fact that this book does show some restraint and encourages teens to wait until they are adults, I have to say this is okay for younger readers.

Now, I will warn you that there are some party scenes in here and some not-so-good situations that I think are also appropriate for some of the younger teens to read so they can get an idea of the kinds of things that can happen to them should they trust the wrong people. Sometimes, those we feel we can trust turn out to be the ones we should run away from. It's confusing and not always easy for teens to figure out, especially in our Internet-heavy society where deception and evasion run rampant.

These points can also be used for an ice-breaker in conversations about drugs and drinking and the types of problems teens can find themselves in. You can use this time to make sure your teen knows that you are there for them, no matter what happens. As much as you may not condone drinking, drugs or sex, your kids may try them either because of curiosity, peer pressure, or no choice of their own. Please, please, please let them know that you'll always get them or be there for them if something happens - no questions asked!

Why do I encourage this? Because a teen who feels safe in the knowledge that you will always be there should they make a bad decision and don't know how to get out of it, will be more apt to discuss those things with you first. Plus, they sometimes make bad decisions and if they're calling you for help, it means they're scared and may have learned a valuable lesson. If they feel they're only going to get yelled at because they did something wrong, they'll be less likely to come to you for advice on anything. Remember, it's hard for them to come to you with teen issues because, in their eyes, you always see them as a child. They need to know you realize that they're growing up. Even if you both stumble through the discussion awkwardly, if you make a point to make your child feel cared for, respected and loved, that may be enough for them to make the right decision in the first place or come to you when in trouble.

Okay, off my soapbox now. It just seemed an appropriate time to discuss this point....

I do have more to say about this book, only I haven't been feeling too well today, so I will have to come back to it tomorrow!

PHANTASM FRIDAY

Happy Anniversary To Us!!!

I'm tickled pink that one year ago I posted my first blog here at Moonlight, Lace & Mayhem. We're all a year older, a year wiser, and we've met lots of new internet friends.

In a year, we've introduced you to a lot of newcomers and some established authors as well. MLM has changed a lot in a year, also. We have an established YA room, and we've just recently opened Reaper's Door and Station Portal. And we have almost 100 followers! Hopefully, we'll keep growing and keep bringing you great authors.

So, in honor of our anniversary week, I'm giving away a Pink Third Rail Criss-cross Guitar Necklace pictured below. If you're interested in winning this necklace, leave me a comment. I'll draw a winner late tonight! Good luck to all entrants!

Twilight Thursday

Welcome Author

Dana Davis !!!

*hanging my head in shame* - It's just been one of those days for me! Between my oversleeping and browser crashing and now my inability to locate Dana's answers, I am running really late with getting this post up! It's Murphy's Law, and apparently, I live by it! If, in future, you wonder why not much seems to go right for my characters, this could be why! *Lol!*

ME: Thanks for you patience! Dana, the trooper that she is, managed to get me everything I needed! Thanks for being so great this week!!!! Since you've waited long enough to check out her interview, let's get right to it! As taxes are due in the mail by today, we have been asking our authors 15 questions. Speaking of taxes, Dana, are your taxes finished, or do you procrastinate with them? Do you do them yourself or do you have a taxman do them for you?

DANA: Hi, Carrie. Thanks for having me today. Taxes, huh? Well, hubby and I are pretty good about getting those done. We use a computer tax program, which makes it somewhat painless. In fact, we received our refund a couple of weeks ago and have invested that money.

ME: Very smart! Now, as it says, “April showers bring May flowers”. What flowers do you hope to see the first thing in spring?

DANA: March and April are our blooming months here in the desert and we’re in full swing right now. We have fiddleneck, brittlebush, desert marigolds, poppies, lupine, ocotillo, creosote and other desert blooms. Not every spring is this colorful, but we were lucky to get enough rain during the winter months. During heavy drought years, we don’t get much in the way of spring flowers.

ME: Do you plant your own garden? Why or why not? What type(s) will it (they) be and where is it (are they) located on your property?

