Thursday, March 27, 2014

Break Time

I'm not sure what to do. I feel a little overwhelmed with writing my blog right now.  I think I'll take a break and see how I feel after... oh say two weeks?

Other options I've considered is only posting pictures, random updates or book reviews when I have the extra time to write them.  My work schedule keeps me pretty busy.

I'll be back to let you know.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

WTF? Wednesday: Bugles Claw vs Cat

Because Wordless Wednesday didn't seem fitting.  I had a bag of Bugles.  Bugles + hyper me = silly pictures time!  Now go grab some Bugles.  Happy Wednesday!

Friday, March 14, 2014

Release Day!


Congratulations T.G. Ayer,
and Happy Release Day
RETRIBUTION!


RETRIBUTION
Chronicles of the Irin, Book #1
Publisher: Infinite Ink Books
Release Date: March 14th 2014


Her name is Evangeline and she is Nephilim.

Evie belongs to the Brotherhood Irin and together with all the other Nephilim of the world she is protector to humanity, protector against evil. But evil has found its way into the Brotherhood. Someone has murdered her guardian and Marcellus, the New Master makes demands of the warriors that go against all they stand for. Demands Evie just can’t carry out.

Evie uncovers Marcellus’ plan to collect a set of special seals, but when a high-level demon reveals the truth behind the Seals of Hades, Evie know there is no way she can allow the Master of the Irin to get his hands on them. But will keeping the Seals from Marcellus cause her to sacrifice more that she should? Will vengeance for her guardian’s death be enough or will she need more to satisfy her Immortal soul?


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Purchase LINKS to come


"What exactly are you doing here?" Julian turned to Evie, an edge to his voice.

She backed away and ended up against the wall, again.

"Ask yourself that."

 "What's that suppose to mean?" He took another step closer leaving not an inch of space between them.

Evie’s breath came in short bursts. Her hands went to his chest and she felt the steady strong beat of his heart. She wanted to push him off but more than anything she wanted him closer. Her body hummed with awareness but she forced herself to concentrate on answering him. "Just that is was

you who got me down here in the first place. If you're trying to kill me, I'm sure there are better ways than sending me to be chimera-chow."

"I didn't ask you to come here." Julian was frowning. The beating beneath her fingers sped up. "Flavia said you did. Covering your tracks now, are you?"

She raised an eyebrow, trying not to think about the heat that simmered between them. From

Julian’s rapid breath it was clear he wasn’t immune.

"Don't be silly. This reeks of Persephone." When he spoke his lips were so close she just had to lift her head a fraction of an inch for them to touch hers. The heated brush of his breath called to her.

Instead, she remained motionless while trying to force her heart to return to a more decent rate. "I thought so too."

"Then why did you accuse me?" Julian's glared at her, although she was sure she saw amusement in his eyes. Evie lifted her chin, even though the action brought her mouth way too close to his. "How was I to know you wouldn't defend her and think I'm making all of this up? And how am I to be sure

it wasn't really you in the first place?"

Evie's eyes narrowed as she met his eyes. He stared back at her, blinking so slowly, so lazily that she wondered how it was possible when his heart raced wildly beneath her fingers.

It was inevitable that their lips touched. Evie breathed and leaned into Julian as his hands went

around her waist. Just one kiss made her world turn on its head. They dragged apart just for air, while Julian took her lip between his teeth. Evie shivered as her body answered, her need hot and visceral.

“Julian.” His lips took hers again. He kissed her deeply, wildly and she drowned in the intoxicating scent of him. And then he moved away, the air a cold blast of reality. Julian shook his head, his eyes one moment burning with need and the next black with iron fury. "Let's get out of here before I throw you to Chimera myself."

I have been a writer from the time I was old enough to recognise that reading was a doorway into my imagination. Poetry was my first foray into the art of the written word. Books were my best friends, my escape, my haven. I am essentially a recluse but this part of my personality is impossible to practise given I have two teenage daughters, who are actually my friends, my tea-makers, my confidantes... I am blessed with a husband who has left me for golf. It's a fair trade as I have left him for writing. We are both passionate supporters of each others loves - it works wonderfully...

My heart is currently broken in two. One half resides in South Africa where my old roots still remain, and my heart still longs for the endless beaches and the smell of moist soil after a summer downpour. My love for Ma Afrika will never fade. The other half of me has been transplanted to the Land of the Long White Cloud. The land of the Taniwha, beautiful Maraes, and volcanoes. The land of green, pure beauty that truly inspires. And because I am so torn between these two lands - I shall forever remain crosseyed.

