What I'm Reading...

Demonica Series - Book #2

Pleasure is their ultimate weapon . . .

Runa Wagner never meant to fall in love with the sexy stranger who seemed to know her every deepest desire. But she couldn’t resist the unbelievable passion that burned between them, a passion that died when she discovered his betrayal and found herself forever changed. Now, determined to make Shade pay for the transformation that haunts her, Runa searches for him, only to be taken prisoner by his darkest enemy.

A Seminus demon with a love-curse that threatens him with eternal torment, Shade hoped he’d seen the last of Runa and her irresistible charm. But when he wakes up in a dank dungeon chained next to an enraged and mysteriously powerful Runa, he realizes that her effect on him is more dangerous than ever. As their captor casts a spell that bonds them as lifemates, Shade and Runa must fight for their lives and their hearts—or succumb to a madman’s evil plans.


I'd heard good things about Larissa Ione, but when Janelle sang her praises, I had to rush right out and get her books. I read the first one while I was at the beach vacationing with hubby back in April and absolutely loved it! I love paranormal anyway, and teh first one was freaking fantastic!

One really fun thing about this book - the heroine is a werewolf and right now, she's about to turn for the 2nd night of the full moon. hehe...it was kind of cool to read this while looking out my window at the full moon. Totally adds to the flavor of the book. :)

I hope everyone has a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend!!!

Peace and love and special thanks to all who have, or are currently, serving!
Alannah

I don't Want To....

But I must...Give away a bunch of books. *sniff*

One positive thing about living in a small, two-bedroom house: it cuts down on clutter. I have no spare bedroom in which to store things. I have no extra closets, and I don't have a single wall available where I can put a bookshelf and keep books.

So, I'm giving away a bunch. I really, really don't want to so I'm hoping they can go to good homes, with people who will love them.

I'm sure a lot of you already have most of them, but I'm going to list the ones that I have available right now and if you want any of them, all you have to do is say so.

If you will, post the ones you want in the comments, so everyone else will know that ones taken (first come, first serve) but then e-mail me your mailing address so I can send them out to you. E-mail is: alannah@alannahlynne.com

Here's the list:

Blaze - Yule Be Mine - Jennifer LaBrecque
Blaze - Stripped - Julie Leto
Blaze - The Domino Effect - Julie Leto
Blaze - The Loner - Rhonda Nelson (Men Out of Uniform Series)
Blaze - The Hell-Raiser - Rhonda Nelson (Men out of Uniform Series)
Blaze - Sinfully Sweet Anthology with Janelle Denison, Jacquie D'Alessandro, Kate Hoffman
Blaze - Boys of Summer Anthology - Julie Leto, Kimberly Raye, Leslie Kelly
Fade To Black - Leslie Parrish (The first in the Black CATS series)
Casual Hex - Vicki Lewis Thompson
Pink Jinx - Sandra Hill
Wild Jinx - Sandra Hill
Knock Me Off My Feet - Susan Donovan
The Kept Woman - Susan Donovan
He Loves Lucy - Susan Donovan
The Girl Most Likey To - Susan Donovan
I Heart Bad Boys - Lori Foster, Janelle Denison, Donna Kauffman
My Wicked Vampire - Nina Bangs (Castle of Dark Dreams Series)
Naked In Death - JD Robb
Immortal in Death - JD Robb
Ceremony in Death - JD Robb
Rapture in Death - JD Robb


I think that's it for now. As I accumulate more, I'll do this again.

Have a great Thursday!!
Peace and love,
Alannah

Hump Day Humor....

How to write a sex scene:



Even if you're not a writer, I think you'll find this article hilarious. And it's written by a man!

(Thanks, Lu, for letting me know the link was missing!)

Have a happy hump day!
Peace and love,
Alannah

Food For Thought...

"Set your sights high, the higher the better. Expect the most wonderful things to happen, not in the future but right now. Realize that nothing is too good. Allow absolutely nothing to hamper you or hold you up in any way."

Eileen Caddy
Author


I love this!! Great thought to keep in mind.

