Rolling away the stone

Image by Gidon Pico from Pixabay

By Lisabet Sarai

As the SNSD author responsible for the 31^st of each month (well, each month that has 31 days), I have the fun of posting on a lot of holidays: New Year’s Eve, Halloween, my birthday (January 31^st) and so on.

This year, March 31^st also happens to be a holiday, namely Easter Sunday. I’m not conventionally religious, but still, I find myself touched by the spirit of this observance. Easter celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, the rebirth of hope after despair. The story of resurrection after crucifixion has universal meaning because we’ve all been through desperate and difficult times at some point in our lives: the collapse of a dream, the loss of a loved one, the prospect of physical or mental deterioration. Pain, grief, destitution, madness – almost everyone has spent some time entombed in the dark. Easter is a reminder that even the worst trials pass.

For me, perhaps the darkest time was during my teens and twenties, when I came close to dying from an eating disorder. As I starved my body, I struggled against the demons in my mind, who whispered that I was a ravenous glutton too disgusting to deserve life. My disease kept me in its vicious grip for years, robbing me of peace and joy. I was alive, but existence was an empty shell, a daily battle with obsession.

Fortunately, with a lot of help and care, I managed to climb out of that black pit of misery. I resumed my interrupted education. I gradually repaired the damage I’d done to my body. I learned to love and trust people, to believe that they were not trying to make me fat. Eventually I built a productive career, solid relationships, a life full of delightful adventures and deep satisfaction.

Easter reminds me of that desperate time so many decades ago. Anorexia buried me, but love rolled away the stone and set me free. And I’ve come to believe that we all have the power to emerge from our personal sepulchers, whatever they might be. The sun always rises, even after the blackest night. We may find it as hard to believe this as did the apostles. The sun, however, doesn’t need our faith.

Of course Easter is also a celebration of spring, the quickening of the natural world. Long before the time of Jesus, many cultures told stories about the earth’s rebirth after the dark days of winter. If you do a bit of reading, you’ll discover that those myths often incorporated notions of a hero’s death and resurrection.

Suffering is real. But hope never dies. The morning will come eventually, if we wait and trust.

By the way – If you’re reading this and you have a few more minutes, can I ask you to visit the Charity Sunday post at my blog?

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2024/03/charity-sunday-easter-sunday-for-just.html

Leave me a comment there. I’ll make a donation to a worthy cause for each one. Come celebrate Easter with me and make the world a little brighter.

Thank you!

 

Cover Reveal for UNCOVERING THE LORD by Lexi Post

  

I'm thrilled to reveal the cover of my next release, UNCOVERING THE LORD (Courting a Curious Lady: Book 1). It's not so easy to get a couple in a cave in the jungle.

This is a second chance at love story. They first met in STEALING THE DUKE (Marrying a Mabry: Book 1) and Lord Mabry proposed, only to be turned down. Gasp!

Now it's a year and a half later and many things have changed. It's a different time, different continent, and different circumstances. Besides, he no longer loves Lady Elsbeth.

As for Lady Elsbeth, she's on a mission to get back to England to save the Curious Ladies and the school they all attend. Running into Lord Mabry again was not in her plans. His escapades through various countries have changed him significantly. The question is, for better or worse?

This story will be releasing in May.

About Lexi

Lexi Post is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of romance inspired by the classics. She spent years in higher education taking and teaching courses about the classical literature she loved. From Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Masque of the Red Death” to Tolstoy’s War and Peace, she's read, studied, and taught wonderful classics.

But Lexi's first love is romance novels so she married her two first loves, romance and the classics. Whether it’s sizzling cowboys, dashing dukes, hot immortals, or hunks from out of this world, Lexi provides a sensuous experience with a “whole lotta story.”

Lexi is living her own happily ever after with her husband and her two cats in Florida. She makes her own ice cream every weekend, loves bright colors, and you’ll never see her without a hat.

