Angels and Aliens - Myths and legends, or ancient history? by Vijaya Schartz

This sweet sci-fi romance novel includes a strong heroine, a brave hero, a spoiled cat, and an angel race
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Throughout the ancient world, various mythologies feature extraordinary beings with incredible powers, coming from the heavens to teach and help, or chastise the Human race... or to mine some rare metal.

Whether we call them deities or angels, or aliens, or any other name, they look very much like technologically advanced extra-terrestrials, some with blue skin, some with several sets of arms, some with wings, others with animal heads. They taught our ancestors and made a lasting impression upon the minds of the population of the time. So much so that they left us gigantic statues and sculptures to remember them by... not unlike the US presidents immortalized in the rock at Mount Rushmore.

In the ancient Sanskrit texts of India, these beings wield fantastic weapons. There are several factions, and sometimes they wage war in the sky against equally powerful beings from the stars. They ride flying chariots of fire, and inhabit floating cities... not unlike a mother-ship.

Shiva is represented with blue skin and four arms. This protector of India, possessed a weapon so powerful, they named him the destroyer of worlds:

Some of these beings in different cultures are represented with bird heads, some with wings:

Anunnaki ancient Sumeria

 

Egyptian god Thoth

  

Indian god Garuda

Others have different animal heads, like Ganesha the elephant god, bringer of harmony and happiness in the home.

When you read the Vedas (ancient Sanskrit texts) or ask the people of India about these incredible beings, they will tell you these epic adventures actually took place in their ancient past. According to them, these beings were real and lived among the population of the time, and these are not stories or legends, but their ancient history.

If you want to explore exotic India in an award-winning novel, I suggest this one:

ASHES FOR THE ELEPHANT GOD

by Vijaya Schartz

A novel of reincarnated love, set in India - Two lovers, murdered in a previous life, meet again in India, where their murderess awaits...

To scatter her brother's ashes over the Narmada River, Fabienne leaves France for the mysterious India of her childhood dreams. As she awakens to a newfound spirituality, unexpected visions of a former life during the Raj stir ancient yearnings for a long lost passion.

Mukunda, the palace architect Fabienne loved a century and a half ago, lives again as an American engineer and works on the local dam project. As Fabienne falls in love again with India and the man of her destiny, the tapestry of her previous life unfolds.

But, in the karmic land of the blue gods, a ruthless foe lies in wait. The Kali worshiper, who murdered the two lovers in a faraway past, has come back through the centuries to thwart their dream once more.

"... a broad-stroked, magnificent picture of a lavish India of the past and the present... a vivid tale of suspense... a gripping account of a woman coming to terms with heightened awareness... a destiny that yields true fulfillment." The Book Reader Magazine - 5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Vijaya Schartz, author
 Strong heroines, brave heroes, cats, romance with a kick
 http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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The life of a female in the past—Tricia McGill

Now available for pre-release--on July 3rd

I’ve said it many times, much as I admire the women who were full of spirit and gumption in the past, there is no way I would like to share their lives other than in my books. I have often thought it would be great fun to be a time traveller so that I could return to the ages I have written about, just to be sure it really was as horrible, nasty and unhygienic as the historians tell us it was. But be sure, I am glad I live in a time when we have mod cons and the niceties in life.

When commenting on my historicals and time-travels I have always stressed my admiration for the women, especially those who had to endure tremendous hardships as the wives of the early settlers, regardless of what continent or time period. Even today, there are still women who have to endure all kinds of deprivation in certain countries where they have no running water or sanitation.

The inspiration for book one in my Settlers Series came from a book I happened upon at the library. This gem contained letters sent home to the country of their birth by women who, whether by choice or circumstance, were forced to follow their menfolk into what must have seemed like the gates of hell to them. Most of these women left comfortable lives in Britain, brought up in genteel households that possessed, if not running water and heating at a touch, in some cases housemaids to pander to their needs. Elizabeth Hawkins sent letters home telling of the journey across unfriendly seas and then the trek in 1822 across the Blue Mountains west of Botany Bay to a fledgling Bathurst, where her husband was to take up a position as Commissariat Storekeeper. This family were the first free settlers to cross the barrier of the mountains. They travelled with eight offspring aged from I to 12, and Elizabeth’s 70-year-old mother. If you read Mystic Mountains, you will see just why I hold women like Elizabeth and her mother in such high esteem. On top of enduring the constraints of a corset in much hotter weather than they were accustomed to, there was the lurking threat of snakes and venomous creatures they would never have encountered in their homeland.

