Vegan Granny: Spinach Lasagne

Vegan Granny: Spinach Lasagne: Spinach Lasagne Found this recipe on the web quite some time ago. Loved it and the whole family loved it. I have adapted it quite a b...

MAKING IT PERSONAL

Looking back over the 4 books I've written and the 5th book I'm writing, I can tell how my personal life and the people in it have inspired damn near everything. 

Fatal Retribution is a coming of age story about a young woman who lives in a violent, oppressive environment where she witnesses horrible things happen to the people she loves most and will stop at nothing to avenge them. ...Reminds me of my childhood, except I was a powerless little girl where Raina is not powerless or little...

Mortal Sentry is a more mature novel. Raina is forced into a rule where she is directly in charge of the well-being of others, hence the title, Mortal (human) Sentry (guard). It takes place directly after Fatal Retribution, and involves Raina growing up in another way, too. Romantically. But like most first romances, it's like a rush of emotion, no real logic, heat of the moment, brain out the window clusterfuck of lust, want and desperation for love...and then reality sets in and you feel dumb...oh well. It's like a mirror to my life from 13-19, sucks! 

Grave Omen is if anything else a bridge to the fourth book, hence the title, Grave (serious shit) Omen (believed to foretell the future) Not that you can guess what's coming in the next book. Me and M Night Shyamalan have something in common, we like the twists!

 ...Grave Omen definitely reflects my early twenties; raising my little brothers and sisters, giving birth to my own baby girl, suffering from Postpartum Depression and becoming disillusioned with my religion... 

Deadly Encounters is set to be published August 31st 2014 ...So, I can't go into too much detail, but suffice to say Raina experienced something of a rebirth, her world is both larger and smaller, both in chaos and coming together at the same time. This is very much me right now. This is my life currently. We'll see how it turns out...

Toxic Bliss is in the works ...But I can already tell you that this book has a more global feel. It represents my best hope and worst fears for the future of mankind and earth. 

I feel vulnerable knowing how much my life has shaped the books (which was not intentional and was only recently brought to my attention) Small personal parts of me end up in the books, too. Honestly, anyone who reads my books knows me, maybe even better than myself. I'm so gobsmacked when readers point out things, personal things that I never intended to transfer from me to my characters.   

"Raina, an outcast in an outcast world, where she can’t belong even where the belonging don’t belong. "
I didn't intend that for Raina, yet that's how I feel every day...

"...it’s hard to understand how she has still remained with such an undeniably beautiful heart."
Whenever I mention some hardship I've gone through, people give me a wide eyed long stare of disbelief and then ask my why I can be so candid, why I'm still smiling and loving and not psycho at all...

There's more, but some of the things that have been pointed out to me are too personal to mention. You'll just have to read the books to see where my raw heart shows through. You might see it before me.

DEADLY UPDATE

So it's July and Deadly Encounters is still not published. I haven't even sent it out to beta readers. I'm hoping to still get the book out before summer's end, but we may be looking at a Fall release. Why?....

The number one reason is time. I need more of it.
I'm not a full time writer. I have a night job that is increasingly demanding of my time.
I'm a mommy, so my days off are full of toddler business with very little me-time.
I'm sleep deprived. Between working at night half the week and then flipping to a day schedule on my weekends, my internal business is confused, causing a state of almost constant exhaustion.

I'm currently in the process of rewriting (I'm on chapter 20 out of 40). Then I'll do the fifth read-through and tidying up, which is the last stage of editing before sending it out to beta readers. While I wait for their input I'll be re-re-reading the first three books to make sure everything is perfectly in line and the voice is constant. Then when I get the book back from the beta readers it's another read-through, formatting for e-book and paperback and then done. I was hoping to be done with all of that by the end of July, but honestly, I'll be luck if it's ready by the end of August.

SPOILER ALERT

Here's a cool excerpt from Deadly Encounters: (Let me set the scene for you. Raina is freshly back from the dead after five years. She's had a run in with the demon that killed her and now he's sort of stuck inside her head.)

