Books We Love's Tantalizing Talent ~ Author Janet Lane Walters

Janet Lane Walters has been in the writing game since 1968S she took a few years off to return to work as a nurse to help put her four children through school. When she returned she found a whole new game to learn and she has. Her works include romance – both contemporary, historical, fantasy and paranormal, mysteries and suspense. She has also been a ghost writer of books for doctors. Under J. L. Walters she has some YA fantasies. The world of medicine is part of many of her stories.

http://bookswelove.net/authors/lane-walters-janet/

Seducing thePhotographer (At First Sight Book2)

Seducing the Chef(At First Sight Book 1)

The Gemini – Sagittarius Connection (Opposites in Love Book3)

The Taurus – Scorpio Connection (Opposites in Love Book 2)

The Aries – Libra Connection (Opposites in Love Book 1)

A Marriage Takes Two

Sanctuary's Ending (The Goddess of Solunda Book 1)

Dragons of Fyre (Island of Fyre Book 2)

Temple of Fyre (Island of Fyre)

Pursuing Doctor West

Bast's Warrior (An Alternate Egypt Book 1)

Horu's Chosen (An Alternate Egypt Book 2)

Toth's Priest (An Alternate Egypt Book 3)

Amber Chronicles

Shattered Dreams (Moonchild)

Rekindled Dreams (Moonchild)

Melodic Dreams (Moonchild)

A Double Opposition

Moon Summoned

Lines of Fire (The Guild House - Defenders Hall)

Code Blue

The Doctor's Dilemma

Heart Throb

Books We Love Special Edition - Janet Lane-Walters

Gemstones

Choices

Healwoman

Young Adult books By J L Walters

Escape (Affinities Book 1 - Young Adult Fantasy)

Havens (Affinities Book 2 - Young Adult fantasy, Books We Love)

Searches (Affinities Book 3 - Young Adult Fantasy, Books We Love)

Confrontations (Affinities)

Divided Dreams

Rob Grantlan has given up medicine to become an author. As a Gemini, having two careers seems just right. His quiet days are overturned by the death of his wayward sister and his taking guardianship of his two month old niece. When he learns the father of the infant is his old flame Andi Sherman’s brother a plan unfolds. Years ago, he hurt her. He still loves her and he wants to regenerate that love. 

Andi Sherman is now a nurse practitioner in Pediatrics. She has vowed never to return to Fern Lake. The offer of a partnership in a friend’s practice is tempting. She refuses until she learns Rob has given up the practice of medicine. She believes he will leave town. On the day after her July birthday, she returns and comes upon the accident, finds the dying woman and the baby. When she learns the little girl is her niece and Rob hasn’t left town she is conflicted. She still loves him but she can’t trust him. News from her brother brings a threat. 

The Aries-Libra Connection

Jenessa is Aries, a nurse, union advocate and likes a good fight. 

Eric is Libra, Director of Nursing, and believes in compromise. 

Can these two find a way to uncover the underhanded events at the hospital? They’re on opposite sides but the attraction between them is strong. She’s a widow who fought to save her husband’s life during a code. She feels guilty because the love she and her husband shared had died before his death. He assisted at the code but he feels guilty since he was the one who was responsible for the short staffing the night her husband died. 

Now they face falling in love and trying to solve the problems between the nurse’s union and the president of the hospital’s Board who wants a take over of the hospital by his hospital group. Is their connection strong enough to survive?

The Temple of Fyre

Sold by her family to the priestesses of the Temple of Fyre, Ria soon masters using each of the four fyrestones, white, yellow, orange and scarlet. Her curiosity leads her to the archives and there, she learns things that disturb her. There are no men serving as priests but in the past there were. Men are kept in the harras where the priestesses visit. On the day of her testing she is ordered to perform a task she dislikes and refuses to destroy a town. Many of the priestesses fall into unconsciousness. Melera, the chief priestess, beats and banishes Ria for the carrion crows to consume. 

Ari was abandoned as a child and found by two elderly firestone miners. He has pursued this and is the best of the finders. He goes to the temple to sell the stones he has gleaned. On leaving, Ria attempts to steal the fyrestone he has worn since the day he was found. He thinks she is a boy and a thief and he takes her to his room at the inn. On discovering her identity, he refuses to turn her over to the priestesses and they leave town. They are searching for the fabled blue fyrestones. They also learn to use them they must be bonded physically, emotionally and spiritually. Can they learn to master the blue stones and defeat Malera so they can rule the temple with love and understanding?

