Author: Alicia Joseph

I'm an animal lover. I volunteer at a dog shelter and love nothing more than watching neglected or abused animals get their second chance and find loving homes. I'm also an author of the books, Her Name, Loving Again, A Penny on the Tracks, Annabel and the Boy in the Window, and a short story called This Christmas. When I'm not writing, I'm usually reading. I'll read anything as long as it is well-written and has a compelling and beautiful story. You can find me on twitter @AliciaJAuthor.

In Praise of eBooks

In Praise of eBooks

by Author Carol Browne

As a voracious book reader, I have lived my life believing in the superiority of the printed book; then my beta-reader kindly gave me her Kindle. Once I had figured out how to use it (three weeks well spent), my perspective underwent a sea change.

When I bought my first eBook and saw it download to my Kindle, it was a magical moment. I was also delighted to discover the device doubles as a flash drive.

There’s something amazing about travelling around with an entire library of books at your disposal and in these days of multi-tasking, being able to read, eat and drink at the same time in total comfort is most welcome. To someone like me on a low income, the availability of cheap or free eBooks is a blessing too.

From an eco-friendly point of view, no trees are cut down to make eBooks. Digital publishing also allows more authors to put their work before the reading public, often publishing great work that traditional publishers have rejected because they aren’t commercial enough.

I once assumed the device itself would be a distraction but, if you’re an avid bookworm, the body of an e-reader is no more of an intrusion than the body of a paperback; no more of a hindrance to your enjoyment than a screen is when you are watching a good movie.

Many will disagree. A teenage friend of mine prefers printed books because he likes the act of turning the pages. For me, the Kindle’s page-turning function is quicker and easier. Plus, you can say good-bye to the exasperation of having your bookmark fall out and not being able to remember where you were up to.

Meanwhile, another friend of mine is changing her opinion about eBooks. While moving to a smaller house, she regretted her vast collection of paperbacks that would have to be accommodated in less space—and then discovered many of them were mouldy and infested with mites. Yuk. She’ll be buying her first Kindle soon!

There is still a place for printed books in my home. I have about a dozen I will always cherish, but these books belong to an exclusive club. It’s unlikely I’ll be adding new members.

Unless they’re written by me, of course.

Disenchanted by Leigh Goff

Disenchanted’s Bewitching Main Character, Sophie Goodchild
by Leigh Goff

Sophie Goodchild is a sixteen-year-old half-witch and the star of my new release Disenchanted from Mirror World Publishing. She lives with her eccentric aunt in the small town of Wethersfield, Connecticut—the sight of the first American Witch Trials. Sophie is descended from a powerful black witch, but struggles with her erratic white magic. All the while she is forced to deal with a nasty group of full-blooded witches known as the Glitterati. These evil beings love to make Sophie feel like she is less than they are.

Sophie is a natural beauty with long, unruly waves of sable-colored hair, dark blue sapphire eyes, and heart-shaped pillowy lips. More importantly, she is beautiful on the inside, although she hides it well behind her impatience and impetuousness, which makes her easy to relate to.

Those heart-strong characteristics are what lead Sophie into trouble and, since she is ruled by her heart, she’s always finds trouble. She is fiercely loyal, determined, and fearless and there is nothing she wouldn’t do or sacrifice for the ones she loves. That hold even more true when she learns of the true love curse her ancestor cast on the Mather family.

Things become more dangerous for the beautiful half-witch when Judge Mather, a descendant of the man who condemned Sophie’s ancestor to hang, learns his son has fallen hard for her. The mysterious, handsome young man recently returned to Wethersfield. His sexy British accent and face that could melt a black witch’s heart, sweep Sophie off her feet. Dark secrets come to light and impossible choices are made as Sophie sacrifices everything, including her soul, to save her true love.

Here is a brief intro to my novel that appeals to people of all ages. I hope you like it, too.