I love talking to my readers so email me if you have any questions or even if you just want to chat...
Email: tgayer@xtra.co.nz or tgayerauthor@gmail.com

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Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes


What could draw poet, explorer, loner and paranoid Mykol Ranglen away from the relative peace of his own ring-in-space habitat?

He has no choice in the matter as one by one acquaintances are murdered or disappear altogether. Propelled by ever changing and deepening mysteries Mykol embarks to uncover secrets which could make people rich beyond their wildest dreams…or tear apart human civilization.

The escalating quest takes him through worlds of many dangerous extremes, leading him to confront the deadly alien Fist of Thorns, extinct species refusing to give up their power over the future, and those racing against him to uncover the secret first. But in the course of his pursuit, he must also face his own secrets. And some of these are even more dangerous.  
 
The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes by Albert Wendland

Cover Art by Bradley Sharp Foreword by William H. Keith

 Space Opera Paperback coming from Dog Star Books in June 2014

 ~~~

 What They’re Saying About The Man Who Loved Alien Landscapes
 
"Mystery, heart-pounding adventure, and the dazzling wonders of far-flung space play significant roles in Wendland's breakout novel, all while gifting us with a mesmerizing tour of alien landscapes destined to get under your skin and remind you of the very reason science fiction exists: Not to escape to other worlds, but to find ourselves within them." --Diana Dru Botsford, author of THE DRIFT and FOUR DRAGONS Inside are alien worlds and titanic space habitats and a brilliant and paranoid hero, all skillfully blended together with long-vanished galactic secrets. Science fiction… good science fiction, by a college professor of literature who loves good SF." --From the foreword by William H. Keith, New York Times Bestselling Science Fiction Author

Friday, March 7, 2014

Cinnamon for Dogs?!

So little Squeak was recently exposed to a few dogs that had kennel cough.  Kennel cough is just a dog's version of the common cold, but it puffs up their throat causing them to cough all the time.  Yosuke started coughing a little a few days after the exposure - maybe two or three times a day, so I wasn't worried.  Just in case, I looked up the symptoms, progression of the virus, etc.  I found out that left un-treated this virus can cause long term damage to the esophagus.  O.o

I didn't want that to happen, especially after losing our first doxie to a really nasty disease.  So I looked up home remedies to prevent the virus from getting worse.  The most common/recommended remedy were anti-viral spices and oils.  The best example?  Cinnamon!
I started adding about a 1/4tsp of ground cinnamon to Yosuke's food, then softened his food with hot water so he was getting every tiny bit of it.  (He only gets 1/4c of food twice a day.  Yes, that is all he needs to maintain his 10# of weight - I'm not starving him!)

And guess what!?  He hasn't coughed for three days AND he has more energy!

Another added bonus... he smells like cinnamon.  Which is my favorite spice.  yay!

So... if your dog is coughing (consult your vet first) try out some cinnamon with their food!  Happy Friday!

Oh... for the book review I was supposed to put up today, hang in there! It's coming!

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Chasing Prophecy!

Title: Chasing Prophecy
Author: James Moser
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Thriller
Ebook available at: Kindle | Smashwords

Book Description:
Mo is a shy teen who is just trying to survive high school. He has secretly fallen in love with a girl named Prophecy who lives with a group that some call a commune and others call a cult. When she disappears, Mo must find the courage to face the monster that her family has become. Chasing Prophecy is a contemporary coming of age story that is heartwarming, suspenseful, and beautifully written. This book chronicles the adolescence of one boy who must transform himself to save the girl of his dreams.

Kirkus Reviews:
"A stellar read for teens and adults, full of hilarious growing pains, tenderness and a few surprises. Moser’s debut is an unflinching young-adult novel that sees a group of friends tested by bigotry and the illegal machinations of a religious cult. The author serves up an irresistibly wisecracking narrator in Mo Kirkland. Every page ripples with a controlled cleverness. There’s also a rawness to this tale similar to that which many teens face in the real world. Moser can wax rhapsodic about young love, but he shows that he knows how to raise the tension in the second half of the novel."


Excerpt:

Max leaned over and whispered, “They don’t have any gear.”

I looked at their packs. He was right. No rolled-up tents, sleeping bags or cookware dangled from any of the straps or hooks. Just bulging backpacks. Their empty sports- drink bottles were the only clue that they’d known they were about to hike straight up a mountain.

