I'm thrilled to finally reveal the cover of my March release, Lady of the Flames!

I had great fun writing this book -- it's a Regency with romance, suspense, and MAGIC! I love magic, and I really let myself enjoy writing about it in this one.

Here's what it's about:

Magic is fraught with peril—but so is love.

Lord Fenimore Trent’s uncanny affinity for knives and other blades led to knife fights, duels, and murderous brawls. Five years ago, he faced a choice: marry Andromeda Gibbons, the woman he loved, or find a safe, peaceful use for his blades by opening a furniture shop—an unacceptable occupation for a man of noble birth. The choice made itself when Andromeda turned to another man. The furniture shop prospered, but now Fen’s partner is accused of treason. In order to root out the real traitor, he faces another unpalatable choice—to resort to the violent use of his blades once again.

Once upon a time, Andromeda Gibbons believed in magic. That belief faded after her mother’s death and vanished completely when Lord Fenimore, the man she loved, spurned her. Five years later, Andromeda has molded herself into a perfect—and perfectly unhappy—lady. When she overhears her haughty betrothed, the Earl of Slough, plotting treason, she flees into the London night—to Fen, the one man she knows she can trust. But taking refuge with Fen proves to mean far more than getting help—it means learning to believe in love, magic, and the real Andromeda once again.

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It's up for pre-order now at a special introductory price of only 99 cents. (There's also a paperback at $11.95 for those who prefer.) Here are some links:

Amazon.com ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Flames-Most-Peculiar-Season-ebook/dp/B00T0JAWLO/

Amazon UK ebook: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lady-Flames-Most-Peculiar-Season-ebook/dp/B00T0JAWLO/

Amazon Canada ebook: http://www.amazon.ca/Lady-Flames-Most-Peculiar-Season-ebook/dp/B00T0JAWLO/

Amazon Australia ebook: http://www.amazon.com.au/Lady-Flames-Most-Peculiar-Season-ebook/dp/B00T0JAWLO/

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/lady-of-the-flames

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/lady-of-the-flames/id970621206?ls=1&mt=11

 

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Lady of the Flames is part of a multi-author series called A Most Peculiar Season, about a London Season  when some very strange happenings take place. So far, there are two other books out: A Viking for the Viscountess by Michelle Willingham and Scandal on His Doorstep by Deborah Hale.

Happy reading!

I read an awesome quote on Facebook. "Those who do not believe in Magic will not find it." Roal Dahl

Magic is all around us if we take the time to look.

The magic of Mother Nature  creates the beautiful butterfly from a caterpillar.


 Bulbs can become flowers year after year. Look at Beth's recent blogs to see the beauty and Magic of Mother Nature!


Writers Believe.

 We start with an idea, a character, or a situation.  Some writers face a blank piece of paper, while others stare at a computer screen.  The magic that begins in the mind of a person can spin into tales of all kinds.

As a child I created the pretend games we played. I made up stories to entertain the other kids. Why was I the one to make up characters and situations? Who knows? Children have pretend tea parties and talk to their toys. Some children have imaginary friends, while others do not. Are these friends imaginary or do adults and other children just not see them?     

I think we can make our own magic just as some of us create stories. Artists of all kinds create visual images. Inventors create the magic that allows me to touch little white keys and see words on a lighted screen of my laptop and then send this message over invisible waves or whatever that make up the Internet.

Imagine it and share it, if you can.

What is your magic? How have you helped it along?

Some folks consider time spent on Facebook to be wasted time. I found this idea there. Do you have an opinion about spending time with social media?

So my characters are having dinner, and I thought I should mention something about the food, seeing as the heroine’s presence is distracting the hero from a wonderful meal. I took out my trusty Mrs. Beeton’s. My parents gave me this book for Christmas when I was eighteen -- even then, two of my interests were obvious: history and food.