Disenchanted
A forbidden love. A dark curse. An impossible choice…

Descended from a powerful Wethersfield witch, sixteen-year-old Sophie is struggling to hide her awkwardly emerging magic, but that’s the least of her worries. When a dangerous thief tries to steal her mysterious heirloom necklace, she is rescued by the one person she’s forbidden to fall for, a descendant of the man who condemned her ancestor to hang. He carries a dark secret that could destroy them both unless Sophie learns how to tap into the mysterious power of her diamond bloodcharm. She will have to uncover dark secrets from both of their families’ wicked pasts and risk everything, including her soul to save them from a witch’s true love curse, but it will take much more than that.

Buy Links:
Mirror World Publishing – Amazon

Leigh Goff loves writing young adult fiction with elements of magic and romance because it’s also what she liked to read. Born and raised on the East Coast, she now lives in Maryland where she enjoys the area’s great history and culture.

Leigh is a graduate of the University of Maryland, University College and a member of the Maryland Writers’ Association and Romance Writers of America. She is also an approved artist with the Maryland State Arts Council. Her debut novel, Disenchanted, was inspired by the Wethersfield witches of Connecticut and was released by Mirror World Publishing. Leigh is currently working on her next novel, The Witch’s Ring which is set in Annapolis.

Learn more about Leigh Goff on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Goodreads.

How Much Do You Like Drinking Clean Water?

I have read that giving up meat just one day a week carries the same beneficial effect on the environment as not driving your car for one month. One month! Such an easy way to decrease one’s carbon footprint on our planet!

When I made the conscious decision to give up meat, I had no idea the detrimental impact raising livestock had on the environment. I stopped eating meat because I wanted to partake in a more compassionate diet, to assure that no living-being had to die just so I could eat.

But now, I’m learning that I may be doing more than just sparing the lives of precious animals from a cruelly-inhumane death, I may also have a hand in helping to save the environment. The meat industry is wreaking havoc on our water supply (ask Californians how fun it is being strapped for water). One-third of the world’s fresh water supply is used for the production of livestock.* It takes twenty-four hundred gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef,** and the average American eats around 270 lbs of meat a year.*

Also, a typical US farm produces over 500 million tons of manure every year.** Runoffs of animals waste is the leading cause of pollution to our lakes and rivers.**

It isn’t surprising that when answering questions about water-saving advice over California’s historic drought, the State’s Governor, Jerry Brown, answered, “If you ask me, I think we should be eating veggie burgers.”

Statistics are showing that the Governor may be on to something.

How hard is it to give up meat for one day? I don’t know, how much do you like drinking clean water?

Please Note: Raising animals for dairy consumption also uses a lot of natural resources. I am not a vegan, but am gradually reducing my dairy intake. I haven’t bought cow’s milk in over three years (almond milk rocks!). The point of this blog is to show that it doesn’t take much to make a big difference if everyone does a little something. This blog is NOT meant to put anyone down for what they eat.

But, if you can make a little change, please do it, because we are all in this together. We all need a healthy Earth. Except for the Aliens. You have your own planet. Stay there.

*Science.time.com

**Peta

Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

There’s Help Out There

I was watching a movie with friends. The movie we were watching revolved around a highly-oppressed minority group of people living amidst a society filled with extreme violence and chaos. A scene unfolded as a visibly desperate man – who had fought every adversary he met as bravely as he could, whose mind had endured as much emotional suffering as it could possibly bear, and a man whose body had experienced pain it could no longer withstand – walked down a gravel street carrying a canister of gasoline. He stopped suddenly, poured the gasoline over his body and set himself on fire.

A young woman sitting beside me asked, “Why’d he kill himself?”

“Because he’s a coward and that’s what cowards do,” her boyfriend, sitting on the other side of her, replied.

This exchange took place more than a year ago, but I haven’t forgotten it, and probably never will. The tone that young man uttered his incredibly insensitive words lacked any hint of empathy or compassion. He made the ignorant statement unaware of the plight of those around him. He wasn’t close enough friends with every single person in that room to know their struggles, their downfalls, or to witness the quandary of their weakest moment.

