Monday, October 31, 2011

Jennifer Harlow is my Guest Author Tonight on Blog Talk Radio!

Join us on "Other Worlds of Romance" on Blog Talk Radio when Jennifer Harlow reads from her paranormal romance, Mind Over Monsters (A F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation).

Show time is 11 pm et, 10 pm ct, 8 pm pt.
Don't miss it!
*****
Beatrice Alexander is no ordinary schoolteacher—she can move objects with her mind, an embarrassing skill she hasn’t yet mastered or embraced. After nearly killing her brother by accident, she joins the F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad, the Federal Response to Extra-Sensory and Kindred Supernaturals. This top-secret branch of the FBI combats ghosts, ghouls, and other monsters threatening humanity.

With her teammates—among them a handsome former-detective werewolf and an annoying Don Juan vampire who’s dead-set on seducing her—Beatrice investigates her first case. Disgustingly dismembered bodies have turned up, bearing bite marks of the undead. Someone—or something—is raising a horde of hideous, bloodthirsty zombies. Armed with Bette, her trusty machete, Beatrice takes on the master of the flesh-devouring corpses, who’s guarding a horrifying secret . . .

Featuring a team of monster hunters with unique paranormal abilities, the F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation series combines humor, suspense, and supernatural crime-fighting.

Happy Halloween!



Sunday, October 30, 2011

Six on Sunday - BREACHERS: Holt & McKenna

Six paragraphs from Breachers: Holt and McKenna
A sensuously erotic urban fantasy, paranormal romance novel
(ebook) ISBN# 978-1-4507-1947-6
Word Count: 28.1K
Available Oct. 31st at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, and BookStrand
http://lindamooney.com/Breachers.htm 

1. The momentary distance between them gave her blood time to cool. It also gaveher the chance to study his form a bit more. He moved with assurance, not arrogance, as she often encountered with men who felt challenged by her size. For some reason, most men took her height and build as a personal affront to their manhood, and tried to whittle her down either emotionally or professionally. It was one of many reasons why she remained a recluse. But Holt had yet to try and demean her. Neither had he taken on that air of superiority she'd been waiting for. On top of that, he hadn't commented on the amount of food she was eating. She loved breakfast, and often made it her biggest meal of the day to help sustain her through until late afternoon.

2. Sheriff Bayer opened his mouth to reply when something very large suddenly blocked the light in the doorway. Before the big man could turn around, a cry of rage not made by any human throat thundered, filling the tiny hut like a blasting charge of TNT. Something struck the side of the break, pushing against it as if a bulldozer was trying to upend it, until the wall bent sideways. The break tilted nearly sixty degrees, but didn't buckle.

3. Now it was just a matter of waiting. Sooner or later the sheriff's department would send out another snowplow to find out why the first one carrying their boss never returned to the lodge. But Holt had no idea how soon that would be. In the meantime, that thing was still out there, and at this point he no longer had any doubts they had found their Breacher. To make matters worse, chances were great that the creature would come back to deal with the two humans who had escaped its earlier attack. Holt refused to place bets on who would reach them first. But until then, he shut off the flashlight to conserve its batteries and concentrated on preventing McKenna from bleeding to death.

4. But of the four, Holt's biggest worry as for the woman. Her cheeks and hands felt stiff to the touch. Her nose was red, and her lips were a vague bluish tint. Searching the vast storehouse of his memory, he recalled a comment his trainer had made when he and four other bodyguards had gone to Point Barrow in Alaska to learn survival techniques in sub-zero temperatures. Human flesh begins to freeze at thirty degrees Fahrenheit.

5. The sensation of her skin sliding over his brought him instantly to full alertness. His nerves were raw from the stress of the past several hours, and the bone-numbing cold was working its way into his brain. His whole body ached from being cramped for so long, his back especially. His thighs were badly bruised, having taken the brunt of his fall and cushioning McKenna's tumble. But something...something had grabbed his heart and squeezed it, so that now it pounded like a bass drum.

