I'm a book slut

I should be writing. I have a book due and a schedule I made out for myself... but...I've been reading all weekend. I'm a total book slut.

I finished Karen Rose's DON'T TELL and Pamela Clare's HARD EVIDENCE. Wow. Both were great books, but I really loved Hard Evidence, the characters, the setting, the suspense and the sexual tension. I also really fell into this book because human trafficking is something I totally loathe, and it always broke my heart when I would talk to Haitian children who were restaveks, forced into child labor and raped, abused and beaten.

It's been a quiet weekend. I've only wanted to be a hermit, but got out last night when we went to dinner with friends. It was good for me, I think.

Then DH and I today did lunch and stopped by a UBS. Okay, confession time... I love used bookstores. I always find great treasures there. I found Anne Stuart's much much older backlist and drooled on the carpet. Just kept stacking up the books. And then I did something that made me laugh, and cringe...

They had a whole slew of ancient (1976? is that ancient? sheesh!) Barbara Cartland books! I BOUGHT ONE! Call it a spring back into time from my early romance reading days, but I could not resist. Just to have it around. I might even read it, esp. the ending where the heroine was always "lifted up to the stars" by his towering passion when they finally did the horizontal nooky...

In other news, my ENTIRE backlist is out of stock, sold out, at Dorchester. Everything, from The Panther & the Pyramid to the second printing of The Cobra & the Concubine. Yikes.

Anyway, I'm wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year, and best wishes for all your hopes, dreams and wishes to come true in 2007.

Animals

Yesterday was tough. Very tough. I've lost loved ones, friends, but never a dog. Tia's death has hit me hard with grief as much as losing my mom did. I guess some people would scoff at that. Already someone told us, "It's just a dog."

No, she was part of our family, our daily routine, our lives. She gave love unconditionally.

Writing was near impossible, both at work and home. I felt like a zombie. At home, I tried to coax Tiger into playing with his toys. He actually did for two minutes, and things felt "normal." Then he stopped, stood still and looked around, again, as if feeling something was missing.

It was. Tia.

He ran off under the bed again and I felt like crying all over.

So I watched Africam. A watering hole on a game preserve that's viewed via webcam and streaming video. There was no action last night. But just seeing it made me feel peaceful. I don't know why. Today's action has featured gazelles and geese.

You can catch it here. Africam.

I "heart" Florida

My home state. Ferfe... are you with me? Just avoid the bad drivers gunning their engines and you'll be fine. As one commenter quoted, from George Carlin, "I love Florida. Everything is in the 90's... the temperatures, the ages, the IQ's..."

Only in Florida could I sit on my new patio on Christmas day, yaking to my bro in TN, when a big long black racer comes slithering out of the hole in the neighbor's gate toward my naked feet. I ran screaming into the house, bro asking, "WTH?" as I'm freaking out.

At least I don't wrestle naked with gators, though.

"Here's a reason to say no to drugs: Polk County deputies had to rescue a 45-year-old man who was naked and high on crack from the jaws of a nearly 12-foot alligator.It was one of several strange encounters with gators." from The Sun Sentinel, "Just another weird year in Florida."

I miss her...

She used to bark at the slam of my car door and run to greet me with her tail wagging so hard her whole body quivered. She jumped up in my lap because she loved attention and nothing made her happier.

This house seems empty and silent without her. I really miss her... :-(

The Donald gets cited over his big pole

Feeling melancholy about Tia today. I really miss her. DH and I had a fairly good Christmas… a friend came over after church and we toasted the day in the hot tub with mimosas. Fil came over for dinner and later we saw the light show at a local park. Tiger is still not eating great, but we’re trying to pamper him.

So to cheer myself up, I searched for interesting news headlines…

Man stops robbery by telling teenage punk, “For Christ's sake, it's Christmas!!!” Wonder if shouting out, “It’s Festivus!!” would have had the same effect.

Castro is just having digestive problems, a Spanish doc insists. Happens all the time when you’re dead, I guess.

The Donald forgets his feud with Rosie over suing the town of Palm Beach for $10 million because they cited him for flying too big of a flag. The town also said the Donald’s pole was too big. They really wanted to cite him for having bad hair on a windy day, but town fathers couldn’t find such an ordinance in the books.

The Humane Society of Jefferson County is selling calendars featuring naked women and animals. Miss December is featured nude, holding a very strategically placed pussy over her… breasts. A library last year featured nude librarians holding oversized books over their exposed body parts. I’d like to see an all-male librarian calendar of cute bibliophiles. Maybe one holding “Hannibal Rising” over his male part. Hmmmm. Fund “raising” idea for next year?

The Cobra & the Concubine in Russian

Neat cover. Merry Christmas, everyone.

My quivering mound of love pudding

Thank you everyone who posted or emailed me about Tia. Your kind thoughts and expressions are much appreciated. It's been two weeks now... and I still miss her and see and hear her in every corner of the house. Tiger is not eating much, and keeps looking for her as well, so we're trying to coddle him and give him extra attention.

We're back from quiet time in the mountains of Colorado and I thought I'd share this photo of the local scenery. Shrinkage? What shrinkage?

A family health problem, a very big one, has surfaced, and I'm not sure how much I'll be online in the near future. DH and I are just taking life one day at a time, and enjoying each moment as it comes.

In the meantime, for a laugh I looked up the search terms on my website and someone typed in "quivering mound of love pudding" and landed on my site. Have no idea how that happened. Sounds like something the Smart Bitches would use in their romance cover parody.

"Edgar thrust his great manly manhoodness into her quivering love pudding and got his just deserts when he discovered his blushing bride had been de-virginized already by his best friend's warrior love rod. While Edgar was being a rakish rake in London, his bride-to-be was being a ho. Together they sowed a garden of deceit."

