WHO DOESN’T LOVE A HOTEL WITH A WATER FEATURE?

 

Hey Howdy, Gang!  I hope everyone is doing absolutely outstanding, that you are moving fast, getting’ shi… er… stuff done, and are ready for the upcoming holidays.  I can’t wait! Even though I’m totally not ready. 

Oh well, it will come whether I’m ready or not.  But I do have my tree up.  😊  I’m smiling because anyone who knows me well knows that my tree stays up all year.  Why?  Because I ADORE Christmas and because I absolutely detest rework.  LOL  But I do see that my sweet angel is leaning just a bit.  I’ll have to get a broom and bump her back into position.  

Okay, first let me apologize for being MIA.  I have been working a big Kickstarter project for the Butterscotch Martini Girls (as you probably already know).  And I now know why they named the platform Kickstarter…because it started kicking my you-know-what on Day 1!  So when I survived it, one of the first things I did was grab my buddy Dani Petrone and we headed up to Flagstaff to do a little resting, eating, drinking, brainstorming…and then more of the same. 

…And this is where things really went off the rails.  We checked into a hotel I have stayed in many times before, but I haven’t been there since COVID.  Well, just like some people I know, the hotel didn’t fare all that well through the pandemic.  In fact, our first clue that something might be amiss was when we pulled into the parking lot and noticed it looked like the place hadn’t been raked, trimmed, or cleaned up in a couple of months. Not a good start.  Sigh. 

Hmmm…maybe they don’t have any rakes, trimmers, or mowers. 

Lobby seemed fine, as it was decorated nicely with a warm and welcoming fire in the fireplace. Oh-kay, no reason to panic. Then we checked in and parked around back to be near the outside entrance that was closest to our room. Hmmm…back parking lot TOTALLY empty…and I mean TOTALLY.  I’ve never experienced that at this hotel before. 

I’m starting to itch. 

So, we park close to the entrance, which happens to be next to the dumpster. Okay, I left a couple of empty spaces between me and the trash, then we unload a couple of suitcases and head inside. Clue Number TWO came when we got inside, took the elevator up to the third floor, exited and rounded the corner to find two refrigerators sitting randomly in the little lounge area and a mop bucket sitting right in the middle of the hallway. It was impossible to tell if there was mopping in progress or a leak in the roof, so we crossed our fingers and continued down the hallway. 

The itching is escalating. 

We find our room easily, unlock the door and enter through the gates of HELL…and the fires of hell must be blazing because our room is H.O.T!!!  Like probably 82 degrees and the fan is a crankin’.  OMG, I immediately start searching for the thermostat as I am stripping.  Of course, again…anyone who knows me knows I live in arctic temperatures.  I cannot stand to be hot, and I’m about to spontaneously combust.  Hell, even Dani is hot—so you know it was toasty. 

After much searching on my part, Dani finally points out to me that the thermostat is right in front of me on the wall.  Okay, I get a little discombobulated when I’m hot…my brain starts to overheat at about 75 degrees.  So I immediately go to work on the thermostat, I reset the temperature to 67, make sure the fan is set to on, and I dash out the door to get more suitcases and cool off in the chilly Flagstaff outdoors. 

Now the itching is turning into hives  AND I’m sweating like a whore on nickel night! 

So, I dodge the bucket, go around the refrigerators, and exit the building to see a young man headed straight for my truck.  He spots me step out the door and immediately changes directions, makes a big loop through the parking lot and comes back by, after having gone nowhere. He acts like he is going to duck inside the fence around the dumpsters until he sees me watching him, then he heads on around the building, back the way he came. 

I resist the urge to bang my head against the door of my truck. 

Then I grab the last of the bags and drag them upstairs, around the fridges and the bucket I’m starting to think of as a water feature. Dropping them in the room, I hustle Dani out so we can grab some dinner while the damn room cools off. On our way out of the parking lot, we notice a line of people walking through the parking lot.  WTH?  We look around and discover that the parking lot is actually a shortcut between an apartment building and the bus stop which is right in front of the hotel.  Great! 

We had an absolutely lovely dinner, then headed back to the room a couple of hours later, full of steak and margaritas, and fortified with leftovers. It was delicious! Back at the hotel, we decided to park in the front lot, at the opposite end of the hotel from the bus stop. Less busy. The fridges are still camped in the lounge, the water feature is still right where we saw it last, and the room is still hotter than nine kinds of hell.  Not a damn thing has changed.  So now we try to get the windows open. 

Well, I guess the hotel has a lot of jumpers (probably shouldn’t have been a surprise) because we can’t get the windows open. Then I notice the screens on the outside of the windows have big holes in them, edges of the holes shredded and flapping in the wind. Guess those jumpers didn’t think to remove the screens before leaping. 