6. She stood at the back door, screen door held open, a look of shock on her beautiful face. She wore her hair in braided pigtails that ran down the front of her sleeveless blouse and curled right where her nipples would be. She also wore cut-off shorts that revealed more of those long, sexy legs, right down to the dark green cowboy boots. A small bandage along her hairline was the only proof of her injuries. She watched him in silence as he went back through the gate and started up the narrow path to the house. All the while Holt never took his eyes off of her, drinking in the sight of her as though it had been years since he'd last seen her. Looking for the first sign of anger or fear to cross her face. Waiting for her to order him off of her property.

*****
Blurb:

They are the cause of many legends, myths, and fairy tales. And they still live among us.

There are creatures from a parallel world called Breachers who, for hundreds of years, have been inadvertently pulled into our world. They are the truth behind the creatures normally considered to be mythic. Once on Earth, they cannot go back, and those who cannot cope become rabid. Murderers. And when they go berserk, they must be put down.

Jerrod Holt always wondered why he was selected to be part of the secret governmental organization. More perplexing was why his skills as a professional bodyguard were needed.

He discovers his partner assigned to help him bring down a Breacher is the one woman who had caught his eye the moment he saw her at their initial group meeting. Together, he and McKenna travel to Utah to confront a killer beast, not knowing that the terror would be all too real, and too damn close to home.

Warning: Contains bloody deaths, smart ass remarks, unbearable cold, a nightmare come to life, toe loss, rabbit farming, a search for the truth, and an unconditional love that defies all boundaries.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Halloween Bewitching Blog Hop Tour

As some of you may or may not know, I also write horror as Gail Smith. And I have a website, and a blog for my "evil side".  (Bwahahahaha!)

Right now my horror blog is part of the Bewitching Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop until the 31st. Check out what I have to offer! Then click on the blog hop icon on that blog to check out who else is on the tour!

Friday, October 28, 2011

The Loneliest Whale in the World


In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about the loneliest whale in the world. Scientists have been tracking her since 1992 and they discovered the problem:

She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one. Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.

Just imagine that massive mammal, floating alone and singing—too big to connect with any of the beings it passes, feeling paradoxically small in the vast stretches of empty, open ocean.

(Found here.)

Monday, October 24, 2011

Ashley Christman is My Guest Author Tonight on Blog Talk Radio

Don't miss tonight's episode of "Other Worlds of Romance" on Blog Talk Radio! My guest author will be Ashely Christman, and she'll be reading an excerpt from her paranormal vampire romance, Nightingale, from Lyrical Press.

Show time is 11 pm et, 10 pm ct, 8 pm pt
Don't miss it!
*****
Being Sidhe is hard, but a Sidhe without a heartbeat?

Life is lucrative and easy for Dr. Grace Caldwell--daughter of vampire father and fey mother--until her ex-boyfriend, FBI agent Jack Montgomery, blackmails her into helping him solve a prostitute's murder. If only she wasn't as attracted to Jack as ever, she could concentrate on finding the murderer and get back to her regularly scheduled life. And then there's the vampire Constantine, seductive and powerful, a family friend she's supposed to marry.

Not much of a vampire, and clueless about her fey powers--if she has any--Grace must journey to the Sidhe and enlist the help of the fey to unravel the riddle of the murder. She and Jack might just get killed, but then, two worlds depend on her success. If she fails, both her worlds and all of humanity will descend into chaos of epic proportions.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Six on Sunday - THE GIFTED

Six paragraphs from The Gifted
An erotic sci-fi romance novel
Available from New Concepts Publishing
http://newconceptspublishing.com/linda-mooney/

1. It was a woman dressed in a tattered brown-colored dress. There was barely a visible rise and fall at her chest, but what held them in rapt horror were the all-too-real bloody bruises and marks on her body. Someone had brutalized her before sending her off to her death. The knowledge of such inhumanity sent a cold wave of anger through him. Grabbing the tank and mask, Robin pivoted it closer to the head of the capsule. For a second he paused, looking down at the face of the woman lying there. Her face was gray, thin, her skin almost flaccid in death. Her hair, what little he could see lying over her shoulders, was a flat whitish-gray. Despite her appearance, she was young. Inwardly, Robin groaned. It wouldn’t be an old woman who’d already lived out a long life before being sent into space to die with dignity.