Have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season, and best wishes for a peaceful, joyful New Year.

Tia is gone

My beautiful baby...

I did everything I could for her, cooked, gave her meds, worried about her. Now she's at peace and not in pain anymore. I honestly think God had a hand in it b/c my DH was so very very against putting her down unless it was absolutely necessary because he had to put his first dog to sleep. I was at work today and he got home and she was howling in agony.

He was very upset and had never heard an animal in that much pain before...esp. her. He called me on teh cell, and I just knew... he told me she couldn't walk We rushed her up to the vet and she was moaning a little kept shifting in my arms... I just cradled her and kept stroking her head and telling her what a good girl she was and how much I loved her. We got her to our vet, who had promised to wait for us... they closed at 5 and this happened ten minutes to five.

He checked everything and it wasn't an obstruction... he did an xray and showed us that the tumor had grown, it was huge and burst. I know how much agony that is because I've had a huge cyst explode and it's like someone stabbing you again and again... He told us he could put her on narcotics but it was only a matter of days before everything started shutting down. She couldn't walk because she was in that much pain... not because she lost control of her limbs. We could tell that she was still in pain and whimpering and shifting. So we stroked her head and whispered that we love her and the vet gave her the injection. It was like she just went to sleep...

All three of us were crying. He's such a good vet, and I thanked him. Frank and
I just clung to each other and sobbed in the car. She was a wonderful, good, loving dog who loved us so much... not a mean bone in her body... and all I can say is I hope she's in heaven with my mom and dad and the babies I lost... and like Dr. Grubb said, she's a puppy agian.

God this hurts... I had a feeling I'd lose her right before Christmas. I just knew. I always lose those I love around the holidays...she was diagnosed right at Easter and died right before Christmas.

I was going to post my good news today and this happened. How sudden life is... I sold two more Egyptian historicals to Dorchester and my wonderful new agent also got me a contract to write two paranormals for Nocturne. I was so excited about both deals, but all I can think about now is my beloved dog. Ironically, I had started writing the book I sold, Empath, right after Tia was diagnosed. It was my therapy, writing a story about a woman whose dog is dying from a mysterious disease, only in this story, she cures the dog.

This is why I write romance. Because I can create my own happy endings. Real life sometimes is just too damn sad. :-(

I'm going offline for a while and no mail.

Panther & the Pyramid is out of stock

found out yesterday the publisher is out. Nada. Zip. NO MORE BOOKS. Hopefully they will go back to press soon. This was only released in September!

You can still get it at your local bookstore, some grocery stores, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble online, but once they run out...

This is one reason I'm running a contest soon to celebrate my March Egyptian release and giving away my entire backlist, including my first two books, which are also out of print. Check for details coming soon on my website.

Nightmares

Had a nightmare last night in which I was in Haiti with my friend, the photographer I used to work with. We were walking down this road and people started drifting toward us and I just knew something bad was going to happen. Then we saw a stream of them running, like ants, toward us, screaming and I knew we were in trouble. They were running away and G grabbed my arm and said we have to go Bonnie, NOW!

Then we saw it. Men running with scissors...sounds funny but these were razor sharp scissors with bright red plastic handles and they were bloodied. They used the scissors to cut people and kept cutting and cutting.

We had to hide because we knew we couldn't outrun the danger... we ran toward this batch of woods (which is ironic because few places in Haiti have woods left) and down this hill, and I wanted to stop but G kept running and I knew we weren't safe. And all the time I kept hearing the screams of the people in pain who got caught and the awful sounds of scissors and soft flesh tearing. I was terrified but we kept running because we knew if they caught us, the "blancs" we'd be in real trouble. They wanted only to hurt us, kill us. So we had to run away and hide.

Where's the beef?

Oh there it is... I'll have an order of that with fries, can I supersize him, er, it? :-)

Busy trying to get ready to leave next week, stuff for the petsitter, winter clothing to wear, etc. Also, have some news I can't share yet, but it involves new deadlines and writing, you know, stuff like that. I'm pretty excited about it, too. All thanks to my new agent, who has been super.

Writing

Got a great idea for a new story last night after finishing The Sword & the Sheath. Going to Starbucks this am., ordering a gingerbread latte and sitting down with the laptop to sketch it out, then resume writing the WIP.

Life goes on

Feeling better now, maybe a little more cynical and weary. Life goes on, she's dead, there's no use in thinking about it anymore. Haiti is practically dangerous as Iraq these days. Friends worrying about stepping outside their own front doors and getting kidnapped. Tortured. Killed after the ransom is paid. Gruesome stories too graphic to tell about here. Sad sad sad.

So what do I do? Quit my job? Doing something is better than doing nothing. Maybe I'm a fool, and some might think me so, but I can't stop NOT caring. It's a part of me. I just have to learn to insulate myself better, corral my emotions so they don't leave me drained and weary when something like this happens again. Because it will. I'm sure of it.

I took a day off as a mental health day and went shopping for our trip next weekend. Bought a winter jacket, sweaters. Felt good to think about getting away to a place that's frozen outside, not inside. It's been a hellish week, and some family health problems popped up today like a jack-in-the-box. Hopefully nothing serious.

In the meantime, finished page proofs YAY on The Sword & the Sheath and will mail those out Monday. This book is loaded with sex. My eyes popped out at some scenes. Forgotten I had written that. Sure sign of stress, when there's sex you've totally forgotten about, lol

In other news I heard a Colorado congressman said Miami is like a Third World country because of immigration problems. Thought about writing to said congressman and suggesting to him that Ferfe's DH can solve Florida's immigration problems if he got laid more often. Hee hee.