Now I’m hyperventilating. 

I call the front desk, making it clear to them that it is MUCH too hot in our room and someone needs to fix it. They sweetly apologize, but say they can’t do anything because the entire hotel is switched to heat.  I said, “Then at least make it go off.” 

She sweetly repled, “Oh, you can do that right at the thermostat…just turn it to a cooler setting and it will shut off.” 

Uh…no, it won’t.  I not so sweetly explain that we set the thermostat to 67 about 3 hours ago and it hasn’t cooled off a one single degree. 

She then sweetly says, “You can open a window and that should cool it off quickly.” 

I replied, “We tried. We can’t get the windows open, and the screens have holes big enough to throw a body through them. God only knows what will fly in if we ever manage to get them open."  (Probably a hungry herd of Pterodactyls.) 

Silence for a minute as she processes my comment. Then she offers to send maintenance up. 

Excellent! 

So…the maintenance guy has some difficulty understanding me because English isn’t his first language and, let’s be honest, I don’t really speak mainstream English—and certainly not when I’m itching, sweating, hyperventilating, and generally about to explode. 

But we finally get our point across, and this sweetheart of a man climbs up into the ceiling and fiddles with something up there that blessedly shuts the heat off. Then we manage to crack the windows—which is all we can do because we are on the third floor and…well…jumpers. 

So we change into our jammies and I sit my happy arse right in front of the cracked window with the flapping screen, waiting for it to cool enough for me to sleep.  Neither Dani nor I slept well that night because it remained just too warm. By the next day, it had improved enough that we no longer considered packing our stuff out to another hotel. By the second night, it was nice and chilly, and by the next morning, we really didn’t want to get out of bed because it was cold. But having complained about it being hot, we didn’t really feel we could now complain that we were cold.  LOL  So, we closed the window and went down to breakfast. 

The only other issue we had was on the 2^nd day, we spotted a large wet spot in the elevator where someone had spilled something bringing their breakfast back to their room.  We told the front desk they needed to have housekeeping clean the floor in the elevator before someone slipped in the mess.  Later that day, we saw someone had put a neon green stickie on the floor next to the mess…probably to help housekeeping find the big messy spill. That evening when we came back in, we saw that someone (probably housekeeping) had cleaned up the green stickie. 

But apparently, they don’t have mops at this hotel either because the spilled mess remained. 

The saving grace was that the hotel had a happy hour every night and a couple of good bartenders…vacation saved!  Twice the front desk apologized to us for the condition of the hotel, indicating they were preparing to undergo a large renovation. About 5 years too late, if you ask me…but better late than never. Would I go back to that hotel again?  Probably not until after that “large renovation”…but then there is the free booze. Hmmm…guess we now know why the bar is right inside the front door and why the happy hour was free.  They want to stop you before you get out the door. 

There’s a lot to be said for free booze! 

Well, that’s my story, torrid and toasty, and I’m stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast!

Love ya, and I hope each and every one of you has a MERRY CHRISTMAS!    Hugs,

Be sure to sign up for Kayce’s newsletter and get a couple of free ebooks at:

https://subscribepage.io/wnOodI

 

Note:  If you already have the free books, sign up anyway so you don’t miss any shenanigans—and be sure to forward the link to all your friends who might want to join us.

Madeleine's Ghost by Robert Girardi

 It may not be Christmas, but if a ghost from your past wants to give you a gift, then take it.  

Ned Conti needs a part-time gig. He lives in the slums of Brooklyn near a church.  His apartment is haunted, he knows this from moving objects, but it takes a while to decipher the unspoken code.

The nearby church needs Ned to research a stone tomb in the back property.  The priest is sure the research will produce the miracles of a dead nun; therefore, a saint will be born.  The priest will have fulfilled his mission.  This still leaves Ned on a dead-end road.

He wants to figure his life out, what he should do with it.  Under the duress of the house ghost, Ned returns to New Orleans, where the love of his life left him.  Maybe he can resolve the questions of his heart, and then he can move forward.

Ned visits his old hang outs and friends.  Friends don't have to be talkative, just there when needed.  He meets new friends, too.  Antoinette is annoying, talkative, and maybe a lot of trouble.  Trouble that can be tamed and loved.  

Antoinette is like an open book, take it or leave it.  Ned thinks taking her to Brooklynn would be an exchange for harboring past life and moving into a new and better future.  

Happy reading,

Dawn

ONCE UPON A HAUNTED ROMANCE has released!

 

Once Upon A Haunted Romance has released!

I'm absolutely thrilled to be a part of this fun anthology. Myself and nine other authors have packed this with 10 haunted romance novellas.