DANA: We don’t have a garden because we live on a desert wash and everything would be gone in an instant with all the critters that have access to our yard. Not to mention, I’m not good with plants. We had a cabbage plant once and a desert hare left a trail of dirt across the granite yard during his getaway. Sadly, the cabbage was never seen again. We do have a dwarf grapefruit tree that gives us lots of citrus this time of year. And we planted a dwarf orange tree but it’s still too young to bear fruit. The trees are on a drip line and Hubby takes care of them.

ME: If you could have a garden, what kind of garden would it be, how big would it be and what would you plant in it?

DANA: Well, I inherited a brown thumb from my mother. Hubby lovingly calls me “The Plant Killer”. If it’s not growing naturally in our desert or on an automatic drip line, I’m not very good at keeping it alive. But if I could manage a garden, it would be small with green beans, black beans, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers and citrus. In my defense, I do have one houseplant I’ve managed not to kill. It’s been almost four years now – a record!

ME: Have you ever considered getting involved with a local community garden? Why or why not?

DANA: They’d probably kick me out after everything died. We don’t have community gardens in our area that I know of. Maybe in the downtown areas but I’m not a downtown kind of girl. Give me the burbs!

ME: For your produce, is the local grocery store just fine, or do you like to hit your local farmer’s market? What is your favorite fruit or vegetable that you do like to get?

DANA: When we lived in Los Angeles, we walked to the local farmer’s market every Saturday at the park. Here in the Phoenix area, the one closest to us is set up like a grocery store and carries mostly local produce and health products. We shop there every couple of weeks, alternating with our regular grocery store. My favorite fruits are mangos, pineapples, bananas and Fuji apples. When they’re in season, hubby and I munch on red seedless grapes and cherries.

ME: Now, that we've learned a bit more about you, let's focus on your writing. What is your main genre (erotica, erotic romance, romantic suspense, etc.)? What was the draw for you?

DANA: My main genre would have to be fantasy/sci-fi. My grandfather worked for NASA and one of my fondest memories is standing on the beach at Cape Canaveral watching the Apollo-Soyuz launch. I loved science and English in school and spent many summers at the NASA facility in Houston and at museums as a kid, so maybe that’s what eventually led me to write sci-fi. And my mother read Grimm’s fairytales to me as a young child. Not the watered down stuff the kids get today, but the real stories with the horror and gore and excitement. I think that’s when I fell in love with fantasy.

ME: Now wonder why we seem to get along so well! I too have been into science too, but mostly since high school and I have always been fascinated with how Disney could take such dark and dreary tales and make them light and furry, but I digress! Besides fantasy/sci-fi, Dana, what elements do you prefer to use in a story and why those elements over others?

DANA: I mix genres at times, like with my paranormal fantasy series, Desert Magick. I love paranormal, horror and comedy so I tend use those elements in my writing. I don’t write standard mysteries, but I love the unknown, and often use mysterious elements in my worlds, too. I have a great-great aunt who worked as a medium back in the early 20th century, so paranormal and mystery have always been a part of my life in one way or another. I’m also a ghost buster and belong to a paranormal investigative team. We investigate claims of ghosts and other paranormal occurrences, debunking what we can, and gathering evidence for the rest. It seems natural to me that I would put those life experiences into my work.

ME: On a lighter note, do you prefer red roses or black roses? If so, does that show in your writing? If so, how? If roses aren’t your style, what flowers are? Do they influence your writing? If so, how?

DANA: Funny, I never liked roses much, or the smell of them. I’m a tulip and daisy girl. Might have to do with me being an April baby. As for how that shows in my writing, the main character in Desert Magick is named Daisy. Hey, she wouldn’t let me give her any other name. I tried. I like bright, cheerful flowers, but I also write darkness into my work. I love when I get to the point in a novel where I can put in horror or suspense. In my novels, I tend to have a bright world wrapped around darkness with the two duking it out for control.

