Angels against robots? I'm taking bets - by Vijaya Schartz

Find all BWL titles from Vijaya Schartz HERE

As I'm actively writing the second book in the Azura Chronicles sci-fi romance series, I did not abandon research. On the contrary, even after creating an entire world, research is my main focus. Not only it helps me find new elements and threads to explore in the new story, but it opens so many possibilities...

Of course, I do enjoy the research. Who wouldn't like bingeing on the latest sci-fi movies and series (thank goodness for cable), reading great books and watching interviews of scientists on the advances of cybernetics, and the psychological consequences threatening future societies?

I love my job. Especially when the creative juices take me in unexpected directions. Book 2 will also have a big cat of a very different kind. I love researching cats.

Cybernetics, will you ask? Maybe I already said too much. But it's the future, after all, and I can't wait to pit angels against robots. This world of Azura also has a predatory fauna. Which side will the nightcrawlers take? And what role will my new kick-butt heroine and her brave hero take in this new adventure?

But I already said too much. As I work on Book 2, you are welcome to enjoy Book 1, ANGEL MINE. Each book is a standalone, but if you are like me, you'll want to know what happened before in this world of Azura.

ANGEL MINE: 5-stars
find it on amazon

What in the frozen hells of Laxxar prompted Fianna to pursue her quarry to this forbidden blue planet? Well, she needs the credits... badly. But as if crashing in the jungle wasn't bad enough, none of her high-tech weapons work. She'll have to go native, after the most wanted felon in five galaxies. It's not just her job. It's personal.

Acielon has never seen an outworlder like this fascinating female, strangely beautiful, and fierce, like the feline predator loping at her side. He always dreamed of exploring the universe, despite the legends... and the interdiction. Is it truly a hellish place of violence, lies and suffering? If it spawned this intriguing creature, it must also be a place of wonders, adventure and excitement.

Fianna's instincts tell her someone is watching. Sheba, her telepathic feline partner, doesn't seem worried... yet, something on Azura isn't quite right.

"I don’t know how Vijaya continues to write books that both aggravate you to no end and keep you on the edge of your seat. You can’t put it down until you know what happens next. Before you know what happened, you are at the end of the book and wondering how you got there so fast. It is hard not to get caught up in and lost in the imagery created on the pages of the locations. You can even smell what is in the air. Yet another page turner I couldn’t put down! Thank you Vijaya for keeping me entertained."  5-stars - Beverley J. Malloy on amazon

Happy Reading!

Vijaya Schartz
  High Octane sci-fi fantasy romance with a kick
  http://www.vijayaschartz.com
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Can lovers be reunited across time? Tricia McGill

My Books We Love Author page

Purchase Here: http://books2read.com/Powerful-Destiny

In my latest book I say, yes they can. For a long time I have firmly believed that I have lived before and hope I will be reunited with a loved one in the future. The only explanation I have for this is that my dreams have me featured in certain circumstances and I know they are set in the past. Often I don’t  recognise the other person and yet know deep down who it is. The logical part of my brain tells me this is probably fanciful thinking, and my overactive imagination concocting stories I would like to be true. In one of my most vivid dreams I was most definitely in Ireland (never been there in this life) with a man I knew well even though he looked different to the one I know in this life. We had a family of children (I have none in this life) and were a struggling family which was obvious by the surroundings. It was so convincing I believed I was reliving a past life.

One of my previous doctors was born in Pakistan and later lived in India (or it might have been the other way around) before coming to Australia. We got to talking one day about my beliefs and certain religions and I was taken aback when he assured me I was a Buddhist, or so aligned with their faith it was obvious I shared their beliefs.

It seems I am not alone in my belief in reincarnation, as the concept has existed for a long time in certain religions. I was surprised, stunned in fact, to learn that there are probably more people alive today who believe in it than those who do not. This surprised me because of this technological age we live in I thought it would be something that wasn’t even considered. The most surprising fact to me was that a large proportion of  people in the USA and Western Europe do hold a belief in reincarnation.

Read more about it here: 

http://www.deathreference.com/Py-Se/Reincarnation.html

Another fact that surprised me is there is quite a difference in such beliefs in certain cultures. I believed it was something more taught by Buddhists but learnt that it features largely in the Hindu culture also. They believe in Karma and that rather than meeting up with past loves in the future we are more likely to simply be reborn, even as an animal or of the opposite sex. I am a great believer in Karma, or Fate as I like to call it, and know it has played an enormous part in my life.