Website

Lexi Post Updates

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Amazon Author Page

BookBub

D2D

Goodreads

Instagram

Blog

Pinterest

Email

Read The Glass Sword by Kim Alexander #ComingSoon#Fantasy #Romance #Urban #Dark #Steamy

  

The Glass Sword

(New World Magic Book 5)

Synopsis

A unicorn walks into a bar…it's cheaper than therapy.
Therapy, you say? Sign up Marly, the angry ex-Unseelie-fae-queen. Or how about Sasha, the bitter exiled-Unseelie-fae-king? And definitely Ruby, the mortal bartender who lost her heart when she found her memories of March, the unicorn shifter she loved.
A good therapist would say learn to live with the consequences of choices, but Ruby isn't ready to accept that a choice she didn't even know she made landed March as the prisoner of the Seelie fae court. And Marly and Sasha have some feelings about reclaiming the throne of the Unseelie court.
But consequences beget consequences. Amid dying kingdoms and the dying embers of old loves and older hatreds, friends become betrayers, lovers keep secrets, and someone or something is out for blood red revenge.
The Glass Sword: New World Magic Book Five

Pre-Order It Now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CP4NJYH7

What are the other books in the series?

Pure

‘A unicorn walks into a bar….’ That is not a joke. 

Look, I’m a bartender, I have nothing to do with the xenos. 

I don’t care if it’s an elf or a vampire--as long as they don’t bother me, I steer clear. 

I have my reasons--you can see them in the scars on my neck. I never wanted to get involved. But my life changed for the second time when I saved the life of a unicorn. I made an enemy of something old--old and evil, and whatever it was, it’ll be back for another try. 

I also made a friend when I decided to help March. He’s only been a human man for a day. I’m responsible for him now. He’s my friend…and maybe something more. 

Maybe a lot more. It doesn’t matter to me that he isn’t magical anymore. I don’t care if he’s not PURE. But he does.

Check It Out: https://books2read.com/Pure

-----

The March Effect

A unicorn walks into a bar…and leaves with my heart. He’s gone, and now I have a unicorn-named-March-shaped hole in my life. 

But, I get it. Unicorns aren't meant to live in a world where they have to deal with putting gas in the car, getting groceries, and paying cell phone bills. I'm trying to get past this. Really, I am. It's just that everyone constantly talks about him, from his immortal ex-girlfriend, to reality TV-obsessed Fae, to even my own fully-human friends. 

Even his enemies are still obsessed with him. I learned that the hard way. 

Did I mention the part where I end up on the run—again—from an old, powerful enemy of his? Yeah. Fun times. I just want to be left to get over my broken heart while watching home improvement shows and eating ice cream. But mysterious disappearances, murder, and a quest for affordable real estate in Washington D.C. keep getting in the way. Maybe that's just life. 

Sometimes we get what we want. 

Sometimes, we get what we need. 

And sometimes, we get what we deserve. I guess you could call it…The March Effect.

Check It Out: https://books2read.com/TheMarchEffect

-----

The Great Shatter

A unicorn walks into a bar...except there are no unicorns or bars in the court of the Unseelie fae, which sucks because Marly could really use a drink.

Honestly, going from human to vampire, to something not quite mortal would drive anyone to drink. Being hounded by a grudge-holding kitsune didn't help, either. But when the king of the Unseelie fae declared Marly his queen and the hope of his people, it seemed her troubles were over, and off they went to his magical kingdom in a reality-tv-worthy happily ever after.

Except it's more hard landing than happy ending. Marly is thrown into the crosshairs of ancient hatreds where war masquerades as etiquette, shadows must beg for light, and things with tentacles are just waiting for something to go wrong. And something is going wrong...very wrong.

With every mis-step, she stumbles closer to the edge of a darkness waiting to consume her, and the king's love is like a poison that can cure or kill. Her only hope is to unveil the truth dancing in the great mirrors in the sky, even if that sky comes crashing down.

Check It Out: https://books2read.com/thegreatshatter

-----

A Poisoned Garden

A unicorn walks into a bar and…wait, what was I saying?