ME: Sounds like my kind of tale! The jury’s still out on this question, so we’re still asking it! - Who decides what you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one planting the seeds? How do you cultivate those seeds regardless of who plants them?

DANA: I have a gazillion characters in my head shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!” Once I do, they’re never shy about bossing me around. So, I would have to say my muses have a lot of control. I tried very hard once to kill off a character. I thought she deserved it. But she and the others in the novel ganged up on me and told me outright that she wouldn’t die. No matter how many times I wrote and re-wrote her death scene, it just didn’t work. Once I decided to go along with my muses and keep her alive, albeit with some nasty consequences, the scene snapped into place.

There is a lot of craziness in my head but my muses and I tend to work things out. And, of course, I do all the research. When I get stubborn and off track in a scene, they don’t hesitate to come in and straighten me out.

ME: In your opinion, what author had the most influence on your writing? What about their writing did you find so influential and why?

DANA: I can’t say that any one writer influenced me the most because I tend to get tidbits of ideas from various authors. I would have to say J. R. R. Tolkein and the Grimm brothers had the most influence in my early years. But I continue to be influenced by writers today and I enjoy science fiction and dark fantasy as much as light-hearted paranormal books. As a kid, I also enjoyed television shows like The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Bewitched, so those writers had their share of influence. In fact, before I became a novelist, I wrote and/or adapted several stage plays and spoofs for community and children’s theater.

ME: Wow! Very cool thing to have on your resume! While authors can definitely influence us, inspiration can be everywhere for a writer, but specific people, places and events can inspire certain characters, personality traits or things that happen in our stories. In your current story that we’re promoting here today, Desert Magick: Superstitions, did any one particular person, place or event inspire you? If so who/what was it (were they), how did it/they inspire you and how is this inspiration reflected in your story?

DANA: Up until the Desert Magick series, I had been writing mainly about sorcerers, space travelers and aliens. But I have always been fascinated by my great-great aunt’s medium abilities and the family ghost stories, so I decided I wanted to try my hand at a paranormal/urban fantasy. The challenge for me was to put the story into the here and now, not some completely made-up world like I usually created.

Most characters come to me very clearly during a writing exercise, while looking at art, listening to music, or in my sleep. Daisy, the main character in Desert Magick, was a bit different. She snuck about, peeking around corners, studying me. I had to win her trust. I had to assure her that I wasn’t going to put her on a space ship or in a castle someplace. Once I convinced her I was ready to begin her story, she became almost as bossy as some of my other characters. In a good way, of course. And while Daisy isn’t a medium like my great-great aunt, she spends a good deal of time dealing with the after life.

ME: That's right, you did say that you're a ghost buster on your website! Okay, without giving away anything pertinent to the story, tell us about the hero and heroine (s) of your story. What do they look like? How do they meet (or “did” if this is a second book with these same characters)? What are their personalities – Are they comical cut-ups, are they serious or are they a mix of the two? Please give us a little bit of dialogue from the story that can illustrate this. (Not much, but just a few lines and from a different section than the main excerpt – Thanks!)

DANA: While there are new characters introduced or expanded on in each book, Daisy Rhiannon Hammel-Kavanaugh is a main character throughout the entire Desert Magick series. Daisy is a thirty-five year old inherent witch who runs an online auction business. She’s 5’4” and curvy with short brown hair. She’s madly in love with her husband, Noah, and he with her. Daisy tries to make the best of bad situations and often uses humor to dispel fear. She is perfectly happy with her average life in Arizona. That is, until she finds herself a reluctant heroine in a battle against evil. For me, of course, that’s when the real fun begins.

From Desert Magick: Superstitions – Daisy and Noah:

They continued down the cement trail, followed it under the street bridge and into the wash on the other side, the one that ran behind their home. Just as they emerged from the short tunnel, a shadow moved in Daisy’s corner vision. She snapped her head to see a man, wearing a brown suit and hat reminiscent of the 1960s, standing next to a saguaro.

“Hello,” she said in her neighborly voice.

“What?” Noah said.

