Disclaimer: I'm not a photographer, and I don't really have a garden. It's more like a wildlife preserve.

It's been a cool year so far, but here at last is the first ripe blackberry. Usually they're all ripe by now and mostly eaten by birds. (Not that I don't like blackberries, but the mosquitoes like munching on me.)

It's been rainy, too, and this week mushrooms popped up everywhere.

 

Even a blue one. Is it really blue, or is that mold?

This is my favorite -- a hat!

And farewell from the rosemary bush, which thrives regardless of neglect and the weather.

When you feel the presence of the hawk totem, avoid distractions and focus on the task at hand.

 I’ve had two visits from hawk. The first happened at the beginning of the week. I was driving when this blur flew across the road in front of me, landed on the shoulder of the road, flapped its wings, and became airborne again with a small rodent clutched in its talons. It flew back across in front of me. Slowing the van, I got a good look at the hawk, it was brown with a white chest. Sort of speckled looking and beautiful. I think it might have been a Redtail, but can’t be sure. Then, on Wednesday, hawk again presented himself to me. Or rather I should say themselves, there were two hawks this time.

The road that winds through the small college campus in the town where I live is well-manicured and well- travelled. On my way home from water aerobics, I noticed two very large birds under a tree beside the road. As I passed by, I realized there were two hawks. Beautiful, youthful looking birds who were leisurely enjoying their breakfast right beside the busy roadway. I sat and watched them for quite a while.

When I got home, I went to get my Animal Speak book and looked up hawk’s message.  Avoid distractions and focus on the task at hand. Yep, that is a very strong message for me. I tend to scatter my energy. Hawk is telling me to focus. As you can see, the hawks in the pictures were not allowing any distractions, they maintained focus. Now if I can just apply their message.

Over 10 years in the making, having started its long life as 1,000 pages, Sinners' Opera was released last Friday by Double Dragon Publishing.  I've been happy dancing all weekend!  In the next week, it will be released in a trade paperback.  A preview of the novel is available at the publisher's web site, and the book is also available on Amazon.  The talented Elise Trissel designed the dynamic cover.

Sinners' Opera stars my favorite hero, Morgan D'Arcy. Let me describe Morgan.  He is tall with long blond hair, sky blue eyes and heartbreakingly handsome.  He is sophisticated, a man-of-the world. In the newbie day of writing, I followed him to every concert, every party and around his house!  That's why I had to cut a LOT from the final product.  It's been a long road to publication, but finally, here is a blurb and an excerpt.

Blurb:

Morgan D’Arcy is a classical pianist, an English lord and a vampire.  He has everything except what he desires most—Isabeau.  When she was a child, he appeared to her as the Angel Gabriel, influencing her life and career choice, preparing her to become Lady D’Arcy.  Many forces oppose Morgan’s daring plan—not the least of which is Vampyre law.  A vampire must not sire a child on a mortal.

Isabeau Gervase is a brilliant geneticist engaged to a prominent attorney. Though she no longer believes in angels, she sees a ticket to a Nobel Prize in the genetic puzzle presented by her long-absent childhood friend. She intends to unravel Gabriel’s secrets, using the DNA contained in a lock of his hair and identify the non-human species she named the Angel Genome.

Morgan is ready to come back into Isabeau’s life, but this time as a man—and a vampire—not an angel.  Will he outsmart his enemies, protect his beloved and escape death himself?  For the first time in eternity, the clock is ticking.

 

Excerpt:  From Chapter 24 - Dead Ringer

 

The hair at my nape rose.  A chill awareness possessed me.  An ecstatic cry upstairs snapped me to attention.  Only a vampire would have heard the faint stain of laughter.  I mounted the elegant staircase and whisked to the first floor landing.  No sound, but the Darkling, as my Irish nurse had called the unnerving sensation, stood every hair on end.

I plunged into the darkness, my footsteps silent.  The night was still, ominous.  Down the hall, I followed my sixth sense, halting at the door to one of several unused bedrooms.  I flung the door open.  Like ghosts, furniture shrouded in sheets crouched by bare walls.  The scent of blood and sex overpowered me.  One enticed.  The other sickened.

Moonlight washed through the tall windows.  Blood and pearly vampire sperm gleamed on the polished oak floor.  Another of my kind had violated my house.  Outrage streaked through my veins.  The rogue would pay.  My left hand fisted, my right gripping the bottle.  Suckling sounds and the orgasmic sigh of a mortal rising to the vampire’s kiss drifted from downstairs.  Expending energy I could ill afford, I teleported to the foyer.  Light leached through the etched glass door, shimmering on a rivulet of blood.

The rogue vampire had disappeared.  I inched toward the woman’s corpse.

A tangle of blonde streaked hair framed a beautiful face—a beloved face.  The ghastly scene seared my eyes.  My heart turned to ice, my blood freezing in my veins.  Horror clawed up my throat on a wretched cry.  Pain lanced my temples, ripped through my guts.  The bottle I’d forgotten crashed to the floor and shattered, blood seeping beneath my feet.