Love, as the song goes, is a many splendoured thing. It convinced many women to get on a sailing ship that would take them and often their children to a far off country on the other side of the world. Apart from the odd snippet garnered from newspapers or the like, of the conditions in this New World, they had sparse knowledge of what awaited them. I’ve seen enough movies set on sailing vessels in the 1800s to understand the horrendous conditions aboard a ship that took weeks upon endless weeks to reach its destination. I recently viewed “To the Ends of The Earth” a series on TV with Benedict Cumberbatch. As a naïve young gentleman, his character is on his way to take up a Government post in Australia. This movie brought home more than some just how horrendous the conditions were aboard a sailing vessel, even if you were a man of substance assigned a cabin of your own.

Life in the fledgling colony was horrendous for the women who were transported, in some cases for petty crimes, such as stealing a loaf of bread to feed their children or perhaps taking a fancy to a strip of ribbon or a bauble of little value that wasn’t theirs to take.

My third book in this series starts in 1840 when certain improvements had been made, but even so, conditions were still unsanitary. My characters take off from Sydney Town on a trek to seek out adventure in a new colony recently settled down south in Port Phillip. The journey took a month—that’s four weeks travelling over a barely surveyed land on horseback. The threat of escaped convicts turned bushrangers lurked, even the scattering of inns along the way were ill prepared for travellers. Forget bathrooms or hot and cold running water. Then there was always the other inconvenience shared by young women—imagine a life with no sanitary products.

My heroine appreciates the magnificent achievements of the earlier settlers and her wish is to do something similar with her life. Women such as Caroline Chisolm, who recognised the need for assisting migrant women who arrived in Sydney but could not secure employment. Apart from sheltering many new arrivals in her own home, she took groups of them out to the bush where they easily found work with the settlers. By 1846 when she returned to England she had helped about eleven thousand people to either find work or establish themselves as farmers in outback New South Wales. Without her assistance, many of these women would have been forced to walk the streets as prostitutes in order to survive.

I guess my admiration for strong women stems from the high regard I hold for two special women in my life. Our mother reared ten children through two world wars and depressions, without the help of a washing machine, or any of the other appliances we take for granted these days. She struggled daily to make ends meet but always put a meal on the table for her children and our father, probably surviving herself on a mouthful or two. I rarely heard her complain—women just ‘got on with it’ in those days. The other woman was my dear sister whose life I have written about in “Crying is for Babies.”

Could be the reason why I have little patience for people who moan about their lot in life, as they chatter on their mobiles—or drive about in their cars.

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What's in a Burrito

https://books2read.com/The-Baganti-Attack

I really like Mexican food. I love Mexican food. Especially burritos.

Most of the time I get them at a retail place (from a major chain or a restaurant. They were okay. However, there was usually too much runny beans mixed in with the meat and not enough veggies. The restaurant style is similar, but includes a chair and table service. That is worth at least two points.

My homemade burrito had considerably more vegetables and more cheese. They were wrapped like you would get at a fast food place-a soft tortilla wrap. 

I’ve discovered something that was out there but not something that stuck in my mind-texture.

One day I was in a commercial area outside of downtown Toronto with a friend. We stepped into a small burrito restaurant. Rickety chairs. A mixture of table styles. Large windows opened letting a breeze in. We had to order at the counter. While in line (a very good sign) I noticed that one person took the order and two people behind prepared the burrito.

I saw immediately that the meat was cooked fresh for each order. Thus, a ten minute wait. The cheese was fresh. Everything was fresh.

This burrito cost more than any I had ever bought outside of a full-service fancy restaurant.

We had a seat and waited. Our number was called and we picked them up. The foil rap was hot. Another excellent sign.

I took my first bit. Bang! There was that texture I mentioned earlier. The vegetables had a crunch. As did the tortilla wrap. It had been placed under something similar to a panini grill. Or, it was simply properly prepared on a grill.

Each bite was met with a crunch. And, no half-cup of juice dripping out. Just a small amount. A very small amount. I slowed down and savoured each morsel.

This weekends challenge. Duplicate the amazing taste and texture on my grill at home. Under the sun. But, with a small breeze. A very small breeze.

The Ley Of The Land

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The Ley Of The Land

We all know that Victoria is a wonderful place to holiday, right? But have you ever wondered why so many ghosts feel the same?
Readers of my novel, The Joining, and past blogs will already know that Victoria is reported to be the most haunted city in North America, perhaps the world. What is known about spiritual Victoria is that two Ley Lines intersect the city, one North-South, another East-West. I've plotted many of the haunted sites and they draw a clear line from the seventh hole at Victoria golf course, all the way west to the inner harbour, and up to the north from there.
So the question going through many of your minds is; "What the hell are Ley Lines?"
The term was invented by Alfred Watkins in 1921, who happened to notice that many of the ancient pagan and religious sites in England (many built over older pagan sites) all seem to follow straight lines. "Ley" is based on an Anglo-Saxon term meaning 'cleared strip of land'.