“I was just saying hi to that man over—” When she looked again, the strange man was gone. The only tall thing in that spot was a saguaro, a juvenile since it had no arms. “I’m not hallucinating,” she uttered.

“You sure you’re all right, babe?”

She glanced down at Perky, whose interest was on a cactus wren that sang from a nesting hole in another saguaro. The dog didn’t seem to notice the intruder. “I’m either being haunted or else I’m stark raving mad.”

ME: The main characters are usually great, but sometimes, secondary and tertiary characters are known to steal the scenes. Who are the secondary/tertiary characters in your story and what do they look like? What’s unique about them? What is their relationship to the hero/heroine? Have any of these gone on to become scene-stealers? If so, who and how did they do it? (Again, please give us a small bit of dialogue to illustrate this – thanks!)

DANA: If anyone can steal a scene, it’s Bridgette, Daisy’s slightly older cousin. This tall, sassy redhead has gotten them into trouble since they were kids. She comes onto the scene with her own villain in tow and has a body and personality that attract attention, especially of men. Her sassy remarks tend to catch people off-guard. She even surprises Daisy a time or two. She’s bossy as hell and protective of Daisy.

Bridgette stormed into my brain as I was working on Daisy’s first chapter and told me that she would be making an appearance and that I was stuck with her, no matter what. Well, what’s a writer to do when a character is that adamant?

From Desert Magick: Superstitions – Bridgette and Daisy:

Bridgette lounged in the spa in a one-piece bathing suit, designer by the look of it, drink in one hand, chocolate bar in the other, sunglasses resting on her nose, and those bright red locks piled on top of her head. She reminded Daisy of a movie star from decades past.

“Comfy, Miss Thang?” Daisy quipped. She wrapped arms about herself as a chilled breeze swept through the yard.

Bridgette grinned. “Canada’s so damn cold.” She made a sweeping motion with her chocolate bar. “I missed this. There’s diet soda and chocolate in the kitchen. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” But Daisy stayed put.

Bridgette set her drink on the flagstone, lowered her sunglasses and winked at Noah. “Chocolate’s an aphrodisiac, you know.”

ME: Ooooh, I could almost feel the warmth...almost! It doesn't get that warm up here in WI - okay sometimes it can, but rarely these past couple of years - that I'm not sure I can really get how warm it would be, plus our air is much more humid than out there. Are you ready for the excerpt? Well let me keep you no longer!

BLURB: Daisy Hammel-Kavanaugh lives a perfectly average life in the Arizona desert, except for one thing. She's a witch. Her relatives and ancestors consist of various, and sometimes colorful, paranormals. When Daisy is attacked by a mystical, ghost-like figure, she must enlist the aid of those she trusts in her quest to find and eliminate this enemy before he destroys her.

There's another problem. To ensure her success, she must somehow get her hands on a treasured and protected Native American artifact, without pissing off the entire Indian community. Desert creatures, ancient myths, sex and magick abound in Daisy's world but can she trust herself to know what is real and what isn't?

EXCERPT: When she’d had enough exercise, she swam to the beach entry and rested. Movement caught her corner vision and she turned to the wash. A dark figure stood just the other side of the wrought iron slats, under the nearest palo verde tree, an unruly thing with as many thorns as leaves. Daisy couldn’t make out the distinct green bark in the waning light but that didn’t matter. She saw the man.

Her heart tap-danced against her ribs. “Hello?” she said, hoping he was just a neighbor who’d wandered off the marked trail. “Can I help you?”

The figure said nothing so she readied a trussing spell. When the figure didn’t move, Daisy scrambled out of the pool and shrugged her robe on over her shivering body. After she shoved damp feet into flip-flops and wrapped her wet hair in a towel, she took another glance around the wash. No one. The sky had already gone purple and her paranormal blood didn’t give her night vision.

ME: Ooh, anyone thinking of Medium right now?

Want to know more about Dana Davis? Go to her website: www.danadaviswriting.com

Missed her YA Room blog post and want to check it out? Click here.