April 2! The sky is clear, the sun is shining, but it’s -7 Celsius (19 F), but thanks to the wind feels like -16 Celsius (3 F).
This week I want to highlight a scene from my romance, Wedding Bell Blues.
Romance, mermaids, cursed treasure, and more. MJ’s having a bad year. She’s canceled her wedding but refuses to give up the honeymoon. When she arrives on Paradise Island, she discovers her ex has changed the reservation.
Stranded, she has to rely on her first love, a man who sees her as his kid sister, for help. When Paul discovers the man behind her plight is the bully who made his own teen years hell, he gets MJ to agree to pretend to be his fiancée. Reluctantly, she agrees. Add in mermaids, treasure hunters, and Quimbois magic, and anything can happen—even falling in love.
MJ’s in for a wild ride! Read the free sample above. Have a great Sunday. Don’t forget to check back and follow my A to Z blogging this month.
Welcome to this year’s A to Z Blog Challenge. My theme this year is Did You Know? It’s a composite of things I’ve learned over the last ten years writing, researching, and editing. For each post I’ll publish, I’ll give the question and answer it, adding information on how I used it in my writing, and occasionally providing an excerpt from the book where it was used. I hope you’ll enjoy what essentially is a glimpse into my writing process.
This year, I’ve written two books in which I’ve used the same information but in a slightly different way. April first is for the letter A. Did You Know that Atavism occurs in humans as well as in plants and animals? In humans, atavism is often referred to as the throwback gene. When a man and a woman create a child, that child gets 50 percent of its DNA from each parent. But each child won’t necessarily get the same 50 percent from each parent. (More about this under the letter D.)
In biology, atavism is the modification of a biological structure. In humans, it refers to the reappearance of a trait that had been lost during evolution. Our genes do not determine who we are, but with atavism, they can sometimes serve as reminders of our evolutionary past. There are several common examples of atavism in humans which include: color blindness, extra nipples, extra fingers or toes, an elongated coccyx (“tail”), excess hair, third molars, sharpened eyeteeth, etc.
Scientists postulate that a person’s aggression may be described as atavistic because it supposedly goes back to the ancient days when humans had to fight to survive–think of cavemen battling their environment, barbarians fighting over food and land–come to think of it, we may not have evolved that much!
In “The Criminal Man”, first published in 1876, Lombroso postulated a theory to explain why some people committed crimes, while others didn’t. Essentially, Lombroso believed that some people were born with certain physical and psychological characteristics that made them prone to criminal behavior.
Nature versus nurture is nothing new and has been debated in both biology and society. It’s the argument about the competing factors which determine fate: genetics and environment. Even today, people are split on what has the greatest influence on a person’s life.
While I found the idea of a born criminal intriguing, I used the idea of physical traits and abilities’ aspect of atavism in my Paranormal Suspense/Psychic Romance novel Atonement as well as in my Romance Suspense Finding Melinda, both books to be released this spring.
In Atonement, my heroine Anca, has inherited abilities from long-lost ancestors. She’s more than a witch, and discovering what she can do, what her ancestor could do is both thrilling and frightening since the fate of those she loves hangs in the balance of her success or failure to recover certain artifacts and defeat a reincarnated god.
Although she was raised in an alleged haunted house by a Wiccan priestess, Anca Cole, a bartender with a degree in psychology, refuses to believe in magic, demons, ghosts, curses, or anything remotely supernatural. There’s a logical explanation for everything. When her aunt has an accident, Anca rushes back to Salem, arriving home to realize that things aren’t what she expected. The family ghost exists and insists it’s time for Anca to accept and fulfill her destiny. With help from Dr. Walt Tanner, the man who broke her heart, a couple of unusual cats, and an ancient parrot, Anca sets out to discover the truth about Cole Cottage and find the key to saving the future. This fight may have started more than three hundred and fifty years ago, but the war ends now. Unless she and Walt can find what was lost, evil will prevail and destroy any chance they may have at a future together. Can their love overcome centuries of hatred, jealousy, envy, and greed, or will they be doomed to stay apart forever?
In Finding Melinda, the story revolves around a woman who’s always believed the fact that she doesn’t resemble her brother and sister who look like their mother is because she takes after ancestors on her father’s side. When she discovers she’s adopted, everything she knew about herself changes as she tries to identify who and what she is in light of this new information and find the family she never knew she had.
That’s it for today. Come back tomorrow for a Did You Know ? about B.
