Thoughtful About . . . Christmas, Reviews, and Party Dresses

by | Dec 10, 2009 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized

My, aren’t I focused this morning? With one cup of coffee under my belt, my brain’s still fluttering here and there. But hey. It’s my musing day, so I’ll just go with the muse. (How very Greek of me!)

Anyway. So in my house, Christmas prep is in full swing. Were it up to my daughter, we would have been decorating a month ago, but I held her off until last week. =) Decorating, baking, holiday preparation is in that category of things I hate to get started on but love to have done. And which tend to engross me once I’m started. Baking gingerbread cookies the other night led to chocolate chip yesterday, and if I weren’t out of sugar and a few other crucial ingredients, I might just go for type 3 today. There’s just something about seeing those beautiful lights sparkling on the tree in my living room that makes me want to break out in song and fill the house with the smells of baking.

And I’m terribly excited to be going to a fancy Christmas party this weekend. I have NEVER had cause to get all dressed up for a Christmas party, so this is fun. And my friend the hostess actually put it together just for a chance to get all fancy schmancy, so it should be extra fun because of its fun-seeking origins. I found an awesome little black dress with a cream sash and some sparkle where strap meets bodice, and the perfect silver shoes. I am not a shoe fiend, but I loooooooove those shoes! As does my hubby, miraculously. So yay! Exciting!

On to the final installment of my subject line. A friend of mine from one of my writing loops got an ARC of Stray Drop and just finished it yesterday. Earlier this week I got an update from Goodreads where she had posted a halfway-through review that was GLOWING, which made my day. Her full reaction was even better. It so, so warms my heart to hear that I actually pulled off what I wanted to in this book. So thanks, Dina!!

Speaking of which, you have a few more days to comment on Tuesday’s WordVessel post for a chance to win. I believe the drawing’s on Saturday. There’ll also be an interview and giveaway on Stephanie Morrill‘s site next week, and I think I’m going to have another title contest on Monday with a copy as one of the prizes. Although y’all should really go buy a gazillion copies for everyone you know too . . . 😉

Remember When . . . Christmas Lasted 12 Days?

by | Dec 9, 2009 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized

~*~Don’t forget to visit WordVessel and comment for a chance to win Stray Drop!~*~

I figured it was the season for some holiday factoids. =)

The Christmas season is about much more than a day: it is about celebrating the miracle and life of Christ. Just as we have the Advent Calendar to count up to Christmas Day, so we also have the Twelve Days, which follow Christmas and lead up to the Epiphany.

Surviving mainly in Europe today, the Epiphany is a long-celebrated day that remembers the arrival of the Magi. Literally “Manifestation,” the Epiphany is also the day taken to commemorate the second birth or baptism of Christ and the importance of God being made man through that act.

A couple years ago, I made up what I called Epiphany Boxes for my family, though more accurately they were 12 Days of Christmas boxes. I made gifts for each day, enough for the whole family, appealing to Christmas traditions. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll share some of them on Wednesdays. =)

I’ll start today with The Christmas Star, for which I gave a star ornament for the tree.

The Christmas Star is one of the most questioned and most miraculous signs that accompanied the arrival of the Lord. It is this star that led the Magi to Bethlehem, this star that shone with a wondrous light to announce Him to the world. What was it? That is something that scholars and astronomers have been trying to discover for millennia.

Some say it is a miracle akin to the Pillar of Fire that God used to lead Israel out of Egypt. Others hold that it was a cosmic event such as a comet or super-nova. Still others hold it was an actual star and focus on the claim that it came to a halt over Bethlehem, which indicates it must be either the sun or Venus, the two “wandering stars” that halt in their paths.

Interestingly, that’s actually one of the reasons we celebrate Christmas on 25 December. The sun does “halt” on its north-south progression for three days, twice a year, on the solstices. During the time of Christ’s birth, the winter solstice was 25 December.

Today, we tend to look on the arrival of a star to herald Christ as either miraculous or just plain crazy. But it’s interesting to note that at the time of Christ, every great man was thought to be accompanied by a star when he was born. Similar cosmic events have been recorded for Alexander the Great, Abraham, and Saint Augustine. So for His followers, it wasn’t odd that a star appeared for him—it would have been odd had one not.

(If anyone wanted a doc with the script I used for the gifts and full descriptions of the presents to use as ideas for your own boxes, I’d be happy to email it to you!)

Story Time . . . THE LIGHTKEEPER’S DAUGHTER by Colleen Coble

Story Time . . . THE LIGHTKEEPER’S DAUGHTER by Colleen Coble

by | Dec 8, 2009 | Uncategorized

First, a note on me and mine. I’m being featured today on WordVessel, so stop over to read an interview and comment for a chance to win a signed copy of Stray Drop!

Now, onto the real topic of the day;-)

When I received The Lightkeeper’s Daughter by Colleen Coble in the mail, I was pretty excited. I haven’t had the chance to read much by Colleen, and since I love historicals, I was sure this book with the oh-so-lovely cover would pull me in straight away.

The set-up is that Addie was raised as the lighthouse keeper’s daughter in a remote island in California; she rarely got to see any people, except those shipwrecked or visiting the station. All her life, she’s plagued by nightmares where she is the one whose ship was lost, but her father always assured her it wasn’t so.

