Jenyfer Matthews

I leave for the Women’s Fiction Festival in Italy in ten days. In addition to trying to figure out what to pack and mentally preparing myself to meet face to face with agents and editors, I have hair crisis.

I haven’t had a hair cut since the end of June and my regular hairdresser can’t fit me in until the end of September – the day after I return from Italy in fact. My hair doesn’t look terrible exactly, but it is getting awfully long. (Some might even say shaggy) Would you:

1) Try a new hairdresser and hope for the best

2) Trim my bangs myself and leave the rest alone

3) Go as is – why take the risk?

Please leave your vote in the comments. Seriously – I need your opinion!

Chris Power lives in the southwest of England, in the heart of what once was the ancient kingdom of Wessex, and close to Stonehenge. Her home is cheerfully chaotic, since she shares it with her son, daughter-in-law, two grandsons and three large dogs.

A new laptop, a new book out yesterday – a solo work at that – and a new resolution to get back into the discipline of writing. The Magic Three. At least, I hope so. The last couple of months have been disrupted on the writing front. There was a hell of a lot of hard work to do in the garden, where my DinL and I dug out flowerbeds, edged them and leveled off an area to take the family sized picnic table. We got most of it done before the weather broke on us, but my writing schedule was shot out of the water.

Now I have no more excuses, so I’m back to giving myself a daily target and denying myself my DVD collection until I have something worthwhile in the way of quantity *and* quality to show for it! I have three WiPs that need to be worked on, and there are unrelated names and scenes haunting my brain waiting to be jotted down so I can see what they’ll grow into further down the line. Who the hell is Jubal Carlyle, I ask myself, and why can’t I get his name out of my head? Sooner or later, the man will tell me his story.

But right now, with a quick fanfare, I’m announcing Argent Dreaming. This is a paranormal mystery set in Glastonbury, England. Glastonbury is a small town where myth and legend, Christianity and paganism meet – Arthur and Guinevere, Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Thorn – it’s all there in that rather magical place. The roots of the town are ancient, going back thousands of years to stoner tools, dugout canoes and wooden trackways, small villages built on platforms over lakes and marshes that no longer exist.

My story is set firmly in the present day. Cat has issues with Glastonbury, the town at the heart of what once was called the Vale of Avalon. The power that lives there broke through her barriers and awoke her talents, but the experience terrified her and ever since then she has refused to let those talents manifest. But now, five years on, she reluctantly goes back to Glastonbury.

Philippe Alexandre is a detective with the Police Judiciaire based in Vannes, France. He is undercover in Glastonbury to follow up on new information a witness has sent about an old murder that happened near Vannes. He meets Cat and is as drawn to her as she is to him. He discovers that Cat knows his witness, and decides to use their mutual attraction to pump her for information.

Soon, Cat’s long suppressed talents are forcing themselves forward and she realizes that the visions she sees are linked to Philippe’s case. Together they must save the innocent before the killer can attack again, and next time Cat will be the target.

Argent Dreaming
by
Chris Power
Excerpt

Cat found herself gazing at the small unglazed terracotta figure in the windowsill. A dumpy female nude sat cross-legged, large-breasted and with wide cushioned hips, braided hair crowning a featureless face that somehow blessed the room with an unseen smile. Between her open thighs was a small cauldron-shaped bowl mounded high with grains and dried flowers. Philippe’s voice suddenly spoke in Cat’s mind, Let me help you and the room seemed to tilt. Julie’s hand on her arm brought back stability.

“Cat?” she said gently. “Are you all right?”

“Not yet,” said Maeve crisply before she could answer. “But she will be. When she learns not to fight the power in this place.”

“Mother!” she growled through clenched teeth, feeling her color rise. And then the dogs started to bark and the back door opened, bringing a more than welcome distraction.

“Hi, everyone,” caroled the newcomer and Cat felt herself fade into dowdiness in the presence of the girl’s golden beauty. “Thought I’d drop in on my way back from town. Am I in time for coffee?”

“Just,” Julie smiled and Pete pulled another chair up to the table. “There’s some apple pie and cream left as well, if you like.”

“Thanks.” A casual acceptance, as if she had expected no less. She sat down, her gaze on Mark’s face, fixed with an intensity that he seemed to find a little unnerving judging by the way he shifted back an inch or so. There was something about her, an air of glittering triumph that enhanced an already lovely face and drew all eyes in the room. “Mel, I saw Cissie after we put the takings in the bank and she’s finally coughed up those painted silk scarves she promised us, so I went back to the shop and dumped them. Can you give me a lift home, Mark? It looks as if it might rain again.”

“If it’s okay to borrow the car?” he said, glancing at Julie and her husband. To Cat’s ears, he sounded reluctant, as if hoping he’d get a refusal.

