Marvelous Monday Reads: Love in Danger
Welcome to another edition of Marvelous Monday Reads, darlings! Today I’m featuring E.D. Parr and her wonderful new SF romance Love in Danger, now available from Evernight Publishing and other retailers of fine romance. Take it away, E.D.!
When I wrote Love in Danger, I wanted the story to have a completely different feel to my other stories.
Usually, my stories have the two main characters that are going to fall in love meeting in the first few chapters. Their meeting and falling in love is the story. There is always a happy ending, so often I will give readers a look at their future in a decision to stay together, marry, or a view of how happy they are after being committed partners for some time. I’m a big fan of love at first sight. Readers can blame it on Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and even Dickens to a certain extent.
So what’s different in Love in Danger? The two main romantic heroes are already together as Love in Danger starts. They’re warrior partners and lovers. They’ve been together for some time.
Writing this story with the heroes already in love gave me such pleasure, I might have to write another story where this is the case. (Smiles) The love between Corin and Marcus is obvious, but Corin can’t admit that he loves Marcus by saying the actual words, and that forms the romance ‘conflict’ within the story. This Sci-Fi story has horror themes, and adventure, including events that focus Corin on the need to tell Marcus besides showing him just how much he loves Marcus.
Marcus adores Corin and isn’t afraid to say so. He’s a sweetheart and it shows in how we see him assisting Corin.
Both heroes are special to me. Their origins and courage are epic. Their love is red hot and tender. I don’t know any authors who don’t fall in love with their characters. I always do, so I hope that readers love Corin and Marcus. I hope too, that readers enjoy the inclusion of another warrior in the story, Zeb, who used to be Corin’s lover. He’s a big part of the story without being part of the romance.
I hope readers enjoy Love in Danger as much I loved writing it.
Centuries ago, the planet they cherished was conquered, but now three warriors from an ancient race of gifted beings intend to remedy that.
Lovers, handsome Corin JaKobi and gorgeous Marcus D’Ath are members of an elite planetary squad that rid the city sectors of the mysterious and dangerous Fallen.
When an old friend uncovers the true horrific nature of the elders in the organization they work for, anger at their duplicity drives Corin, Marcus, and rogue squadron hunter Zeb to plan for the ruling group’s demise.
It won’t be easy, and when Marcus is captured and detained at the elders’ pleasure, Corin’s white-hot fury at the thought of losing the man he loves knows no bounds.
Will Corin get to his beloved, Marcus, in time to stop the horror that awaits him?
Can the warriors free the planet and return it to the lovely place it was before the aggressors arrived?
Story Excerpt
Corin received a call on his communicator just as he and Marcus loaded the crockery from their meal into the dishwasher. He looked over at Marcus as he listened to the order and gave his lover a stare to convey annoyance at the task they’d been given.
Marcus grinned in return at the silent communication and pressed the button on the panel to start the machine.
He leaned on the counter, arms folded, waiting for Corin.
Affection flowed over Corin as he looked at Marcus. He traced the handsome man’s face with appreciative eyes. He walked quickly to his lover, dropped the communicator onto the table as he passed, and slipped his hands around Marcus’s face. He kissed Marcus tenderly, until his lover grabbed his hips and thrust against him with a low moan. Passion surged through Corin and he rained hungry kisses on Marcus’s lips.
He broke to breathe and whisper. “We have a job over in the badlands. Some idiot’s crash landed over there.” Then he kissed Marcus again. He swept his hands along his lover’s shoulders and down his sides to pull off his lover’s soft shirt. Raw sexual need gripped him and he ran his fingers over Marcus’s muscled chest. Little sounds escaped him as Marcus returned his frantic kisses.
Marcus helped pull his shirt off, casting it aside, then resumed kissing Corin. He murmured against Corin’s mouth. “How close are you? I can feel your cock rock hard through your pants.” He bit softly along Corin’s bottom lip and palmed Corin’s erection.
Corin groaned and pushed against Marcus’s hand. The need to come made his voice thick. “Close.” He dotted kisses along Marcus’s bare shoulder breathing in the masculine aura and light rosemary scent of bath soap on his skin. He dropped his hands to between their bodies and opened Marcus’s pants, trembling, hardly able to wait for the feel of his lover’s cock. He dragged the cotton pants down around Marcus’s thighs and curled his fingers around the huge erection that sprang free.