My story is Once Upon a Haunted Haven is the story of Lady Juliet and Noah Kingman. Lady Juliet's husband has died and she's been kicked out to go to the only place she can, a haunted cottage her great aunt left to her. She is not excited. At least not until she meets the caretaker of the cottage, Noah. 

Noah helps Lady Juliet adjust to living on her own, though sometimes he almost loses patience. Luckily, there is a ghost in the cottage who helps things along in more ways than one.

The icing on the cake is if you have read my Marrying a Mabry series, you will see how this story connects.

I hope you enjoy!

Always , Lexi

Once Upon a Haunted Romance Buy Links:

Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon AU | Amazon CA 

About Lexi:

Lexi Post is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of romance inspired by the classics. She spent years in higher education taking and teaching courses about the classical literature she loved. From Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Masque of the Red Death” to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she's read, studied, and taught wonderful classics.

But Lexi's first love is romance novels so she married her two first loves, romance and the classics. Whether it’s sizzling cowboys, dashing dukes, hot immortals, or hunks from out of this world, Lexi provides a sensuous experience with a “whole lotta story.”

Lexi is living her own happily ever after with her husband and her two cats in Florida. She makes her own ice cream every weekend, loves bright colors, and you’ll never see her without a hat.

Website

Lexi Post Updates

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Amazon Author Page

BookBub

D2D

Goodreads

Instagram

Blog

Pinterest

Email

Happy Thanksgiving (Yes, I'm a little late)

 

        Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

It’s a few days after Thanksgiving that I sit down to write this…and I’m still full!

I make a traditional meal (well, traditional for my family) – turkey, stuffing (my mother-in-law’s recipe which is fabulous), mashed potatoes and gravy, veggies and of course, desserts, but this year, it was a little different. My DH has been having some health issues so I made the same, just not as much.

Still there are leftovers—lots and lots of leftovers—my favorite part of the whole meal. There’s something sad about cooking all day only to have everything you made gone in twenty minutes or less but the leftovers? Love those leftovers! There’s nothing like staggering out to the kitchen for a midnight snack, bleary eyed, still full, but kinda hungry, too. My favorite? Turkey sliders made with King’s Hawaiian rolls. Oh so yummy!

I was fortunate enough to take some PTO from the day job and I gotta tell you, it was wonderful (if this is what retirement feels like, I’m ready!)! I did hope to sleep in at least one day, but that didn’t quite work—I was still up at four-dark-thirty (I guess, after getting up at that time for years and years, your body just gets used to it so sleeping in is next to impossible) but it’s all good. I did what I had planned to do, which was clean out closets (all of them…sheesh, I had no idea I had all that stuff!). I have several nice piles now to go to Goodwill…maybe someone can make use of the George Foreman grill that I only used once ten years ago).

What else did I do with my time off?

I was able to work on my latest work in progress and start two others (yeah, I know, I shouldn’t have started those other two stories, but when characters and the opening scene comes to me, I have to write it down…otherwise, it’s lost). I was pretty happy with my word count. I don’t write as fast as others (I’m a slow and steady kinda person) but I did some major damage to Wife By Surprise, which pleases me. I just might hit my goal of having it done by the new year. 

I should go. I hear that slice of leftover cheesecake calling my name, but before I do, there are a few things I should tell you I’m grateful for. As always, I’m thankful for family and friends, the roof over my head, and the food in my belly. I’m fortunate to have a job I love (even though I’m looking forward to retirement---four years, one month away now), but mostly, I’m grateful to you, gentle readers, for giving me the opportunity to share my passion for writing.

Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go!

Marie

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

 It doesn't matter who you are, reading is a sanctuary and everyone has a need and purpose to read.  

In the Kentucky Appalachians, Cussy Mary Carter is the Book Woman.  She travels by donkey with books, magazines, pamphlets, and any other reading material the local library can scrounge up and send to the hill people.  

Cussy Mary lives with her dear father.  Working in the coal mines, her father is fearful of an early death while he attempts to get a mate for Cussy.  Mating season in the hills is noted by placing a burning candle in the window.  A lit candle means an available bride.  

With little faith in the candle, she knows her unique blue skin places her status on the lowest rung of humanity.  Cussy's job as Book Woman gives her all the freedom she can hope for.  She teaches the mountain people to read and surprises them with materials of interest, when available, to keep them excited about knowledge.

On Cussy's route, Jackson Lovett settled himself in a cabin after traveling the country.  He appears to have an eye for Cussy, which she refuses to acknowledge.  No man of such wondrous standing would want anything to do with a blue woman.  

The local doctor repeatedly requests testing on Cussy's color.  Maybe there's hope to change from blue to white.  Or is the color of a person a vanity issue while the person remains the same?  Another problem for Cussy to encounter.