2. She closed her eyes, allowing him to cradle her face against his shoulder. Robin took his time to tease her and deliberately build her anticipation ... and his. He indulged in his own fantasies by brushing his lips near her temples, across her cheeks, and up the bridge of her nose with little tickling kisses. He touched her eyelids with the softest contact, then found the creamy skin beneath her ear. He followed an imaginary trail to her throat until she quivered in his embrace. This time when he kissed her, he felt her begin to respond. He touched her lightly, tenderly, teasing her mouth with his lips without encroaching upon its softness. The delicate juice of the apple was still on her mouth. A shiver went through him like an invisible hand shaking him from the inside out. Her lips were as incredible as he’d dreamed they’d be. And when he claimed them fully, they clung to his, molded to his, and sent showers of delight through every part of him.

3. In a daze, Robin stepped toward her, taking her hand and finding it reaching for his face. Silently she rose to stand. She struggled to make her legs obey. For a few seconds Robin believed she would be able to remain on her feet until she started to collapse. He grabbed her, pulling her next to him, holding onto her tightly as her arms encircled his neck for support. She leaned into him and buried her face in his neck. He was not as surprised to learn she was as tall as he was as he was stunned by the feel of her body against his.

4. “I just hope to God you do,” Peter said. “Something else, too, I wish you’d think about tonight. Think about your life. Think about how much it’s gonna change if you stay on this course. Do you think the Center will want to keep you on if you’re found to be responsible for exposing her? Do you honestly believe things will remain the same? Are you willing to risk everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve, your position here, and all you ever cared about in this world? Are you willing to risk them just so you can have a few unguarded moments with a space girl?” He stared for a long moment into a pair of clear green eyes and saw there was no hesitation in Robin’s response.

5. Several scientists and technicians screamed as they watched the star girl suddenly began to glow like the core of a miniature sun, a halo of intensified heat pulsating around her entire body. As she lifted her arms straight out to her sides, her hands flashed open, fingers spread, and her entire body seemed to push forward. It was as if the entire plexiglass chamber, inner room, airlock, and console were covered in twinkling lights—lights which swirled, coalesced, solidified, and with her second breath vanished instantaneously in a blinding flash and a hiss of sound. They stampeded for the exit in mindless terror from the room which no longer contained anything other than themselves and the creature advancing toward them. The woman walking out of the disintegrated lab was truly a being from another world. She had changed. Her skin had turned a bright pink. Her eyes were wide, transfixed, almost hypnotic. She held her hands out to her sides, palms out, and she walked with a defiance born of her station and power. She was chaos and destruction personified.

6. Two guns belched fire. Less than a second later, two more guns behind him roared. The jetcopter exploded in a fireball as cameras continued to roll. As the people watching called out, sobbing and screaming at what they were witnessing. As a dozen security officers from the space center finally reached the landing field and took General Overmeyer into custody. The man had a smile of satisfaction on his face. Hands grabbed at him as Robin tried to push through the press of bodies to get to the man being handcuffed. There was no longer anything in his mind or in his body that gave him that connection to the woman he’d given his heart to. No sense of her, no thread of life. He was an empty void of darkness—a void that was quickly filling up with diamond-hard anger and sharp hate. He continued to push and bully his way through the growing crowd. He was going to punish the man responsible for such a brazen, inhumane act. He would kill today. Somehow, someway, Overmeyer was a walking corpse.
*****
Blurb:
THE GIFTED
Erotic Sci-Fi Romance
(ebook) ISBN# 978-1-60394-104-4
Word Count: 116K

After being banished from her own world because her people deeply feared the scope of her powers, an anomaly shoots Sah'Reena toward Earth and the one man in the universe meant to be her mate.

No one, least of all Dr. Robin Dickenson, expected what they discovered when they opened the alien craft captured by the space shuttle Liberty while on a routine space mission. But from the moment he first sees the star girl, Sah'Reena, Robin is captivated.