Marcus groaned into his open-mouthed kiss. “Corin … you have no idea what you do to me…” He held the counter edge, leaning back and his dick leaked onto Corin’s thumb.
Corin’s stomach flipped with the feel of the pre-cum on his fingers as he circled the head of Marcus’s cock. He closed his eyes and pumped his lover’s dick, groaning a little at the pleasure that consumed him and pressing his lips to Marcus’s. His own cock leaked and grew so hard he thought he’d come just from the delicious feel of Marcus’s kiss and satin-skinned erection in his hand.
Marcus thrust into his palm. He gripped Corin’s shoulders and rested his forehead on Corin’s as his cum spurted. He moaned and gasped trying to kiss Corin as his hips jerked.
Corin smiled onto Marcus’s lips. He waited for his lover to finish coming and kissed him softly every time he felt a throb run through his lover’s cock.
Marcus slid his hands around Corin’s face and kissed him.
The tenderness in the kiss dropped a blanket of love over Corin. He sighed as Marcus drew away and with a gentle push to move Corin, dropped to his knees.
Where to Buy
Evernight Publishing | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Siren Bookstrand | Smashwords
About the Author
I write stories that pop into my head and hope that they will resonate with someone. I’d love to think that the love stories I write are what readers want. I don’t think there’s enough love in the world, but even so, my stories are character driven. I always have a happy ending. We all deserve one.
I like to think there’s originality in my work. When I look at the body of my work I see originality within the story plots, but the theme of finding love is always there.
Evernight Publishing | Twitter | Amazon | Blog | Facebook
A lazy *checks calendar* Saturday afternoon
I had to check because for some reason it feels like Sunday to me. My time sense is all screwed up due to the pandemic, and while I usually have the date right I tend to double check on the actual day because Fridays feel like Thursdays and Saturdays feel like Sundays.
In writing news, I’m still working on The Crimson and the Black, finishing up Shifter Woods: Growl, and working on the first chapter of High Tide (Olympic Cove Book 5) because I want to include it as a teaser in the print version of Cross Current. It’s interesting because High Tide is the first and only book in the series where the main protagonist is a woman (Book Six will have Chiron as the main protag), so I’m approaching the story from a different mindset than any of the other books in the series.
Now, don’t worry––there’s still lots of hot guy-on-guy action (I mean, she walks in on her merman and satyr agapetos fooling around in the rental cottage she’s supposed to be getting ready for a renter. I ask you. And yes, she works for the mysterious Marcia Kuttner, which means that she’s going to be thrown into the deep end on page 1). But having a female lead gives me more of a chance to look at Olympic Cove and the events going on there from a woman’s point of view. It’s kind of cool, to be honest. In any case High Tide will be out at the end of April, so you can see then if I did a good job with it.
In personal news I have done my wifely duty (get your mind out the gutter, it’s reserved for me) and cut Ramón’s hair. The last time I did this was in June, so it had gotten to the point where I could have put it in a Viking braid, limed it, and sent him out to sack Frisco.
Which might not have been a bad idea, come to think of it.
But he is now back to his usual high and tight style (I even trimmed his neck and ear lines with the T trimmer), and is happy that he no longer looks like a cross between Doc Brown and the Unabomber.
The J Crew, however, stared at the pile of hair on the floor very accusingly. I’m guessing the English translation is, “And you people complain about the amount of hair WE leave? You could knit a new cat out of what Dad just shed.”
The other new thing in the house is the king-sized Purple mattress which replaced our 8-year-old mattress. Despite being delivered on Thursday, it’s currently sitting in the dining room in a tightly rolled package because neither of us wanted people in the house and assumed we could get it up the stairs ourselves.
Yeah, no. The mattress weighs 206 pounds. We gave it the old college try, but when I was on the verge of blowing out ShitKnee and he started to tear a ab muscle I called it off. A moving company is sending out three husky young men with shoulder straps on Monday to haul it up to the bedroom, and I’m more than happy to pay for the service.