Look, between what I’m pretty sure is premature senility and wanting to barf all the time, I’m barely hanging in there. At this point, I need a break after solving xeno murders, fighting murderous fox shifters, and my best friend nearly murdering me for…reasons.

But do I get a break? No, I get an invitation to the court of the Unseelie fae, and it’s the kind of invitation you can’t refuse because it’s from the king who flip-flops between wanting to share a pizza with me and stabbing me.

The upside is that I can see my best friend Marly, the newly minted and slightly murderous Unseelie fae queen. The downside? Apparently, I have to prevent a civil war between powerful magical beings, and I don’t even get a can opener for self-defense.

Just like clockwork, I’m back to running from supernatural squids, double-dealing with triple-dealing fae who probably all want me dead, and getting tangled up with a beautiful, broken-hearted unicorn who makes me feel guilty, and I don't know why.
After all, we've never met before...have we?

Grab It Now: https://books2read.com/apoisonedgarden

-----

The Glass Sword

A unicorn walks into a bar…it's cheaper than therapy.

Therapy, you say? 

Sign up Marly, the angry ex-Unseelie-fae-queen. 

Or how about Sasha, the bitter exiled-Unseelie-fae-king? 

And definitely Ruby, the mortal bartender who lost her heart when she found her memories of March, the unicorn shifter she loved.

A good therapist would say learn to live with the consequences of choices, but Ruby isn't ready to accept that a choice she didn't even know she made landed March as the prisoner of the Seelie fae court. And Marly and Sasha have some feelings about reclaiming the throne of the Unseelie court.

But consequences beget consequences. Amid dying kingdoms and the dying embers of old loves and older hatreds, friends become betrayers, lovers keep secrets, and someone or something is out for blood-red revenge.

Coming June 2024

-----

Who am I?

Kim Alexander grew up in the wilds of Long Island, NY and slowly drifted south until she reached Key West. After spending ten rum-soaked years as a DJ in the Keys, she moved to Washington DC, where she lives with two cats, an angry fish, and her extremely patient husband who tells her she needs to write at least ten more books if she intends to retire in Thailand, so thank you for your patronage. 

Stalk Me

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimalexanderonline

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimalexander_author/

Website: https://kimalexanderonline.com/wp/

Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@KimAlexander
Spoutable: https://spoutible.com/KimAlexander_Author
Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/kimalexander.bsky.social
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kim-alexander

Amazon Author: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kim-Alexander/author/B0178BCRLI

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13844326.Kim_Alexander

Subscribe Today: https://mailchi.mp/345bc9cc1b5a/kim-alexander-subscribers

The Curious Incident of Harriet Smith & the Regency Romany

This little-known corner of Regency historicals hold a special place for me and my family. My debut novel, Always a Princess (the first in a series), features a Romany heroine. Why did I do this?

Always a Princess

I'm glad you asked! 

It's partly in tribute to my Roma family - and partly because of a scene in a Jane Austen novel.

    In Chapter 39 of Austen’s Emma, her bff Miss Harriet Smith (the ‘natural daughter’ of no-one-quite-knows), is accosted by a ‘group of gypsies’.

    It's worth remembering that merely associating with “such a set of people” was judged to be a crime in Regency England. From the 1500s onwards the Crown attempted to rid the land of these ‘other’ residents, deporting them to the colonies and attempting to legislate them out of all existence. By Austen’s time, any ‘consorting’ with ‘gypsies’ was considered a criminal act for which one could be jailed — or worse. One case in 1782 saw a fourteen year old girl hanged for such acquaintance, on the orders of the local magistrate.

    Harriet Smith speaks to the ‘gypsies’, offers them money, and then pleads with them. Miss Smith technically commits a Regency-era crime in this scene. This moment offers a rare glimpse into a Regency England that isn't well-represented in contemporary works.

    The British Empire once spanned a quarter of the known world, but at no point were the native-born colonised people truly deemed to be ‘English’. After all, they didn't actually live in England. At least, not most of them. What if the ‘non-English’ people were not ‘out there’ in the colonies? What if they did, in fact, live in England right alongside the Bertrams, the Woodhouses, the Dashwoods – and even the Bennets?