He exemplified none of the human values (compassion, kindness, tolerance ) necessary to be a decent loving human being. I remember being angry when that young man said what he had said, but I didn’t say anything because I believe those who boast loudly and talk boldly, do so to hide their own weaknesses. I swallowed my dissent that night, and instead of challenging his words, I looked at the young man with sympathetic pity in my heart because maybe he was struggling a battle so deep and profound that he needed to appear stronger than he felt.

Maybe the young and confident man was putting on an act.

Or, maybe he was just an insensitive jerk.

But that night I chose to give the young man the benefit of the doubt, and I hope he made no one in that room feel like a coward if they were struggling to overcome their own weighted hopelessness.

According to Veterans Today, the annual suicide rate for veterans is 29.5 per 100,000 veterans. This suicide rate is 50% higher compared to people who never served in the military. If this young man knew of this statistic, I wonder if he would still have boldly stated that people who kill themselves were cowards.

I don’t know, but I do know that men and women who serve our country and protect our freedom are not cowards – no matter how their life ends, and the same applies to everyone else who loses their life to suicide.

Be tolerant. Be compassionate. Life is uncertain. Life is unpredictable. Life is uncontrollable.

There’s help for those who need it. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255

Note: I do not own this picture. If it infringes on any copyright I will take it down.

A Recipe for a Patriotic Dessert!

Author Sara Daniel is sharing her recipe for a patriotic dessert just in time for the Holiday weekend!

Happy Fourth of July, all! Here is a special dessert I make every year. I guarantee you’ll love it!

Nothing beats Independence Day for showing our pride in our country. Flags wave proudly, and red, white and blue are suddenly displayed on every piece of merchandise in the local discount store.

While I don’t have flag plates, napkins or—God forbid—a star-spangled bikini, I love bringing out my once-a-year crafty side to make an American Flag Cake for a cool patriotic treat.

So to satisfy your sweet-tooth I offer you my easy and delicious recipe.

American Flag Cake
pound cake
8oz Cool Whip
Blueberries
Strawberries, sliced

Pound cake can be store bought or made from scratch. Here’s a quick recipe:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Beat sugar into butter 2 tablespoons at a time until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, then eggs one at a time. Mix in remaining ingredients.

Bake in a greased and floured 9 X 5 pan for 1 hour. Cool completely.

To Assemble American Flag Cake
Cut pound cake into slices and lay across the bottom of a 9 X 13 pan.

Cover cake with a smooth layer of Cool Whip.

Turn pan horizontal. In upper left corner, fill an approximately 3-4 inch by 3-4 inch square with blueberries.

Make seven horizontal lines of strawberry slices. The first four lines should begin from the blueberry section to the far right edge. The bottom three lines should span the entire length of the pan. The top and bottom lines should be touching the top and bottom of the pan respectively to create 13 alternating red and white stripes.

The last step is very important – Thank a member of our Armed Forces and/or a Veteran, and share a piece of patriotic cake.

Enjoy.

~Sara

Sara Daniel writes what she loves to read—irresistible romance, from sweet to erotic and everything in between. She battles a serious NASCAR addiction, was once a landlord of two uninvited squirrels, and loses her car keys several times a day.

Learn more about Sara on her website and blog. Subscribe to Sara’s newsletter.

Stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Her Name

My lesbian novella, Her Name, is a sweet romance about a woman who believes the beautiful woman she dreams about is the real love of her life.

Here are a couple excerpts that I hope you enjoy!

She held me like she knew me as I cried in her arms. We lay on the bed, on top of the covers, as streaks of sunlight peeked through the curtains. She leaned against the headboard and cradled me in her arms, rocking gently. She had a tender, motherly touch, and the harder I cried, the closer she held me.

“Let it out, baby,” she whispered. “Let it out. I’m here.”