 CHAPTER FIVE

      The lights in Damon’s bathroom were mercifully dim as I undressed in front of the mirror.  I was scared as hell of what I’d see as I let the green dress fall to the floor.  I closed my eyes.  I didn’t want to see that again; that lumpy, discolored poor excuse for a body.  I held my breath and opened my eyes. I looked into the mirror and I let out a low gasp of relief. My skin was smoothing over, with tiny white vein-like scares fading well into pale skin. My body had healed much in the last few hours. Hell, it almost looked like a normal female body…but it didn’t look like mine.

      I pressed my hand against my stomach and felt only hard muscle behind thick skin.  Whatever excess fatty tissue I had before was gone, recycled by my body along with my lower bowls. Which explained why I hadn’t had the urge to use the toilet.  It also explained why my abdomen was so irregularly petite.  I had a true hourglass figure now; large breasts, wide hips, tiny middle. Nothing but muscles and bone. I didn’t need anything else.  As I understood it, my stomach and lungs were still completely intact, though altered. For vampires, the stomach’s inner walls are thick and smooth, no longer producing acid, while the small intestine is shortened and redirected to the heart. I put my hand on my chest and I could feel the shallow beating of my own heart as it pumped the blood I drank throughout my body, circulating oxygen, nutrients, and hormones and maintaining body temperature.

       The only real downside to being a vampire, besides the obvious social stigma, was the sun aversion.  The vampire virus changes every cell in the body of its host in order to make a more suitable home for it, and for this particular virus that meant no sunlight. There goes any hopes of gaining that golden tan I’d always wanted… By all accounts, I should have burned almost instantly when the sun touched my skin.  I could only guess being a demigod had something to do with my survival.

       The only part of me that I recognized at all was my face; heart shaped with sharply curved eye-brows, dark mahogany red eyes and naturally red lips. But thanks to the scares, not even that was left unspoiled.  Was I me at all anymore? At least I had my mind.

      “Plus one!” Raphael spoke up.

      “Shut it!” I demanded.  He did, but whether or not it was because I told him to, only he knew that. Actually, I’d quite forgotten he was there at all, listening to my thoughts, seeing what I saw in the mirror. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, which shocked the hell out of me.  You’d think my new streamlined vampire body wouldn’t waste such a precious commodity on such a trivial emotional response…Whatever, why should I be self-conscious for Raphael? Fuck him.

      I bent over to turn on the shower, and then I heard steps approaching from outside the room. It smelled like Alistair. Even though the water was freezing cold, I rushed into it when he knocked. COLD! SHIT! COLD!

      “Yes?” I called out.

      “May I come in?”

      I thought about it for a moment. “Yes,” I said softly. I was behind the white shower curtain, but still, I held onto my breasts as he came through the door.  Through the curtain I could just make out the outline of his tall, slender body. I watched him lean against the countertop and look at me.  No doubt he could see the outline of my body as well.  With that in mind I leaned back against the cool tile.

      “What is it?” I asked him.

      “Damon called.  He wanted me to tell you that Katie invited herself to dinner with him and the kids.  Something about a fight between her and Everett.”

Everett was a proud wizard, and Katie was raised to be a bigot.  I’d be shocked if they didn’t fight and need space from each other from time to time. I’m not pointing fingers, but old habits die hard and when you’re raised from birth to think you’re better than others because of race, you’re more likely to say or do something racist without even thinking it through all the way.

      “It will be good to see her,” I said. “She’s what, twenty-three years old?”

      And, suddenly tears were falling down my cheeks. I don’t know why, but in that moment it hit me just how much I’d lost, all those years away. I never heard Isobel’s first words, or saw her take her first steps. I never heard her laugh or soothed her when she cried. I wasn’t her mommy. I wasn’t there for her, and it hurt so much. I’d give anything in the world to go back and have that, anything.

      “Yes, she and Everett were married last summer,” he said.  “It was a beautiful wedding.”

      “Married?” I smiled at that, even as the tears fell in steady streams down my face.

      Alistair shrugged his shoulders. “There’s something Damon failed to tell you about Isobel. Several months after you past, Isobel was diagnosed.”

      “Diagnosed?”

