Because I know some of you might like a moment to destress, I’ve included a puzzle for you to work on when you can hide away from company to enjoy a moment to yourself! I hope this one is a challenge!
When Worlds Collide is the first book in the Crenshaw brothers series. It is the first ever—my extensive research supports this assumption—pickleball romance. Pickleball is a racket sport, a hot one at that, and I feature this sport in my very first pickleball romance. I’m in the editing process, a crucial part in my approach to writing. This is the place where I see my characters solidify as they evolve with the narration. Two-dimensional aspects turn realistic. Contrary to the creative process when I’m just beginning a book, the editing stage is intense and deeply satisfying. I call this my “holing up” period. I’m off everyone’s radar for a bit which can mean anything from a few days to weeks. I come out of my hole when friends begin to question my whereabouts.
In between I add on to promoting my new romance to be released in February 2020 as I wear many hats being the writer, publisher, publicist and marketing CEO of Karma’s Slow Burn.
Karma’s Slow Burn
Karma’s Slow Burn, promo price of $1.99 on pre-order until date of release on 1 Feb 2020!
Sportswriter Karma Huntington is going to hit Rafael Henley, star pitcher for the Sliders, hard to avenge her husband’s death. Rafael cannot ignore the chemistry between them and decides a one-night stand is in order. Karma agrees. Just to get that itch off. But once they get into each other’s pants, things get complicated. Revenge and guilt take a back seat with sizzling chemistry in control. Rafael likes willowy blondes and women who don’t look to him as their protector. Yet here is, lusting after the complete opposite: petite, raven-haired, Karma with a rose tat running up her neck. Can Rafael overcome the dark secret he hides and give in to what his heart wants? Will Karma finally admit she needs Rafael?
Excerpt
Reverie? What kind of a man used such an old-fashioned word?
Karma hoped he wasn’t expecting polite conversation and was glad when he maintained silence. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore and opened her eyes. His features were bathed in the silver light of the moon. Dark hair maybe. That nose. There was something about it. And those lips. She’d seen them before.
“Henley! What are you doing here? On my spot?”
He peered at her, angled his face and his features came into focus. “Your spot? I distinctly heard you say this is free and not yours to own, Karma.”
“This,” using her index fingers, she made a square in the air right before her face, “is my spot. That,” she jabbed a finger in a vague direction away from her, “is yours.”
“All right then. Now that’s clear.”
“Anyway Henley, what are you doing here?”
“Getting back from my mother’s. She lives up there,” he pointed with his chin.
“You’ll have to spell that out. Can’t see a bloody thing in this moonlight.”
“Right over on Miranda Ave. And you?”
“Midland area.”
“Right, I forgot. Small world.”
“Yeah. How’s that baby of yours?”
“The most beautiful thing on this earth.”
“ Remind me, boy or girl?”
“Girl. Alicia.”
“Think we could get together for some pictures?”
“Sure. Just let me know.”
After that, nothing more was said. Clouds wandered in bit by bit until they extinguished the light from the moon, shrouding them in its pale afterglow. Karma became increasingly aware of the figure beside her. She crinkled her nose. Definitely something woodsy maybe even citrusy. She felt the shape of his arm next to hers and had an unbearable urge to touch him. The light from the moon turned diffuse before it became dark.
When he did something, she nearly jumped out of her skin, she had so tuned out. His hand was under her chin cupping it, turning her face to him. She made out the shape of his face before he lowered his head further.
“I’m going to kiss you, Karma. You have five seconds to stop me if you don’t want this as badly as I do.”
His sexy voice slithered into her ears and five seconds later, his silky beard brushed against her cheeks and then his mouth was on hers. His other hand moved to her back pulling her closer to him and then she was in his lap.
Fireflies in the Night
Literary Fiction, winner of the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Award; Best Books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews; Starred Kirkus Review; Finalist Foreword Reviews Indie Fiction Award. A historical, coming-of-age novel.
Nalini Warriar dreamed of being a writer then forgot the dream for a bit as she went on to garner a Ph.D in Molecular Biology. While in her lab, the dream came back and hit her on the head, and she’s never looked back, writing through her years as a scientist. After more than a decade in cancer research, Nalini returned to the creative part of her soul and now devotes her time to dreaming up the perfect alpha male and feisty woman to appear in her books. Her novel, Fireflies in the Night, was a Foreword Reviews Fab Award finalist and won the Next Generation Indie Book Award in 2017. Kirkus Reviews awarded Fireflies in the Night a starred review and named it Best Books of 2016. Karma’s Slow Burn, a contemporary romance will be released in February 2020. She’s working on her next romance, a Crenshaw Brothers book, to be released in 2020. She lives in Ontario, Canada.