Escape – Affinities – Book 1

In Affinities, Escape, a Books We Love Young Adult Fantasy, two sets of halfling twins, Ashlea, Brandien, Jaydren and Kylandra sent away from their home by their parents to protect them from trouble, search for mentors to teach them how to use their affinities. Each of these young teens has an affinity for one of the elements. Ash for Air, Bran for Water, Jay for Earth and Ky for Fire. During the escape, they face many problems forcing them to use their affinities by trial and error. They also meet Alizand, the son of the ruling prince of Wesren. Zand has an affinity for Fire and this will keep him from gaining the rule. Dom Senet, an advisor to his father, and once a friend of the quartet’s parents suspects Zand’s affinity. He wishes to corrupt the teen and use him to gain control of the four princedoms of the land and of the highlands. The evil dom has all four affinities. The four must reach a secret place and find teachers before the evil man discovers them.

Four Female Saints of India

 

The feminine aspect of the divine is very strong in Hinduism—whether in the many Deities worshipped, in the theology, or in the number of female saints throughout its history.



Representations of the sage Agasthya and Lopamudra

Classical Hinduism traces its origins to the ancient Rishis who received revelations, later compiled into the Vedas, which form the basis of Hinduism’s teachings. These Rishis, some single and some married, lived in ashrams in the forest and the tradition recognizes the wives of these Rishis as great spiritual personalities themselves, at par with their husbands.

Among them is Lopamudra Devi, the wife of the sage Agasthya. She is credited with great contributions to the theology of the Feminine, and spread the fame of the Lalita Sahasranama (the thousand names of Devi, the Divine Mother.) She was expert in the philosophy of the Divine Feminine and many of her hymns are recorded in the Vedas.



Andal

The Tamil saint Andal appeared South India in the pre-Medieval period. A charming story is told of her appearing in a sacred Tulsi garden and being adopted by her father, the saint Perialvar. Raised in a deeply spiritual environment, she became famous for her deep devotion to God. She considered herself to be the wife of Vishnu (an Avatar of Krishna) and composed many hymns in the mood of a wife in love with God, the Divine Lover. Her songs are still sung at weddings in the Tamil country. Her father, realizing that she loved only Vishnu, arranged her marriage to Lord Ranganatha, a carved-stone representation of Vishnu. To the wonderment of the assembly, Andal’s body merged with that of the Deity.

Another female saint who experienced ecstatic love for God was Meerabai,

Meerabai

born in 1498 in Rajasthan, West India. As a child, she witnessed a wedding procession and asked her mother who her husband would be. Her mother gave her a statue of Krishna and from then on, she considered herself to only be the wife of the Divine.  Meerabai was born into a royal family, but showing no interest in the court or family, spent her days in a state of ecstasy with her beloved Krishna. Finally, in despair, she was ejected by her family and spent the rest of her life travelling through India, composing songs of her Beloved, which remain well known, even to this day.

 

 

 

A modern female saint is Armritananda Mayi, also known as Amma. Born into a poverty-stricken family from Kerala, in South India, she spent, as a small child, many hours in deep meditation, experiencing periods of great rapture. She 

Amritanandamayi

also had the habit of giving away the meagre possessions of her family to those in even greater need, to the consternation of her family. As news of her spiritual attainment spread, she attracted followers, and despite being born into a lower-caste family, some of her first disciples came from Brahmin families, causing quite a stir. She is known as Amma (Mother) because of her habit of spontaneously embracing people to comfort them.

 

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "The Yoga Zapper - A Novel," published by Books We Love.

Chilblains and icicles by Sheila Claydon

Fortunately it hasn't actually come to chilblains and icicles but only because the weather in the UK has been warmer than usual for this time of year. What has happened though is that our central heating and hot water have packed up and the three weeks we have been without them has taken me right back to my childhood.

How spoilt I am now. The house is always warm. Hot water is available at the turn of the tap. I can have a shower whenever I want. I can even walk around the house without a sweater in the middle of winter if I want to (I don't!). My kitchen is full of gadgets from a toaster to a steam iron, an ice-cream maker to a microwave. My kitchen hob is ceramic so it's clean at the swipe of a dishcloth, and my cooker and fridge are self-cleaning, and of course there's the washing machine and tumbler dryer. How could I manage without those?