      “From what Gabriel has told me, Damon brought her in to see him with a long list of odd behaviors. He was worried because Isobel wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, or move much and she almost never cried. But what worried him most was that Isobel didn’t responded to sounds. He was afraid she was deaf, but tests proved otherwise, and Gabriel diagnosed her as being autistic. I just don’t want you to be surprised or hurt if she doesn’t respond to you. She doesn’t respond to anyone.”

      “Okay,” I murmured under my breath. Too many thoughts and emotions were running through my mind all at once. The more prominent emotions being guilt and confusion. I instantly wanted to know how to fix it, whatever it was. I didn’t really understand.  Had I done something wrong? I didn’t know I was pregnant until days before I gave birth, and I lived such a hard life.  Too much violence and late nights full of coffee and energy drinks. That was no way for a soon to be mommy to live.  Had I known I was with child, I would have done things differently, and maybe she wouldn’t be…different.

      “Raina,” Alistair began, breaking my train of thought. “About what I said before. I want you to know that you are beautiful.”

      Such a drastic change in subject made me tilt my head until his words made sense. Then I frowned. “Are you still worried about my feelings, even now when we have more important things to worry about?” Like an evil lady living in my daughter. Maybe she was the cause of the autism… “I think you’re losing focus.”

       “Well, no duh.  He’s obsessed with you.  It’s rather unhealthy how much he dotes on you,” said Raphael.

      I looked down. “Shut it! Go away!” I thought at him.

      “I can’t.  You made sure of that.”

      “Then just look away and plug your ears or something.”

      “I haven’t got eyes or ears to avert, darling.”

      “Then just shut up.”

      “Right you are. I hate it when people talk during movies, and here I am, blah, blah, blah,” he laughed and fell silent.

      I looked back up and Alistair was standing just in front of the thin white shower curtain. Damn! If I wasn’t already against the tile wall, I’d have fallen back into it.

      “Your feelings are the most important thing to me, Raina.  Would you have scurried into the shower so quickly if I hadn’t been so careless before?”

      “Maybe.”

      He pulled back the curtain and I looked down.  I did feel ashamed of my body.  I couldn’t help it.  It felt unreal and damaged.  What had been done to it stripped me of more than my humanity.  It stripped me of my identity.

      “You’re beautiful, Raina.” I looked up at him, blinking the falling water out of my eyes.  He was so tall and handsome in a very manly sort of way. “Do you always take cold showers or were you in such a hurry to hide?”

      I looked up at him. “I was hiding,” I admitted.

      He smiled tenderly and his kind eyes seemed to be smiling as well. Every part of me longed to be with Alistair, and for too long I’d denied those feelings, pushed them aside, and wrote them off as hero worship. But I was finding it harder and harder to ignore how badly I wanted him.

      He bent down and turned the knob to warm the water.

      “Thank you,” I said, and he looked up at me, same smile as he stood up straight and pulled his shirt over his head revealing smooth pale skin. “What are you doing?”

His smile broadened. “Joining you. Would you like that?” he asked, and his native British accent came through a bit.  That alone let me know that he was becoming excited, forgetting himself.

      I became tongue-tied.  Did I want him naked, soaked in warm water and inches from my equally naked body?  Hell yes! But so many things made it very wrong.  As far as I knew, I was still Damon’s girl. This was Damon’s bathroom.  My kids would be here within an hour or so. Not to mention that I was dead just that morning…And I didn’t feel particularly sexy right then. “I would love that,” I breathed.  “But we can’t.”

      “Damon’s been with other women. He’s moved on. You should, too.”

      My heart sank and I suddenly felt exhausted. Did I really expect Damon to wait five years for me when he had no idea I’d come back? No, obviously not, but still, it hurt like hell.       “This isn’t the right time,” I said.

      “It may never be the right time or place, Raina.  You should take love whenever you can.” The look on his face. The way he moved closer to me. A girl can only take so much. “And—I love you.” Awe shit. Swoon.

      With his jeans still on, he stepped into the shower beside me.  I put my hands on his smooth chest to keep him away, but honestly I didn’t have much fight in me. He closed the distance between us with a firm hand at my lower back.  I let my hands slide from his chest to his back, enjoying every curve. I pressed my breasts against him and he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, just as Damon had done before, but his fingers glided up and down my back lovingly. I hugged him back with my head on his shoulder. It felt good just to hold him.