Welcome to the last post for the month of March and the first in my new Contemporary Romance, Finding Melinda. Have you ever taken one of the DNA tests they advertise? I did a few years ago as part of the research I was doing for a book I was working on at the time. The results were surprising, not Earth-shattering in any way, but they did lead me to discover aspects of my past that I hadn’t known. Finding Melinda is a purely fictitious story about what could happen if the results were completely unexpected.
Pierce’s eyebrows rose as he stared at the world map with its highlighted areas.
“Are you sure those are your results?” He leaned in closer.
“It’s my account, and this is my number,” Melinda confirmed, her lips pursed, her brow furrowed. “Is it possible they made a mistake? Mixed up the samples at the source?”
Pierce shook his head. “Anything is possible, but it’s unlikely. That particular company has a 97 percent accuracy rate.”
“Come on,” Mandy said, pouting. “Don’t keep us hanging.”
Melinda swallowed. “Well, according to this, I’m 68 percent French, 20 percent Basque, 7 percent Iberian Peninsula, 1 percent Greek, and a couple of other ethnicities each at less than 1 percent. What I’m definitely not is Irish. It’s as if I’m from a completely different family tree. Hell, I don’t even belong in the same orchard as you guys.”
“That’s got to be wrong,” Danny said, frowning. “Mandy and I have Ireland, Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Western Europe, but none of what you have, and given we should have between 25 and 50 percent, they must’ve made a mistake. I’ll order another test when we get home, and you can try again. In the meantime, let’s put the bet on hold. The next drinks are on me. What’ll you have, ladies? Let’s not let this spoil our last day here.”
“Of course not,” Melinda said, her voice maybe a little too bright as she fought down her concern. “Mom did say I took after the Crites while you guys are Donners through and through. This is just a hiccough. Pierce, didn’t you say they were constantly updating results? You two have Western Europe. The last time I looked, that’s where France is.” She laughed. “Who’s to say the first Crites didn’t originate in France? Danny, I’ll have a Bahama Mama.”
Melinda stared at her results once more before shutting off her tablet, her fertile writer’s imagination coming up with one scenario after another before deciding on the most likely one. The hospital had made a mistake, and she and another child had been switched at birth. Hadn’t she always felt like the odd man out?
Her mother’s last words came back to her. You were my gift, our gift. A gift from whom? She looked out at the ocean, as silvery under the sun as the wrapping paper on the Christmas gift had been. If she wasn’t a Crites, who was she?
That’s it. Stay safe, and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales, the blog that gives readers a peek at an author’s work in progress. This week’s post will be the last one from Atonement, my psychic romance/paranormal suspense novel. It’s been a long haul as those of you following the blog know, but it’s finished, and I’m happy with it. Follow my blog if you’d like to learn more about when the book will be available.
This week’s word is CHAOS, a fitting way to end this crazy roller-coaster ride. The scene is limited to 400 words.
Enjoy! Next week, I’ll be starting something new.
“I wasn’t expecting this.” Walt stopped in his tracks.
So lost in her thoughts was she that she slammed into his back.
“I can smell the sea,” he continued. “I can even feel a slight breeze, and hear the waves breaking in the distance, yet I’m looking at a solid wall.”
Anca frowned and looked around him. “It has to be an illusion.” She pushed against it, but the wall didn’t budge.
Walt examined the door. “Over here. There’s a depression like the one we saw just inside the tunnel.”
She stepped closer. “You’re right, but this time, the initials are at three o’clock, not at the top.”
She fished the fused coin out of her pocket, set it in the opening, so that what she considered the top of the coin now faced the letters. The wall vanished and the coin popped out of the depression and into her hand once more.
“Wow,” Walt said and whistled. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Trunks, chests, barrels, boxes, and crates were stacked floor to ceiling inside the cavern. He walked over to the wooden chest closest to him and opened it, revealing silver coins in various sizes, all as shiny as the day they’d been minted. He picked one up. “It’s a Spanish seventeenth century silver dollar. There has to be hundreds of them in here, and who knows what else is in the other chests. This is worth a fortune. If this is what Ralph and the men were looking for … Losh could do a lot of damage with this wealth and whatever’s in all of those. It’ll take us a long time to go through all of this.” He indicated the chaos in the room. “If Hezekiah’s skin and the artifacts are in one or more of them, how will we ever find them?”
