Friday....

I asked the Cover Gods in the cover department of Ellora's Cave for my cover for Micah Blue. It's one of the jewel books - a sapphire - for September. The head cover god is a good bloke and he sent it to me. As always I am very pleased with their efforts. What's Micah Blue about?

Micah Blue …coming September 3rd through Ellora’s Cave

A demon has been waiting one hundred and twenty years for the next chosen one who commands the power of the sapphire. He will stop at nothing to make that woman his own. He needs her power to survive.

Ever since a fortune teller gave Micah Blue a lump of blue rock the drought in her sex life came to a screaming halt. Dark, erotic dreams of a stranger haunt her nights and a tattooed builder drives her wild with lust during the day. Both men are wicked. One wants to enslave her and one just wants to love her.

Ned Langford, builder and part-time garbage collector isn’t about to the let the love of his life be taken from him. He will do whatever it costs to thwart a demon and keep Micah at his side.
*********************

I am off west to the country this weekend so I leave you with two excerpts from a writer I admire greatly. These two excerpts are completely different and they shows the depth of talent author Sandra Cox possesses. Black Opal is part of a series. But it can also be read as a stand alone book. I have read the first two books and they are excellent. I have yet to settle down and read Black Opal but I know it is of the same high calibre.You can click on the cover and buy. I recommend when buying Black Opal buy the whole set to so save making two purchases. Now, the Cat book, Akasha…I am not into cats. Sandra laughed when I asked for the excerpt. But hey - I know many of you love cats. So, if you do and you want an excellent read from an author who understands all things four legged and furry - click on the cover and buy

Back Sunday - have a good weekend.

Black Opal, Third in the Amulets Series by Sandra Cox

They raced down the mountain at a perilous pace. The trees whizzed by as they traveled a narrow two lane road. A noise like a distant train grew, gaining in volume, grating against Sabina’s nerves like chalk on a board. What was it?
She looked to her left and saw it. “Oh my gods. Hit the brakes, Adam!”
But he’d already seen the rocks and boulders tumbling down on the road ahead. His brakes screamed and the hot smell of burning rubber filled the car.
After that everything happened in slow motion. She raised her arm to stop the large boulder heading at a runaway pace directly toward the car. She could hardly see for the small pebbles and dirt. With a wild wave of her arm, she halted stones in mid fall. Sabina stumbled out of the car so she could see to aim the amulet. Boulders and rocks were everywhere.
“Sabina,” Adam called jumping out of the car and racing toward her.
She saw a rock the size of an aerobic-abs ball hurling toward him and shot her arm out. It splintered in a thousand pieces.
“Merda!” Another hurtled straight toward her. She made no move to save herself. Her arm trembling, she held it straight out in Adam’s direction to cover him from the falling rocks as he raced toward her, his feet slipping in the gravel. In that moment, she knew she loved him.
Pain engulfed her as the large rocks pummeled her. Above the roar of the rockslide she heard the agony in his voice as he called her name. He does love me was her last conscious thought.

Akasha - The Cats of Catarau - by Sandra Cox

Akasha cleared her throat and straightened. Though Ramses was kind, the great Council Cat wore authority like a cloak clothing a king. He intimidated her just a bit. “Where is Cairo?” she asked.
His whiskers twitched and compassion shone out of his ageless amber eyes. “She is still mortal.”
Akasha took a step toward him. “How do you know?” Her green eyes stared into his gold ones. Fear for her child overcame her intimidation of the great cat. When he did not respond, she asked again, “How do you know?”
He looked at her, assessing.
She returned his look without blinking, waiting.
With a sigh, he swept out his paw. As one, the council turned their heads to look into the mist. Akasha stared through the clouds below to see her poor baby-sitting on a tackle box under the seat, the water inside the boat rising. “Mamma, Mamma, Mamma,” Cairo called.
For one brief moment Akasha thought she would die all over again. She could feel her heart pound against her breast and that surprised her. There was so much pain in it. Surely, it had shattered into tiny pieces too small to beat. Resolute, she shoved back the grievous ache. She had no time for it. Her baby needed her. Somehow she must get to her kit.
Forcing herself to breathe, she pushed the words out of her throat. “How do I get back?”
“You don’t,” Ramses said, his tone gentle. He sat down and wrapped his tail around his body.
Several of the other cats did the same.
Akasha tucked in her chin and swished her tail, her expression stubborn, fighting the ache in her chest. “Shardai went back. More than once, if legend is correct.”
“Shardai received special dispensation.”
She notched up her chin and spoke like a queen. “Then so shall I.”
Her pulse pounded in her paws as he stared down at her but she refused to be intimidated.
Finally he asked, “How can you hope to save her? She’s in a boat, in the middle of a raging storm.”
Past all reason, she ran to him and beat her paws against his chest. “Listen to her,” she cried. “And don’t tell me I can’t go back.”
“Mamma. Mamma. Mamma. Where are you?” The poor pitiful sound carried through the winds of earth and rushed to Catarau.
She could see indecision flicker in the great cat’s eyes.
He pointed with his chin at Cubbie and Cosmo. “What about these little ones?”
They stared at her, wide-eyed. “You aren’t going to leave us are you, Mamma?”
Her chest tightened. Great Bast. It was so hard. She didn’t want to be separated from her babies.

www.amarindajones.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AmarindaJonesNewsletter/
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?