      “Raina,” he spoke softly.  I looked up at him and he bent down to kiss me; just a pressing of lips.

      Just that small taste of being with him was amazing. My whole body ached with need, but I couldn’t give in, not right then. It took so much will power, but I turned away from him, giving him my back and breathing hard.

      “What’s wrong?” he asked.

      “This is.”

      I felt him press himself against my back and hug me. “Why is it wrong? We’ve waited so long to be together.”

      I turned and looked at him. “This is Damon’s apartment…” I began but Alistair’s angry face made me stop. “Why are you mad at me?”

      He let go of me and stepped out of the shower in soaked jeans.  “You’re standing there, worried about the decency of making love to a man in another man’s shower, but how long did Damon wait after you died before he found another woman to warm his bed, and then another and another?” Alistair’s anger was radiating from his broad shoulders as he searched for and found his shirt on the floor.

      “How long did he wait?” I asked even though I didn’t want to know.

      He stood tall and closed his eyes, visibly calming himself with deep breaths. “Not long enough. Not very long at all.” He looked at me and he looked hurt and miserable.  “From the moment you told me that you loved me, I couldn’t bring myself to touch anybody else, to think about anybody else.  Even after you were killed.  I loved you more than I was willing to admit to myself.”

      “Alistair, I’m sorry,” I said, but I wasn’t sure what I was sorry for. Even if Damon was sleeping with other women, we shared two children. Maybe Damon had moved on, maybe he had no interest in being with me anymore. Maybe we’d never be a happy little family ever again. But until I knew that for sure, I had to hold out hope.

      He didn’t meet my eyes when he said, “Just clean up and get dressed. I have to change my clothes as well.”

      And with that he was gone.  I felt horrible that he felt rejected.  That was the last thing I wanted, but I was in the right.  I know I was. I closed the curtain and washed myself to the annoying sound of Raphael’s cackle.

      “Good show, old girl.”

      “Bite me,” I said aloud with scorn.

SEX RANT!

 I don't know why it bothers me so damn much, but it does.

Out of 33 Amazon reviews, only 2 took issue with the sexual content of my Paranormal Washington series. Note: in the description of my books I warn readers that the book contains salty language, violence, and graphic sex. Such is life…

Even so both readers said that the sex was unnecessary and raunchy…I disagree.

On the ground of Unnecessary Sex…I know there are some writers and readers out there that hold the belief that no amount or only scares amounts of sex should be allowed in any serious piece of literature. These people seem to think that sex is a shameful, harmful act of depravity, which no one with good taste or high morals would ever take part in outside of procreation or wifely duty.  And they most certainly would never enjoy it. I do not hold this belief…outside of bathroom breaks, I write everything Raina does, because every aspect of her life is important. Every word, every action, every thought propels her forward…even sex, almost most importantly sex.

On the grounds of Raunchy Sex…Some might find the wants of others déclassé…but hey, what happens behind closed doors between two consenting adults in a committed relationship is not for me to judge…Of course, I’m the writer, so poor Raina has no privacy. Sorry Raina. Any-who, Raina is by no means a raunchy sex partner. The most outrageous sexual activity she ever took part in was having sex in front of a window…OMG, did you hear that right? What a fucking whore....Also, she dreamt of having a three-some between the only two men she had ever been with, but that was only a dream…and who hasn’t had one of those dreams before?

One of those reviewer wondered how on Earth Raina could go from a 21 year old virgin with high morals to a 23 year old willing to have an open relationship (in other words, highly amoral)

That very statement bothers me more than any other that has ever been made about my books, ever!

Virgin does NOT = highly moral…Do you think Raina was a 21 year old virgin by choice? Nope. Does having sex make you a sinner? Hell Nope! Is Raina a bad person worthy of hateful remarks because she made a decision with her partner of two years and the father of her children to enjoy an open relationship? No!

Pull your skewed morals out of you anus, people. Sex isn’t evil, it’s just plain not.  Sex between full grown adults who love each other is a beautiful expression of their love and commitment and it’s just plain fun, really, it’s just the bee’s knees.

Both reviews stated that sex is only appropriate if it furthers the story along…Hummm, let’s think on that, shall we?