I remember thinking how weird it was that they carried so much weight uphill and none of that weight was soap, clean clothes, or sleeping bags.

Max peeked inside one of their packs. He undid the top pull-cord and pulled out a giant freezer-bag of red crystals. I undid the top drawstring of one of the other backpacks. More bags of the same stuff. I held one up. A bright flash startled us, made us step back. After blinking away the spots, I saw Clean with one arm extended, centering us in another picture he was taking on his phone.

“What’s this?” I asked, holding up a bag of what looked like raspberry Sno-Kone.

“Drugs,” Max said softly.

“It is not ‘drugs,’” said Clean. “It is the salvation of our family. It is the sword we will use to fight off Big Brother, to beat him back from our land, to cut off his hand as it reaches for what is ours. Now put those bags of salvation back, please. I’m sending word of our salvation to my father.” He held the Blackberry closer to his face and I knew he was forwarding the picture to Able back at the ranch.

Big buckets of reality crashed down on me head. Huge bags of drugs brought in from Canada. Hiked over the border in the dense woodsy areas where the Mount Baker National Forest drops to the Canadian Border.

These guys are criminals, I thought.

Clean waved at our tents, sleeping bags, and the rest of the food. He said, “You guys should just chill for a day, catch your breath, eat, drink, and sleep. No fires. We’re way off the trail and we’re nowhere near the spot where people hang-glide, base-jump or wall- climb. I put all the dehydrated food pouches in the blue backpack—soups and chili and fruit. A whole bottle of water purifying tablets. It’s not tons but it’ll keep you fueled til you’re back home. Thanks to you, the hard work is done.”

“Thanks, bruh,” said the leader of the other team. The three of them were leaning into the rock and leaning into each other. They must have done that on the way up, at night, to stay warm.

Clean motioned us to the other end of the rock. He said, “We leave in half an hour. Drink all the water you can, then fill up one small water bottle each. Remember to add an iodine tablet. No one can get sick on the way down. And,” he said, pausing to reach into his pack. “We wear these on the way down.” He pulled out green and tan camouflage floppy hats and t-shirts that matched the backpacks our visitors had carried.

“What about . . .” I started to say.

Max took a deep breath, dropped his chin and stared at the ground. He understood before I did that the Vision-Quest was over. We’d come to exactly this spot because this was the mission Able and Clean had planned for us all along.

Clean said, “We’re carrying it back down to the trailhead. We’re taking no food. We ate less than 24 hours ago and will be able to eat again before we go to sleep, after we get home. We have water. It’s downhill for us so we should make the car before dark. I have a small thing of sunscreen. Other than that, all we need is some guts.”

Max’s face was angry. I was just plain numb. There was nothing else to say.

Half an hour later, Clean hugged his three companions goodbye. We stayed on the southern end of the ledge, teetering under the heavy packs, just nodding politely to the other crew. We started down and did not talk. The backpacks carried the same weight but since I’m smaller than Clean and Max, I struggled more. I panted and stumbled a few times. We reached the tree-line in a couple hours.

Max and I kept trading WTF looks.

I thought, What is Kazzy doing right now? Does she have backpack of drugs, too? Did she know about this? Of course she didn’t know. The day before she looked so lost and confused. As lost and confused as anyone in the dining hall. If she had drugs on her back, she was as surprised as we were.

God, I wanted to hold her and I wanted her to hold me back. I’ve never wanted to hold someone so much. I thought of the squeeze she’d given me as she left the school bus.

The school bus. Right. They’d chosen a special ed. school bus to bring us in and out because it would hide in plain sight. No cop would pull us over for a small reason.

Max suddenly said, “Shit.” He kicked a tree, nearly fell from being off-balance under the heavy pack, steadied himself, unstrapped, and dropped his pack on the ground. He looked at me, then at Clean. “This is illegal. It’s not what you said we’d be doing.”

Clean moved quickly toward Max. I dropped my pack to the ground and took a long step toward them--to break up the fight before it got started. Clean’s eyes darted to mine. He put his finger to his lips.

Max put up his fists but Clean was already past him.

Clean took two long steps down the path, to the bend in the next switchback. He looked back at us—eyes on fire. He pointed sharply at us and then up into the woods.