Ley Lines In England As Drawn By Marian

What we refer to as Ley Lines are known in many cultures worldwide. The Shamans of South America call them Spirit Lines. In China, Dragon Lines. To the Aboriginals of Australia, they are Dream Lines. Most sacred monuments in the world, including Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, the Egyptian Pyramids, Easter Island and Stonehenge to name a few, are found along intersecting Ley Lines, like Victoria.
The ancient peoples of this planet knew of these Ley Lines. It is known that birds often migrate along magnetic meridians, which in essence is what the Ley lines are. The magnetic meridians of the Earth.
The Earth has a natural electromagnetic field, known as The Schumann Resonance, which registers at 7.8 Hertz. (To some, this is the heartbeat of Mother Earth.) Where Ley Lines are believed to cross, the charge is greater and causes a fluctuation in that field. (More of this to come in a future novel, working title Seeds of Ascension. You'll have to wait a bit though!).
Ley Lines are described by many Spiritualists as the energy chakras of Mother Earth. If you believe we are all connected to this realm, Mother Earth and the universe, and that in essence we are also a universe within ourselves, one can become in tune with this electrical current. Current that winds around the Earth like strands of DNA.
Yes, pretty heady woo-woo talk for a mere blog.
But I've been known to be a deep spiritual shamanistic person. So bear with my ramblings as we come back to Victoria.
What is known is that many of the First Nations graves (entire graveyards, back in the 1800's) were merely covered over as the city expanded. Even the entire Songhees village across the inner harbour was bought, the natives moved and the land paved over. Oh, yes, I've heard the money was supposed to go to them, but vanished into city coffers.
So what happened to the spirits buried within those coffins. Are they trapped here along with the later settlers? Can some pull memory or knowledge from these beings? Are they happy being trapped here?
This brings me to another point. Trapped within Victoria is a time vortex. Eerie I know. But many have reported to travel down Shelbourne and Hillside in the wee hours when the paved street disappears before them and they are instead travelling down an old gravel road. A minute later everything warps back to the present.  Yes, you read correctly.
So, bearing in mind the thirty or so well corroborated ghost stories I've researched, if anyone can claim that any city in the world is more haunted than Victoria, I'd be very interested to hear about it.
PS. If you have any ghost stories of Victoria and want to share them, let me know via email.
See you next month!

Frank Talaber
Email: twosoulmates@shaw.ca
Writer by Soul.
A natural storyteller, whose compelling thoughts are freed from the depths of the heart and the subconscious before being poured onto the page.
Literature written beyond the realms of genre he is known to grab readers; kicking, screaming, laughing or crying and drag them into his novels.
Enter the literary world of Frank Talaber.

My Publishers Webpage:
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http://twosoulmates.wixsite.com/frankt-author-blog
My novels and reviews on Amazon are at:
https://www.amazon.com/Frank-Talaber/e/B00UC407R0
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Links: #urban fantasy  #books  #author #paranormal thriller  #soul #muse  #fantasy  #Vancouver  #Victoria #BC #British Columbia

The Hanging of John André by Diane Scott Lewis

Spying for the British. In my novel set during the American Revolution, Her Vanquished Land, (Sept. release), I came across the many men and women who spied for the British and lost their lives. The main person, a man even showcased in the TV series, Turn, was Major John André. Since my heroine Rowena Marsh wishes to join the spy ring of her cousin, Major André is mentioned a few times. Especially his ignoble end.

John André

André was the man who corresponded with Benedict Arnold, aiding in his betrayal of the Americans.
When André was captured carrying letters that pointed to his involvement in this betrayal, General Washington offered him up for trade for Arnold. The British refused. André was doomed.

André was born in 1750 London to wealthy Huguenots. Well educated, he joined the British army at age twenty. By 1778 he was a major, had already been captured by the American rebels, and released through a prisoner exchange. In his off hours, he was a great society favorite with a lively personality and a talent for drawing.

In 1779 he took charge of the British Secret Service in America. He began negotiations with Benedict Arnold, a dissatisfied general in the Continental Army. Arnold said he was owed back pay and wasn't recognized as the patriot and hero that he should be. He wanted to defect to the British.

After his meeting with Arnold, André was given a safety pass by him to travel through the American lines, yet he also carried details about the fort at West Point (the one Arnold planned to turn over to the British). He was stopped by the Americans, searched, and captured. General George Washington wanted to do a prisoner exchange with André for the turncoat Arnold, but the British refused. The major was tried and convicted of spying, especially since he was wearing civilian clothes.

Sentenced to death, André was hanged at Tappan, New York, October 2, 1780. Both sides lamented the death of the amiable young officer who made friends wherever he was.

Self-portrait of André on the night before his execution.

I researched many aspects of spying during the American Revolution; brutality happened on both sides, and my heroine Rowena Marsh must find her place and make her mark. She strived to be as brave as the men.

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For further information on me and my books, please visit my website: www.dianescottlewis.org

 Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives with her husband in Pennsylvania.