Near death, and never expecting to see anything again beyond the endless void of space, Sah'Reena isn't certain, at first, that her mind isn't playing tricks on her. But the handsome face of the stranger she sees gives her hope for life when she'd thought all hope was gone.

Warning! Contains carbon dioxide poisoning, severe sleep depravation, challenging authority, kosher cooking, dissolving aircraft, and an ability that could wipe out an entire planet.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Tim Burton Retrospective

If you love Tim Burton's movies as much as I do, you should check out the retrospective over in California if you're lucky enough to live close by. For those of you not able to drive over and see for yourself, these photos are fantastic!

Friday, October 21, 2011

A Cityscape of Staples


Ephemicropolis by Peter Root

Stacks of staples were broken into varying sizes from full stacks about 12cm high down to single staples. These stacks were then stood up and arranged over a period of 40 hours.


Found here.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

"Of Ghoulies and Ghosties..."

Ever been to Spirit Halloween?  I LOVE THIS STORE!
(Forgive the slightly fuzzy first pic. Actually, this thing moans and screams and begs to be let out as it shakes all over the place. Activated with a clap.)


As for this next one, I wonder what he uses as a pacifier.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Wouldn't You Like to Work Here?


Check out what the poor slobs have to put up with, and what kind of working conditions they have to endure, over at Google.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Jean Murray is My Guest Author Tonight on Blog Talk Radio

Join us tonight on "Other Worlds of Romance" on Blog Talk Radio! Jean Murry is my guest author, and she'll be reading from her paranormal/fantasy romance novel Soul Reborn, now available from Crescent Moon Press.

Show time is 11 pm et/ 10 pm ct/ 8 pm pt.
Don't miss it!
*****
“Only the strongest love can unlock the souls of the Underworld.”


THE HUMAN REALM, HIS BATTLEFIELD.

Asar, the Egyptian God of the Underworld, has been tortured and left soulless by a malevolent goddess, relegating him to consume the very thing he was commissioned to protect. Human souls. Now an empty shell of hatred, Asar vows to kill the goddess and anyone involved in her release, but fate crosses his path with a beautiful blonde huntress who has a soul too sweet to ignore.

DEADLY SECRETS BETTER LEFT UNEARTHED.

Lilly, fearless commander of the Nehebkau huntresses, is the only thing standing in the way of the goddess' undead army unleashing hell on earth. But Lilly has a secret—one she is willing to sell her soul to keep. If the Underworld god discovers her role in the dig that released the goddess, she will lose everything, including his heart.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Six on Sunday - FROM OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Six paragraphs from From Out of the Shadows
An erotic fantasy romance novel
Available from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid


Croat was a Lupan, one of the half-man, half-beast creatures long thought to be extinct or fabricated from fairy tales. Lupan were folklore, nothing more than a myth.

Tora was a Sensitive. Her kind really existed, and normal people feared Sensitives because it was common knowledge that all Sensitives were evil and practiced the dark magicks.

Captured and thrown together inside Baron Agrino’s dungeon, they discovered a connection between them that defied all reason, and a love that transcended all boundaries.

But is their love strong enough to stop the baron from what he’ll do with every Lupan he plans to capture? Or, worse, what he’ll do with Tora once he learns what she is?

Warning! Contains torture, imprisonment, severe beatings, nasty bad guys, public nudity, molten wax, old wives' tales, forest folk, bad horsemanship, and lots of pissed off townspeople.
* * * * *
1. The last armed man gave the still figure a final kick before he left, locking the door behind him. With the only source of light gone, the cell once again grew pitch black. Her quiet world shifted back into place—only now she was sharing it with another person. A person who had been beaten nearly to death. From where she sat, Tora could hear the poor man’s labored breathing. Every few seconds he would groan in pain. Her heart went out to him.

2. The baron’s men advanced toward them, rifles ready as they proceeded to ring the couple. Someone ordered for a net to be brought, and one pair of boots disappeared from Croat’s line of vision. At the sound of a gun being cocked, he flattened his ears against his head and bared his bloody fangs. A growl of hatred reverberated in his throat as he raised his head to stare at them. To dare them; to threaten them. He could feel Tora quaking beneath him as they both waited for the inevitable to happen.

