Yesterday’s necklace was totally floral. Today, I am giving away something a little more appropriate for the computer-obsessed. A sterling silver base features dichroic glass cabochons with a design reminiscent of circuit boards. This is small — it will fit a 6.25″ wrist perfectly. Of course, the circuit board design is abstract enough that it could work equally well as party bubbles!
As it gets colder and colder here in New York, I am already thinking about spring. But before spring comes the holiday season (and the release of Twisted, which I am trying really hard not to think too hard about), and we all need BAUBLES for that. Many people know that I used to make and sell glass beads. I also made the occasional full-on piece of jewelry, like the necklace I am giving away today.
This necklace is brand new, never been worn — it comes from the stash of jewelry I have from when I closed my business. It is made with genuine Swarovski crystals, sterling silver beads from Bali, and a single, focal pansy bead I made myself. The colors will remind you that spring is coming, even when buried in winter snow.
Do you miss the days when you could pick up a lighthearted “chick-lit” type romance? Back before the powers that be deemed Chick Lit dead and swore never to publish it again? I do. I liked those books. And now, author Dee Davis, best known for her romantic suspense novels, is bringing back some of her lighter titles, A Match Made on Madison and Setup in Soho in digital form and at a reasonable price. So if you’re like me and looking for something to take your mind off the serious troubles in the world at large or in your own, private world, why not enter for your chance to win a copy of A Match Made on Madison (Kindle or physical book–not available yet on other digital platforms).
Here’s the cover copy:
Manhattan glitterati with a desire to find the perfect mate have a new champion in matchmaker Vanessa Carlson. With her fledgling business giving her biggest rival – friend and mentor Althea Sevalas – a run for her money, Vanessa’s services are definitely a hot commodity. To prove once and for all who’s the best matchmaker in town, Vanessa and Althea enter into a competition to see who can score downtown playboy Mark Grayson as her client and send him walking down the aisle. Once a winner is crowned in this very public endeavor, there will be no question as to who rules Manhattan’s matrimonial mergers. But emotions often have a will of their own, and Vanessa learns that her rules don’t always apply.
Dee Davis giveaway
Yes, you read that right. I love to make weird things when my brain won’t cooperate so I can’t write. This little guy is just a few inches tall, but he’s one of my favorites. The pattern comes from the Cthulhu Crochet blog. He’s adorable, if I do say so myself, and he may be just what you need to rule the universe!!
So enter for your chance to win this sweet little stuffed horror for yourself.
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Today it’s my pleasure to introduce Thomas Pluck, a good friend and great writer. He combines the dark and the funny in a most entertaining way. So grab your salty-sweet snacks and have a listen and, when he’s done, sign up to win the omnibus version of Blade of Dishonor in kindle or paperback! (ePub not yet available.)
Everyone knows that peanut butter and chocolate go great together. But when you dip a chocolate covered potato chip into peanut butter, something magical happens. First, your heart explodes and you gain thirty-eight pounds. But after that, your taste buds relish the incongruity of the flavors, and your brain’s pleasure centers admit that this is the perfect trifecta of decadence.
This works with stories, too. Let’s take a look at the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. They took something awesome, pirates, which we will call the potato chip, and mixed them with another fantastic idea, zombies, which will be chocolate. But that wasn’t enough. We can argue over whether Johnny Depp’s flamboyance was the peanut butter (I try not to think of Johnny Depp covered in peanut butter, but it is difficult, isn’t it?) or if it was the monkey, but needless to say the trifecta made the movie and spawned an enormous franchise that has never captured the same simplicity, perhaps because guys with a conch shell for a head aren’t the “chocolate” of zombies, or because “fun” movies shouldn’t be 3 hours long, but I’ll leave that for the historians to decide.
When David Cranmer of Beat to a Pulp approached me with the idea of a story about an MMA fighter named Reeves duking it out with ninjas over a stolen sword, I thought that was a great idea. I’ve trained in mixed martial arts (Kachin Bando, Burmese boxing and grappling, for the record) for eight years now, and the people I’ve met because of it are as colorful and entertaining as a whole boatful of Johnny Depps in sorta-drag, if not more so. I traveled to Japan to support my friend Peter during his first fight, and the Japanese Shooto fighters I met form a crazy brotherhood. I didn’t meet any ninja, but I loved the ’80s ninja craze and have watched enough Japanese action movies and samurai films to absorb all I needed to know.
But when I sat down to write this, it wasn’t enough. I had potato chips and chocolate, which are pretty damn good together. I knew something was missing, and that was World War II.
When I researched Japanese swords, I learned that the most famous of all, the Honjo Masamune that was passed down among the shoguns during the Tokugawa period, went missing during the Second World War. It was said to have been given to an American soldier for protection, but has never resurfaced.
I had found my peanut butter.
Blade of Dishonor has been described as an intelligent ’80s action movie mixed with a World War II epic with a heart-pounding romance weaved in between. It begins with Reeves coming home from Afghanistan to see his grandpa Butch, a World War II vet, when he finds him embroiled in a centuries-old battle between ninja and samurai over a stolen sword. Butch’s story, from a young park ranger drafted into the war, where he falls in love with a stoic Montana cowgirl during his training, was the final element the story needed. I dived so deeply into the World War II elements that I dedicated the book to my 92 and 94 year old great-uncles Dominic and Jimmy, who served in the war and inspired much of the tone of those chapters. (Uncle Dominic still goes dancing with his young 70-year old girlfriend. We can learn a lot from him).
So is Blade of Dishonor as good as chocolate covered potato chips dipped in peanut butter? That’s for you to decide. I won’t mind if you get peanut butter on the pages while reading it.
I don’t judge.
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