I wept freely until, slowly, my cries faded to whimpers, and soon, all I heard was the steady sound of my own heavy breathing. She pressed her lips against my forehead, kissed me, and told me she loved me.

I wrapped my arms tightly around her. “I love you, too.”

I opened my eyes to darkness as I reached my hand to the other side of the bed. It was empty. I quickly sat up and wiped the tears from my eyes, not believing I had dreamed of the same woman and had again woken up looking for her.

Now, I laid down my fork and leaned into my seat. I knew she didn’t want to talk about this anymore, but I did. “This all sounds crazy to you, and maybe in the beginning it was something to joke about, but now, I’m not sure. These pictures were taken directly out of my life, and this woman was in every one of them. You can’t tell me I just dreamed it from memory, because my memory isn’t that good! The photos were identical all the way from the clothes we wore, to the smile on our faces. Hell, even the background was the same! She was the only thing that was different. How could that be?”

I stared at her, waiting for a response as she took it all in.

“Like I said on the phone, I just don’t know what you want me to say. I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Is it weird? Yeah, totally, but I’m no dream expert, and neither are you. Like I said before, maybe it’s your subconscious taking over. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, and it probably has some fancy scientific name.”

“She’s my wife,” I said flatly. “I saw a picture of us from our wedding, and we looked like we belonged together. We know each other. I mean, really know each other. I wish you could see us together, because you’ve never seen me this way with anyone before.”

“And what way is that?”

“In love,” I answered.

“In love,” Shelly repeated and then pushed herself away from the table. “Well, Maddy, me seeing you with her is something that will never happen. Do you wanna know why that will never happen?”

“I know why you think that will never happen, but that’s where you’re wrong.” I stared at her and said, “I’m just gonna come out and say it. I think she’s real.”

Shelly took a deep breath and pored over her food. “Maddy, Maddy, Maddy. What are you saying? This is crazy! I’m back to thinking these dreams are about your mom, because this is way beyond not getting laid. You lost a woman you loved, you miss her, and now you’re trying to replace all those things you miss about her with this other woman.”

Shaking my head, I said, “If this was just about me missing my mom, then why wouldn’t I just dream of my mom? There’d be no reason for this woman to be in my dreams if it were just about my mom.”

I watched a look of frustration cross Shelly’s face as she ran a hand through her hair. “You said you were at your dad’s today. How’s he doing?”

“Wow, that was a very obvious subject change,” I pointed out.

“I’m sorry, Maddy, but I’m having a real hard time digesting this food and your dreams at the same time. I need a fucking break.”

“Fine, but don’t use my dad as an excuse to change the subject.”

She touched my arm. “I’m serious. How’s he doing?”

I looked at her. “He’s desperately lost without her, and I don’t know how to make him better. Of course, I knew it would be hard for him to move on, but I thought eventually he would.”

“Maddy, it’s only been eight months. Give the man some time.”

“But he’s only getting worse. She was the love of his life, and he can’t live without her. Until I started having these dreams, I’ve never experienced that kind of love before and what it felt like to have someone to come home to, or someone to comfort you while you cry in their arms and take care of you when you lose your mom to cancer. The love he misses is the love I have with this woman.”

Shelly kicked the chair out from underneath her and came toward me. “What are you saying?” she yelled. “That you love this woman the same way your father loved your mom? Madison, that is ridiculous. It is not the same!”

I shoved myself away from the table and stormed across the room. “Maybe not here, in real life, but in my dreams it is! We were married! I saw the picture of us. We had a life together. We’d known each other a long time. I can feel it. Hell, my brother graduated from the academy eleven years ago, and she was in the pictures! Eleven years ago!” I stopped and took a deep breath. “If you could see these pictures, you’d understand. It isn’t just about the mere fact that she was in them, but it’s about how close she looked with my family. She was a part of my life.”