She smiled. “They aren’t. In fact, most of this stuff isn’t Hezekiah’s. It belonged to Fearless Red. We’ve found the treasure everyone, including the men staying in the cottage, have been trying to find for decades. I suppose that, since he was related to the Coles, it must be mine. I’m sure there are a lot of valuable items in that mess, stuff the museums would love, but Hezekiah’s skin isn’t one of them.”
That’s it. Stay safe, and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
With spring comes April and this year’s blogging challenge. Today is Theme Reveal Day!
It’s that time of year when I have to pick a theme for this year’s A to Z Blog Challenge. Lat year. I worked with literary devices, the year before that with cocktails. The theme this year will be Did You Know?
Each day, I will be blogging about something I’ve learned during my writing journey, something that helped me craft new stories with interesting and unusual plots. Hope to see you each day as I add to your trivial store of knowledge, with facts, figures, and a peek at how I used it in a book. The countdown has started!
Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. March has certainly come in as a lamb for us here in Eastern Ontario. The temperature ids mild and the snow is going away, although there’s more in the forecast. To those of you with a dollop of Irish blood, I wish you a Happy St Patrick’s Day.
Atonement is heading toward its conclusion as Anca gets closer to fulfilling her destiny. This week, we have a picture prompt, and our word limit is 300. Here’s the picture I selected. Enjoy.
Magic rite for attracting love, changing fate , illustration for attraction destiny, occultism concept
Walt held Pop’s hand as Snap and Crackle moved among the goats in the enclosure. Earlier, he and Anca had introduced themselves to Richard Olsen and Brigit, the Tanguy farm managers, and had been given a tour of the farmhouse. If Ishmael’s desk had ever been there, it wasn’t now, nor was it in any of the outbuildings they’d examined.
While Anca had scrutinized every room in each of the buildings they’d visited, the only thing that had caught her attention had been an older, handblown, peach-colored glass bowl with a red beeswax candle in its center. When she’d commented on it, Brigit had insisted she take it, claiming that it had been used the previous year on Samhain as part of a matchmaking game. Unfortunately, she hadn’t noticed anything enchanted that could be the exit from the tunnel. As it stood, they had to hope that whatever was under the last cobblestone would give them the clues they needed.
He turned to her, his heart filling with more love than he would’ve thought possible. The sheer joy on her face as she watched the children brought with it a longing for children of his own—her children. He frowned, but if last night’s fantasies were to be believed, that might never happen. His sleep had been interrupted with dreams, at first similar to their moment in the bar, but then she would don the fur and run into the water. In that moment, he knew she would never return, and it devastated him. How much of the selkie would stay in her once she tamed the storm and defeated Losh? Would she remember him and the life they could have here, or would the lure of the sea be too strong to fight?
That’s it. Stay safe, and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
Welcome to March! We’re only two weeks away from the first day of spring, although Old Man Winter is keeping a tight grip on things around here. This week, the authors of the Tuesday tales blog are posting scenes with the word prompt LUCK. We’re moving closer to the climax here in Atonement. I hope you’re enjoying my magical, mystical, suspenseful paranormal tale.
Walt finished his milkshake. “I agree, and you’re right.” He chuckled. “Didn’t you say a soul could come back as anything, even one of the birds you hate?”
“I suppose, but I think we controllers of magic do return in human form. I’m hoping to learn more about that later … if we have a later.”
He reached for her empty hand. “We will. We have to. Now, what else did you learn?”
She described discovering runes on the staircase and finding the box in the cradle.
“Here it is.” She set a carved rectangular box on the table between them. “Even Hester didn’t know it was there. I asked her if she knew what I needed to find, but she’s never seen the artifacts. Hezekiah told her about them and that they were hidden someplace safe, but not what they were. That’s why she’s sure he would’ve come back for her … and them … if he could have. Since he didn’t, and the artifacts remain hidden where he left them, none of the Coles since his death have been able to protect the planet from catastrophic storms and other weather-related disasters. I’ve been trying to get my head around the reason for that; I mean, there have been at least fifty Coles since Hester’s death, but none of them could’ve had the abilities I do.”
He scratched his chin. “It could be a case of atavism, what people call a throwback.”
“You mean like my toes?”
“It’s possible, but those aren’t as rare as you think. Essentially, Atavism occurs when genes for an older trait, preserved in DNA, reassert themselves, replacing a dominant gene that we’re familiar with, one that hasn’t been seen in many generations. For example, hens have the gene to grow teeth, but as a rule, they don’t, just like fish and snakes don’t have legs and feet, but every now and then, you see one that does. many of the freaks in Barnum’s circus tents were mild examples of it. Look at it this way. It’s the luck of the draw, and you won the grand prize. Would you have preferred being born with hair from head to toe?”