3. “I hear her screaming in my head,” he gasped, fighting the terror and agony he was receiving from her. “I can feel my hands, like they’ve been covered in fire.” Looking up at the elderly woman, Croat said, “For a moment there, I was free of her. I think she was unconscious, but it was like whatever cord was running between us had been cut. I was finally free of her…and it was a feeling I never want to feel again.”

4. His touch was overwhelming. At no time had her mother explained that a connection between a Sensitive and her life partner would become a two-way thing. At that moment, when it was taking all of her strength to keep herself conscious, it was Croat who was feeding her with his own emotional power, helping her survive; making her feel alive and sane. His body was like the sun, pouring warmth and energy into every dark crevasse in her withered psyche. It signaled a promise, beckoning and pleading for her to relent in order for him to claim her. She could feel herself trying to answer his silent, primitive call. It was a call she couldn’t explain or identify, yet she realized it was provoking something new from her. A new and different kind of feeling she’d never experienced before in her life.

5. “When a Sensitive touches the one who will become her lifelong partner, that connection forms. She has no warning it will happen, and neither does he. But when it does, that connection is what bonds them together for life. But a regular Sensitive’s bond with her husband, although it is lifelong, does weaken as the distance between them grows, should the two become separated.” Deelaht gently shook her head. “Not so for a Beginner. Be it a mile, or a hundred miles, you will be as aware of her as she will be of you, just as if you were standing next to each other.” She bit her lower lip then added, “And anything that happens to either of you will be felt by the other just as strongly.”

6. She stood before them, hands curled into fists at the end of ramrod-straight arms pressed by her sides. “We’re a game to the baron. We’re an exciting hunt on a boring afternoon. He has been taking men, women, and children from the surrounding villages on a regular basis and doing gods know what with them. Do you honestly believe, now that he knows you really exist, that he’s not going to put every man he can on your trail to try and find you? Dearest heavens, you were a myth! When normal people find out the myth is real, can you imagine the terror he could incite? They nearly killed Croat, and tried to make him feed on me because the baron knows how invincible he’ll be if he has a whole army of Lupan.”

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Keeping With the Season

Keeping with the Halloween season, I found these two bat pictures and wanted to share. The top picture is a bat embryo. I thought it was adorable, the way the wings were folded over the face. The second is a not-so-typical bat house.


Friday, October 14, 2011

My October Foodzie is Here!


This month's theme is FALL HARVEST. Goodies include:

* pumpkin spice caramels
* persimmon and kumquat fruit leather (think fruit jerky)
* Gravenstein apple juice
* sea salted pumpkin seeds
* maple syrup in A medium and B grades
* apple cinnamon bar

First off, I tried one of the fruit leathers. Not a big fan, but the caramels are yum!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Baby Pictures






These shots are too adorable not to share.
Pictured from top to bottom: octopus, bat, sloth, chameleon, polar bear.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Dekotora Trucks


The Japanese have their own type of monster trucks. They're called Dekotora trucks, and you can see more incredible pictures here.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Rue Volley is my Guest Author Tonight on Blog Talk Radio

Join us Monday evenings at "Other Worlds of Romance" on Blog Talk Radio. You don't want to miss tonight's show when Rue Volley comes to read excerpts from her paranormal romance stories Blood & Light and Smoke and Mirrors.

Show time is 11 pm et/ 10 pm ct/ 8 pm pt
*****
Enter into the world of 16 year old Rue Volley...who up until one fateful night at a party, thought she was "normal" or as "normal" as she could be. But "normal" does not include being a vampire...a truth about herself that she will soon discover.

