Hola! Bonjour! Herro! Allo!

Herro, how are ya? I'm good, thanks - let's get all that out of the way and get down to business. Life happened, some personal stuff, a few uneventful events, so on and so forth. I'd bet a dollar you don't care much, so I'll save time.

Sadly, I have fallen off and become a slacker in all things books. Writing this blog, writing my own books, reading books, reviewing books...all of it came to a very abrupt halt basically after that last post of mine back in September. [Gasp!] BUT...this is where things get exciting, guys...I HAVE REVIVED MY LIFE. I am back to reading books, writing books and back to this blog as well! Oh, my gah people. You cannot possibly understand how happy I am that this has happened. 

Given my rapid decline in bookish activities, I thought it best to start out slowly. SO, I've set my Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge to 35 books. Solid number, right? I like it, too. I am so pleased to announce that I am 6 books ahead of schedule. Not, 4. Not 1, but SIX books. *Breaks for a happy dance*  Some of you won't understand but all my bookish people who've known the struggle of a reading rut....YOU FEEL ME. And it's REAL.

So, of the 11 books, I've read so far this year, 6 of them are historical romance. Anyone who knows me is gasping or choking on coffee right now. First off, straight up romance is not my bag. Add in historical to the title, and I used to run even faster. But Tessa Dare writes a mean HR, I'll tell you that much. As a matter of fact, I think I'll get back to Once Upon A Winter's Eve. The next post you see of mine will be a review of one of her amazeballs Historical Romances.

Until the morrow!

--A.

*Taps Mic* Is This Thing On?

It's been a while. I'm rusty, at best and need to get back into the swing of things. SOOOO...here's a little bit of what I've been working on. I don't know if I've ever shared Mira before, [evidently, I have. There's a tag for her and everything. Lol] But here goes. [Mira is the MC's name. Not the name of the story. I keep the files under the Protagonist's name because book titles are the very last thing to come to me, if they ever do.]

PLEASE NOTE: The writing is unedited.

     As soon as the lights in the house flickered, Mira knew it wasn’t David at the door. Suddenly way too alert, her pupils dilated and blood rushed through her veins, thumping too hard in her ears. A chill of familiarity skittered down her spine, squaring her shoulders and settling in her stomach.          

     It started to burn where it lay, singeing though it wasn’t fear. She’d known this day would come for the last couple decades. Besides, fear was reserved for the ill prepared and the weak. Mira was neither and fear was a luxury she never could afford.          

     The lights flickered again, casting dark shadows in the house she’d called home for the past five years; making potted plants and light fixtures much more sinister than they’d ever been. A brief twist of pain struck her in the gut right before she was thrown off her feet; as if being pulled by an invisible force. Mira soared through the air until her back hit a wall, the force of her one hundred thirty pound frame buckling it. Air whooshed from her lungs, catching on her tonsils and choking her just in time to steal the words coming from her lips.    

     “No, no. Don’t get up on account of me. I’m just here to kill you.” The smile in that familiar voice was teasingly obvious. The door flew open and that petite figure she knew stood in the doorway, her voice taunting Mira with every syllable. “What? You don’t look too happy to see me, doll. You had to know that I’d find you sooner or later. Whatever could be the matter?”    

     “Oh, I don’t know, Chris.” Mira ground out; refusing to be anything but her normal bitingly sarcastic self. “Maybe the dwarf pinning me to my foyer wall and mucking up my freshly polished African Teak floors with dog shit on her last season Prada knock-offs?” Mira gave the woman a mocking smirk before fire flared on her left cheek.    

     “I see you still haven’t acquired any manners.” Chris murmured tiredly. “Doesn’t really surprise me.”    

     “Who needs manners when I can piss you off easier with a few well placed four-letter words?” the sting of a slap came back to Mira’s face, the residual effects of the hexwork leaving an acrid scent in the air. “Resorting to using hexes for little ole me, Chris? I’m flattered.”    

     “Just getting started.” The small woman smiled and pulled a palm-sized vial of something dark from her pocket and unscrewed the top; beginning to chant in Latin.     

     “What,” Mira bit out around the pain of her jaw locking up on her. “No circle?” She asked as three lone droplets of a dark, inky liquid hit the floor. Mira hoped that wasn’t what she thought it was.    

     “I would, but hubby is due shortly. Wouldn’t want him to interrupt.” The chanting in Latin resumed and Mira chuckled darkly, finding a morbid sort of amusement out of the entire situation.     

     She recognized the words, of course. The curse was written by her. 

Thank you for reading!

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--A.