Now let me take you back to when I was tiny and my mother, father and I lived with my grandparents. It was at the end of WW2 and we lived in Southampton, a maritime city that had been severely blitzed, so there were no houses to buy or rent. In those days laundry was either done by hand, using a big block of green soap and a washboard, or it was piled into a copper boiler and the dirt was stirred into submission. Then it was rolled through a mangle and how important I felt when I was allowed to turn the handle. Then, after hours flapping on the line in the garden, it was ironed with a flat iron that had to be heated on the stove. Even so, everything was ironed. Nothing was easy care in those days.

Then there was the cooking. The milk, which was delivered daily by a man driving a horse and cart, was kept in a bucket of cold water on hot days, or, on cold days, outside.  The food, too, had its place. A big old meat safe with a fly cover was kept in a shady part of the garden and everything in it was used within a day or two. No supermarket shopping, no packaging either. Everything was weighed out and wrapped, even the biscuits. My favorite job was to go to the shop next door and fill a bag with broken biscuits because that way we got a selection instead of just the one kind.

As for central heating and hot water, forget it. An open fire and the warmth from an old-fashioned black-leaded range were the only forms of heat we had in that cold, dark 3-bedroom house, so going to bed was a sprint up the stairs to an icy cold bed made marginally more comfortable by a big stone hot water bottle wrapped and pinned into a cotton cloth. I remember the cotton coming off mine one night. I still have the small burn scar on my leg to this day.

Washing for me was from a bowl beside the range or, once a week,  a tin bath that had to be filled with pans and kettles of water that had been heated on the stove. For my grandparents and parents it was ewers and bowls in their cold bedrooms and a weekly visit to the public baths.

I can still remember how happy my parents were the day we eventually moved into a property that had a bathroom, a fridge, and a water heater, whereas nowadays nobody expects anything else.

Of course all this was a very long time ago, and because we lived with my grandparents who were still using gaslight instead of electricity, we were probably at bit behind the times anyway. Other people lived in more comfort I'm sure but I didn't have a problem because, like all small children, I thought what I was used to was normal. I didn't like the chilblains (caused by sitting too close to the fire in an attempt to warm my frozen feet), or the chapped knees and lips. I didn't especially like having to wear layers and layers of clothes either. Scratchy woollen vests, a liberty bodice with tiny, fiddly buttons, a pleated skirt that hung from a warm over bodice, then a thick woollen jumper. My knees were always bare though, above very unattractive woollen socks held up with an elastic garter, and this meant chapped knees and thighs. Little boys suffered a similar fate because in those days children were deemed too young to wear long trousers and I didn't know anyone who wore woollen tights...maybe they hadn't started making them.

So although I'm not enjoying being without heating and hot water, it's not all bad. Without the sudden upheaval it's caused in my life I wouldn't have remembered how lucky I am, and how much harder domestic chores were for my mother and grandmother.  I haven't got any chilblains either and I am very grateful for that.

None of my heroines have ever had to suffer such deprivations although Kerry, in Double Fault does have a bit of a hard time when she's a single mother. Before the path of true love can run smooth they all have other problems to contend with though.

Sheila can be found at:

Books We Love

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

Kobo

She also has a website and can be found on facebook

Road Tripping USA Part Two by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017LJOL2K/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

my website: www.joandonaldsonyarmey.com

Author’s Note

I belong to Angels Abreast, a breast cancer survivor dragon boat race team in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. Every four years the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Commission IBCPC) holds an international festival somewhere in the world. In the spring of 2013, my team received a notice that the IBCPC had chosen Sarasota, Florida, USA, to hold the next festival in October 2014.

     We decided to attend and while the other members were going to fly down, tour around some of the sites and head home I wanted to see more of the country and meet some of the people. My husband, Mike, and I drove from our small acreage at Port Alberni, British Columbia, on the Pacific Ocean, to Sarasota, Florida on the Atlantic Ocean.
     Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the people I would meet nor the beautiful places I would see nor the adventures I would have on our ten week, 18,758km (11656 mile) journey. On the thirteenth day of every month in 2016 I will post a part of my trip that describes some of the excellent scenery, shows the generosity and friendliness of the people, and explains some of the history of the country. The people of the USA have much to be proud of.

