Books We Love's Tantalizing Talent ~ Author Tricia McGill

Tricia McGill was born in London many moons ago, but moved to Australia 50 years ago come next October. She worked in the fashion industry most of her working life, following in the footsteps of her mother and sisters, who all worked in this trade in one form or another. The primary school she attended is still going strong. In this small local school one of her favorite lessons was English and she was one of the best spellers in her class, and loved to be the one asked by the teacher to stand and read for the class. Maths and science held little interest for her, but reading, well, the local library was a treasure house full of adventure and excitement.

Tricia’s books can be found here on her BWL author page:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/mcgill-tricia/

 

"I’ve always been a dreamer and some of my dreams have ended up in my books. Always a romantic it followed that this would be my chosen genre. I love reading and hence writing Time-Travels and hope someone invents a time machine in my lifetime. How exciting would it be to travel back in time to see what it was really like to live without mod-cons and all the things that we rely on today? But—I would always want to return to my nice comfy home and my gadgets. And how would I live without my computer? And air conditioner? I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a woman in the days when they had to wear layers and layers of unnecessary clothing, not to mention corsets! 

My romances cross a few sub-genres and as well as Time-Travels I write contemporary romance, historical, mainstream, and futuristic.

When not writing or working on my books I am a volunteer for a community group that assists disabled folk in their homes with their computer and the internet, a fulfilling pastime.

Any left-over time I like to potter about in my garden, walk my two small dogs or spend time with friends and family."

Amazon

Latest Release: When Fate Decides, Challenge the Heart Book 1

    For too long Tessa has seen herself as plain and dowdy, just an ordinary suburban housewife. With her confidence eroded after being married to a bully who humiliated her at every opportunity, why wouldn’t she presume she was unattractive, and someone no man would find the least bit worth bothering with?

    But now Tessa is a widow, and relishing her new state of independence. Her world is turned upside down by Jack Delaney, a man she spent hours fantasizing over when he worked for her husband. A man who gave her a deliciously secret outlet from her miserable marriage. When Jack enters her life again, professing he finds her attractive, why would she believe him? Especially as he is now wealthy, successful, still extremely handsome, and to add to that, years younger than her.

Amid the Stars:

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 Terrified, and in fear for her life after her husband, an undercover cop, is killed, Melanie Ross has nowhere to hide.

    A squadron from a far planet visiting Earth on a reconnaissance survey prepares to leave, without one of their members who is dying of a virus.

    Irena must remain on Earth, so seeks a replacement to take her craft back to the other side of the Universe. Seeing Melanie’s predicament she offers her an escape. Reluctantly Melanie agrees. Conquering her fears, she must learn to live among a superior race on Qindaga.

    Reve, commander of the star ship circling their planet, bears an inexplicable resemblance to her dead husband. Passion flares amid the stars, but can love with an alien flourish?

Amazon

Leah in Love (and Trouble)

    Violet Amelia Connor, known to all as Leah, is a landscape designer who inherited her love of gardening from the eccentric aunt she lives with. Leah is contracted to work on the garden of Private Investigator Sean Russel and unwittingly becomes embroiled in the handsome PI’s cases. A series of unpleasant experiences land her in real trouble where she is kidnapped, bashed, bound and altogether becomes a party to such mayhem she is forced to wonder how she ever got mixed up in this mess. But her indomitable spirit, obstinate nature, and incurable sense of humor enable her to override all obstacles. And of course there is her overwhelming attraction for Sean Russel that started it all.

Settlers Series (Historical Romance)

Mystic Mountains Book 1

Distant Mountains Book 2

Mainstream

Remnants of Dreams

Time-Travel

Maddie and the Norseman

Futuristic/Sci-Fi Fantasy

Amid the Stars

Wild Heather (Time-Travel)

The Laird Book 1

Travis Book 2

Beneath Southern Skies (Contemporary Romance)

Lonely Pride Book 1

A Dream for Lani Book 2

Leah in Love (and Trouble) Book 3

Challenge the Heart (Contemporary Romance)

When Fate Decides Book 1

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS by Shirley Martin

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My publisher wanted our readers to become acquainted with its authors, and this is my contribution.  The title of this  article didn’t originate with me.  Dean Martin popularized a song with this title, and you can listen to it here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9PSkNkUfs

Nineteen thirty-four, the trough year of the Depression.  I don’t remember that year of my birth, but I do recall growing up without the normal amenities that others take for granted.  Later in life, I learned there’s a word to describe this condition. It’s called poverty.  My dad was a civil engineer, but work was scarce during the ‘30s.  I was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but spent my younger years in my mother’s home state of Florida.  When I was four or five, my family–mom and dad, three older brothers–moved back to Pittsburgh.