In the meantime we’re sleeping on an air mattress because the delivery guys hauled away our old mattress (that, we carried down ourselves on Thursday) and the difference in sleep quality is notable. I don’t feel like I’ve been beaten all night, and Ramón’s sinuses have cleared up remarkably and he’s waking up feeling much more refreshed. That being said, this is one of those extra thick air mattresses with a built-in pump that are meant to sit on the floor and act as a guest bed. The fact that it’s sitting on our box spring makes getting into bed an adventure (translation: I kinda have to vault up to get onto it), and I find myself sleeping very carefully because if I roll off the edge at that height I will be breaking a hip.
Nevertheless, I’m sleeping well, my pain levels are going down, energy levels are going up, and I’m feeling a lot more compos mentis during the day. If the Purple turns out to be as comfortable as I think it’ll be, I may well wind up getting a lot more done this year.
As it turns out, compression socks are actually pretty cool
Let’s be honest — I’m 54 and I work at a job where I spend a lot of time on my butt. Add in ShitKnee and fun new problems with other leg joints, and I’ve been having a hard time with the old gams lately. I’m still doing the PT exercises, but barring an actual replacement I think I’ve gone about as far as I can go in terms of functionality.
This is when FB decided to start throwing compression sock ads at me every half hour. Now, I know that they’re damn useful pieces of clothing, and I have no worries about “ew — grannywear” reactions because I have been in my house since 3/13/20 and nobody sees me anyway. So after the fifteen millionth compression sock ad danced across FB I decided, what the hell, let’s take some measurements, find a company that handles heroically sized people, and see what happens.
Squeeze Gear turned out to be the lucky company, and I gambled $40 on three pairs of rather snazzy blue and white compression socks (I feel a little like a superhero). They arrived today, and as expected they were a challenge to get on, but I did it.
First impression: I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. The cuffs felt kinda tight around my left knee, but not painfully so. The other leg is the one that lost muscle mass 37 years ago when it was in an immobilizer, so that sock went on a bit more easily. Walked around in them, and immediately decided to put on my slippers with the traction soles so that I didn’t go ass over teakettle. I also felt a bit lightheaded, so I went upstairs and checked my BP, thinking maybe the socks were driving it up. Nope — 128 over 72.
Well, then.
I sat back down and did some paperwork. About an hour later I got up … and my legs felt okay. Knees and hip still hurt, but my calves felt pretty damn good. Decided to go grab the duvets and bring them down to wash them, then went back upstairs to record a podcast which meant sitting for a solid hour in a chair that usually causes me a certain amount of pain when I get up … and it wasn’t bad at all.
In fact, I gotta say that these things are kinda amazing. I’ve been up and down the stairs multiple times this evening, way more than I usually do, and I’ve been humping stuff up and down as well. Once again, the knees and hip still hurt, but there’s no pain whatsoever from my calves. It’s much easier to get to my feet without pain, and I’ve found that I have more energy to get chores and housecleaning done.
I’m going to wear these for a full week during the day and see how I feel by the 24, but based on today’s results I would have to recommend compression socks to anyone who has a job that keeps them sitting for long periods of time. These aren’t just for Granny or long plane rides anymore.
So, about BEHIND THE IRON CROSS…
As part of “Let’s Make 2021 More Profitable,” I’ve been taking a good look at the books that don’t fit my usual subgenres of SF, fantasy, and paranormal romance. I’ve already split off the contemporary romance and romcoms to the Natasha M. Stark name, but that still leaves my *takes in a deep breath* poor redheaded stepchild of a historical BDSM menage romance Behind the Iron Cross out there twisting in the wind.
Unfortunately, Amazon listed it as erotica and I haven’t been able to convince them that yes, it really IS a romance with an HEA and everything. And despite being released during the centenary celebrations of the end of WWI it’s gone absolutely nowhere. A copy hasn’t been purchased on Smashwords or their assorted partners in over a year, and I’ve sold a grand total of 13 copies on Amazon in 2020.
The irony is, that book took me six years to write. I had to go to the British Library and study pre-WWII maps of Berlin. I bought books on the Weimar Republic and the economic and cultural effects it had on Germany. It’s still my longest book to date at 105,409 words (SHADOW OF THE SWAN is literally six words shorter at 105,403). And next to no one has read it, which gives me a sad because it’s a really, really cool story.