We pulled on our packs and labored up the rocky hillside, grabbing at pine trees and brush. Glancing to our right, I saw Clean doing the same. We reached a spot thirty feet off the trail, level and dense with ferns. From the trail we heard a rustling and the unmistakable clip-clopping of horseshoes. We dropped down in the ferns, shimmied out of our backpacks and kneeled down in the dense mossy soil.

A forest ranger on horseback came into view. As he brought the horse to a stop, it sniffed at the air, looked our way and froze. I knew it had smelled us. We turned to Clean. He put one finger to his lips and stared daggers at us.

The ranger wore an olive green, short-sleeved shirt and cargo shorts. He had a walkie talkie clipped to his belt and a satellite phone in his hand. The saddle held a canteen, knapsack, and a long leather sleeve with a shotgun handle sticking out. As he turned around, I saw a handgun holstered at his side. The guy looked straight ahead, spoke into his satellite phone, dismounted, whispered softly to the horse, and stroked its mane.

I looked back at Clean and what I saw told me that the Bethlehem family had changed forever. The fingers of one hand were spread toward us, commanding we remain still and silent. His other hand held a gun. The lines on his face were calm. He was not afraid.

The ranger turned his back to us, lowered his hands, undid his belt buckle, moved his legs apart, looked to the sky, began to whistle. Clean gently clicked off the safety. The horse heard it, darting its eyes in our direction, snuffled, pawed at the ground restlessly. The man turned back to the horse, whispered, went back to whistling.

After the ranger and horse were safely out of earshot, we stepped over to Clean.

Max said, “What are you doing with a GUN???”

I added, “Yeah, and what were you gonna do if he saw us?”

Clean looked calmly at me, snapped the safety back on, and returned the gun to the waist- band against his lower back. He clicked on his walkie talkie, adjusted the volume and channel, and said, “Redemption Team One to Redemption Team Two. Redemption Team One to Redemption Team Two. Anyone out there chillin’? Over.”

A long pause, and then the crackling response, “Chillin’ like Bob Dylan. Thought you guys were gone. Over.”

Clean said, “We just ran into Steve’s Big Brother. You remember Rick, right? Over.”

A longer, crackling pause.

“Copy that. Long time since we’ve seen Rick. He by himself? Over”

“Affirmative. Over.”

And the longest, crackling pause yet.

“How long til Rick arrives for dinner? Over.”

“He’s probably not coming to your house, but if he does go that way, it’ll be at least an hour. No more than two. Over.”

“Copy that. If you seen him again, tell him sorry we missed him and we’ll catch him next time. We’re running late and we’ll be gone in ten minutes. Over.”

“Sounds like a plan. Sorry about the fast turnaround. I know you guys are tired from the trip. From the long drive all the way from California, I mean. Over.”

“Copy that. Catch you guys next time. Over and out.”

“Copy that. Over and out.”

Clean switched off his walkie talkie and clipped it onto his belt.

“Look at me,” he said. “Everyone take a drink of water and pee if you have to. We are not stopping for a few hours, until we get to the parking lot. I will walk on point. That means I’ll be by myself about fifty feet ahead. There will be NO talking, so I can hear what’s ahead. You watch where you’re walking and you watch me. I put my hand up, that means stop. I point, and that means you have five seconds to go wherever I’m pointing.

“We run into someone and can’t hide in time, you just do exactly what I do. We’ll say hello all friendly-like, but you keep your heads down and you do not slow down no matter what. I will go first. I’ll pause, I’ll make some small talk for ten seconds while you pass me, and then I’ll bring up the rear after the two of you are down the trail a bit. I will catch up on my own so don’t look back. We don’t look back and we don’t stop no matter what.”

We nodded.

“Say it so I know you understand,” he said.

“Don’t look back,” Max said.

“Don’t stop, no matter what,” I said.


About the Author:
James Moser has always loved stories in all forms. He is in his fourteenth year of working with high school students. The author’s goal was to write a book that would inspire even his most reluctant readers. Young adults have always inspired him. As such, he wanted to show teenagers transforming themselves to overcome obstacles, which is what he watches them do, every day.

Moser has a B.A. in English and a Master’s degree in Secondary English Education. He lives in Seattle with his beautiful wife and eight year old son. When he’s not reading and writing, or thinking about reading and writing, he’s watching way too much television while snacking on frozen treats from Trader Joe’s. Man, those things are good.

Where to find James Moser:


Monday, March 3, 2014

Cover Reveal!!

 You questioned reality in The Scene, ran for your life in Endless Night, and lost your head in Sacrifice, hang on to that soul, Forsaken is coming fast. Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult series: proof you don't have to be a size six to get the guy and save the day. Just a bad ass...