Read more:  

http://www.deathreference.com/knowledge/Theravada.html

Something that I found immensely interesting is that in 1961 Ian Stevenson who at the time was chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia was so intrigued by the cases of children claiming to remember past lives that he gave up his position at the University and opted on full-time research of the cases. He found children who spoke quite fluently of other lives and deceased people. Their stories were so convincing that some families made contact with members of this previous person the child mentioned in such detail.

At these meetings, the child would often be said to identify members of the previous family as well as items belonging to the deceased individual. Since he began his research he and others have found many such cases of children claiming to recall past lives. Seem too fanciful? Not to me, as children often have invisible friends, and I doubt if a child could go so far as to imagine and describe someone is such detail that it could be proved later this person lived. And cases have been found in so many different locations there has to be more truth in it than wishful thinking. Most common cases are found in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, West Africa, and mostly in cultures with a firm belief in reincarnation. It’s the fact that these are children and not adults who could clearly make stories up to satisfy the researcher that makes it so convincing.

My mother never had in-depth discussions with us on such things as life after death but I can still see her wreath lying on our father’s coffin, with her card that simply said, “Till we meet again.”

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Itching To Get Ahead

Add captionhttp://www.bookswelove.com/authors/sawka-randall-western-suspense/

The word “itch” amuses me. It is almost crying for a consonant or two at the beginning. Which. Witch. Hitch. Much better.

However, we are burdened with this word; a word that brings back memories and initiates thoughts. In my youth it spent much of its time sharing a sentence with the word mosquito. In summer it somehow managed to dampen a trip to a local Alberta lake by conjuring up warnings about “the itch.” Still, there were other lakes that didn’t carry the stigma or the itch. So, we had a splashing good time.

Our move from the west to Ontario introduced us to the idea that a mosquito bite placed second behind the dreaded black fly bite. What? It seems the black flies in the east are far more aggressive. I cannot remember hearing much less experiencing a black fly bit. Especially one that leaves a looonie-sized itchy welt.

These painful option leave me itching. Itching for more time at our favourite places on the planet. Just yesterday we reminisced about the wonderful days we spent walking the miles and miles of footpaths in England. Stopping to watch the sheep or cattle. Yes, occasionally keeping out a wary eye for a bull among the cows.

Tempting indeed. However, the fine Ontario weather is upon us. Best wait until perhaps October to pop across the pond and enjoy the walks...fish and chips...bitter…peaceful rolling hills of the countryside.

Ghost Stories Now and Then by S. L. Carlson

Ghost Stories Now and Then by S. L. Carlson

Do you believe in ghosts? Should you believe in ghosts? The idea of ghosts has fascinated me my whole life. Ghosts have been around for as long as there have been people.

I’ve never been keen to see one, but I have sensed and heard them. I don’t like to acknowledge them for fear of an introduction. Ignorance-Ignoring is bliss. Still, it’s hard to ignore a mixer turning on and off by itself. So when something like that happens I spin and point my finger to the air, and in my strongest ghost-scolding voice, say, “Stop that! Not funny!”

A house siding contractor went into our basement when we weren’t home. He had no business down there. I only figured it out when we returned and he looked pale, asking if our house was haunted. I laughed and mentioned our doorbell ringing at odd hours with no one there (even when we’re by the door to “catch” anyone). He mentioned a door slammed when he was inside. (Why was he inside, anyway?) Even though there was no breeze, I suggested the wind did it. He said there were no windows opened. Well, yes, there were, but not in the basement! Good, old ghost.

The Great Lakes have thousands of ghost stories, as well they should from the many untimely deaths on them. One told in the Milwaukee Journal, January 24, 1895, is of a man named Bill who died en route to Buffalo. When the ship arrived, the entire crew felt the vessel was now unlucky, so didn’t sign on for the trip over to Cleveland. The mate shanghaied a new crew. As they neared the boat, they pointed to the ship’s mast. The mate recognized the figure as Bill. The new crew, drunk as they were, fled. Finally other crew members came. The ship never made it to Cleveland. It sunk off of Dunkirk with all hands.