    The Romany of England are unique here. Their position in Austen's novels is as unusual as their place in Regency England – because they indeed lived, loved, and mattered in the same geographic spaces as Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith.

Harriet Smith

The Regency Romany were as present and alive and wonderfully romantic as the Regency English. Coming from a mostly oral tradition, Romany stories from that time are rarely found in print but they were present during this period of English history, and undoubtedly have stories to tell about it.

    In the incident ascribed above, Austen does not specifically accuse the ‘gypsies’ of being heathens, but they are clearly depicted as ‘other’; outside the town limits of Highbury itself and dark, terrifying, criminal, and dangerous. They do not ‘fit’ in Austen’s England, and are cut from Emma’s tale as soon as they serve their meagre narrative purpose: 

“The Gypsies did not wait for the operations of justice: they took themselves off in a hurry.”

    Or rather, the author moved them quickly off her bleached white pages and out of ‘her’ England – despite the truth that there were non-English people present in Austen’s England; other voices with their own perspectives and their own stories worth telling, and worth writing.

    It's difficult to be born into a place that never allows you to become a part of it without a fight, a plea, an effort to assimilate and cut away the parts of you that discomfit the powerful dominant culture all around you. It's more than difficult; it's painful and damaging. The very term ‘marginalisation’ is an admission of the lack of narrative ‘space’ allotted to the voices fiction has chosen to leave unloved, and unnoticed.

    Real history is profoundly unromantic – and yet, somehow, we still try. There is beauty in stories, in narratives of the tales about long-ago lovers and their imagined worlds. There is much solace to be found in story – I love re-reading Austen (although Emma is not my favourite), but in between the wonder of her words, I find myself reading for traces. Traces those whose stories deserve to be told.

What does this writer do when she is not writing? Daryl Devore's other favourite thing. #writer #hobby #gardening #twistedfairytale #hotromance

Writing can be all-consuming. A writer in the midst of a scene may get so focused that the concept of time is lost.

Lost until the dog comes in a demands a walk. Or the cat decides you've paid enough attention to the computer and it's her turn. Etc

The second (?) book I wrote was a novella. My at-the-time publisher requested a novella from everyone based on a fairy tale. I picked Little Red Riding Hood. Plot was already set for me. Red's mom sends her to visit Grandma. Meets a wolf along the way. Wolf gets to Grandma's and slips into bed. Red shows up. Lumberjack comes along and saves the day. It took me approx 2 days to write 20,000 words. 

But because of that ability to intensely focus on something - day after day - there is a real risk for writer burn out. Which is what I think happened to me. I've written less that 3,000 words in the past year on my latest WIP. 

But, what I can focus on is my other love - gardening.

But what prompted this post is a file I found. I was doing a cleaning of veg garden and flower garden folders and in flowers I found a folder with 1 document in it. A note to myself - 

LOL. I had forgotten I had that document. I did save it. And I do remember which ones are the canna lilies and which are the calla lilies.

Now if you want to read my short story based on Little Red Riding Hood - keep reading.

Note - it's an adult version of the story, so kinda spicy hot.

What's a naughty fairy tale like Red Riding Hood without Red, the huntsman, grandma and especially, the big bad wolf?

 

Esmerelda 'Red' Hood is summoned to her mother's executive suite only to learn her sweet granny is headed for a romantic cruise with a gigolo. Horrified, Red races off to save her grandma before it's too late.

 

On board, Red meets Andrew Woodsman and Willem Olf. One a cutie with the biggest puppy eyes and the other a dark, sophisticated predator. Her grandmother's warning rings in Red's ear "Never trust a wolf in sheep's clothing."

 

Even with the warning, Red has trouble choosing which man could be the big bad wolf and which could be her happily ever after.

 

UBL 

BookBub

Pinterest Board for DARK CHOCOLATE AND STRAWBERRIES

GoodReads

If you'd like to join my author group -

FaceBook 

MeWe