“‘Course you can,” Pete said, an indulgent smile on his good-natured face. “You know you don’t have to ask. Maeve, Cat, this is Samantha Collis. She and Mel run a small shop in Glastonbury. Sammie, Maeve and Cat Argent, Mel’s relatives.”

The girl giggled. “She told me. Hello.” And turned her attention straight back to Mark. It was perilously close to a snub and the Walshes gave them apologetic and uncomfortable glances. “We did pretty well today—must have been a couple of extra tour buses turn up. Mel owes me for standing in for her—why don’t we borrow the car and go off somewhere tomorrow?”

“Sorry, dear,” Julie said smoothly. “Mark’s not due for a day off just yet. There’s too many damaged hedges and fences, I’m afraid and he’s already lost an hour today escorting you and the takings to the bank.”

Sammie frowned and for a moment it seemed as if she would argue the point but her brilliant smile came back.

“Another time, then. Pass the cream, please.”

Conversation became general again but there was a subtle change in the atmosphere that seemed to stem from Mark Carter. Although he was outwardly as charming and cheerful as he had been before, Cat could pick up on a thread-fine undercurrent. Well, it didn’t take a psychic genius to root out its cause. Samantha in full hunting cry had him running scared. Cat felt a twinge of sympathy.

Later, offers to help with the washing-up firmly refused, Cat wandered out into the garden and the flower-scented dusk. Maeve was already there and had found a seat by a sundial.

“Well?” Cat said, sitting cross-legged at her mother’s feet. “What did you find out from tall-dark-and-handsome?”

“He’s unhappy,” she said quietly, fingers absently playing with a strand of Cat’s hair. “He’s lonely and he wants to go home and he’s afraid he never will.”

“He told you all that?”

“Not in words. His aura—”

“Mother!”

“Don’t Mother me! He’s deeply troubled.”

“Hah!” she snorted. “So would I be if that blonde carnivore was after me.”

“She’s only part of it. I’ve been trying to talk him into letting me read his cards but he won’t have it. Cat, I’m quite worried about him. He’s—all in shadow… Like walls… And Mel is frightened.”

“Of him?” doubtfully. She hadn’t shown any fear of the man that she’d seen, rather a sisterly kind of affection that bordered on the protective.

“I don’t know but I think he’s part of it. So is Sammie. Such a pretty girl and so full of life. Poor Mark. He doesn’t really stand much of a chance, does he? You know they’re Wiccans, don’t you?”

“What? Who?”

“Julie and Pete. Lovely people. I’m going to have to have a serious talk with her.”

“Who?” Cat felt herself floundering, this was Maeve at her more convoluted. “Mel? Sammie?”

“Don’t be silly. Julie. You carry on with Mel, see if she will tell you more about Mark—”

“Why?” Cat asked. “We’re here for a Tarot artist, that’s all.”

“Not anymore, it isn’t,” and gave her hair a sharp tug. “I asked Mark about his background—mentioned his accent. You did notice he had an accent, didn’t you? Though it’s so slight you can hardly hear it most of the time. He just laughed and said he grew up in Switzerland. His mother was Swiss, his father English.”

“So what?” Cat asked, perplexed.

“He lied,” she sighed and smoothed the hair she’d pulled. “Shadows, Cat, like a wall around him.”

Cat didn’t respond. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach and a growing certainty that they would not be leaving Glastonbury any time soon.

Maeve had found a crusade.

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I am the soccer mom. No, really – it’s official. I am the Team Mom for both of my children’s soccer teams. I even have the t-shirts to prove it.

It’s not really that big a deal – mostly just coordinating the after-game snack schedule and arranging for a coach gift at the end of the season. But it does compound my snack neurosis to some degree.

If you thought I worried too much about what to bring for a snack when I was just a regular mom, think about how much worse it is now that I am the Team Mom. It’s kind of ridiculous.

For me, it’s always a struggle between popularity with the children and plain old practicality. They play early in the morning so the mom in me says that nutritional breakfast items / fruit is a much more healthy and appropriate offering. The lazy side of me looks at the easy to buy and distribute packages of cookies / chips and longs.

One benefit of being Team Mom is that I am going first – get my duty out of the way. But I also feel as if I need to plan a snack that will set a good example for all the other snacks to follow this season. In the end I decided to forgo the cookies and make apple muffins and pair that with some fruit. Probably bananas.

I know that some other mom is going to come along later in the season with a cooler of soda and bags of chips, but it can’t be helped. My conscience will be clear.

When I pack for a trip, I include minimal jewelry. I normally wear a pair of earrings that will go with just about everything and just wear them every day. I learned the hard way when I lost one of a pair of earrings I liked while traveling in Turkey. It wasn’t a valuable item but it was something that I liked and it bothered me. For far too long.