One more (of the thousands): On November 28, 1966, the Daniel J. Morrell broke apart in the middle of the night during a storm on Lake Huron. Watchman Dennis Hale was in his bunk when the ship cracked. He grabbed his life jacket and ran on deck in only his shorts. The ship had buckled. He ran back to his bunk for his pea jacket and made it into a lifeboat with three others. As the waves crested the raft, the water turned to ice on them. They lay in the lifeboat. Dennis was in the middle. The other three froze to death in the night. The next day he washed up on rocks, but too far to swim in the freezing water. He started to eat the ice from his pea jacket when a translucent man in white hovered over him and told him not to eat the ice or it would lower his body temperature and he’d die. The following day the same vision occurred. He was rescued, given last rites because he was so near death, but lived. As the sole survivor of the sinking, it took more than twenty years before he told the rest of the survival story with words of ghostly advice.

F.Y.I. There will be ghosts in my book coming out in September with BWL, Escape, War Unicorn Chronicles, Book 2. Find my other books here: http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/carlson-sandy-young-adult/

Getting Through the Rough Times by Victoria Chatham

For writers, writing is usually a compunction, something they have to do, like breathing. Even before I really knew what I was doing, I wrote.

Yes, I’ve joked about my writing with crayons on the wall not being appreciated by my family (for obvious reasons) but making my mark by writing something, somewhere has, for me, always been a tangible expression, like prehistoric handprints on the wall of a cave, of my being here, on this planet, now. The now has shifted considerably over the years from childish drawings and weirdly shaped letters, to short stories about ponies and dogs, to prize-winning essays at school and onwards and upwards.

image courtesy of Shutterstock

Writing, as an art, was something I took up when I learned calligraphy. It came out of an art class where we were encouraged to illuminate the capital letter of our first name or surname. I chose V for Victoria, not H for Hammond as I was then. I liked the look of the letter V, and very early on also liked the fact that Victory and Valor both began with V. They seemed strong words to me then as they do now.

Combining the art of writing with the craft of it was something that came a lot later. Although I loved English classes, both literature and grammar, writing in my family was a serious business. It had to impart knowledge and instruction and, consequently, fiction and fun writing didn’t enter much into my education. However, at age thirteen I read a book whose title now escapes me although I can see the cover clearly. Anyone who remembers Douglas Fairbanks, or maybe Douglas Fairbanks jnr., would recognize the look of the handsome pirate wearing a bandanna, an open-neck shirt and swinging from a rope on some ship or another. If you’ll pardon the nautical pun, it opened up a whole new horizon for me.

I wrote short stories which friends enjoyed and encouraged me to 'send to a publisher.' I showed one short story to a well-respected children's book editor who suggested I submit it to a long defunct UK short story magazine called The Argosy. It was rejected but I persevered. After all, I had many more stories to write. However, my family was far less enthusiastic than my friends so I kept writing mainly for myself. When I started writing novels, erroneously thinking writing chapters would be like writing one short story after another, I very quickly found a whole new world within the writing world. 

But getting stuck in the writing is also part of a writer's life. It happened to me more often than not in the early days but books like Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg helped a great deal. 'How To' books from the Library were replaced with Google searches for ideas to jumpstart my work all over again. Tools like doodling with words and going for walks, listening to music, or washing the floor all got tested.

So, what does keep me going when the words won’t come, or won’t come in the way or order that I want them to? My best tried and true trick is to stop writing. I return to my favorite books, the ones that have left vivid impressions over the years and have had me sobbing my socks off or laughing out loud. My favorite go-to read is Georgette Heyer’s Frederica. I know that when I’m done reading it, I’ll go back to my writing with more energy and enthusiasm and then everything seems to flow again.

 AVAILABLE HERE

Victoria Chatham

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AT BOOKS WE LOVE

Life 101, 102 or 103 (pick a class, any class)

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Life 101, 102 or 103 (pick a class, any class)

Summer’s here! The mosquitoes have arrived in waves and they’ve drunk enough of my blood to give Dracula a week-long hangover. I wonder what he takes for a hangover? Not Eno, I bet, maybe hair of the dog or in this case, hair of Hazel or George.

I also wonder what horrendously foul mood God (or Mother Nature, the big guy, dudette, cosmic teddy bear, Buddha, he, she or it; insert as appropriate to your beliefs) was in when he/she/it decided to invent winged vampires whose only purpose in life was to suck your blood. Couldn’t he have invented something more benign to feed the geckos?

            Which reminds me of my wife’s latest muse. She suddenly, out of nowhere, informed me that she thought gum was the most useless invention ever. Who in their right minds would invent something that you chew, chew, chew but never actually eat? What a nasty trick to play on your stomach, she said. She then challenged me to think of something invented by someone that was of less use than gum. I’m still working on that one!