Jobless, my father took the family out to “the country” where we raised chickens.  We lived in a three-room shack with no running water, no central heating, and no refrigerator.  As noted, we were poor, but as Ronald Reagan said, the government didn’t come and tell us we were poor, so we didn’t know it.  Or at least, my brothers and I didn’t know it.  In lieu of a refrigerator, we dug a deep hole in the ground and covered it with a large rock.  Of course, there was no frozen food then, so we kept milk, butter and eggs there.

My mother made my dresses out of feed sacks.  My father took me with him when he bought the feed sacks and let me pick them out, as I knew that would be my next dress.

We lived close to a woods, and I remember the fun my brothers and I had swinging on a monkey vine.  Every Saturday, my dad gave each of us a dime for the movies, and we walked over a mile to the movie theater.  We saw not only the main feature, but the news and a few shorts, such as The Three Stooges and The Phantom.

It gets very cold in Pittsburgh, and every year, I got a new snow suit.  And speaking of snow, we made our own ice cream by scooping up a dishful of snow, sprinkling it with sugar, and pouring milk over it.  Living close to two steel mills, we had to scoop up the snow before it became dusted with soot.

There was no TV at this time, but we had a radio and listened to Jack Benny, Lights Out, The Shadow, and other programs.  (Lights Out was very scary, or so it seemed to me.)  One Sunday afternoon when I was seven, we were listening to the radio and heard the newscaster announce that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.  Wartime was upon us, and we had practice air raids. Defiantly, my dad left a lamp burning, saying that the Germans would never bomb Pittsburgh.  But of course they would if they were able, the city being the main iron and steel producer of the country.  In any event, the air raid warden told my dad to turn the lamp off.

Wartime brought tragedies.  As I wrote in my article titled, “Cold Winter, Hot War,” one of my neighbors was killed driving a truckload of ammunition that hit a mine.  I still remember his name, Eddy Poljanec.

Skipping ahead a few years, after I graduated from high school, I attended the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from the School of Education.  I taught high school for one year. Back then, we didn’t have days off for planning or making up report cards.  We performed those tasks  on our own time.  At any rate, teaching didn’t appeal to me, and I quit after one year.

A problem faced me then: Where would I work?  One of my friends suggested that I try for a position as a stewardess.  (That’s what we called flight attendants then.)  Aware I had nothing to lose, I filled out a few applications to airlines and sent them in.  Soon enough, Eastern Air Lines hired me.  (An airline that went out of business decades later.)

This was the happiest time of my life.  Based in Miami, I enjoyed my job, traveling to different cities and meeting many people.  This was before Women’s Lib reared its progressive head.  I remember the racy  remarks the all-male crew often made.  If I just got on the plane with a smile on my face, I got an off-color remark.  I just laughed and took the comments in my stride, but I realize that women would never contend with such comments today.

A late bloomer, I hadn’t dated in high school but dated a few men in college.  While living in Miami, I met a man from Beirut, Lebanon, who had come to Miami for pilot training.  His name was Hanna (Arabic for John.  He was Greek Orthodox, in case you wondered.)  We dated a while, but I broke up to date other men.  John and I got back together and soon were going steady.  When he asked me to marry him, I accepted.  At this point, my father flew down from Pittsburgh to meet John.

Finished with his training, John flew back to Beirut.  I saw him off, coming on board the plane with him.   I still remember the look of desolation on his face as we said goodbye.  I think he realized then we would never see each other again.

My roommate and her boyfriend no doubt realized that John was not the man for me, and that we couldn’t have had a happy marriage, with my moving to Beirut.  They introduced me to a man from their office, Ron Martin. Like my father, Ron was a civil engineer.  We began dating, and I had to write a letter to John, telling him I had met another man.  How can one write such a letter and not hurt someone else?