Considering the fact that he was precariously close to the truth, she laughed. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Huffing out a deep breath, she stared out at the water.
That’s it. Stay safe, and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
Another month come and gone! Sadly, it didn’t take winter with it! As I sit here this morning, the school buses are cancelled again because Old Man Winter is being a jerk again. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had more than enough of the 22-23 winter season. Twenty-one days until spring. It can’t come soon enough.
March 1 question – Have you ever read a line in novel or a clever plot twist that caused you to have author envy?
Anyone who answers no to this question has to be lying. Let’s face it. Most of us became writers for that very reason. We envied what others had written and wanted to prove to ourselves and the world that we could do it, too.
My desire to become a writer started in my pre-teens when I used to read the novels my mother bought me or the ones I picked up at the library. As an asthmatic in the late fifties, early sixties, I had no puffers to stop me from hacking my way through allergy season. When things got really bad, I spent a few days in the hospital on oxygen until the episode resolved itself. My best friends were Nancy Drew, Annette, Trixie Belden, and The Hardy Boys. I would read my books, and when I was done with them, I would let my imagination create other adventures for the characters. Back in those pre-computer days, I filled notebooks with ideas that never went anywhere.
As I got older, my choices in reading became more eclectic. I consumed historical novels, dined on Harlequin Romances, and mysteries. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot became my go-to heroes. I loved the way Doyle and Christie pulled the stories together.
Now, as an author, I seek to emulate those classics. Am I succeeding? I hope so. Nothing would please me more than hearing a budding author say that I inspired them to become a writer because they wanted to write like me.
Welcome to the end of February. Is it just me, or wasn’t Christmas like yesterday?
Today, the authors from Tuesday Tales are bringing you scenes based on the word prompt BUD. I’ve jumped ahead a little. Losh is a fallen god out for revenge against the Coles. My scene is from Atonement, my Psychic Romance/Paranormal Suspense. There are only a few scenes left before it heads over to be published. The plot thickens.
“Aunt Selma, there’s no easy way to say this, but your guests aren’t who and what they say they are. They aren’t demons, but I believe they’re working with Losh. Roberta says they’re trying to identify him, but he’s gotten better at hiding himself from their magic. The men have been searching the cottage, The Taproom in particular, but if Hezekiah has enchanted the artifacts, I may be the only one who can find them.”
Her aunt leaned back. “I should’ve known. It’s as if I’ve been in a fog for months not a day.” She reached for the red rose in the vase, the bloom not much more than a bud. A touch of her fingers, and it blossomed. “Maybe hitting my head has knocked some sense into me. Roberta brought me some tea earlier that seems to have done wonders. I’m far more clearheaded than I was. I can’t for the life of me understand why I would’ve done such a thing.”
“You were worried about me, Samhain, and everything else that’s due to happen.”
Aunt Selma chuckled. “There’s a little more to it than that, and we both know it. The time wasn’t right. Now, it is, although I wish we had more of it. When you get back to the cottage this afternoon, open the chest. Inside you’ll find three books handed down from generation to generation, although few of us can read them now. Le Grand Albert and Le Petit Albert are grimoires, books of magic and alchemy, with spells and incantations as well as recipes for potions. There may be something in there that can help identify this latest incarnation of Losh. The smaller book is by no means an abridged version of the larger one. Many of my elixir and soap recipes come from it. Hester translated them for me, and I wrote them out. You’ll find my book of recipes in there as well as a journal written by Asher Cole, Ishmael’s father and the leader of the expedition that fled Jersey for the New World. They traveled in three ships, that I know. His book is in Breton, unlike the grimoires written in twelfth century Latin, not quite the language you learned in school. The author, Albertus Magnus, is actually a Catholic saint. If you’re the one meant to read them, you will.”
That’s it. Stay safe, and don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
Good morning. It’s snowing in my corner of the world. What’s it doing in yours? This month, the ABB has reduced the prices on some fascinating sets–everything from comedy to suspense, cozy mysteries to thrills and chills.
We’ve discounted book bundles in three genres of book bundles. Now only $2.99 USD each, or fee in Kindle Unlimited, you can load up your e-reader for that vacation south you’re looking forward to this month. Not traveling? Then cuddle up in your favorite chair with these not to be missed books from New Yor Times and USA Today bestselling authors.
Living the Dream 