This summer I packed more jewelry than I usually would. A little voice whispered to me that I shouldn’t do it, but I ignored it. Of course. So I wasn’t surprised but I was bothered when I noticed that one of a pair of earrings I really liked and had only worn once was missing. I called all the hotels I stayed in and looked through my suitcases with no luck. It was gone.

Last year, I had worn a pair of silver hoops to bed one night. I don’t like to sleep in earrings so I took them out and put them on my bedside table. Even as I did it, I thought you better put those in your jewelry box, but I couldn’t be bothered to get up. And I forgot about them overnight. It wasn’t until I found one of them on the dining room floor later the next day that I remembered them, the second one no where to be found. My daughter had found them in my room and decided that they looked like something fun to play with.

I really hate losing things. Anything. I’m kind of pathological about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s valuable or not, if something is lost I will make an effort to find it. I’m fine with getting rid of things I don’t use or need anymore but I want to be the one to decide what goes and when. The silver hoops my daughter had taken were a pair that I had found in the parking lot of the restaurant where I worked when I was a teenager. They were not valuable. But they were mine. I looked all over the house for them, even emptying the vacuum bag. No luck.

My sister always tells me how lucky I am. Perhaps one of the reasons I hate to lose things is because I so often succeed in finding lost items. I worked at KMart when I was in college and once, while working, I lost a small diamond stud that my sister gave me for my high school graduation. I was heartbroken. I worked in the ladies clothing department – that earring could have fallen out anywhere in the sea of white speckled tile that made up the floor of the store. I knew it was hopeless, but I never stopped looking. Against all odds I found that earring, one week later, lying on the concrete floor just inside the door to the stock room.

You could argue that the janitors didn’t clean up very well, but it is incidents like that that contribute to my neurosis. I’m always convinced I will find something if I just keep looking long enough.

Sometimes it works. I found the earring I lost this summer – lying in my jewelry box at home when I returned. I had only packed one. And believe it or not, that missing silver hoop turned up shortly after, in the side pocket of our swimming pool bag of all places. Most amazingly, the earring I misplaced eight years ago while traveling in Turkey showed up again, in a tangle of jewelry in a little used box.

Maybe my sister is right, maybe I am lucky. Or maybe the stars are aligned right. Or maybe the lesson is to have a little faith.

The other night I had a dream and in the dream I was in bed dreaming. In my dream’s dream I had a sudden inspiration, a great sentence for a book I am working on, and so in my dream’s dream, I groped around for a notebook that I kept on the bedside table and jotted it down so it wouldn’t slip away. (I think there was also a flashlight handy so I wouldn’t disturb Hubby) At that point, the inner dream faded away as did whatever idea was layered deep in there, and in my outer dream I thought, Damn, I really need to keep a notebook by the side of the bed.

Last night I woke with a thought on something to work on and fortunately, I’ve been able to retain that thought. It even looks good by the light of day – so often those night thoughts don’t.

I don’t have a notebook on my bedside table yet, but I’m going to get one. Might be good for a laugh if nothing else.

Some people make their resolutions in the New Year. My husband works for a university so the rhythm of our home more closely follows the academic calendar. This is the time of year I get the urge to do a “spring clean”, make lifestyle changes, and generally just start anew.

One of the leaves that regularly gets turned over at this time of year is the resolution to Eat Better. It’s no wonder coming off a summer of indulging in all of our favorite treats. More meal planning, less fat, more protein – all the usual stuff. And stir fries.

One meal my husband keeps trying to convince me is the solution to all our meal woes is stir fries. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Asian stir fry – when it is delivered to my home in a tidy cardboard carton. It’s creating it myself that I’m not so enthusiastic about.

Hubby argues that it doesn’t have to complicated, that the problem is we try to put in too many ingredients. We just need to focus on simplicity. I know from past experience he’s wrong, but sometimes it’s just too much trouble to argue. So we made stir fry last night.

We picked just a few ingredients. Broccoli, asparagus, and an onion. And a few shrimp because if it’s only vegetables then hubby is hungry again immediately. I made a garlic sauce and got the veggies washed ahead of time and then made the rice while hubby cut up the veggies and got out the wok.

The cooking part was quick, I’ll give him that. And the sauce was tasty. But that meal used up two cutting boards, two saucepans and a wok and it there wasn’t even enough for the children to have any, even if they’d wanted it. I ended up having to make (homemade) mac-n-cheese for them with a side of steamed broccoli (three more pots).

Have I ever mentioned that I don’t have a dishwasher? I *am* the dishwasher! Whatever time was saved in actual cooking was definitely consumed in the cleanup.