Jackson is held back from approaching Cussy, but he does show interest in simple ways when she approaches his home with her reading materials.  A bouquet of wildflowers confuses her.  Yet, does she sense his interest? 

Tragedy's are exchanged for hope.  Hope in life, reading, and love.  With each show of anger, jealousy, and prejudice, a page turns with strengthened friendship and love.  

Richardson's story is an intelligent, hopeful, and heartwarming tale.   It's easy to get involved with Cussy's life and wish her the best.

Happy reading,

Dawn

Parts of a Story

 

Hello, gentle readers! Hope you are all well and staying safe!

So, today, we’re going to discuss the parts of a novel—the easy and the not so easy. There’s the beginning, the middle, the end, the synopsis, the blurb…and the first love scene (if your story has one. Some don’t.).

Let me explain.

Starting a new story is wonderful. You’re excited. You’re happy because it’s something new. You have your basic storyline and maybe an outline (I do plot points. Others write by the seat of their pants). You get to introduce your hero and heroine, who they are, what they’re all about. I love this part. It’s fun getting to name your characters and build their traits and foibles. You feed in some of their past and where they are now. As I said, it’s exciting and sets up your story.

Then there’s the sagging middle. I call it that because the enthusiasm for the beginning has waned a little. It’s usually at this point that my brain betrays me and thoughts of “this is boring” or “why did I ever think I could do this” start cascading through my head. It takes patience and perseverance to get through this part (I’m certain other authors do not have this problem, but I seem to with every story I write).

I love writing the end. At a certain point, you find yourself on that downward slope. There’s no turning back now. You find yourself (or at least I do), writing faster and faster, rushing (not blindly though) to reach that happily ever after. You may cry as you write ‘The End’ or celebrate with a piece of chocolate or two.

Let’s talk a little about your synopsis (or as I call it ‘the dreaded’ synopsis). If you plan to submit your work to a publisher or agent, you must have one. Depending on who you are submitting to, the synopsis needs to be two pages or five pages or anywhere in between. I find it incredibly difficult to condense my ninety-five-thousand-word story into two or three or five pages.

Then there is the blurb, the short description on the back of the book that makes a reader look at it to begin with. It must be enticing with just enough information to interest the reader. This can be incredibly difficult for some (re: me), but really easy for others.

But I want to go back to the love scene, which is where I am right now in my story. I have read authors who simply blow me away with how their loves scenes are written and they make it seem so easy.

It isn’t. In fact, it’s darned hard (unless you’re lucky enough to have your characters do all the hard work…sometimes that happens and I love it when it does!). There are so many questions, so many possibilities for that first time your hero and heroine make love. Should their coming together be slow and sensual? Hot and urgent? Both? What about clothes? Are they wearing any or does each character need to be undressed? Who does the undressing? If the scene is hot and urgent, then they should both be ripping each other’s clothes off, right? Or is a tantalizing dance as one article of clothing is removed at a time? Are they talking to each other? What are they saying?

It all needs to be choreographed in such a way that the reader is there, seeing everything, feeling everything. And it needs to be satisfying to everyone—the hero, the heroine, the author, but most especially you, the reader.

So why do we do it if it’s hard? For me, it’s a need. I have to write (even if no one ever sees it). Despite the frustration, despite the tears, I have a story to tell and quite frankly, I am not the same person when I don’t have a story in progress.

And that’s all for me. I should go and tackle that love scene now.

Stay well! Stay safe! And remember to spread kindness wherever you go!

Marie

Shiver by Karen Robards

 East St. Louis, Illinois is nothing like its step-sister, St. Louis, Missouri.  East St. Louis is where things happen and no one sees.  Samantha Jones lives in the shit-hole in Illinois, but she has the love of her life, a young son, and a job as a

night repo-woman.  

That's all she cares about, and she carries a Smith and Wesson to make sure she stays alive to care for her son.

Daniel Panterro is living a nightmare at the same time, only he's bound and bloody in the back of Sam's next repo job.  The classy looks of the BMW she drives her cranky repo truck to, holds him in the trunk when she pops the lid.  

Sam wants nothing to do with the streets of East St. Louis, and Danny cannot reveal his true identity.  Doesn't matter.  She's entangled in his troubles whether she saw who put him in the trunk or not.  

It's a crazy ride.  Danny takes Sam hostage, yet he protects her relative to the situation.  

Sam chastises herself for noticing Danny's good looks beneath the dirt and blood.  The fact that he doesn't want her dead is a relief, too.

Could it be more than just survival?  Could something good and loving come from a frightening hide-and-seek with the thugs after them?  Will Sam and Danny live to find out?

Robards delivers another one of her high-octane romantic suspense novels, and I recommend opening the cover!  

Happy reading,

Dawn