Have a great day!
Peace and love,
Alannah

What I'm Reading....

The first book in Nalini Singh's Psy/Changling series is "Slave To Sensation." I'm not sure how I found it, but I absolutely loved that book. I arrived to the series kind of late, so as soon as I finished the first book, I went on a search to find the rest of the series.

She's one of those writers that keeps me in awe, and frustrated because I fear I'll never write like that. Her ability to capture the essence of the changlings (cats and wolves), fascinates me, and keeps me turning the pages deep into the night.

That's why I've been so disappointed that I've had such a hard time getting through Blaze of Memory. A friend told me she'd read, the first book of Singh's she'd read, and that she really didn't like it. I was stunned. I thought my friend was warped in the head. I went straight to B&N and got the book so I'd know whether or not my friend needed to be committed. :)

That was months and months and months ago. In fact, I may have already done a "What I'm Reading" on it, because I've had it for so long.

I think the problem with this book is that it doesn't have a changling as either the hero or the heroine, which causes it to lose a lot of the sensuality that I've loved so much in the other books. In one of the books, I was about 2/3 of the way through when I realized the couple hadn't had sex. But the sensuality of the books is so high, and they'd grown so close, I thought they had.

The Psy are clinical beings - humans who've had their emotions conditioned out of them -- and even though the heroine of this book does have feelings, it's not the same as the changlings. And the hero also has feelings, but he's a cold person who draws strength from metal, so....yeah, not a real warm-fuzzy kind of couple.

Fresh Fiction - which gave the display quote - obviously feels different: "Singh gets better with every book in this unique series."

I'm not giving up, I'll get it through it. Eventually.

Has that ever happened to you? All of a sudden an author that you love throws you a curve ball and leaves you scratching your head, wondering what the hell happened?

I hope it's a fantastic weekend for everyone!!!!
Peace,
Alannah

Blog? What blog?

I swear, sometimes I think my mind takes a vacation on me! This past week (since last Friday) has been pretty stressful and my blog completely slipped my mind. Completely!!

On Friday, at 3:36 (when school is releasing for the day), I get a call from school. As soon as I see Boad of Education on my caller ID, I cringe. But I figured it was just another automated message because school was letting out so what could be the problem?

Ummm...it had just taken the assistant principal that long to get to me. Kidlet had gotten into an altercation with another boy in the gym during PE. He was being suspsended for 4 days AND was CHARGED with disorderly conduct. He'll have a juvenile court appearance in a few weeks. The other boy was charged with disordly conduct and assault.

I'm not complaining about the punishment, I think it was deserved and I hope the trip to court, and subsequent community service will be a wake-up call to kidlet that he needs to keep his mouth shut and not always engage when being picked on. I know, hard to do. But he needs to learn.

To top that off, on Saturday my oldest calls and says, "I need to talk to you about a few things." Oh shit! That's my initial reaction. Always! To that statement. It turns out not to be too bad, and I think he's making progress in getting his life togerher, albeit slowly. It's like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. But a friend of mine said her son was still sidestepping so I'll take the slow forward progression. :)

Anyway, with having kidlet home this week, and having to constantly supervise and keep him working his little tail off so he doesn't get the impression this is a vacation, I completely forgot about my blog. I already had Mon. - Wed. set, so I didn't have to think about getting them together. But not todays. *sigh*

So what's going on in everyone else's life? Lu, you want to share about the ladies? Liza, how's the training going (I'm so impressed with your efforts!!!). Silver? Paula? Janet? Anyone else who visits but doesn't comment?

Someone share some good news with me please? LOL

Have a great, fantastic Thursday!!!
Peace and love,
Alannah

Food For Thought...

"Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something, without feeling the necessity to prove someone else is wrong."

Sydney J. Harris
1917-1986, Syndicated Columnist

I wish everyone in my family (myself included) would mature in this regard!! I might print this out and put it on a 4' X 4' poster on the wall!! LOL

Peace and love,
Alannah

Standing the Test of Time

When I first got my iPod, I was most excited about being able to download songs I'd loved "way back." The morning radio show that I listen to did a segment like this, and it was a lot of fun to listen to callers reporting on the songs that they'd loved "back then," only to now wonder why they'd ever liked them in the first place.

