Sunday Stealing: That Meme That's Going Around

Cheers to all of us thieves!

A. Age: 37

B. Bed size: King

C. Chore that you hate: putting the dishes away...I can wash them but I really, really hit the wall when it's time to put them away.

D. Dogs: one golden retriever

E. Essential start to your day: iced tea....usually red rose. Used to love Tazo but got a bad batch and can't get in touch with the company to save my life. Kinda ticks me off

F. Favorite color: Blue

G. Gold or Silver: Silver or better yet, white gold or platinum

H. Height: 5 feet 2 inches, although it's actually a bit under 2 inches. lol

I. Instruments you play: Nope, not a single one. In the 6th grade when band was mandatory I played clarinet. I do love to sing but I'm not really any good at it.

J. Job title: Mama

K. Kids: 2 boys, CW is 5 and in Kindergarten, Ivan just turned 3 and is in preschool.

L. Live: and let live.

M. Mother's name: Camela, rhymes with Pamela. I think she has the coolest and most unique name, I've never met another Camela.

N. Nicknames: Peaches...and that's stretching it. Nicknames never stick. I was Sissy for a bit when my brother was little and that dropped off too.

O. Overnight hospital stays: that's personal, couple of lady things and a couple of c-sections. :) Oh and probably when I had my tonsils out.

P. Pet peeve: People who refuse to use their turn signals...it's not that hard! It's right by the steering wheel!

Q. Quote from a movie: "You don't trust no one, you might not get hurt but huff-puff you won't get loved either" - Wolf, The 10th Kingdom

R. Right or left handed: Right.

S. Siblings: I have a half brother with my biological dad, but I haven't met him. We've barely spoken and I've since lost touch. And another half brother with my mom but since his dad adopted me and is my "dad" I don't really think of him like that.

T. Time you wake up: 6:00 am during the week and 7:00 am on the weekends.

U. Underwear: Yeah, i wear 'em!

V. Vegetable you hate: Is watercress a vegetable? That's the only thing I can think of that I out and out hate!

W. What makes you run late: 2 little boys...

X. X-Rays you've had: Oh my neck awhile back after we were rear-ended. No biggie, I wasn't hurt but you know hospitals.

Y. Yummy food that you make: My husband and oldest boy really liked the Quiche I made last night, and my sausage gravy (I think my biscuits need work) and hubby really loves my Blackening spice.

Z. Zoo animal: Tiger! I've been dying to share these pics. From our zoo trip last summer. And I don't care what you say, I think CW looks great with long hair.

Witches on Parole: Unlocked

by: Debora Geary

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Smashwords.

Synopsis: Two pendants. Two students. And it's entirely possible they didn't volunteer.

World-famous (and now retired) photographer Jenvieve Adams has a debt to repay, and a soft spot for witches who have lost their way. Or so she thinks, until they actually show up.

Join some of the cast of characters from the very successful A Modern Witch series as they take on a new kind of journey as guides for WitchLight. What happens when an obsessive psychologist and a wordsmithing delinquent get dropped into Witch Central?

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The cover on this book really sets it apart from the main A Modern Witch series. It is a spin off and can be enjoyed on it's own. However, if you want more back-story on some of the characters then you can start with A Modern Witch and A Hidden Witch. Actually A Modern Witch lets you in on the characters you see again in Witches on Parole.

So we have Aunt Jennie, who I think was a fairly minor character - since I barely remember her. She has been roped into being a mentor in WitchLight, because she used to be a member. She messed up pretty bad, and Melvin helped get her back on track. She leans on her own mentor and his wife Vero heavily during this journey which helps her as much as it does her students, Lizard and Elsie.

Lizard is a tough girl who has had a rough go of it. She's used to being hard on people to protect herself. But she's a very good mind witch and wickedly smart too. Can Jennie help get Lizard into the community of witches and get her some viable options for her future? She enlists Lauren - realtor and mind witch from A Modern Witch - to help Lizard find her niche.

Elsie is a tightly wound therapist who has been having issues with boundaries and her patients. She volunteered (Lizard really was on parole) for WitchLight to give back to the community and perhaps find an appropriate outlet for getting involved. She is really pushed to the brink because Jennie senses there's a Fire Witch hidden in the dungeons of Elsie's mind. She enlists Nat (not a witch but very wise and mellow) to help and included Jamie (a fire witch and husband to Nat) to help pull her out of her shell.

I truly felt for both characters and the way the witching community pulled together to help both women made me tear up more than once. Debora Geary hit a home run with this book. The only bad thing I have to say is...I have to wait until 2012 for the next book.