            So who is the inventor of the (according to my wife) most useless thing ever invented? I think it was probably a dentist whose business was failing. Kinda like the story of the small town in the US where there was a spree of broken windows. Nothing stolen, so just vandals they thought. A few days later they arrested the local glazier! Genius, eh? Like the guy who reported to the police the theft of his duffel bag full of marijuana!

            Life and people make no sense at all sometimes, like the guy that decided to set the cruise control on his RV so he could go make a coffee, with the inevitable result. He was compensated over twenty million for that brainstorm because it didn’t tell you in the manual not to leave the wheel whilst the RV was on cruise control and we got the ridiculous list of dos and don’ts on any product you buy. Like, caution this hot coffee is hot! Man, good thing they told me that, I’d never have known.

            Or explain to me how a package of frozen cauliflower has to read “gluten free”. Isn’t it always?

            Or how a packet of peanuts has the caution “may contain nuts”.

I know now you’re wondering what’s the point of this blog. Well, it was my 60^th birthday yesterday. I can start collecting a pension and get discounts on my meals. I remember back in my twenties when I thought I had figured out life, the mysteries of the universe and how they got the caramel in the Caramilk bar. I’ve learned so much since then that I now realize I knew nothing back then, but I know even less now as I’ve forgotten most of what I learned anyhow. Age does that, you know.

In the end somethings just never change and the universe is a wonderful place, full of bizarre riddles. Damn, there’s another mozzy on my arm.

Sincerely

Frank Talaber

twosoulmates@shaw.ca

My webpage

http://twosoulmates.wixsite.com/frankt-author-blog

Frank Talaber’s Writing Style? He usually responds with: Mix Dan Millman (Way of The Peaceful Warrior) with Charles De Lint (Moonheart) and throw in a mad scattering of Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get The Blues).
PS: He’s better looking than Stephen King (Carrie, The Stand, It, The Shining) and his romantic stuff will have you gasping quicker than Robert James Waller (Bridges Of Madison County).

Or as is often said: You don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps.

My novels on Amazon are at:  https://www.amazon.com/Frank-Talaber/e/B00UC407R0

https://www.facebook.com/FrankTalaber/

https://www.facebook.com/franktalaberpublishedauthor/ (My facebook short story page)

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/talaber-frank-suspense-urban-fantasy-canada/

T\https://about.me/ftalaber

Twitter: @FrankTalaber

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It's a Man's World...Unless You're a Praying Mantis by Stuart R. West

No science here! Click for humor and suspense!

And you guys think you have it bad!

Pity the plight of the poor praying mantis. Gather around for a little science lesson...

The other day my wife and I are sitting on the back deck. She's tending to a potted plant and says, "Hey! A walking stick!"

"Kill it," I scream, because everyone knows sticks shouldn't walk, a mutant aberration of science gone awry. And because everything I know about science I've learned from cartoons.

Upon further exploration, my wife says, "No...wait... It's a praying mantis."

Which is even worse. "Squish it! Get rid of it! For God's sake, destroy the beast!"

"No," says my wife, "praying mantises are good. She'll eat the bad bugs."

Hmm. "What in the world makes you think it's a female?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes, says, "There's a huge difference between male and female praying mantises."

I reached deep into the darkest pockets of my useless and dusty stored facts and plucked out something horrific. "Oh, yeah! It has a head, right? Because after the mantises procreate, the female eats the male's head."

"That's not the difference I'm talking about, but, yes, they do that."

"But why?" I knew the females feasted on heads, just couldn't figure out their motivation. "Are the females tired of a lifetime of male oppression? Are they into weird insectoid, extreme S&M and get carried away? Do they hate males?"

At this point, my wife's not a firm believer in the adage, There's no such thing as a stupid question. "They're just bugs doing...buggy things."

Ever the scientist, my wife gives it more thought. "I imagine the males' head is full of protein and good for the eggs. Mantises only mate once, then it's off with the males' head."

"So...you're saying that the male kinda just hangs out, has sex once, then at the peak of his short life, he gets his head eaten?"

"Pretty much."

"...No wonder they pray all the time." 

For more strange science (not really) and weird wonders of the world (or at least a spooky lil' Kansas town in the sixties), check out Peculiar County by clicking....wait for it...RIGHT HERE! 

A World of Weird Awaits Just One Click Away!