So far, I haven't found any that I dislike. Mostly what's happened, I play them over and over and over for about the first week, then I'm done. LOL

I love everything .38 Special - even got to see them in concert at a bar here in my hometown about 10 years ago. That was cool!


Kidlet watches "Uncle Ted" on the outdoor channel. I swear I get a hangover just seeing the man. But I still love this song and rarely skip over it.


The summer between my junior and senior year (July 6th, to be exact), my house burned down. The only thing that remained in tact was my bedroom (although everything disintegrated when you touched it, so really, there wasn't anything salvageable). When the firefighters left and I could sneak into the gutted frame, the first thing I did was go to my record player to see if this album had surved. It had a plastic cover over it so I had hope. *snort* I have to say, I still love this song as much today as I did back then too. Sorry for the video, it's the only one I could find that had the song.


This one is okay, but I actually really like Seether's remake of it just as much, if not better.


And one final oldie but still, definitely goodie!!


What about you? Any songs you couldn't wait to download only to listen to it and think, "WTF? This isn't as awesome as I remember it being?"

Have a great day and be sure and stop by tomorrow for a special announcement and party!!!

Peace and love,
Alannah

Food For Thought...

"Set a goal to achieve something that is so big, so exhilarating that it excites you and scares you at the same time. It must be a goal that is so appealing, so much in line with your spiritual core that you can't get it out of your mind. If you do not get chills when you set a goal, you're not setting big enough goals."

Bob Proctor
Author and Speaker


Well, I've got the "scared" part down pat!! LOL

Silver - are you okay?

Have a great day, everyone!
Peace and love,
Alannah

Please Welcome Luis Rodriguez

I'm thrilled to have Luis Rodriguez joining us today. Luis is the hero of Vivi Andrews' new book, THE SEXORCIST.

*leans in and whispers* He seems to be a little impatient so I'm going to get right to it.

Welcome to the blog, Mr. Rodriguez. How are you?

I’m ready to do this. Let’s skip the pleasantries and get down to business.

*clears throat* Alrighty then. What have you been up to lately?

The usual. Exorcising demons, dodging propositions. Same old, same old.

I hear that the author Vivi Andrews wrote a book featuring you and Brittany Hylton-VanDeere. Have you read it yet? If so, how accurate was it?

You mean that massive invasion of our privacy, The Sexorcist? Yeah. I’ve read it. And accurate? Please. I didn’t think Brittany was an addled twit when we first met. Not even when she rear-ended my car. I never really believed she was nuts or trying to use me or any of that other crap. It all got blown out of proportion. Artistic license.

Some people might be bothered to have their life shared with the world, how do you feel about your story being told?

How would you feel if the entire world held up a magnifying glass to your sex life? Exhibitionism has never really been my thing.

I can see where that might be a little bothersome. Can you tell us more about yourself?

My family emigrated here from Michoacan – legally. I grew up Catholic and even entered the seminary to become a priest, but the celibacy thing didn’t really stick. So I became an exorcist and started working for Karmic Consultants instead. All the righteous demon-banishing, none of the needy parishioners. Though my boss still has a god complex.

Can you tell us a bit more about Karmic Consultants?

If you’ve got a paranormal disaster, Karmic Consultants has your solution. For demon exorcism, I’m your man, but we also handle ghost infestations, curses, and psychic location of lost items. No problem too weird for KC.

Wow, that sounds fascinating. What about Brittany…can you tell us about her?

Brittany… she’s special. Unique. She sees the good in everything and makes the world around her better just by believing it will be. And she’s hot as hell. Es increible.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Is this one of those touchy feely self-help things? Fine, I’ll play along. I’m all about family, integrity and faith. Now you wanna analyze me?

Ummm...No, I don't think so. What three words would you use to describe Brittany?

Brave, optimistic, and…heart. Brittany’s all heart.

What do you like to do for fun?