So I’ve decided to be proactive about it. I’ve pulled it from wide distribution and added it to Kindle Unlimited, in the hopes that fans of menage, BDSM, and historical romances will see the word count and say GIMME.
Vote for King of Blades in the Swoon Awards semi-finals!
There’s a new contest in Romancelandia! The Swoon Awards are chosen by popular vote and are open to all romance readers. Much to my shock and delight, I found out that King of Blades made it into the semi-final round for the Fantasy Romance category.
Voting for the semi-final round ends tomorrow, so if you’d like to vote for King of Blades in the Fantasy Romance category you can do it here — go to the middle of the page and click the pink Next button to start voting. And thank you for your support!
Publishing work, cats, and newsletters
Being an indie author isn’t all snacking on bon-bons and writing your heart out on your preferred choice of writing tech. You also have to do things like track your income, monitor your Amazon ads (I was doing absolutely splendidly up until yesterday, and then today––bubkes. I don’t know if it was because of the impeachment proceedings or not), write up and send out newsletters, study courses on how to promote your work more effectively, and a bunch of other paperwork things. Many years ago, Terry Pratchett once told me that only half of his day was actually taken up with writing––the other half was paperwork. Now I understand what he meant.
But at least the long-delayed newsletter with the links for Cross Current went out, plus I added info about King of Blades being up for a Swoon Award––
*sigh* I didn’t mention that here, did I? Yeah, KoB made it to the semi-finals in the Fantasy Romance category in the Swoonies, and if you’d like to vote for it you can do that here: bit.ly/3n6cYeh
I need a PA. Or the ability to go somewhere where five cats aren’t bugging me for attention.
Anyhoo, I also added a link to a survey in the newsletter so that people could tell me if they’re interested in my MM titles, my MF titles, or are willing to read it all. I’m trying to be more professional this year and target my newsletters more accurately so that people only get the info on titles that they want to read.
As for TCatB I haven’t hit word count yet for the day, but I’m hoping to get that done after dinner. I must say, it’s always nice when your Muse graces you with an infodump about your hero’s back story as she did this morning at 4:00 AM. So now it appears that I’m writing a book about a cheerfully pan Victorian vampiress who finds out she’s the mate of a big, hunky, virginal dragon shifter with amnesia.
I mean, yeah, there’s OTHER stuff in there, as well––the whole bit about finding a group of missing selkie girls who are being married against their will to wealthy merchants, for one. But Fee just can’t get over her craving for big, grumpy Callum Brown, professor of literature and dragon shifter who can’t remember anything from before the year 900 (when he was hit by lightning during a North Sea storm and a pod of selkies nursed him back to health. He’s been their protector ever since). Callum has waited almost a thousand years to find his mate, and now she’s finally walked into his life––except that Fyodora doesn’t DO lifelong commitments and refuses to be tied down.
I do like to complicate things. Now I just have to figure out how this is all going to work for them.
Writing During Tumultuous Times (or: Why I Didn’t Make Word Count Last Week)
As of today, I should have had 27,000 words done on The Crimson and the Black, well past the 1/4 mark and close to the 1/3 mark of the book. Instead, I currently have *checks Scrivener* 10,209 words.
But I have Reasons.
January 4th: made my word count early in the day, then turned off Scrivener and started cleaning up after my cat JJ who had been leaving little piles of foamy pink mucus all over the living room floor. As he is 19, this was understandably concerning. He refused to eat for the rest of the day, leaving one last pile near the kitchen before curling up in a spot next to the fireplace and behind a table where it’s quiet and peaceful. It’s where he goes when he’s sick, which wasn’t a good sign. I decided to take him to the emergency vet in the morning.
January 5th: Loaded a complaining JJ into the crate and hauled him into the emergency vet. They’d seen him way back in 2006 when he’d had a bladder blockage so they had records on him, and I waited in the parking lot for about two hours while they ran bloods and checked him over.