Rue Volley lives in the quiet little town of Calvary, Minnesota...nestled in the thick woods lining the great lakes. Rue, along with her brother Kai have lived an otherwise calm life up until their Mother was committed into Rolling River Asylum, after she mysteriously stopped speaking to anyone. Rue is convinced by her brother to attend a party on her birthday and after she experiences something that she cannot explain, she and everyone in her world is thrown into madness. Join Rue on this epic journey, 6 books in all, as she struggles with grief, love, humor, old crushes, new found infatuations, hot boys AND vampires, lots and lots of them.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Six on Sunday - MY STRENGTH, MY POWER, MY LOVE

Six paragraphs from My Strength, My Power, My Love
An erotic sci-fi romance
2009 Torrid Title of the Year
Available from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid
http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/torrid/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=396

1. Rowe Maine stood with his hands behind his back. His dark red jumpsuit stood out among the rest like a beacon. But it did little to disguise the fact that the man had been carved from the roughest stone. His shoulders and thick neck could have been sculpted from any woman’s fantasy. His chest was wide but not overly muscular like some of the younger men often sought during their workouts. Slim hips, a flat stomach, and powerful thighs filled out the lower portion of his suit. Grey licked her lips and tried to control the fluttering feeling inside her chest cavity. By the gods, he was the most wonderful thing she had ever set eyes on. Too bad he was one of the Unmatched.

2. This is wrong. It was wrong on so many levels. The feelings she was experiencing were the kind that she and everyone in her class had been taught would come from her mate. Her Synergistic other half. Her other soul, as the teachers often referred to it. They had said that her body would let her know who it was compatible to. A look, a touch, a taste, or maybe the simple sound of his voice would fire off rockets in her head and between her legs. All she had to do was listen and wait for that magical reaction to consume her. That would be how she would know she had found her other self. Their first kiss would confirm their beliefs, and the sexual part, their first consummation, would cement those feelings. And then they would be able to discover what kind of power and potential they produced from their union.

3. Rowe blinked. Five years ago he had been one of them. Like these new graduates, he had gone sexually berserk. After years and years of being celibate, he had gone through his choices like a hot wind, subconsciously hoping the woman he was laying at the time would turn out to be his mate. But one by one, each female failed to excite him. Failed to electrify him. Failed to sizzle over his skin like a rocket out of control as he had been told it would feel like.

4. Chuckling, their leader leaned over, ramming his mouth onto hers, grinding his lips across hers, biting and nipping the tender flesh until he drew blood. Grey continued to struggle, even when she heard the ripping sound of a jumpsuit being undone. These men intended to hurt her. They didn’t care whether or not they were brought to justice afterwards because by then they would have enacted their revenge. The damage would be done. They would have shown Cadet Dansis how wrong she had been to knock them out of flight school, and she would never forget this humiliation for the rest of her life.

5. Right now the memory of how Rowe had come to her aid warmed her like a gentle caress. Not to mention the shock of seeing the purest band of white light coming from their joined hands, and how it reached out and pummeled Brem Pollit into an unconscious heap. If that light was a portent of the kind of power she and Rowe would find, she couldn’t wait for the moment when he finally took her, man to woman, and they discovered its full extent together.

6. The mics were also out. She couldn’t hear anything through her headset even though Rowe continued to call out their status. Without the engines he couldn’t steer and couldn’t stop their deadly ride. Either the controls were frozen, or the relays were burnt. If the C’u Govin had managed to hit the engines or the weapons tanks, the flit would have exploded in a puff of effervescent glory. At the last possible second she remembered not to touch the controls until Rowe had the ship stable. She barely managed to glance up at the screen as darkness blanketed the craft. The surface of a solid body loomed like a rapidly growing missile. Grey screamed Rowe’s name as the flit struck the surface of the planetoid, plowed nose first through sterile soil, somersaulted onto its back, and finally came to rest upside-down.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Check out Suzanne Rock's Free Read Over at the Truly Madly Deeply Romance Authors Blog!

Check out Suzanne Rock's free read over at the Truly Madly Deeply Romance Authors blog this week! It's entitled "Choices", and it's based on the Japanese story of the bamboo princess.

Blurb: Can a bamboo princess outwit five princes and win a chance at love?