Shelly cocked her head and gave me a challenging look. “So you’ve known each other for a long time, you and this woman in your dreams. The two of you shared some great life together, yet you don’t even know her name. Madison, real people have names.”

If you like what you’ve read so far, you can purchase my book for only $2.99 on Amazon at the link below.

Thank you!

http://goo.gl/IKQWJ7

Love Won Today

Keep in our hearts today all those who have passed never knowing their love was equal. Never again will a gay person worry they will be denied at the bedside of their dying partner. Never again will a gay person lose their home because they have no inheritance rights. We are now protected. Gay marriage is now simply marriage.

Embedded image permalink

I don’t own the copyright to these images. If it breaks any copyright laws, I will take them down.

And Then She Lived Happily Ever After

I heard a story of a woman who loved a man and believed that man loved her, too.

She believed his love was the kind of love that would never falter, was without any condition, and he would love her always.

Forever.

No matter what.

She believed he would protect her, without regard for his own safety, because he couldn’t bear to realize a life without her.

She believed he wanted to be with her always, and if she ever went away, he would long for her, and wait for as long as she took to walk through the door.

And he would be there.

Waiting.

She believed he wanted to make her happy, and her happiness was his happiness, because he loved her that much. And when she cried, he’d soak up her tears. And when she needed to talk, he’d listen patiently. And when she desired nothing but his body close to hers, he’d lay still beside her and never try to move away.

She believed he loved her this way because she’d read all the books -every Cinderella-like fairy-tale- when she was a little girl, and that’s what she wanted.

Her Prince Charming.

And she believed she had found him, until he proved she hadn’t.

She cried most nights, and every time she was alone, because she knew her life didn’t match the stories she had read.

Then one day she stopped crying, and she let the man who didn’t love her go.

Despite the heartbreak and disappointment, she was determined not to lower her expectations. She still wanted the fairy-tale ending she remembered so well.

She prayed that the next time she fell in love, her recipient would be deserving of her devotion.

She got lonely while she waited for her Prince Charming to come. She went to a shelter and brought home a shaggy dog that wagged his tail every time he looked at her.

She loved him right away and believed he loved her, too.

This time, she was never proven wrong…….

And she lived happily ever after.

“Helen” — A Woman I didn’t know, but I Wrote A Blog About You.

An eighty-five year-old woman has died. Maybe those words don’t scream tragedy because she was eighty-five. The assumption may be that she had lived a long life, and age finally got the better of her. But this old woman didn’t die in a lonely nursing home. Nor did she lay sickly in a hospital bed until family decided it was time to end her suffering.

No.

This eighty-five year-old woman died while trying to beat a train. Killed, as she scurried across train tracks…with a train fast approaching. Surveillance video captured the incident, and I can’t fathom watching what occurs on that tape. I’d wish for supernatural powers that could teleport me to that moment so I could whisk the old woman away, seconds before her imminent death.

But I can’t. Nobody can.

I think about her life, her eighty-five years, and all the historical events she lived through. The paper identified her real name, but I’ll call her “Helen”.

Helen would have been born in 1930, the year after the stock-market crash that devastated the country and sent it into a deep recession, occurred. With little or no protection from the federal government, the 1930’s became known for the Great Depression. *Over fifteen million Americans (one-quarter of workers) were unemployed. *Nine thousand uninsured banks closed, and took over 2.5 billion dollars in deposits with them.

For many, standing in breadlines was the only way they would eat.

Helen survived the Great Depression.

In the 1940’s, Europe was invaded by Nazi Germany. A war was started, and over *60 million people were killed worldwide.

Helen survived World War II.

In the next decade, she witnessed the fear of communism spread across the country. She lived through Sputnik. The Korean War. The beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Segregation. Martin Luther King. She saw Elvis Presley shake his hips.

She lived through the riots and the turmoil of the Sixties. A President, a Civil Rights leader, and a Senator assassinated in the same decade. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Vietnam. Woodstock. She saw the first man walk on the moon.

