
Sharing a good laugh today with two famous women at Fatal Foodies. It's a good one! And we all need that once in a while right?
Excerpt from THE SECRET OF THE BRADFORD HOUSE:
“Okay, ten more serves from each side and you’re done.”
When Kendra and I heard the tennis pro at Barkley Lodge say that, we knew the lesson before hers was almost over. That was always the last thing he made his students do. We stopped in the shade of a big maple tree beside the tennis courts, where her mother had dropped us off. Kendra put down the bag with her rackets and other equipment in it. I had brought along a book my dad sent me and a folding chair.
The pro held up one hand and waggled the fingers to us. “Hey, Kendra. Good morning, Steve. Five minutes.”
He spells his name Rolfe and, for the tourists, pronounces it like a dog barking, but everybody around here knows he’s actually just Ralph from over in Paducah. He must be a pretty good tennis instructor, though, considering how good a player Kendra is becoming.
Today Rolfe was working with a dark-haired girl. She was wearing white shorts and a green t-shirt with a school name on it. I guessed she was my age.
“Boy, she’s booming those serves like she’s mad at somebody.” Kendra put her arm up against the tall wire fence surrounding the court and leaned her forehead on it.
** Get information at the author's website. Sample chapter to come!
** A Buy link will be added when the book goes up on Amazon.com
** Review:
Even if I hadn't received an ARC of this book, I'd still have to say I loved it! Kendra and Steve are fun kids to get to know, with a natural curiosity that makes their investigating a perfect extension of their personalities. The book offers an interesting historical tie-in and information that makes the past real and more than just dry facts. I have to admit that I even learned something I didn't know! Boys and girls both will enjoy reading the book.
Excerpt from STIRRING UP STRIFE:
Chapter One
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.
Psalm 25:16 (NIV)
Cooper Lee was more comfortable with machines than with people. She drove all over the city of Richmond to fix them. By the time she got to these copiers, laminators, or fax machines as they waited in their offices, hospitals, or schools, they were broken. Broken and quiet.
Cooper would arrive and meticulously lay out her tools, and as she did so, the machines didn’t raise their brows in surprise or barely concealed amusement that a woman worked as an office-machine repairman. A thirty-two-year-old woman dressed in a man’s uniform shirt didn’t seem odd or funny to them at all.
Most importantly, they never stared at her eyes.
Her left eye wasn’t worth a second look. It was a flat, almost colorless blue. No one would have dreamed of comparing it to sapphires or deep seas or cloudless summer skies. But the other eye, the eye Cooper had received through ocular transplant surgery after being smashed in the face with a field hockey stick in junior high, was a shimmering green. It was exotic—invoking images of lush jungles flecked with firefly light or the green shallows of tropical waters, in which sunshine was trapped just below the surface.
That single moment at field hockey practice, when a girl on Cooper’s own team had accidentally swung her stick too high as she prepared to hit the ball with incredible force, made Cooper more self-conscious than other teenagers. Still, she wanted what most people want. She longed to have one close friend, to be loved by someone she could grow old with, and for her life to have purpose. Cooper thought she had found all of those in her boyfriend, Drew. Until he dumped her.
Shaking off her gloomy thoughts, Cooper cut a piece of crumb cake for breakfast, wrapped it in a paper towel, filled her twenty-eight-ounce travel cup to the brim with milky, unsweetened coffee, and tossed a banana onto the passenger seat of her truck.
She drove east on I-64, the sun blinding her most of the way. According to Bryant Shelton’s weather report, there wasn’t going to be a cloud in the sky this April Friday. For once, it appeared as though Bryant might be right, though it didn’t matter much to Cooper. She’d be inside offices most of the day, but could enjoy brief moments of sunshine while driving the work van from one destination to another.
At ten minutes to nine, Cooper pulled into the parking lot belonging to one of a dozen corporate buildings resembling silvery LEGO blocks. The Make It Work! head quarters was on the fringe of an area called Innsbrook in which hundreds of different companies, replete with an abundance of office equipment, depended upon Cooper and her coworkers in order to operate smoothly.
“Mornin’, Coop!” Angela called out a chipper greeting as Cooper approached the reception desk. Angela’s smile, combined with a vase filled with plump, yellow roses, created a warm welcome. Few people visited the office as most of Make It Work!’s transactions were conducted via telephone, but Angela bought a dozen roses every Monday, claiming that a good workweek always began with fresh flowers.
Angela was in charge of setting up appointments and billing. She was at her desk every morning before anyone else, wearing one of her vintage sweaters, a pencil skirt (both of which were always too tight), and a pair of sexy heels. Angela’s platinum hair, powdered face, and fire-engine-red nails and lipstick were supposed to call to mind an image of Marilyn Monroe, but Angela was older and plumper than the late actress had ever been. Still, Angela was the heart and soul of their small operation. Filled with pluck and boundless optimism, even the frostiest customers thawed once Angela worked her magic on them.
“You’ve got an emergency waitin’ for you, sug.” Angela examined her reflection in a small compact that was never out of reach. “Some poor lady has gotten her weddin’ ring jammed in the insides of a copier.” She held out a pink memo pad and ripped off the top sheet with a flourish.
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The inside floor is also egg carton stone, though I added more browns to make it darker. I added the wall shelf from a Michael's hutch and am using an old cabinet for plants and supplies. I will also will add a table by the front door. The potting table is handmade and is my original design.
Next, I'm gluing a string of green beads to hang in the front window and deciding how to add a small valance to the door and maybe the windows. The green fabric has these colored stripes that remind me of "snakes."
I probably have more than enough odd plants to fill the shelves, but I keep coming up with new ideas! I'll share more pix as I add new items. Thanks for stopping by and looking!
** Have you done a greenhouse project or are you making any plants of your own? Got a favorite plant? Whose kits do you like to use? Please share!
Excerpt from "Undivided" by Marian Allen:
Pimchan's Female did the unthinkable--she burst through the workout room doorway, knocking over the rosewood filigree screen, and entered her Mistress' practice arena uninvited.
Pimchan, ripped from battle meditation, whirled from her knees to her feet and grasped the girl in a double-handed grip designed to tear soul from body. With a brief quiver of muscle, she stopped herself on the very brink of harm.
Through clenched teeth, she said, softly, "Give thanks, my Female, to Chaos, who has granted me control. Now you know why I must not be interrupted."
"Mistress, come!"
The lack of repentance rang alarms. Pimchan released her gently, registering the panic of her female slave, a dark-haired and dark-eyed child of twelve, padded with baby fat. When the girl turned back toward the doorway, Pimchan grabbed her arm.
****
Allen said she wanted the beginning of the story to paint an image: "the 'seed' was the picture of the girl--called just 'Pimchan's Female'--running to her Mistress for help.
"I wanted to lead with action, communicate who the main character is (Pimchan) and give some flavor of the setting (they have slaves, they use screens instead of doors, they have fighting so they have practice arenas)," she says.
"If the girl has done the 'unthinkable' in interrupting her Mistress, something disastrous must have happened--and it has. Pimchan's reaction to the interruption, and to the news the girl brings, leads directly into the thick of the story. Her punishment of the girl for her action shows what kind of Mistress she is, and foreshadows the resolution."
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