It’s not like Raina falling in love and finally losing her virginity gave her the self-confidence to stand up to a mob boss in front of a crowd of people…Oh wait, IT DID!

But, surely having that relationship fall apart quickly and without much closure, leaving Raina with all sorts of unresolved feelings for her first love would make seeing him again years later such an emotional experience that she would later dream of being with him again…Except it did, it was and SHE DID….

And, no one ever feels a strange mix of guilt and horny after having a very intense dream about someone who wasn’t their husband or boyfriend, only to wake up next to them and suddenly want to make love to them in the worst way, no one, not ever, RIGHT?

And finally, Raina dreaming about being with two people did not later influence her decision to have an open relationship with her longtime partner…Oh wait, IT DID!

You’ll have to excuse my annoyance. But, it really grinds my gears when some random persons thinks they know my story better than me. I know every damn thing about Raina. I know how she thinks, I know what she will do and I know why she will do it…and guess what, random persons, it matters big time! Sex isn’t unnecessary, it’s not evil and it does matter.

Fair and final warning: No puritan prudish busybodies are allowed to read my books ever. (insert raspberry here)

Rant done, have a great day!

  

BLOG TOUR!

I was invited by the lovely wordsmith, D.A. Rhine to partake in a brilliant blog tour. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge…If you visit her blog and leave a comment you could win a copy of the first book in her trilogy, Vampires of Chesapeake: KianMacTiernan! The tour was the brainchild of another author, KimberlyClark. She’s the mastermind behind the Battles in the Dark series.

Here are some Q&A for Raina Kirkland for the upcoming book, Deadly Encounters:

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person? 
Raina Annabella Kirkland (fictional).
2) When and where is the story set? 
The story takes place in present day Washington State, U.S.A 
3) What should we know about him/her? 
Raina started out her life as a mutt, a mixed breed of human, elf and witch...very common in her world. Then she was infected with vampirism and everything went to shit...or more like, the shit just floated to the surface. 
4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life? Every book has its baddies; a greedy immortal (book 1), a nest of ancient faeries (book 2), a blood thirsty gang of assassins (book 3)…In Deadly Encounters Raina is up against a horde of the undead fashioned by an ill-tempered god.
5) What is the personal goal of the character? 
Raina’s goals never change. From the first book to the last, the only thing she’s ever wanted was to protect the people she loves and bring justice to those who would harm them.
6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?
Deadly Encounters, the 4^th book in the Paranormal Washington series. You can read the first chapter of Deadly Encounters HERE.

Warning: The chapter is unedited & contains graphic imagery and strong language.
7) When can we expect the book to be published? 

Deadly Encounters should be published by July 2014, August at the very latest.  

Visit these talented authors' pages and read excerpts from their books, meet their character(s), and check out their blogs!

D.A. Rhine
http://darhine.blogspot.com

Author of Vampires of Chesapeake Series: Kian MacTiernan & Reese Morgan are available at Amazon.com. Vampires of the Chesapeake: Nikolaus Schild. will be released beginning  of 2015. Connect with D.A. Rhine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/D.A.Rhine

Renee N. Meland
http://www.reneenmeland.wordpress.com

Author of the sci-fi dystopian debut novel, The Extraction List, can be found here. Connect with Renee on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Renee-N-Melands-Books

Antoinette Houston
http://antoinettehouston.com

Author of the urban fantasy novel, Red Summer. Connect with Antoinette on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RedSummerUF

Sandra R. Campbell
http://sandrarcampbell.com

Author of dark fantasy novels: Butterfly Harvest, Dark Migration, and Butterfly Harvest (Special Edition) . Connect with Sandra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dead_Sassy

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/butterflyharvest

J. C. Mells
http://www.jcmells.com

Author of urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels: from The Pierced Series, Pierced, Escaped, Pinked, and Perfect. A novella, Napoleon will be released soon. Connect with J. C. on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/J-C-Mells

GUN NUTS

I'm not usually a political lady on my blog. My blog is about writing, not religion or politics...but tonight I had a real gun scare.