So after flipping through it for a while, I decided they’re going to eat baked carp, because the carp can come from the heroine’s father’s fish pond. As Mrs. Beeton (who in a short life in Victorian times had several children and wrote a massive tome) says, “the carp both grows and increases very fast, and is accounted the most valuable of all fish for the stocking of ponds.”  Perfect -- this gives the old man a topic of conversation when he wants to change the subject from… magic.  (Yes, this story has magic in it, just at little, at least so far.)

So while I was nosing through the fish section of Mrs. Beeton’s tome (such cool stuff -- Collared Eel! Fish and Oyster Pie!), I found a recipe for fish cakes. It’s a lot like what I do nowadays when making salmon patties. I won’t include her recipe here because it’s a lot more involved than making patties from canned fish, but one of these days I’ll try it, adapt it and blog about it.

Here’s the recipe for Salmon Patties.  

1 large can red salmon, drained, but conserve the liquid (You can use pink salmon, but red is much, much tastier.)
1 or 2 eggs
Italian bread crumbs
Spring onions, chopped fine

Mix all ingredients together, adding bread crumbs and conserved liquid until the mixture is the right consistency. Form into patties and pan fry in ¼” oil until heated through.

Sprinkle with lemon and eat with bread and salad. They’re also great eaten cold in a sandwich. Enjoy!

As the title suggests, gypsies play an important part in “Gypsy Charm.” In fact, if not for the old gypsy woman, Mrs. Lee, there’d be no story at all. It’s she who engineers and choreographs the entire event, though she only appears at the beginning and the end.

So who are these people we always associate tambourines, golden earrings, and crystal balls…violins and exuberant dancing…and “Cross my palm with silver”? Where did they originate? And where do they now live?

Originally, they were thought to come from Egypt (Egyptians…Gypsies…get it?) and were supposedly exiled for giving refuge to the infant Jesus when He was brought to Egypt to escape King Herod’s wrath. Now, they’re believed to have come from India, perhaps the province of Rajasthan, migrating to northwest India around 250 BC, before beginning a westward trek in 500 AD. In 1322, they’re mentioned in writings as Atsinganoi (Untouchable) living in Crete; in 1360, a fiefdom in Corfu is mentioned as having only Romany serfs. By the 14^th century, they were in the Balkans, where they were enslaved until around 1856; by the 16^th century, they’d reached Scotland and Ireland, and by the 1860s, large-scale immigrations to the United States had occurred. Correctly, Gypsies are called Romany, from the word “Rom” meaning “Man.” Someone who isn’t gypsy but associates with them and speaks their language is called a Romany Rye (Ri).

In Europe, the Romany were subjected to ethnic cleansings and herded into concentration camps. In a process called the Porajmos, they were killed on sight or sentenced to forced labor. An estimated 1,500,000 Romany died during World War II. Though they were treated more fairly in Tsarist Russia, during the Communist Regine, they once again were labeled a “socially degraded stratum.”

Traditional Romanies place a high value on family life and the strict regulation of social behavior as ordered by the Marhime or Hindu purity laws. There is a rom baro (tribal leader), who rules over each extended family. Most Eastern Romany are Catholic or Orthodox Christian or Muslin, while Western Romany are Catholic or Protestant. They speak Romani, an Indo-Aryan language but because the people are so widespread now, many are forgetting the language and speak a mixture called Calo or Angolormani. There are attempts now to standardize the language.

Even today, there is extreme prejudice and discrimination against Romanies, in Central and Western Europe, where they are considered the “nomad emergency” and responsible for high crime rates. Even as late as 2004, they are actually considered a high security risk in some places and gypsy women in some countries could be legally sterilized without their consent.

Gypsy names are divides into two groups: Trade and common. There are only two trade names –Cooper and Smith—which have been translated from the Rom language. Common names for gypsies are Lee, Grey, Boswell, Herne, Lovell, Marshall, Stanley. A name may have been adopted because it was similar to a Romani one, it resembled a town from which they originally came, or it was the name of the noble under whose protection they lives.

