Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread
kindness wherever you go!
Marie
Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread
kindness wherever you go!
Marie
Chemistry may not hold interest to all, but chemists are people with the same feelings, ambitions, and heartache as anyone else.
Anna Ellis loves her nerdy job as a cosmetic chemist. She has her own lab at home, put together dollar by dollar in the most frugal way she is able to manage. Her lab at work is complete with a best friend, a demeaning boss, and the desirably handsome son-of-owner, Craig Kimball, she rarely gets to see.
Anna's goal, outside of her creations with chemicals, is to capture the love of Craig. She's sure he vividly remembers a parking lot encounter two years prior.
Anna, Anna who? Craig is less enamored than Anna could imagine. Instead, she's invited to his engagement party where he proposes to Marco's, his brother's, ex-girlfriend.
Marco hatches a plan to give payback to Craig, help Anna attain her true love (she thinks it's Craig-just a reminder), and help the makeup company they all work for thrive.
This involves a pretend relationship, which has to appear authentic between Marco and Anna. So many emotions have to be incorporated either by choice or necessity. Lust, Greed, jealousy, honesty, anger, and love. Some are great, and others not so great.
As the reader, you cannot tell the characters what to do, unfortunately. You have to wait and see if they find the right chemistry with the right people. A little hand-wringing and urging from the sidelines might help happiness and love prevail, even for the one who smells like sodium sulfate (the bad egg!).
Happy reading,
Dawn
Good mornin’, ya’all. Hope everyone out there is doing great! Actually, it will be afternoon by the time I get this posted, so…good afternoon to ya, as well. 😊
Famous last words! We all know I’m renowned for my shortage of cooking skills.
Well, the recipe I found online called for two quart size cans of tomato juice. Okay, so I ordered two large cans of tomato juice with my groceries. Opened and poured those into the large pot, then added the can of green beans the recipe called for and a can of lima beans, which wasn’t in the recipe.
Now, this is where the term haphazard comes in…I have never been good at being told what to do. It annoys me, so I seldom follow a recipe as written. Not because I’m a better cook than the person who wrote it but because I’m a random soul. I just have trouble following convention and a recipe often strikes me as a set of orders. Uh…nooo.
This is also where the train starts off the track. In goes the can of lima beans. Then I add the can of beef stock that is called for and beefy onion soup mix instead of the onion soup mix that is called for…just because. Now the train is veering even further off the tracks. I add the can of petite diced tomatoes instead of the can of whole stewed tomatoes that was called for…again, just because. Train is now venturing into no-man’s land.
It is at this point that I lift my head and begin to wonder where the hell I am. The landmarks don’t look familiar. So I step back and assess the situation. I still have 10 stalks of celery to add, a half dozen carrots, and a full head of cabbage. But my pot is already almost full.
WTH? How many people does this recipe feed?!
Now I decide to go check the recipe again to see how much stinkin’ soup this recipe is supposed to make…which is in the other room. Yeah, I know. I told you…haphazard…random…not right.
Well, crap! The recipe doesn’t say how much this will make. But clearly, it is intended to feed all of the inmates in our state prison…for two days!
I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit and think about this for a minute. I know what to do. I pull out a strainer and start scooping juice from the pot into a large bowl because I want to remove juice, but not green beans and lima beans. Well, this doesn’t work as expected because the pulp from the tomatoes and tomato juice are clogging the strainer and tomato juice is splattering everywhere except into my bowl.
Time to switch to a colander that has bigger holes…because a disaster that moves faster is so much better than a slow one.
Well, that actually works moderately well and I’m able to get 4 cups of juice removed…because, as it turns out, my damn tomato juice cans are 46 ounces and the cans called for in the recipe (which I didn’t need to follow) were 30 ounces. Sigh. Okay, I think the train is back on the tracks now.
NOT.
I pull out the onions and check the recipe because…well, maybe it’s just time to give the recipe a try. It calls for 2 full onions. What? I look at the onion in my hand and it’s pretty big. That’s a lot of onions. I wonder if I need more juice. Okay…not yet. Let’s just cut up one onion…because I’m now piloting the train cross-country on a sight-seeing trip. Turns out one onion looks like a LOT of onion. I’m not doing two. Let’s just move on to the celery.
OOPS.