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I'm a liberal feminist, who eats organic, non GMOs and is hoping to one day be able to afford an electric car and solar panels for my roof... On the flip side, I loved guns and hoped that I could own a few one day...note that 'loved' was past tense. In the last few years, or hell ever since we elected a black president, the gun nuts are everywhere! We've had so many mass shootings, so much gun violence, gun demonstrations, people entering public buildings with assault riffles just because they can. The more and more these gun nuts kill, threaten and put their stinking guns in my face, the more I hate them; the people and their stinking guns. Guns are not play things! They are a serious responsibility, and ONLY sane, thoughtful, responsible people should have them, not any old crazy person.

I'm writing this tonight because a man with multiple assault rifles parked his car in oncoming traffic right outside my place of business and  took out his guns and brandished them in front of my guests! He scared the shit out of us! Were we to be the next mass shooting you see on the news? Was my daughter going to lose her mommy? This man had all the power.  He could have killed us. I felt sick to my stomach! I felt like I was going to puke.

I locked down the hotel and called the police. He took off but was later found by the police. He told them he was just trying to save two women...but in reality, he regularly contacts the police and makes outlandish claims, like lasers are after him and whatnot.  He's a paranoid delusional forty-something white male who drives a two door blue car in the Mukilteo/ Everett, Washington area, and he has a huge collection of guns. The police were very upset, understandably. They said they can't do anything but maybe give him a moving violation for parking in oncoming traffic. That's the way the law is written...certifiable lunatics can have as many guns as they want, and we just have to be on guard 24/7 for the next time they feel like killing a bunch of people.

I used to want to own a few guns of my own. I thought target shooting at a range sounded fun! But, between heartless hunters, mass shooters, terrible gun laws, greedy gun lobbyists, stupid gun enthusiast taking them to public places, and crazy people brandishing them about...I don't want to have any part in that bull shit. I still wish I could own a gun, but those stupid, greedy, crazy and deadly men have made gun ownership look really very unappealing. 

ORGANIZED CHAOS

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed, but my books do have a structural formula. The structure serves no purpose in the story telling other than to give me goals to meet to keep me focused. 

1. the books are near around 40 chapters. That's the goal, the light at the end of the tunnel.

2. Every book is one week, usually from Friday to Friday. This is because much of Raina's power is mental power, untapped mental power, and because of this her dreams are usually very vivid, as if she's awake. Making certain to count the days helps me keep track of the passing time...BUT, mostly it's because someone once told me that "a lot can happen in a week" when I was a child and that sounded clever to me. 

3. So...40 chapters, a week's length of time...What else, oh yeah, every book is cut up into four plot lines; family, lovers, mystery and main plot line. 

Fatal Retribution is 40 chapters long. It begins on Friday evening and ends Friday morning. Family: Raina's relationship with almost everyone in her family is strained to the breaking point. Lovers: There is a growing attraction between Raina and Mato. Mystery: It's a regular Who done it. Main Plot (series plot) That's the over shadowing story behind the story, and in the main book it's not exactly clear to the readers, but you know something is up. Why isn't Raina a full vampire? Who is Raina's father?

Mortal Sentry is 40 chapters long and has an Epilogue. It's Saturday to Saturday. Family: Raina reconciles with some people, is more distanced from others. Lovers: Raina and Mato seal the deal, but the deal goes south and Raina moves on. Mystery: who are all these dead people, and who the hell killed them? Main Plot: is becoming more clear as we get answers to Raina's past.

Grave Omen is 40 chapters long and has an additional chapter titled 666. It starts Thursday night and ends the following Thursday night.  Family: You see so much more of Raina's family in this book as they come to town from half way around the world for a wedding! Lovers: Raina's relationship with Damon is going strong... Mystery: Someone wants Raina dead, is it who they think it is, or is it who they don't think it is? Main Plot: again so much is learned about where Raina came from and why she is the way she is.

!SPOILERS!

Deadly Encounters is planned to be 40 chapters. It starts on a Friday and will end on a Friday. Family: Some relationships heal, some people die. Lovers: some lovers live, others die. Mystery: The zombie Apocalypse is at hand, but who does Raina save, the humans or the zombies? The Main Plot: comes to a head as Raina faces her strongest foe yet, the god Apollo!