She’d died in orgasm, arms flung above her head.  Vampire sperm smeared her spread legs and clung to the curls on her mons.  A pitiful whine unwound from my throat.  I clamped a hand to my mouth and gagged.  Hating the sight, but unable to look away, I staggered to Isabeau, praying that a breath of life remained.  My knees buckled, and I fell.  The floor was cold.  Her lips would be cold.

“Isabeau,” I whimpered.  “Merciless God, what have I done?”

By all that was holy, I would not allow my dreams to perish.  My hand shook as I lifted her wrist.  No pulse.  And no heart.  A black hole gaped beneath her left breast.  Bile scalded my throat, and a hard shudder rocketed through my numb body.  Dead violet eyes accused me of murder.  If only a spark of life remained, I could steal her from death, but she was beyond my reach.  Isabeau was dead.

 

I have another book from Double Dragon, Gemini Rising, and a self-published novella, The Night Before Doomsday, about the Grigori, the angels who fell for lust...or was it love?  Purchase links are available on my web site http://www.lindanightingale.com, along with a free read (one of the deletions from Sinners' Opea).

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Please welcome Cyndi Faria and learn about her newest release AND her contest!

Look at that cover!

Promise Worth Remembering Release (CONTEST)

Thank you for letting me share my second release titled A Promise Worth Remembering (Download FREE here from Amazon for Kindle today and tomorrow). I want to say how excited I am to guest blog on the Pink Fuzzy Slippers!

To celebrate the release, not only am I giving the Kindle eBook away for FREE, but just by leaving a comment, you’ll be entered in a raffle to win the necklace inspired by the story (see photo at www.cyndifaria.com). So make sure you leave your contact information. I can’t wait to see who the lucky winner of the pendant will be… It’s so beautiful!

Have you ever received something from a lover? Something that carries more meaning than metal and stone?

Symbolism can take many forms. When Tucker Pierce, the hero, gifts the heroine Bailey a stone pendant, she considers the rock symbolic of his solid commitment to lover her and see dreams come true.

But when that dream is shattered by Tucker’s betrayal, the impenetrable surface represents the hardened shell of Bailey’s heart. She has to protect herself from being hurt again. A decade later, widowed, the twenty-six year old realizes she’s clinging to the past in the same way the etchings scrawl her pendant and petroglyphs mark the enchanted Kissing Rock where her and Tucker’s story began.

On his return, how does she forget her past and his betrayal? She can’t erase her scars. How does she simply reverse course and choose a different path without, again, risking heartbreak?

You’ll have to read the story to find out if Bailey stands up to her inner demons, lets down her guard, opens her heart, and embraces her future happily-ever-after with Tucker. *grin* I can guarantee, however, by the end of the story the pendant no longer represents a caged heart, but something else entirely. To read now, click the title below.

A Promise Worth Remembering…

After ten years, tiger preserve owner Bailey Yant never thought heartbreaker Tucker Pierce would return to Safe Haven. With a hundred-year-old feud between the Pierce and Yant families escalating, and despite a mystical lovers’ rock stirring memories of their forbidden love, she’s walled up her heart tighter than her sanctuary. When her prized tiger trespasses onto the Pierce’s hunting range, and poachers threaten not only her tiger’s safety but the livelihood of her preserve, will Bailey open her heart and trust Tucker in time to save her endangered Bengals?

At seventeen, Tucker Pierce fell in love with Bailey’s strength the day he’d pulled her from the river and promised to make her dreams come true. However, to keep Bailey safe from his abusive father, he risked everything—and in the process lost her to another man. For ten years, he’s kept his reason for leaving Safe Haven secret, but he can’t forget the promise he made to her or who his heart belongs to. After finding the widowed Bailey standing on their special rock, will he finally convince her to trust he’s a man of his word?

I hope you enjoy Bailey and Tucker’s story! To be entered in the necklace drawing, don’t forget to leave a comment below. Also, each positive review on Amazon helps A Promise Worth Remembering to reach more readers. 

Wishing you much love and happiness,

Cyndi Faria

About the Author:

Cyndi Faria is an engineer turned romance writer whose craving for structure is satisfied by plotting emotional and cozy paranormal romance stories about cursed spirits, lost souls, harbingers, and even a haunted coastal town. If you love a tale with courageous heroes and heroines, where their unconditional love for each other gives them strength to defeat their inner demons, Cyndi Faria invites you to enter the pages of her stories and find happily ever after.

On and off her sexy romance pages, this California country girl isn’t afraid to dirty her hands fighting for the underdog and care taking rescued pets. Find her helping fellow writers and leading readers to happily ever after at www.cyndifaria.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/cyndifaria

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cyndifaria

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BEV8JYS