This is a weird holiday season. Mom went into the hospital last Friday and is still there. Doctors have to perform a surgery, but they’ve been trying to get her heart to behave before they do, so here we are, crossing our fingers it will happen today.
In the meantime, company is beginning to roll in. One brother arrived today. He’s going to do most of the cooking, so he’s already pitching in grocery shopping, etc. Another brother comes in late tonight. A cousin tomorrow. We hope all goes well and mom will be home for Thanksgiving, but if not, we may be delivering her meal to the hospital (PG, everything go well).
As for me. I’m not a cook. I managed to cook a chicken in the crock pot to use in the dressing, but that’s as far as anyone trusts me to muddle in the kitchen. I’m still recovering from a nearly month-long illness, but at least I have my voice back. I am late on delivering edits to a client-friend, and feel awful about it, but it’s been insane around here. I’m doing what I can in short bouts to get through them.
And of course, there is no time for new words. sigh
All the kids are out of school, so they are constantly underfoot. Lots of noise. Not that that is a bad thing, mind you, but it does add to the surreal vibe of this week.
Anyway, here’s hoping your week is more joyous than mine, so far. Let me know if you’ve got holiday plans!
Psst! My apologies to Ane! I’m posting this a day late. My mother went into the hospital on Friday, so we’re a bit upside down at Devlin house! Enjoy the post!
*~*~*
I am fully aware The Holiday is not quite here, but this year will be the first time I’ve had the opportunity to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family in about five years. When I retired, my husband and I opted to travel the country, living fulltime in our RV, clearing our bucket list and volunteering in State parks. That five-year trip was an exceptional adventure. Now, as I get ready to move back into a “Brick and Stick” house and wait for the delivery of my personal belongings from storage, I’m recalling the incredible number of disasters—both imagined and real that happened over the fifty odd years when I was in charge of the kitchen, menu, turkey, etc.
So, what I’d like to do is share a few ground rules guidelines that might help you get through the holiday with less stress and, hopefully, a little more peace on earth.
Again, and this bears repeating: What can go wrong usually will.
Typically, it takes about five days to thaw a 24 lb. turkey. I found out the hard way, that this feat can be accomplished in about two to three hours. It requires a large, clean cooler. Place the cooler in a bathtub. Fill it with lukewarm water, immerse the frozen turkey and spin until the water cools. Dump the cold water and begin the process again. Repeat until the turkey thaws.
You’re wondering how I know this. One year, when newly a nurse and far from my hometown, several of the single nurses decided to have a “friends” holiday. Since our employer provided each of us a turkey, as a group, we donated the excess birds to a local church for their holiday food drive. We also opted to split the Thanksgiving “on call” hours into eight-hour shifts. At eight AM on Thanksgiving Day, the nurse relieving me from call handed me a frozen turkey. That’s right. 24 lbs. to be cooked by 4 PM.
My friends and I survived with a few adjustments and had a terrific holiday. But I learned a few things that day which have served me well over the years. These are not really rules for holidays but think of them as guidelines. Please use what you can and ignore the rest.
When you have a galley kitchen in a tiny apartment, people don’t usually invade your space. Unless they really want to help you cook. Make a plan and stick to it. Check back with the people who agree to help with the cooking to make sure you stay on the same page.
This Frozen Turkey event exacerbated the control freak in me. I never approached a large gathering or a family holiday in the same frivolous way as I did on that single girlfriends Thanksgiving.
Rules Guidelines for Holiday Survival
Don’t panic.
Plan ahead.
Clean out the fridge before the big day. This will assure the storage containers are clean and available.
Make a list of things you can cook ahead that will not suffer in reheating. Desserts, rolls, snacks, are an excellent choice.
Assign side dishes, dessert, etc. to relatives who want to help. This only works with reliable people who will stick to your plan.
Remember your company will probably show up early, to assure them a good parking spot.
Be prepared for people who want to help in the kitchen on the day. Leave chores you can trust them with and set up for them. I usually set the table but don’t add napkins, silver, serving spoons to the table. I assemble these things on a tray. Assign the chore, relieve the stress on the kitchen and appreciate the help.