 Road Tripping USA Part Two

After leaving Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, Colorado, we went to Mesa Verda (Spanish for ‘green table’) National Park. We stopped in at the information center, picked up booklets and maps of the area, and began our tour. We drove to the Montezuma, Park Point, and Geologic Overlooks where we had panoramic views of the area. Mike parked at the museum and I took the Spruce House trail. I lost 100ft (30 m) in elevation as I descended on the paved switchbacks for a quarter mile. There were interpretive signs along the trail about the flora in the area.

     The construction of Spruce Tree House began by the ancient Pueblo people, sometimes called Anasazi, around the year 1200. It had about 120 rooms and housed 60 to 90 residents. Spruce Tree House was the first site excavated in 1908. It has been rebuilt using as much of the original material as possible and is considered the best preserved dwelling in Mesa Verda National Park.
     The word kiva comes from the Hopi language and refers to a round chamber in or near the village that may have been used for social and religious purposes. It was like a basement or underground dwelling. There were eight kivas on the original Spruce Tree House site and one has been rebuilt for the public to visit. I climbed down a ladder into the large, round, empty room. The only light was from the hole above. It made me shiver to think I was in a place that had been built more than one thousand years ago.
     There are more than 600 cliff dwellings within the park. Most of them were constructed between the 1190s and the 1270s and were abandoned by about 1300. The houses were built in shallow caves and under rock overhangs. They were made of hard sandstone blocks held together with adobe mortar. The Anasazi were famous for their pottery and basket weaving.
     When I walked back up the trail, I found myself out of breath. It bothered me because I liked to consider myself in good shape. Then I realized why. I live at sea level and I was about 7000ft (2133m) above sea level where the air is lighter.
     We drove to Cliff Palace which, along with Balcony House and Long House, is a ranger guided tour. I took the 250ft (76m) walk to the overlook and gazed down at the cliff dwelling. There is a sign that states the site was found by two men in 1888 and there is a picture of it in 1891 showing the rubble and the deterioration. Over the years it has been partially restored.
     After a couple more lookouts we headed downhill to the highway through some lovely scenery. We could see into the gorge and had beautiful views of a valley below.
     A sign welcomed us to New Mexico, Land of Enchantment. The scenery was beautiful sandstone rock cliffs on right and a valley on the left. As we neared Aztec there were a lot of farms and some residences.
     In Aztec we stopped at the visitor’s centre and got information about the area. I was given directions to the Aztec ruins and also how to go to the Aztec Arches. As I was leaving the woman gave me a warning.
     “It’s very dry here and you have to make sure you keep hydrated by drinking lots of water. You don’t sweat but you lose a lot of moisture from your body.”
     Mike parked at the ruins but his back was sore and he wanted to relax so I went alone. When I paid at the gift shop/museum I was given the option of borrowing a booklet that would explain the ruins or buying one. I bought one as a souvenir. The day was overcast with some sunshine as I started out and I could see heavy black clouds in the distance.
     The ancestors of the American Indian, also called ‘ancestral Puebloan people’ lived here from the late 1000s to the late 1200s. The Aztec Ruins National Monument was established in 1923 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, the Aztec people never lived there. The term Aztec was given to many ancient sites by the early Spanish explorers.
     Some of the site has been restored, some of it has remained in its ruin condition. I used the booklet as a guide to view the Kiva, the inner rooms, and the doorways set in the corners of some rooms. Going from room to room, I had to duck to get through the doorways. In those rooms 900 year old timbers still support the ceiling or roof.
     There are a number of Aztec Arches and we found a few close to town. The roads were sandy and wet and the black clouds were still in the distance. However, the sun shone overhead. We took the Potter Canyon tour and saw the Outcrop, a hole between two outcrops of sandstone. I hiked to the Pillar, where a hole has been formed in the middle of a tall sandstone rock. Plus, we wandered between high sandstone walls and climbed into sandstone canyons. These arches are hundreds of thousands years old and have been formed by the erosion of the sandstone.
     We passed through Dulce and at the far end of town the Jacarilla Apache native band of Dulce, New Mexico, was putting on a little market alongside the road. There were open-sided tents with food, jewellery, and jelly for sale. We pulled over and walked through the site. Many of the vendors were selling fry bread which we had never tried. We went to one of the tents and placed an order. We talked with the mother and son while she deep fried the dough. They explained how the food was made.
     As we ate the fry bread Mike told them about our trip and why we were headed to Sarasota. The son had heard of dragon boating and knew what we were talking about. We also bought a small loaf of their regular bread and some apple pie. Their pieces of pie however were not like the triangle shaped ones I am used to. It looked like they made them in square pans then cut them into squares.
     We walked to another tent and Mike bought a tamale. We carried our goodies to the camper where Mike ate the tamale and I tried the pie. I wanted to see some more so we went to a table where there were jars of jelly. I was wearing a black baseball cap with a pink ribbon, the sign of breast cancer, on it.
     “I like your hat,” the woman at the table said.
     “Thank you,” I said.
     “I’m a five year survivor,” she said.
     “I’m thirteen years.” I then explained that I belonged to a breast cancer survivor dragon boat team and I was headed to an international festival in Florida. She had never heard of dragon boating so I gave her a quick overview of the hundreds of breast cancer survivor teams and the thousands of regular teams that there are around the world and what attending a festival is like. I mentioned that she could form a team.
     "I don't think there are enough women here to start a team," she said.
     I wrote down her email address and said I would sent her info on it next time I was on the Internet.
     I bought a jar of her homemade chokecherry jelly which was very good.
     Just before the town of Questa we turned to go to the Rio Grande Gorge and reached the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument. Seventy-four miles of the Rio Grande are within this monument. At the Sheep Crossing overlook there was a sign stating: Vertical Cliffs Along Rim. Keep a Safe Distance.
     The Rio Grande Gorge Chiflo Trail is 7538ft (2298m) above sea level. There is a 0.4 mile trail down to the river with an elevation change of 320ft (97m). The trail difficulty was easy. The canyon walls have gray, sandy and red rock throughout it. In places, this gorge can be up to 800ft (244m) deep.
     We met a couple of men from Texas who had come to fish for brown trout. They started down the trail but one guy’s knees began to bother him so they came back up. They decided to head to a different spot where the climb wasn’t so steep. I went down the sometimes rock, sometimes dirt trail. As I walked I watched for snakes which make this area their home. I didn’t go all the way but reached a place where I had a great view of the river and was able to take pictures of the river and the canyon.

