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Book News, Trolls, Dragons, & A Small Price to Pay, Yvonne Eve Walus


Free ClipartNews & Networking

It's been a busy week as usual. Of Dragons was released by Red Rose last Thursday, and it's been full on ever since. I have to admit I've learned a fair bit about promotion this week, and networking with other authors and author sites. Some of the romance sites, like Simply Romance Reviews , are extremely generous with both their time and their space. I finished the first round of edits on Gray Beginnings, and will be hastily contriving a suitable blurb. The edits for GlassWorks should be in the Inbox shortly, too. In a few minutes I'll be posting on Tales of the Trade. My blog post is due there today.

WIP & Other Things: Only a thousand words added this week to my "Nocturne Bites" effort, but I did submit a blurb for Art & Soul to the open call at Nocturne. This is a quick in effort, with decisions being made by April 16th. I love these mini subs and competitions because they spur me on either to try new genres or venues or to finish what I began months ago. The Nocturne "call" only lasts until the 8th, I believe, so it's time for a quick decision if you're a paranormal pennist.

A new, and quite exciting, Yahoo loop opened this week called "Paranormal Monday". Enthusiasm by authors, with excerpts being greeted enthusiastically by readers.

Oh, wrote an interesting poem this week entitled, "Fragile". I'm in the finals for the Poetry.com Editors' Choice competition, and to qualify, I needed another poem. It was the second poem for the week—the first being the one for Gray Beginnings. I was waxing poetic all over the place, LOL!

Authors of Note:

Today's Author of Note/Publishing-Promotional Guru of Note is Yvonne Eve Walus .

Yvonne introduces us to her popular short tale, Small Price to Pay

"Ms Walus has taken fiction to yet another entertaining level with this short story"... a fabulous review from Coffee Time Romance (http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/Smallpricetopay.html).

And, of course, an excerpt:

I didn't mind it when I discovered that Nick was having an affair. I mean, I did mind, but we'd been married twenty years. We've had some good times, we've had some bad times, but most of all, we've had some very long lacklustre times. What more can I say?

So it was not the affair that hurt. It was what he'd said.

A week ago, I picked up the phone to arrange a summer camp for the children. That's when I heard her voice--on my phone--to my husband--discussing a holiday away together.

"I'll keep the sheets hot for you, Nicky."

Nicky? I had tried calling him that once in our early days, and Nick had hated it.

"Hot, huh?" Okay, so flirting is not my husband's strong suite. But his voice was liquid chocolate.

"That's right. Hot. Come as quickly as you can."

I almost burst out laughing when I remembered, unkindly, how quickly Nick can come.

"Patience, M," Nick was saying meanwhile. "We have a whole week."

M. My husband was having an affair with M, the least likely Bond girl of them all.

"Aren't you worried to leave your wife alone for that long, though?" she teased. "What's good for the gander, you know...."

"Nah," replied my husband. "She's too vain to have an affair when she's fat."

BUY LINK

Teasers (interesting facts that might stir a story some day soon): Those shiny and reflective fish which so draw our eyes, and frequently take a starring role in our aquariums? A new study has determined that the unique shape of the skin's guanine crystals is what provides that intense reflectivity. This is an anti-predator camouflage response, for fish which swim near the water's surface. There's no point denying that these are flashy fish! I went to the zoo last weekend, and in the penguin enclosure, where wee penguins were swooping after their food, it was the food—flashy fish—which kept catching my eye! It should have been birds that fly underwater, instead! For more information, visit http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080114100008.htm.

Save Your World: Free rice (learn new words and donate rice as you do it! Always a favorite!) http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Excerpts: From Trolls by N. D. Hansen-Hill (me!)

A dust devil whirled lazily in the heat, spinning in aimless gyrations.

Devils without...devils within? He scuffed the dirt, watching the dust motes drift across the cave mouth—bright bits of sunlight curtaining the darkness...

Idly, he scuffed his way inside. Only a few steps, from there to here, and his mother would never know. The dirt he’d stirred swirled around him, and he blinked to clear his eyes.

He heard it before he saw it. Behind him, there came a whisper in the dirt, and the first of the incessant rattles began. The dried husk rasp was joined by another, and another.

The boy twisted slowly, his limbs unnaturally stiff. The day was so hot...yet he’d never felt so frozen in his life. His heart started pounding in racing thuds within his chest.

He wasn’t the only one who’d come inside to escape the heat. Gooseflesh danced across his skin as the rattling tempo increased.

Snakes, and more snakes. He’d scuffed his way into a nest...

The biggest snake was in the entrance now, blocking his way. Two smaller ones slithered toward him, and one slid over his shoe. He stood there, trying not to move...trying not to do anything. Outside, beyond the snake guardian, another dust devil rose, swirled and died.

Like me. Eleven-year-old immortality vanished in an instant, as death rattled at his feet.

One was coiled up near his toes now. When he twitched, its coils tightened, and the head lifted into strike position...

Reason fled. He leapt for a dark gap in the rock, slid in a rain of snakes and dirt and ran for his life. Faster and faster, finding his way by feel alone, panic nipping at his heels with the sharp-fanged tension of a serpent’s bite.

Down, through the dark, away...

He was moving far too fast, and he should have anticipated obstacles. But he was only a child, trying to outrun his monsters. When he tripped over the lamp, he never expected to fall...and keep on falling.

There are things far worse than a serpent’s bite...

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