When you assign side dishes to relatives, be specific about what you can cook. You cannot cook your turkey when friends and relatives show up expecting you to manage the cooking or reheating for 120 side dishes at different temps while you are cooking turkey. Remember, 1 oven, 1 microwave, 1 toaster oven, is usually all that’s available. In a pinch, you can empty the dishwasher, turn on the drying cycle and load the reheated food into the top rack while you manage shifting other sides around for reheating. Rolls do okay but keep an eye out for food drying out. Short term use.
Make sure you have extra foil and plastic wrap on hand as well as containers you don’t need to have returned. I buy a pack of easily forgotten containers at the Dollar Store, along with a multipack of shower caps. The shower caps are great for covering pies, cookies, and individual plates. I think you get twenty for $1.
Remember, the oven is only so big. In an apartment you might not be able to fit a giant bird in there. Two birds are better than one. Double the dark meat. Two wishbones, need I say more? You can cook the smaller birds back to back. When you carve and serve the first, slip the other precooked turkey into the oven while your guests are enjoying the first bird.
If you’re also having a houseful of company, make sure you plan for a good breakfast. I usually do an egg, sausage, and bread casserole assembled the night before, cooked first thing in the morning and served with fruit, coffee, and sweet breads. This breakfast is hearty enough to keep the family satisfied till dinner is ready midafternoon. It holds up well for stragglers, too.
And I’m including a real southern recipe for Corn Pudding just in case you can’t take one more year of looking at the green bean casserole.
Corn Pudding Recipe
¼ cup of all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
3 cups fresh or frozen corn, drained, and divided
3 large eggs
2 cups whole milk
¼ cup unsalted butter melted
1 ½ Tbs. scallions chopped, optional
Grease and flour an 8×8 baking dish or casserole dish of the same size. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Stir together flour, sugar, salt, and pepper, set aside. Pulse one cup of corn in a food processor until smooth. Set aside. Whisk eggs in a large bowl, then stir in flour and milk until combined. Whisk in melted butter and corn puree, add scallions and the rest of the corn. Stir to combine well. Transfer to the prepared baking dish and bake in preheated oven until puffed and lightly browned. Takes about 40 minutes. Sprinkle the top with chopped scallions if desired. Enjoy. FYI, this dish is delicious served hot or just warm.
Born and raised in the great northeast, she writes a fictional series Survivors of Salem, about the witches who survived the Salem Witch Trials. She is also currently working on books about fulltime RVing.
In addition to Return to Angels Cove, look for the second book in the Survivors of Salem, The Covenant.
There are many milestones in our lives—birthdays, holidays, graduations, weddings, new jobs, new homes. The list is endless. Some families use any excuse to get together and celebrate, while others only do major holidays, and some even none at all.
I’ve had many amazing milestones in my life. I’ve cherished the time spent with family and friends celebrating all their successes. When I was growing up, the extended family would get together—rotating to each home—at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, not to mention birthdays and anniversaries.
But times have changed. As I grow older, many of my family has passed. Those of us who are left get together as often as we can. These times are special in my heart.
This year marks two major milestones for me.The first is my 100th published book. When my first book was released in 2004, I never dreamed I’d actually reach this high. I was more worried about trying to write the second book. It’s been fifteen years of up and downs, highpoints and low ones, both professionally and personally. Writing changed my life for the better in so many ways. I’ve done things I’d never dreams of and met so many amazing people along the way. Heck, I even went to my first convention this past summer. If you knew me, you’d understand just how huge that is.
The second milestone is my birthday. Now we all have them every year, if we’re lucky, but this year seems special to me. I’m 55 today. Maybe it’s the double numbers. Fortunately, I still feel young and am in good health. I feel as though I’m embarking on a new chapter of my life. I have no idea yet what will be written on those pages. When I was fifteen, I never could have imagined where I am now or everything that has happened to me along the way. Life always has surprises in store for us all.
No matter when my path leads going forward, I know that writing will always be a part of it in some shape or form.
I hope you celebrate all your milestones, including the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Blessings to all of you and your families.
And if you’re looking for a sexy holiday read to help you unwind after the holiday madness, you might want to pick up Naughty Temptations: Collection Two—a collection of bestselling stories from the Naughty Literati (Berengaria Brown, Katherine Kingston, Nicole Austin, and N.J. Walters). It includes two of my previously published stories—Unmasking Kelly and Lady’s Minstrel.
N.J. Walters is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.
“America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public is occupied with their trash.”
Sounds like contemporary critics of the romance genre, doesn’t it? This little gem was penned by Nathaniel Hawthorne to his publisher in 1855 because his female contemporaries were reaping critical acclaim and outselling him.