In Oklahoma, we were on our way to the Alabaster Caves. We drove through the tall banks of reddish rock along the Cimarron River then climbed out of the river valley and into grasslands and farmland. When we turned onto Highway 508 we were on the Great Plains Trail of Oklahoma.

     I was the only customer for their first tour. The temperature of the caves is about 50F (10C). I wore a light jacket and the guide was in shirt sleeves.
     “The caves are the largest alabaster or gypsum caverns in the world that offers tours to the public,” the guide told me as we entered them. “They are about three times as long as the three-quarters of a mile that you will be shown.”
     The floor was slippery because of the humidity. There were lights in the cavern but only in sections. As we left one part the guide pushed a button to turn on the lights ahead and shut off the ones behind us.    
     We chatted as we walked. She asked me what I did because I had told her I had taken three months off work.
     “I work twenty hours a week in a group home looking after mentally and physically challenged people,” I said. “But I really envy you your job. I would enjoy a job like this.”
     “Well, I’m hiring part time,” she said.
     “Would you hire a Canadian?”
     “Why not?
     So I could have stayed if I wanted.
     In one spot of the cave there is algae growing so it has turned the rock turquois/green. It is very pretty. She showed me where names and dates have been carved in the rock. One was from 1920, another from 1922.
     Five of the twenty-four different species of bats in Oklahoma live in the caves. I could hear some of them flying as we went further and a few flew around as we walked. They didn’t bother us, didn’t even seem to mind that we were in their space. One of the bats species, the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat calls Mexico home during the winter and comes to the caves in the spring to bear their young.
     The guide told me the story about a school group that was on a trip through the caves many years ago. Four boys snuck off from the group and started exploring on their own. They crawled up and into one area where they claimed they found a saddle, a knife and a skeleton. However, in the decades since no one has found that part of the cave to confirm their story.
     There is one section of the cave that is called The Dagger Cave because it is shaped like a dagger. At one time during the Cold War the Alabaster Caverns was considered a place to hide in case of attack. The local residents kept barrels of water and some food stored in it.