Only, it was. In the first chapter a gentleman shows up looking for her, claiming she’s his long-lost niece and the heiress to a sizable fortune. Now that her beloved father is dead and she’s left with an ungrateful mother who never cared for her, Addie is only too happy to realize that perhaps she has more family out there. The money she doesn’t give a fig for, but the chance to meet another father? That’s an opportunity she cannot pass up. Her uncle insists she go incognito until they can find proof enough to offer to the family. She doesn’t much care for the deception, but it isn’t all bad. She gets to be governess to her nephew and get to know her new family as the humble girl she is at heart.

Addie is a young woman of such blunt honesty that I can’t help but smile at her, and her naivete is endearing. When she meets and immediately falls for the handsome John, widower of her late half-sister, it’s easy for the reader to love him too. But all is not well in the redwood forests of her new home–someone has gone to great lengths to keep her away from her family all these years, and they’re not about to step aside now and let her into the Eaton’s uppercrust world without a fight.

I have to say that thus far I’m enjoying the book without being so engrossed that I can’t put it down. I began it several weeks ago, but then got sidetracked by the second two Twilight books and writing . . . I picked it up again yesterday and remembered why I’d put it down. While the story’s good and the characters are delightful, things were going so well that I just knew it was all going to fall apart in some horrific way, and I wasn’t in the mood for that, LOL. The unraveling began in the part I was reading last night, and it indeed made me sigh. But I confess I’m fully intrigued by the mystery now and eager to find out who’s out to get our lovely, outspoken heroine.

I have a feeling I’ll be a lot more enthusiastic about this one when I’m more than halfway through–it has a lot of promise, a nice setup for intrigue, and elements that you’ll gobble up if you’re a history fan.

Modern . . . Pirates–Arrrr!

by | Dec 7, 2009 | Uncategorized

That’s right, me mateys–pirates! Arrrrrr! Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

Okay, so that’s more modern pirate movies, but still. We can’t say “pirate” in my house without the pre-schooler going “Arrr!” =)

Anyway. I know I mentioned this last week, but I’ll give the basics again. A couple months back, I sent the first three chapters of a story to my critique partners. The hero is a reformed thief, which makes him oh-so-much fun to write. One of my critters, Carole, promptly sent the chapters back with, “Oh, your heroes make my heart flutter. If I weren’t a happily married woman, I’d be in love with your characters. You know what you need to write? A pirate story–a modern one. The historical ones have been done, but not modern. If anyone could do it, though, you could.”

Naturally, my little brain went, “Oo, oo!” On our walk that evening, I told David of the challenge, and he said, “Cool. Although modern pirates aren’t very romantic, so your hero might have to be a pirate hunter.”

Me: “Yeah! I could make him an ex-SEAL who went private to rid the high seas of the threat.”

David: “That could work. They could use a converted Russian corvette.”

Can you see the questions marks in my eyes? “Uh . . . what do sports cars have to do with pirates? And I didn’t know Russians had Corvettes.”

Insert David’s eye-roll here. “It’s a kind of boat, honey.”

So with that enlightenment settled, I let it stew in my head for a few months, combined it with something my other critique partner, Mary told me about Bedouins at conference in September, and voila! An idea! (Okay, so it took a while longer to get the actual idea, as I mentioned LAST Monday, LOL.)

I’m now four chapters in and having a blast with this. I had fun writing the lighthearted stories I’ve concentrated on for the last year, but I’ve missed the complexity and depth of a hard-hitting book. Given that my heroine has been seriously abused and comes from a culture far-removed from ours, I get to take a new look at some things we all take for granted–everything from the smell of a city to the luxury of being able to take some aspirin when our head hurts.

I’m learning a ton as I look stuff up for this, so I imagine our Modern Mondays will be full of random tidbits for a while. =)

Character Spotlight — Jason

by | Dec 4, 2009 | Uncategorized

From A Stray Drop of Blood

JASON

Jason Visibullis was born to a Roman father and Hebrew mother, and for most of his life he was not accepted by either side. After six years in Rome, studying and learning the craft of a warrior, he finds a place for himself in the military, many friends, and considers himself fully Roman.

When Jason returns to Jerusalem to serve under his father as a centurion, he is certain he will have no problem respecting his mother’s religion without letting it bother him. And though he has some definite frustration with the customs and traditions, the longer he is back in his father’s house, the more he begins to value the heritage his parents both embrace.

Jason is charming, sure of himself, and still has a streak of insolence. He is the glue that binds his group of friends together. He is handsome and strong, not the tallest of his friends, but not the shortest. He enjoys a riveting discussion on philosophy, so long as he emerges the victor of the rhetoric.

Though it takes him a while to admit it, he has a heart deeper than he had ever supposed.
“A boy had the right to leave home and find his way in the world, but a man . . . a man had to focus on deeper matters. Family. Faith.”

I’ve recently been seeing previews for a new USA show called White Collar, starring Matthew Bomer, and I thought, “He could surely be one of my characters!” He’s too cute to be anything but a lead, so here he is–Jason! =)

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