Galaxy Girls

by Edie Ramer

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

Synopsis:
Genetically created to be broodmares, Phyrne Galaxy and her mother, aunt and cousin don't need men, they need freedom. They escaped from the warring planet of Kergeron to Earth, where Phyrne’s aunt's vision of winning money in a New Jersey casino comes true. Too bad her aunt's precog didn't show the hoods waiting outside with guns. But Phyrne has her own weapon, more powerful than bullets. She's ovulating.

Phyrne turns up the heat, taking out more than the crooks in her wave of sexual torture. FBI Special Agent Hawk Higgens, running to protect the women, is brought to his knees, too. Caught in her procreative spell, Phyrne ravishes Hawk.

Being seduced by an alien and left half naked and unconscious in the back of a surveillance van changes Hawk's life. He joins the Foundation, a privately funded agency that hunts aliens. Six years later, the reason for his career change pops back on the radar in a tea shop in Kentucky. The woman whose face still haunts his dreams has an addition to her family – a five-year-four-month-old daughter.

At the same time, two Kergeron warriors are sent to Earth to bring the women back to their home planet. With an ex-FBI agent and two alien warriors on her trail, Phyrne's calm life running the Tea & Comfort shop is about to get shaken, stirred and screwed.

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This book was sweet! It pulled me right in, another paranormal novel but leaning closer to sci-fi than actual witches. The Galaxy girls are really 2 sisters and their daughters. The story mainly revolves around one of the daughters. She is ovulating with a vengeance when they get to earth. Turns out it's a better weapon than a gun.

Phyrne uses her pheromones to allure and distract the guys with guns, she then turns it onto an FBI agent who comes on the scene and it gets away from her. They must copulate...SHE must copulate with him. And as she was bred to do, she gets pregnant. 6 years later in the story she has a gorgeous little girl and Hawk has spent the entire time looking for Phyrne, not even considering there might be a child involved.

When he finds her, she needs his help to save her family from the FBI and Kergeron males who have come to take them back home. Hawk thought he wanted revenge, but really he wanted more Phyrne and now that he knows he has a daughter he must decide what to do with his life.

I really enjoyed this book, it was sexy and fast paced, even though at first I thought it was long with 350 pages. I read this in a couple of nights, and enjoyed it all. The story doesn't ever slow down for a minute, not once in all those pages. And let me say I can enjoy a long story, The Stand by Stephen King is my favorite book of all and it's wordier than the Bible. But sometimes with all the independent e-books coming my way, anything over 250 has good odds to get a little slow in spots.

Very pleased with this novel, and I have to add Edie Ramer to my growing list of fabulous authors that are writing stories better than you find on the New York Best Seller List. I really should start a list and call them the "Hidden Gems" - don't steal that, that's mine! (lol)

Convergence

by: Joseph Gellene

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

Synopsis:
How do you stop a killer who remembers everything you're about to do?

John Smith greatly enjoys his unusual life. He's wealthy, long-lived, and very well traveled. He jumps to the 21st century expecting to be reunited with his daughter but finds she has been brutally murdered. Under normal circumstances it was a simple matter to undo an untimely death but, in this case, the killer remembers multiple fact patterns and easily thwarts John's attempts. To save his daughter, John must overcome shifting fact patterns, a determined detective, and three versions of the killer. His research shows that he fails, but facts can be fluid.

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This book is The Time Traveler's Wife and The Matrix all rolled into one. It's full of suspense and action and lots of different "fact patterns" due to numerous "fact shifts". The way it is supposed to work is there are people who go from birth to death with no jumping around, they are called linears. Then there are people who jump all over the place through infinite possibilities and probabilities. Toss in some physics - ok I really don't fully understand it but in the story it does make sense.

When the people who jump around...the Ordinals...and enter a new fact pattern, they generally forget anything else. They only know what is real where they are at. It saves their sanity. A few people can remember it all, all the shifts and possibilities, and these people wind up insane - there just isn't any other way.

The plot? An older Ordinal named John Smith finds his daughter murdered and while avoiding run ins with the police finds an abandoned little girl who is a new ordinal. He takes her back to his safe house where she is cared for by the caretakers. As an adult she is back to exact revenge against the man who murdered her parents...whoever that is. Then there is the police officer, a rookie who meets up with - or has a convergence - with his older and much older selves.

Criticism? Like the Time Travelers Wife, it gets hard to follow when all the characters and the facts of the story are shifting, it constantly changes throughout the story, and really kicks up toward the end.

You get to know the characters just enough. I'd have loved more background information on John Smith and Parker, two central characters that just don't get enough history or personality into the story.

That being said, I enjoyed the story. I had a hard time getting started, but by the time I reached the end I couldn't put it down. It's a great story if you can keep the facts straight. But don't feel bad if you can't, sometimes the characters couldn't either. lol