Rating: PG-13
Genre: Historical (Shogun Era), Paranormal
Heat Level: Sensual

Friday, October 7, 2011

Namba Parks


The insane architecture you see above is the aftermath of a baseball stadium being abandoned in Osaka Japan; a new opportunity revealed itself and brought a bit of green regeneration to the urban jungle.

Judging by the ticket sales, people Osaka didn’t seem to care too much about baseball, so in 2003 the stadium was abandoned. Notwithstanding this, being situated near the Namba Train Station (the first stop from Kansai Airport) has its advantages: it is a place of great economic importance and the site therefore couldn’t go to waste. After several ideas and plans, the site’s owner, Nankai Electric Railway finally decided to convert the area into an amazing rising garden complex: the Namba Parks.

(Original article found here.)

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Things That Make You Go "Wow!"


Mohamed Babu set up the photographs after his wife showed him some ants had turned white after drinking spilt milk. He gave the creatures the brightly coloured sugar drops and watched as their transparent stomachs matched the food they were eating.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A Series of Beautiful Pictures

There's no rhyme or reason for showing you these, other than the fact that I found them soothing, peaceful, and very beautiful. I hope you enjoy!





Monday, October 3, 2011

I'm the Guest Author Over on Red Lipstick Journals!

Today is Guest Author Day over at Red Lipstick Journals. My blog topic is Research: It's Like the T-Shirt Said, wherein I discuss where authors get their "inspiration" to write erotic romance.

Make a comment, and you could win an ebook of your choice!

Mysti Parker is my Guest Author Tonight on Blog Talk Radio

Join us tonight on "Other Worlds of Romance" on Blog Talk Radio when Mysti Parker will read from her fantasy romance novel, A Ranger's Tale from Melange Books.

Show time is 11 pm et/ 10 pm ct/ 8 pm et
Don't miss it!
* * * * *
Once upon a time an elven noblewoman longed to leave her gilded cage. A half-breed former pirate wanted nothing more than to escape his guilty past. Easier said than done...

In the fantasy world of Tallenmere, the high elf, Caliphany Aranea, nearly a century old, has never been allowed to travel farther than a few miles out of the capital city of Leogard. Her father, Sirius, leads the Mage Academy, and after losing his only son, he expects Caliphany to take his place one day. The trouble is, she doesn't want to study magic and doubts she'll ever be as good a wizard as her father. She dreams of leaving Leogard to explore the world and strike out on her own--lofty goals for Sirius' daughter, who also happens to be King Leopold's niece.

When two brutes at Leogard Harbor attempt to kidnap her while she dreams of faraway lands, half-elf ship captain and ranger, Galadin Trudeaux, comes to her rescue. From their first chance encounter, to the finale, where Caliphany must decide where her heart truly lies, she and Galadin will face more adventure, more love, more heartache, than they ever thought possible. Through it all, they discover the power of forgiveness and of a love that stands the test of time.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Coming October 31st - BREACHERS, Book 1: Holt and McKenna

Coming Oct. 31st

BREACHERS
Book 1: Holt and McKenna
An erotic urban fantasy romance
From Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks/Omnilit, and BookStrand

They are the cause of many legends, myths, and fairy tales. And they still live among us.

There are creatures from a parallel world called Breachers who, for hundreds of years, have been inadvertently pulled into our world. They are the truth behind the creatures normally considered to be mythic. Once on Earth, they cannot go back, and those who cannot cope become rabid. Murderers. And when they go berserk, they must be put down.

Jerrod Holt never questioned why he was selected to be part of the secret governmental organization. More surprising was why his skills as a professional bodyguard were needed.

He discovers his partner assigned to help him bring down a Breacher is the one woman who had caught his eye the moment he saw her at their initial group meeting. Together, he and McKenna travel to Utah to confront a killer beast, not knowing that the terror is all too real, and too damn close to home.

Warning: Contains bloody deaths, smart ass remarks, unbearable cold, a nightmare come to life, toe loss, rabbit farming, a search for the truth, and an unconditional love that defies all belief.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Before I Die...


The name of this post is "Before I Die...", and it's the true story of Candy Chang's gift to humanity. To view the whole story and series of photos, go here, but be sure to have tissues handy when you do.