I first heard this quote in a keynote speech this past October given by Maya Rodale. Intrigued, I wondered who was “Mr. Scarlet Letter” complaining about. This 2013 article gave me more than a clue:
Among this damned scribbling mob was the woman to whom Abraham Lincoln is supposed to have said, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
That’s right: Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Harriet Beecher Stowe? A writer of trash? Hardly.
Stowe had been writing for fifteen years before Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1852. In addition to novels, she wrote non-fiction, poetry and a drama based on Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin has gotten a bad rap through the years, but think about how radical it was for a White woman in the 1850’s to have a Black slave representing Christ at a time when her society was debating whether or not African-Americans were even human. We don’t have to imagine the impact of seeing slaves depicted with dignity, loyalty, and willing to be self-sacrificing had in that era. Even Lincoln recognized the power of her novel. What I never imagined was the backlash it received. Her depiction of African-Americans as human beings was so despised there was a slew of anti-Uncle Tom novels written to offset her novel’s impact. Needless to say, they failed.
As I’ve learned more about Stowe’s religious views and social justice activities, I understand better why her novel hit the nerve it did when it did. She wrote from her heart about a cause she believed in, unlike Mr. worried-about-having-no-chance-of-success Hawthorne. I’m eager to read more of her works and more works about her because I want to be a scribbling woman like her.
Better to Marry Than to Burn
Wife Wanted: Marital relations as necessary. Love not required nor sought…
A bridal lottery seems the height of foolishness to ex-slave Caesar King, but his refusal to participate in the town council’s scheme places him in a bind. He has to get married to avoid paying a high residence fine or leave the Texas territory. After losing his wife in childbirth, Caesar isn’t ready for romance. A woman looking for a fresh start without any emotional strings is what he needs.
Queen Esther Payne, a freeborn black from Philadelphia, has been threatened by her family for her forward-thinking, independent ways. Her family insists she marry. Her escape comes in the form of an ad. If she must marry, it will be on her terms. But her first meeting with the sinfully hot farmer proves an exciting tussle of wills that stirs her physically, intellectually, and emotionally.
In the battle of sexual one-upmanship that ensues, both Caesar and Queen discover surrender can be as fulfilling as triumph.
Excerpt:
WARNING! This is hot!!
With thanks to God, he pushed past her flimsy drawers to the moist welcome of her center. Her vaginal walls gripped his fingers with surprising force. No amount of twisting or turning wrenched them free. God, to have that grip surrounding his shaft.
He pulled back and studied her face. Eyes still closed, a sly smile bowed her perfect lips. She enjoyed this battling as much as he.
“Was I too brutal for your enjoyment, Mrs. King?”
Her eyelids rose with the slow grace of sunrise. A gleam as sly as her smile shone in her gaze. “You call that brutal, Mr. King?”
She unclenched her lower muscles, allowing his fingers momentary retreat. With great care, she grasped his hand then slid his fingers between her folds once more.
“Holy Christ, woman. What—?”
The gentle rubbing robbed him of his ability to think.
“Jesus, have mercy,” he wheezed.
She slid his fingers from her wet sex into his mouth. He moaned, lost in her delectable taste.
Without taking her gaze from his face, she raked her gloved hand down his chest, across his belly, to his groin. Anticipation tensed his muscles in the wake of her touch. He watched mesmerized as, with a practiced ease, she unbuttoned his fly, pushed past the fabric, sought, found and stroked his cock. Her woolen gloves imparted a delicious friction he couldn’t oppose, even if he’d wanted. Delight enlivened every muscle in his body, including his jaded heart.
Jesus. This couldn’t be more than arousal. Could it?
Her fingers squeezed and his body arched upward on the yes swelling his spirit with joy. He threw back his head, mouth open, ready to shout as he neared the point of release.
Then she let him go.
He doubled over, slain by the abandonment. His lungs constricted, bereft of air. Reason deserted him too.
She stood and smoothed down her skirts with the hand that had massaged his shaft more deftly than he ever had. Reseated, she grabbed the reins and snapped the leather against his horse’s rump.
“Get up there.”
The wagon jostled Caesar from side to side. Still unable to straighten up, he looked into eyes gleaming with triumph. Her lips curved in a regal smirk.
I love my DVR. I record shows to watch later, minus the annoying ads, and in the case of SNL, I can fast forward through skits or acts I don’t like. This one from last weekend’s show starring Aidy Bryant and the guest host, Harry Styles, is amazing. It’s at times cringe-worthy, funny, sad…and ultimately sweet.