Ron and I married and had three boys, spaced two-three years apart.  After forty-four years of marriage, my husband died of prostate cancer.  With his passing, this was an especially difficult time for me.  Our  youngest son, a firefighter/paramedic, was bipolar, a condition that hadn’t manifested itself while my husband was living.  At least, we weren’t aware of it.  For many years, David suffered terribly with depression.  A few years after my husband’s death, David joined him.  I miss him so very much.

My two other sons lived far away, and I had no one to keep me in Miami.  So I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where my middle son lived.  A few years after my move to Birmingham, I resumed writing, something I’d done in earlier years.  Now I’m published with Books We Love.
My books are available at Amazon, Smashwords, AllRomance eBooks, Barnes and Noble KOBO, the Apple 1store and at other sites where ebooks are available online.  Some titles are also in print and available at your local bookstore.

This month, I’m featuring “Dream Weaver” my time travel romance.  It was a CAPA (Cupid and Psyche Award) nominee and has garnered twenty-one reviews, mostly 4 and 5 star.  It’s yours during February for .99 cents.

Please check out my website.  www.shirleymartinauthor.com
Check at these places, too.
https://twitter.com/mshirley1496
https://www.facebook.com/shirley.martin716970
http://bookswelove.net/authors/martin-shirley

Fabulous February Sale from Books We Love

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Hidden Civilizations by Eleanor Stem

I believe much is hidden by stone and dirt on this planet we call earth. Ha! You say. Isn’t that normal? Well, yes, but I mean down deep, under normal archaeological levels not yet searched. I’ve discussed this before, in various forms, but my theory still remains. What will we find once the ice sheets melt? What will we find if we dig below seemingly impenetrable rock? What if  several intelligent civilizations existed before this current one, which I say dates back 100,000 years when various forms of homo-sapiens walked the earth?

Atlantis before it sank into the sea

People keep trying to find Atlantis. Some spiritualists think it was real. Scientists feel it was a small community that a volcano plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, and several documentaries try to explain this. I’ve seen pictures of supposed paving stones off an island in the south Atlantic. Off the coast of Japan, the Yonaguni Pyramid has been found that some feel were man made when earth was cooler, before the seas rose after the Ice Ages. Even if Atlantis existed on this planet, it was part of our time frame, early in our present civilization that include what many call ‘ancient civilizations’. 

Pangaea was a single landmass scientists believe existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods of earth (300 million years ago) until an event split it into sections. We are still undergoing continental drifts. The Atlantic is getting larger, the Pacific smaller. Our planet is continually on the move. Earthquakes, violent storms, climate changes all cause our lands to change. 

What was once is no longer. 

Scientists tend to classify, tag and identify all sorts of events, time, our brains, species that roam the earth’s surface. We’re looking for signs if sentient beings lived on Mars, if there is evidence of water. The lists are countless. 

It is human nature to categorize for understanding. Indeed, fossil remains have been found from these early eras that explain why there are animal similarities across the continents. But to date, no human remains from early earth have been located. 

What if there were civilizations prior to the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras? Their remains may be under mounds of dirt and rock that have yet to be excavated. What if their bodies etc weren’t as ours, that their bones, muscle and sinew dissolved into the earth upon death, leaving no indication they were here? Just because archaeologists and paleontologists haven’t found them doesn’t mean they did not exit. 

Pangaea

The continent of Pangaea stood alone in a vast ocean. Did it contain salt? Pangaea may have been an idyllic place to live where the people used this fresh water ocean for food, drink, and exploration. The peoples then could have created a multi-layered civilization. 

Then the continent broke into pieces. 

What would have caused this catastrophic change on the planet? You say, no, that cannot be. Per scientific evaluation, the planet always moves. Pangaea drifted a part. Once the continent split, did the new lands with the peoples float away to form their own societies? Not according to the records. Only simple creatures walked the land(s). 

 

I say if we peel away earth’s rock and dirt like an onion, we may find evidence of far earlier civilizations than the mind can comprehend. This world that whirls around in a galaxy among millions of galaxies, in a giant universe or universes, is more complicated than we ever imagined. Earth has been around for a long time. One day, we’ll discover what took place here hundreds of millions, maybe billions of eras ago.

Many thanks to Wikicommons, Public Domain for the pictures. 

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