Their diagnosis: “He has an upset stomach. Everything looks normal except for his BUN, which is slightly elevated due to the vomiting. We’ve given him anti-nausea meds and B-12 to stimulate his appetite––bring him back in if he gets worse.” What really surprised me was the news that his kidneys were fine––his own vet had diagnosed him as a kidney deficient kitty about four years ago. Since he’s outlived the life expectancy for those cats by a year, clearly his kidneys did not agree with this. They also told me that he was a very, very good cat––the vet tech who brought him back out to the car adored him, which is his just due.
After taking him home, I headed back out to the store to get various delicacies with the hopes of tempting him to eat something, anything. Nothing worked––he wouldn’t even lick at anything, but he was drinking water and peeing so at least he was getting some fluids. By this point it was evening, I still had to come up with something for dinner, I was tired and worried about JJ, and I figured I would just write off the day and make up the word count the next day. Ho ho ho.
January 6th: As everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows by now, the U.S. Capitol was attacked and overrun on this day by a bunch of cosplaying MAGA idiots and a smaller group of far more competent seditionists after Pobrecheeto, along with some help from Rep. Mo Brooks and Junior, whipped them into a frenzy down at the Ellipse, then sent them off to the Capitol to stop the vote count. JJ was still not eating, and my attention for the day was torn between the news and my ailing cat. Writing? Surely you jest.
I finally got JJ to lick at a little bit of Gerber chicken baby food (his favorite snack) in the evening, but that was all he would eat. He curled up in his Sick Spot and went to sleep, while I stayed up to watch Congress confirm the electors’ votes in the middle of the night and give Joe Biden the win.
January 7th: Needless to say, I woke up late. Still torn between the news and JJ, I now had to run out to the pet food store to get some adult cat formula and see if I could get JJ to eat some of that. He wasn’t thrilled with it but I got him to lick some off his muzzle when I smeared it there. No other food would pass his lips, however, and I was really starting to get scared. I decided to get up at 8 AM, call his vet, and beg them to let me bring him in.
By now, I was frazzled, scared that I was about to lose my black velvet purrmonster to an upset stomach, of all things, and increasingly infuriated with what was happening in D.C. No, I didn’t write.
January 8th: After an absolutely horrible night of sleep, I got up and called the vet, leaving a message detailing the situation with JJ. I then waited up until they called back at 10 AM and said, “Bring him in––we’ll work him up between appointments.” (It helps that they love him, too.) So back into the crate JJ went and off we drove to the vet’s office. I dropped him off, came home, and crawled back into bed for a four hour nap.
After I woke up, I poked at the WIP for a bit in between checking the news. At 3:30 PM the vet called––they couldn’t find anything wrong with him, either, but they’d given him different anti-nausea meds, as well as an appetite stimulant and some Pepcid to reduce stomach acidity, and offered to send a banana bag (lactated Ringer’s solution that can be injected into a cat via subcutaneous IV) home with him as well. I knew how to give a cat sub-Q fluids so I took them up on it, and fetched JJ home. He walked into the house, went straight to the food bowl and began nomming down. He continued to eat periodically for the rest of the night, in between snoozes on his usual spot on the couch, and I got 1,676 words done on CatB.
January 9 – 10th: I’d really hoped to play catch-up over the weekend, but I also badly needed sleep after the events of the week, plus I still had to do the food shopping, laundry, and other household tasks, and JJ really wanted to spend a lot of time resting on my chest while I petted him. As a result I only got 733 words on Saturday and 773 words on Sunday, but at least I got something down.
January 11th: First day properly back at work, and I managed to tear myself away from the increasingly horrendous news coming out of D.C. long enough to get 3,055 words done, which gave me word count for the day but didn’t do bubkes about my deficit. This wasn’t helped by the fact that all of the other cats had noticed me giving JJ extra cuddles and deserved equal time. I still don’t know if they have a quota worked out among themselves or what, but I had a cat on my lap desk or in my arms for a total of three hours today. I timed it.
January 12th: I should make word count tonight, and I’m hoping to get to bed early and get a decent night’s sleep (not that easy with our utterly crappy mattress) so that I can get up early tomorrow and knock out 6K, which will start whittling down my deficit. The story is starting to pick up steam (I can hear the characters talking in my head when I’m writing dialogue, which is always a good sign), and I’m learning a lot more about Fyodora’s dragon shifter beau Callum Brown (I had no idea he was a professor of literature at the University of Edinburgh, for example), as well as Victorian casinos, the relationship between dragons and selkies, and what happens when a footloose and fancy free vampire finds herself unexpectedly mated to a gruff dragon shifter who prefers to be alone.