I am going to quietly rotate stir-fries out of the lineup…

I’ve been writing almost since I could hold a pen–at least since I read my first Nancy Drew book at about the age of eight. It was The Ghost of Blackwood Hall and it is probably why I love to read and write paranormal stories as well as suspense. I’m a native Texan and I guess that’s why I enjoy reading and writing western romances, too. Some people think writers should stick to one genre, but I believe that you should writer whatever you love and I love almost everything!

I’m so excited about my newest paranormal Scent of Lavender that I want to give back a little to the world. For every ebook that sells from my books page on the Cerridwen Press site during the month of September (it doesn’t matter which books) I’m going to donate a dollar to the Arbor Day Foundation. According to their site, every dollar plants a tree in one of our national forests. I think that is so cool that I joined the Foundation and now I’m waiting for them to send me 10 live oak trees. LOL…not sure where I’ll plant them but every one of them is going into the ground!

Scent of Lavender
by
Teri Thackston

A ghost haunts the house on Black Tree Creek. New tenant Rob Sheridan has seen her, but Lily Graham believes he’s lying. This haunting tale of betrayal, possession and seduction in the Texas Hill Country brings together the lonely war veteran and the beauty from his past…and the ghost that could drive them apart.

Excerpt

A sighing like that of drifting sand woke him.

Rob opened his eyes. Moonlight silvered an unfamiliar room, throwing black shadows against the pale walls that surrounded his bed. Gauze curtains hung still over the closed windows that flanked the four-poster. But the sound that had roused him did not come from outside anyway. That quiet sigh and the stillness beneath it…

The last cobwebs of sleep broke and he remembered where he was. The house on Black Tree Creek. Coming fully alert, he knew it wasn’t the sound of the wind through the desert that had woken him.

The night went silent. Even the window air conditioner had shut off.

Pushing himself upright, he glanced at his alarm clock. Six-eleven. He’d finally fallen asleep sometime around two o‘clock. That had been after spending hours wondering what he’d seen on his porch earlier that night and why Lily Graham claimed his uncle had swindled her grandmother.

He’d made no progress in figuring out the strange woman but he knew the truth about Frank Sheridan. Uncle Frank had bought the house legally from Ruth Thibeaux. He’d never mentioned purchasing the house to Rob or his mother. So his sudden inheritance of the house after Frank’s recent fatal heart attack had been a welcome surprise to Rob. The old place would suit his needs perfectly.

Even if it was haunted.

Inhaling slowly, Rob heard air whistle through his dry nostrils. The sound seemed intrusive so he held his breath.

The house seemed to do the same.

A shudder crawled through him. He wondered how angry Lily Graham would be over losing the house if she came here now. If she knew what went on here in the dark.

Buy this Book or any of Teri’s other titles this month and help her support the Arbor Day Foundation.

Ever wonder why it is that it’s so much easier to put on weight than it is to take that same weight back off again? I ran across this tidbit the other day:

Do you know how fast I can eat two scoops of ice cream? On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that 2.5 hours of high impact aerobic activity would kill me! I am not even going to try and catalog all the food I ate while away on vacation and its corresponding caloric content. Suffice it to say that I have many hours of exercise before me. Which reminds me – I’ve got to go claim my gym membership before the offer expires!

Don’t forget to stop by this weekend when author Teri Thackston will be here with her new book Scent of Lavender. Do you like trees? Teri’s got a great way for you to contribute to the Arbor Day Foundation and save some trees at the same time – you’ll want to check it out!

I’ve been watching the news on Hurricane Gustav with interest – and worry. The communities affected by this are more than names to me. I grew up in southern Louisiana and still have friends living there. I have happy memories of vacationing along the Mississippi and Florida coasts. I’ve lived through hurricanes myself, the most notable being Andrew in 1992. I’m way safe from hurricanes living in Cairo, but I didn’t want to see what happened when Katrina happen again.

I’ve been reading the news and looking at pictures. I was thrilled to see the authorities take such a serious approach to this storm – and that most of the residents heeded the warnings and got out. Evacuating your home isn’t fun. Wondering what is going on in your absence, worrying if there will be damage – or anything left. Staying in a shelter isn’t pleasant or comfortable, but in response to any of those quoted in the newspaper as saying “they over-reacted, I should have stayed home”, I say “remember Katrina, better safe than sorry.” Thank God the levees held.

And to all the politicians out there who used the storm as an opportunity for a photo op in an evacuation shelter, playing with a child, or looking grave and concerned as you hand out emergency relief supplies while conveniently standing in front of a flag, shame on you. You’re not fooling anyone.

I said no more pictures, but I lied. A friend invited my husband and I along on a felucca ride (otherwise known as a sailboat) on the Nile over the weekend. Every time I go out on a felucca, I think I ought to go more often. Can you blame me?