Anything with Brittany. No, Madre de Dios, I sound like a sap. Delete that. Real answer - Salsa dancing, watching Elvis movies, riding my motorcycle–Brittany makes this noise when she’s hanging on the back… ay, me encanta.

Well, Luis, thanks for being here. I know you are busy, but before you leave, do you have anything you'd like to ask my blog readers?

Since the book about Brittany and I, The Sexorcist, shows all the messed-up stuff that demon put us through at Lucy’s wedding, I want to know what’s the craziest thing that’s ever gone wrong at a wedding you’ve been to.

Oh boy. I can already imagine some of the answers your going to get to that question.

If you would like to find out more about Vivi Andrews, the author who brought Luis and Brittany's story to the page, or read the cover blurb of THE SEXORCIST, please visit her website . If you'd like to buy the book and read all those wonderful little details for yourself, click here and go to Samhains My Bookstore and More.

Thanks, again, Luis for joining us and I can't wait to hear some of the responses!

Everyone, have a fabulous Mother's Day weekend!!
Peace and love,
Alannah

Let's Get Mellow

Along with my headbanger music - Ted Nugent, GNR, Judas Priest...the list is long - I have a bunch of New Age Music. I don't think I'm going to be able to attach any of it, as I doubt they have videos, but I'm going to try to attach the album covers.


There's one particular CD that I listen to when I'm writing. It's CREATIVE MIND SYSTEM by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson. It's a 2 CD set and there are 2 tracks on each CD. Each track is around 25-30 minutes long. I like that they're so long because the switching of tracks is sometimes a distraction to me. LOL But I'm easily distracted!


I did find a link where you can listen to a sample of the music.


Another favorite artist is John Huling. My great-great grandmother was Cherokee. And while that part of me is pretty watered down, it's the strongest gene in my gene pool. All of his songs have a Native American feel to them and I love to close my eyes and get lost in the rhythms.

Here's the blurb from the back of the MESA SUNRISE CD:

Inspired by the natural beauty of the mesas and canyons of the Southwest, this compilation of songs from John Huling's best-selling recordings captures the spirit of the ancient Anasazi civilization. Native American flute, Indian drums and digitally recorded sounds of nature truly illuminate his "Musical Visions of the Southwest."















I was able to find this video on Youtube. It's a video of grizzly bears, but his music is playing in the background. In fact, it's one of my favorite songs.


In addition to more well-known artists like John Tesh and Yanni, I also really, really like Dean Evenson. His website also has links to music samples.



I know a lot of writers use soundtracks for their books, and while I've done that in the past, I've found I work much better and faster using music that doesn't have words. My brain can't seperate the words in the song and the words on the page.

Be sure and stop by tomorrow to visit with a very special guest blogger. Luis Rodriguez, the hero in Samhain author Vivi Andrews book, The Sexorcist, will be visiting with us. One word: Yuuummmm!


Have a great Thursday!!
Peace and love,
Alannah

Hump Day Humor....

TWENTY NINE LINES TO MAKE YOU SMILE

1. My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn't.
2. I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
3. Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.
4. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
5. Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.
6. You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me
7. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
8. Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
9. I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing.
10. Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
11. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.
12. God must love stupid people; He made so many.
13. The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
14. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
15. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
16. Being 'over the hill' is much better than being under it!
17. Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up.
18. Procrastinate Now!
19. I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That?
20. A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
21. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
22. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!
23. They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.
24. He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless DEAD.
25. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three thousand times the memory.
26. Ham and eggs...A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.
27. The trouble with life is there's no background music.
28. The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson.
29. I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on.

I've seen some of these before, but a lot were new to me. Hope they made you smile!

Happy Cinco de Mayo - use it as an excuse to drink a margarita!

Alannah

Food for Thought...

"Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road."

Dag Hammarskjold
1905-1961, Statesman and Secretary-General of U.N.

Boy, that's a biggie. I constantly find myself testing the ground, pushing at it with my toe, checking to make sure it's solid and safe before I put my whole weight down.

I need (and want) to stop doing that!!!

Wishing you peace and love,
Alannah