So anyway, that’s me. How are you all doing so far?
Cats and Stress
Phew.
So, JJ the 19-year-old cat started throwing up pink foamy mucus on Monday. We researched it and it’s a symptom of a lot of things, including gastritis (stomach ache). I took him into the ER vet Tuesday morning, they did a full blood workup and exam, and said everything is normal, he just has an upset stomach. They gave him something for nausea and an appetite stimulant and sent him home.
Except he wouldn’t eat. Drank water just fine, would get up and walk around, but would not eat. We tried all his favorite foods: tuna water, Gerber’s baby food in chicken flavor, the works. He licked at a little baby food Wednesday night, and yesterday I got a half ounce of adult cat formula down him via kitten bottle, but we were getting worried.
Luckily we have the best damn cat vet in Texas (Dr. Dana Crigger, Collin County Cat Hospital, cannot recommend her enough), so when I called this morning and explained what was going on she said bring him in, we’ll work him up between appointments. She ran some other tests to check his heart (which is fine), then called me and said that he’s not concentrating urine but his kidneys are good. She then posited that he might be hyperthyroid. “But cats who are hyperthyroid usually eat ferociously,” she added.
I laughed hollowly and explained that before Monday JJ ate like a teenage linebacker, begging for food every time we went into the kitchen. “Ah, okay. I’ll send his bloodwork off to be tested for that,” she said. “How well does he take pills?”
“Like a trouper.”
“Good.”
She then administered another anti-nausea med, an appetite stimulant, and some Pepcid to reduce his stomach acid, and I took him home. The moment he got out of the carrier he went straight to the food bowls and nommed down. He’s been back to eat twice more, and is now curled up in one of his favorite spots digesting and snoozing. I feel like I’ve unclenched for the first time since Monday morning.
Also, older cats slowly lose weight and turn into skin and bones. JJ? Weighed 11 pounds at his checkup in December and 10 pounds today. I swear to God, the world could end and the only survivors will be Keith Richards, Betty White, and JJ wandering across the blasted landscape.
So, it’s 2021
I know it’s expected to come up with a list of resolutions, diet plans, and goals at this time of year, but to be honest I hate resolutions, diets bore me, and I already came up with my goals for 2021 back in November.
Goal #1: Improve my indie publishing sales
The trick here is twofold — write and publish more good books steadily, and get really, really good at promotion. Which includes Amazon ads for me (I don’t have a great deal of luck with FB ads but I’m studying up on them), as well as social media promotion, regular blogging here, biweekly newsletters, and tools such as BookBub, BookFunnel, and BookSprout.
On the book-writing front, I managed to get a novel or novella out each month in the last half of 2020, which almost completely cleared off my WIP backlog. I won’t be able to keep that up in 2021, at least not if I want to maintain my current level of quality, but the goal is to release six books, once every two months, and put out a novella or short story in between the book releases. That, I feel, is manageable, and should result in twelve titles being released in 2021.
On the promotion front, my Amazon ad game is definitely improving — I’ve been making more sales and my Advertising cost of sales is dropping steadily, which is also good. That being said, I’ve decided to blow away all the old ads and start fresh in January by implementing the things I’ve learned about Amazon ads and doing A/B testing. It’ll take some time for the algos to pick up on that and start bumping the books up, but from a long-term perspective I think it’s the best thing I can do. Still need to do some more research on FB, but I may dip my toes back in that pool sometime in February.
Goal #2: Make mo’ money
This is partially tied into Goal #1 since that’s one of my main income streams. What with the emotional and financial rollercoaster of the last four years, I’m tired. Last year I had determined to clear off all of our outstanding bills with my contract job, and before COVID got me furloughed I was able to clear all bills except one. I want to expand on that this year, plus I want savings, I want to be able to invest in the stock market, and I want Ramón to be able to retire in 2024. And the only way to make that happen is to bring in more money.