Be very, very careful, we’re hunting possums….

The possum man…let's call him Neville…rang me at work to advise he was at my house and 'going in' to set traps. "How many possums are there?" he asked. I said as far as I knew only Mervina. This threw him slightly until I explained that was her name. "Uh huh," he said. It seems not many people name pests. I explained it was a Jones family tradition. We name everything…hence Flo the 50kg cement chook (chicken) in my garden, Maurice, the big cement frog, Terry the old ram’s skull and Murphy the snail riding cement gnome. I could go on but I suspect you have the picture. My mother had a cement flamingo called Monique and I would have taken her but for the fact that her metal legs bowed then broke under the weight of her cement body and she looked dumb without the legs.

Anyway…where was I? Oh yes…Neville then went on to ask was I sure it was just the one. Well no Nev, to be honest they all look the same to me – like a really big, rat with a long black tail. Neville tells me that apparently you can tell. I'll take his word for that because I don’t want to check and I simply don’t care. Anyway he says there are probably 2 as they are couples. Yes, how frigging cute. Possum romance. And no, I'm not writing a were-possum love story. I'll leave that up to some other crazy person. Anyway, my job is now to check the traps and alert him as soon as Mevina and partner are nabbed. I admit I am looking forward to the little bugger leaving Chez Amarinda. I can only stand so many surprise jump-outs in a week. She is becoming too big a smart arse and as far as I am concerned one of us at Chez Amarinda is more than enough. They catch her and take her to the home of someone you don’t like…okay, no, they don’t…I asked if they could…they relocate the fat rat.

I was in charge at work for a large percentage of the today. This was excellent – no, not because I wanted to prove what a great worker I was so people could look at me with management potential…huh? No, it was excellent because I still haven’t worked out all the whiz bang things my mobile (cell phone) can do and it gave me time to read the instruction book. From my understanding I can call Mars while ordering pizza and writing my blog. You never know when that could be handy.

I got sent something today that I had to look into and apply for as part of a contract. You know when you are reading stuff but none of what is written on the page is actually taking hold in your mind and all you can hear is white noise in your ears? Yes, that’s is me when I really am bored with something and I just go into the I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-this-who-can-I-hand-this-to-zone. I am exceptionally good at ignoring things then acting vague when someone says ‘but I sent/told you that’….thankfully I was the dumb look down pat.

**************************************************************

Sandra Cox – who is she? You already know? Good. If not she is a talented multi-published author that has a new release out today. I have read many of Sandra’s books. They are excellent. Black Opal is released today at Cerridwen Press. You will not be disappointed if you buy this book and may I suggest you check out the other Sandra Cox titles on offer. How? Click on the cover and you will be magically taken there.

**************

Black Opal…the excerpt

**************
She stared intently at the computer screen. She'd broken the code and figured out her father's password. It'd been easy. The warden said her father had written her name and the word amulets in his own blood before he died.

Scanning the screen, she read:

'Legend has it that out of all the mortals on earth five women found favor with the gods:

Sophia whose face was pitted and ravaged by pox,
Pelagia who had the body of a woman and the mind of a child,
Olympia a poor widow with children to feed,
Helen, who lost four of her children to the plague and begged the gods to spare her remaining child, and
Zoe, a young queen whose village was razed and plundered and, she herself taken as a slave.
Moved, the gods created five special amulets in the form of armbands for the women to wear on their forearms.
For Sophia an amulet forged with beauty and creativity.
For Pelagia an amulet forged with knowledge.
For Olympia an amulet forged with wealth.
For Helen an amulet forged with healing and
For Zoe a golden amulet, with a black opal at its center, forged with power.'
The air conditioning in the room was cold enough to leave goose bumps but Victoria Price didn't notice. The black leather chair creaked in protest as she leaned back, her breath leaving her lungs in a hiss.
The pain in her hands made her glance down. They were fisted so tight the moon-shaped crescents in her palms, where her nails dug in, were filling with warm red blood.

Sandra has a blog of her own. Click here to see it. After you peruse Sandra’s I suggest wander over to Anny’s for further enlightenment and Barbara has some very wise words on her blog.

www.freewebs.com/amarindajones/
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?