She lived a long life, but it could have been longer. I didn’t know “Helen”, but when I read the part of the newspaper about her death, I was stopped. I thought, “What was it that an eighty-five year old woman was in such a hurry to get to that she tried to beat a train?” At 85!

At that moment, I tried to picture her life, and how she could ever have imagined it would end this way. There’s no way she could have. I have no idea what, if any, hardships Helen struggled to overcome in her life, but dying that way, at that age, feels like a long way to come to go down like that.

I pray that she has found peace.

*credit to History.com for the stats.

photo courtesy by freedigitalphotos.net

Do You Play Favourites?

My Favourite Book

by Carol Browne

I keep few books in my house. I prefer to pass them on to my friends. However, there is one special book I will never part with and that is my 1945 hardback edition of Precious Bane by Mary Webb.

The book features an introduction by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, written at 10 Downing Street in 1928, in which he says of the author, “Her sensibility is so acute and her power over words so sure and swift that one who reads some passage in Whitehall has almost the physical sense of being in Shropshire cornfields.”

First published in 1924, Precious Bane tells the story of flawed heroine, Prudence Sarn, whose ‘hare-shotten lip’ means that as far as her neighbours are concerned she is cursed with ‘the devil’s mark’. It is only weaver Kester Woodseaves who can see beyond this disfigurement to the true beauty of Prue’s soul.

Prue’s goodness and gentle nature are in sharp contrast to her brother Gideon’s ruthless striving for worldly success, and descriptions of the landscape that sustains them are woven into the dramas of their lives to create a rich tapestry. Thanks to the author’s skill with words, it is safe to say that Nature is not merely a background to the story but also seems to be a character in it too. The narrative is, says Prue, “the story of us all at Sarn, of Mother and Gideon and me, and Jancis (that was so beautiful) and Wizard Beguildy, and the two or three other folk that lived in those parts…”

How to describe the style of the book? It depicts a rural England around the time of Waterloo (1815), a place of meres, country lore, dragonflies, looms and spinning-wheels. There is a fair scattering of dialect words (fascinating rather than baffling!) and curious customs such as ‘sin-eating’ and ‘telling the bees’. It is reminiscent of Larkrise to Candleford, had it been penned by a committee of authors that included Thomas Hardy, Dickens and Emily Bronte. It is a book to relax with and savour. The pace was slower in 1924 and they liked their paragraphs LONG! But the story is well paced, the heroine immensely likeable, and there’s plenty of dramatic conflict and jeopardy to keep you hooked throughout.

I have read this book many times and, having just opened it and looked at the first line of Chapter One – “It was at a love-spinning that I saw Kester first”, – I know I am going to read it again very soon! (If you want to try this book, please don’t spoil it for yourself and look at the last page. The ending is perfect!)

Mary Webb née Meredith was born in the village of Leighton on 25th March, 1881. She and her husband worked as market gardeners for a time and had their own stall on Shrewsbury market. She wrote five novels and a volume of essays on nature. Mary died on 8th October, 1927 and was buried in Shrewsbury.

Authors die but they are never forgotten. They live on in the work they leave behind. As Mary Webb said herself in her Foreward to Precious Bane:

“We are to-morrow’s past. Even now we slip away like those pictures painted on the moving dials of antique clocks – a ship, a cottage, sun and moon, a nosegay. The dial turns, the ship rides up and sinks again, the yellow painted sun has set, and we, that were the new thing, gather magic as we go. The whirr of the spinning-wheels has ceased in our parlours, and we hear no more the treadle of the loom, the swift, silken noise of the flung shuttle, the intermittent thud of the batten. But imagination hears them, and theirs is the melody of romance.”

~Carol

Carole Browne writes speculative fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is also a ghost blog writer, proofreader, copy editor, and copywriter. Along with a passion for gardening, Carol is an avid animal lover. Stay connected with Carol on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCarolBrowne?ref=stream&hc_location=timeline