Okay, celery isn’t my favorite, so no problem. I empty about 1/3 of a small container of celery salt into the pot and call it good. Now, don’t freak out…I did taste the mixture as I went and it was fine. 😊 Says me. LOL
Now on to the carrots. Well, the recipe calls for 5 carrots. Hmmm…I’m pretty sure they mean 5 whole, large adult carrots. But I hate to peel carrots, so I have a bag of pre-peeled baby carrots. Okay, I fly by the seat of my pants (as if it’s the first time ever) and just start cutting up carrots and dropping them into the pot until it looks like there is enough orange in there. Good enough.
The train is now picking up speed, but the course has been set. All of the called for ingredients have been addressed…they are not necessarily in the pot, but they have been given due consideration. Nothing to do now but let the train run and see if it ends up in the station or at the bottom of a ravine.
I look around the kitchen at the horrendous mess and begin to clean up the carnage as I wonder what the hell I’m now going to do with 4 cups of tomato juice that also contains a little bit of beefy onion soup mix and the juice from green beans and lima beans.
Actually, it turns out that is a recipe for a damn good Bloody Mary, which I am enjoying as I write this blog and my derailed batch of soup cooks in the kitchen. Who knows what dinner will taste like, but I’ve got 4 cups of drink mix to get rid of. By dinnertime, I won’t give a flying rat’s arse what that soup tastes like!
Well, that’s my story, haphazard and hairbrained, and I’m stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast!
Be sure to check out my books on sale at Amazon and Smashwords, as the half-price sale ends TODAY! And pick up some Butterscotch Martini Girl boxed sets while you are there. They are also half-price and when the sale ends, the sets are coming down and will no longer be offered anywhere. Today is totally your LAST CHANCE for these boxed sets and for the half-price sale. Here are the Amazon links...
Love ya,
Sign up for Kayce’s newsletter so you don't miss any of the shenanigans—and be sure to forward the link to all your friends. What's a party without friends?
Marie
* * * * * OOPS...CORRECTION POSTED WITH UPDATED LINKS * * * * *
Woo Hoo! Hey, gang, Kayce here waving a big “Hey-Howdy” to everyone. Just wanted to shoot out a quick post to let ya’all know that there is a huge online ebook sale going on all this week in the Smashwords online store.
In celebration of Read an Ebook Week, many of the Smashwords authors have opted to offer huge discounts on their ebooks.
So, hit the link below to check out my inventory of books and pick up any titles you don’t already have at 50% off the normal retail price. I have never before offered a discount like this across my full catalogue, so it’s a great time to pick up new books or buy a gift for a friend at great prices. And while you are there, take a look around and see which of your other favorite authors are also offering discounts.
* * * * * LIMITED TIME OFFER * * *
* *
The sale starts today and runs through Saturday, March 11th. Go get your books NOW!
Also, for those of you
who are fans of the Butterscotch Martini Girls boxed sets, this week’s sale
will be your last chance to get any of the four boxed sets currently on the
market, as they will be coming down after the sale ends on Saturday and will no
longer be available once they are gone. They make great gifts and are an
excellent (and inexpensive) way to try new authors you may not have read
before. LAST CHANCE…GET ‘EM NOW!
Well,
that’s my story, discounted and deeply, and I’m
stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast!
Love
ya,
Sign up for Kayce’s newsletter so you don't miss any of the shenanigans—and be sure to forward the link to all your friends. What's a party without friends?
L. J. Shen must be a greatly talented writer. A reader can love a character and hate a character, but how can they change your opinion in a few hours of intense reading?
Emilia is the woman I love in the story. She is artistic, loves to paint, will do anything for family, and works her behind off. Originally from California, she relocated to New York City under the threat that her parents would be fired from their job and kicked out of their apartment if she didn't evacuate what she knew as her only home.
The hateful character has an appropriate name, Vicious. That's what he is, and it appears impossible to make this rotten, evil person into a likeable part of anyone's life. He's the one who made the threat along with teasing and acting mean to Emilia when she was a kid.
Vicious and his childhood friends build a billion dollar business and it happens that he sees Emilia at her cocktail waitress job and lures her to temporarily work for his business. She accepts under obligations to her sisters health. Why else would she endure his horrible nature again?
The ironic thing is, they both fight their growing attachment to the other. What could be right with Vicious making his evil layers peel off one by one? What sob story can he have that will actually explain his couple of decades of torment to a woman? How can Emilia, whom I constantly root for, let Vicious back into her life? It's not his money or connections.
This romance is a page-flipper, and I dare you to put it down as L. J. Shen untangles a messy relationship!
Happy reading,
Dawn