Mrs. Lee is the gypsy matriarch in Gypsy Charm; her grandsons David, Isaac, and Tomas are all Grays. Unlike their real-life counterparts, the Romany of Gypsy Charm lead a fairly uneventful and safe life, though Grandma Lee appears to keep things lively enough.

Gypsy Charm is available from Class Act Books, http://www.classactbooks.com/Gypsy-Charm-by-Icy-Snow-Blackstone-EPub_p_281.html.

(1700, Savannah)
Prologue

A prison with no bars,
A world void of warmth and human touch.
An eternity with no love.

I, Jonathan St. James, am forced to live away from the woman I love, from the world I know. Time passes in a world of which I am not a part. Would that I had never laid eyes on the beauteous Cassandra.

Our families had betrothed us as children and she knew me better than anyone else could. We were best friends, we loved each other. How could she banish me to this cold, meaningless world?

I remember the day my world ended, as if it were yesterday. Cassandra stood before me in all her blonde beauty, her emerald green eyes flashing. I had risked life and limb to climb the rose and thorn laden trellis to her bedroom. Either the trellis had weakened with age or my adult body tested the weight of the old structure we had climbed many times as children.

"How could you?" she screamed from across the room.

I had never seen her face so mottled in anger.

"What have I done, my love?" I asked, easing away from the open window.

"You vain, selfish swine! Is there a woman in this town you have not bedded?"

In that question I sensed a trick. Since I was a boy in short pants, women had fawned over me. Only Cassandra treated me as a person and truly loved me. Every other woman had thrown herself at me, offering me pleasures, which I accepted like any other virile, unmarried man with natural urges would. Even married men took their pleasures from women other than their wives.

In my defense, I feigned ignorance to save her feelings and my own head. Cassandra held one of her father's dueling pistols and I knew she could load it and use it well.

"My darling, Cassie. I would never do anything to jeopardize what we have." I took a step toward her, reaching to ease the weapon from her hand. She snatched it back but held it steady and aimed at my heart. If I could but hold her in my arms, I could make her see reason.

"You are to be my husband. I deny myself the pleasure of giving myself to you or any other man, but you share yourself with every woman who offers her body."

Now I was angry. She knew women took advantage of me and my need to make them happy. She also knew the way of things with men. Our fathers both had mistresses but treated our mothers with respect and love. I was promising her to be true only to her, to deny myself what other men took for granted.

Staying reasonable, I responded. "I vowed to be faithful to you once we marry, to love you, to honor you, to give you everything. What more would a wife expect?"

She stared daggers at me now. Perhaps I wouldn't try to hold her. When she took a step toward me I took a step back. Her anger made her seem to grow in stature. I had seen her temper and it is awe-inspiring.

A bad feeling overwhelmed me. She had never unleashed her rage on me before. With each step nearer, she grew before my eyes, advancing on me faster than I retreated. Tonight I would not sway her with charm, or pretty words, or reason.

When my back hit something solid, I glanced over my shoulder at the cheval mirror I gave her two years ago for her sixteenth birthday.

I turned back to her in time to see her hand fly at my face, slapping me with more force than I would have thought possible from a delicate female. The force of that slap sent me backward in a sprawl.

Odd. Had I knocked the mirror with the force of my fall? I rose and started to move toward my love, but something stopped me. I bumped into a glass wall.

Cassandra glared at me, then her mouth formed an evil smile. Her voice took on an eerie quality as she chanted.

"In the mirror you shall stay.
Until there comes a day
When a woman wishes you outside,
You will abide
In your prison.
You have the power to grant her one thing she wishes,
But must return to your prison unless her wish is
That you remain with her forever."

I tried to push through the wall. "I am not amused, Cassie. Get me out. I order you." I banged on the wall I could not see at her retreating back. Maybe I should not have ordered her.

Two for the price of one!

Here are two quotes by a master of the pen Arthur C. Clarke.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.