I have three income streams at the moment — indie publishing, contract tech writing work, and jewelry making. At the moment the contract work pays the most, but it’s also on hold due to COVID. I would very much like to get to the point where I make enough money from indie publishing that I don’t have to rely on contract work unless the job really appeals to me.
And believe it or not, before last year I made pretty much the same amount from jewelry making as I did from indie publishing (mainly due to my work in sterling silver and semi-precious stones). Publishing has now pulled ahead of the jewelry, but I’d like to get back to designing and creating jewelry this year. It’s fun, it’s a nice break from writing, and it’s become part of my writing process (I mull over story ideas and plotting when I’m melting silver and soldering findings together). Also, people have been asking when I’m going to put more baroque earrings on my Etsy page. It’s nice to have fans.
Goal #3: Continue working on my shitty knees
At least I now know exactly what’s wrong with both of them, and I have PT exercises that do help. But that little chat with the PA at Baylor confirmed that I’m never going to actually straighten out either knee unless I get replacements, and the Baylor surgeon did not seem willing to do that.
Which means I will continue to limp for the foreseeable future, until 1) I can find a surgeon willing to replace ShitKnee at the very least, and 2) save up the money for that, as my PT sessions drained all the money I’d saved for surgery from last year. God, I hate the American medical insurance system.
Now, I just have to implement all of these goals. I’d gotten off to a great start on 1/4 after my break, but yesterday was taken up with hauling JJ to the emergency vet because he’d been vomiting up pinkish foam (after an exam and bloodwork to the tune of $611, the determination — he had an upset tummy) and today I’m running around trying to tempt JJ to eat with soft treats and easily digestible things and Jeremy is making an absolute ass of himself trying to get in my way. Need to catch up with word count, monitor the pending Senate race in Georgia (come on, Jon!), and brave the outside world later on for a food shop.
Onward, 2021.
N. N. Light’s Book Heaven’s Christmas and Holiday Book Festival – Natasha M. Stark
Hello, all you lovely people, and welcome to the blog! I probably should explain the discrepancy between the name in the blog title and the name on the website itself — I write speculative romance (SF/fantasy/paranormal) as Nicola Cameron, but in 2020 I started writing contemporary romance as Natasha M. Stark. My very first contemporary holiday romance, One Sweet Christmas, is the story of an unemployed personal assistant traveling to LA who gets stranded in a Colorado ski town when her car breaks down. She gets talking into helping the local hot baker make an emergency wedding cake for an influencer Bridezilla––and hijinks ensue!
One Sweet Christmas was an absolute ball to write as it combined three of my favorite things––romance, banter, and baking. I can neither confirm nor deny that this story was influenced by The Great British Bakeoff, but I do enjoy baking assorted treats like mince pies and fruitcake, which leads me to my family holiday tradition. When I was a kid, my mother used to make a Polish fried cookie called Chrusciki (angel wings) every Christmas, and watching her making them was almost as good as eating them.
This was before the advent of silicone baking sheets, so she would spread a clean sheet over the kitchen counter to get a smooth surface, scatter it with flour, then roll out paper-thin sections of dough before slicing them into rectangles and cutting a slit down the center of the long side.
One end would get pulled through the slit to form a kind of dough bow tie, before going into hot oil and puffing up into a delicious, crispy cookie. The final touch was sprinkling them with powdered sugar (this had to be done while they were still hot and slightly oily so that the sugar would stick). You couldn’t wear anything nice when you ate Chrusciki because you’d get powdered sugar over everything, but we didn’t care because they were so yummy.
If you also love baking and want to take a crack at making these delicious cookies, Jenny Can Cook has a really good recipe that produces authentic Chrusciki. Just don’t wear anything that has to be dry cleaned when you nom them.
Thanks so much for stopping by the blog, and I hope you had a good (and safe) holiday this year! Before you go, I’d like to remind you of the Rafflecopter giveaway being held by N.N. Light’s Book Heaven. Everyone who enters has a chance at winning one of the following:
- $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
- $50 Amazon (US) or Barnes and Noble Gift Card
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Direct Link: https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/92db775087
The giveaway is open internationally and runs December 1 – 31, and a drawing will be held on January 4, 2021. Click the link above to enter, and good luck!
Nicola Cameron Writes 