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Month: March 2018

Sun Touched

a free serial story set in the Fey Touched universe by Erin Zarro Part 3 Get caught up: Part 1 | Part 2 Part 4 | Part 5 DAY ONE – CONTINUED I didn’t sleep that night. I heard Ry moaning, tossing, and turning on the floor and I did nothing. I didn’t know what to do. I was beginning to feel sorry for him. Which was probably his plan. Wear me down until I agreed to heal him. But I simply couldn’t. It would mean excruciating pain and suffering for me. And if things were different, maybe I’d consider it. But he was a rogue. But he claimed that he didn’t choose to turn. That it was somehow forced on him. I had never heard of that happening, ever. So, was it possible, or was it a lie? Ry cried out, and I couldn’t ignore him any longer. I kneeled by his side. “Are you in great pain?” Ry’s hand cast about, and I took it in mine. “Feels like ants are crawling inside my skin. They won’t leave me alone.” “I’m sorry.” “You don’t sound sorry,” Ry said, disgust in his voice. “You’re an exalted Hunter of rogue Fey. You couldn’t possibly lower yourself to help someone in need.” My blood boiled. “Listen! It’s not about lowering myself! I can’t do it, okay? I’m weaker than I look.” The last was a whisper, but he’d heard me. “You’re right, Ivy. You’re weak and cowardly and I wish I…

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KD’s Kitchen Adventures

Often when making small talk with friends and acquaintances, I tell people that I don’t cook. It’s just easier than admitting the truth–that I can cook, and when I have a good clear recipe or some experience with what I’m doing, I can actually cook well. Most of the time, though? I just don’t. I mean, effort. And then you do, and there’s dirty dishes! And people who say they want things like ribs and then you put all the effort and time into making ribs and they don’t eat them. (looking at you, my child…) There are, however, bunches of reasons to cook one’s own food. Health, for one–pretty much anything you make at home is going to be better for you than that same thing bought in most restaurants. All that sugar and salt and nasty stuff they put in there? That’s not a bug. That’s a feature. They are trying to get you addicted to their food! And it works. Oh my yes, it works. If I drive by Burger King and the smoke from the broiler drifts through my car…yeah. I love my Whopper with cheese. They are seven hundred fifty calories, but I love them. Another issue, of course, is cost. A Whopper with cheese (as if I only get a Whopper when BK lures me in!) is now what, $5? Take the family and I’ll spend $25-30 easily. For that I could buy all the fixings for a meal at home, and still have…

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Forty-two: the answer to life, the universe, and everything

So, next Tuesday, March 27th, I will be forty-two years old. To this I say: Wut is this madness? I was JUST twenty last year! No, I haven’t done any time travel shenanigans. I just can’t believe how much time has passed since my twenties. When I was twenty, forty seemed decades away. Millions of years, really. A really long time. When I was thirty, I was definitely creeping up there. But it still felt like an eternity. When I turned forty, I really didn’t feel any different. Forty is the new thirty and all that. But now…I must confess…I feel older. It could be that I have been coping with chronic illness for many years. It could be that I divorced my ex-husband when I was thirty (how’s that for a birthday pressie?). Or it just could be the realization that gee, I graduated college TWENTY YEARS AGO. Gulp. Yep. I have done a lot, though. No doubts there. But when I think of my life then and my life now, it’s eerie because I have completely changed in almost every way since my twenties (except my hair. That hasn’t changed at all). For example, in my twenties, I didn’t really care about health stuff. I was thin, I could eat anything I wanted, and health problems were clearly for older people. But then I was hit with severe anemia (the worst my doctor had EVER seen) when I was twenty-two and I also was in a car accident…

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Life!

Oh, friends, I had such plans for yesterday. I was going to go to the gym and do some cycling, because I’d like to do a triathlon this year (though I haven’t found one to do, because so far I have conflicts for all of them). And then I was going to spend a ton of time working on a chapter to send to Siri. Instead I snapped something in my hand and spent four hours at the hospital. And then I came home and mopped the floor, like you do. (I have done triathlons before, the last one in June 2016. I came in 4th and was hoping to try again this year and possibly make the podium, but alas, timing.) (Also I felt like I had to do something productive after not doing anything for four hours, and mopping seemed the least likely thing on my list to hurt my hand.) Doesn’t this always seem to happen? You make plans and life comes along just to laugh at you. I mean, normally the big plans are okay. Maybe because you spend so much more time preparing them. But the daily plans, yikes. It’s an argument against procrastination, if nothing else. And the good news is that my hand is not broken and will probably be fine in a week or so. And the splint I have to wear until then isn’t too itchy. How are you? Things breaking your plans too?

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Ooh, Shiny! The Art of Learning New Things

Late last year, I accidentally started learning the guitar. I didn’t mean to. See, we were cleaning up for the holidays, and my spouse’s guitar has been sitting on a stand in the corner of the living room, looking decorative and getting dusty. He picked it up to dust it and ended up plucking away on it, for the first time in a couple of years. Then I stole it and started plucking away on it. Then we started looking up chords for Christmas songs so we could sing and play together. Four weeks later, I bought my own guitar. Of course, a month after that I got hit by this year’s Death!Cold and have had no energy to practice until just these last few days. But in the intervening time, I built my calluses, learned all the common chords, can muddle my way through a couple of songs, learned the blues scale, and am working through some basic bluegrass stuff. It’s intoxicating, learning a new thing. Last year it was French. Spouse and I decided to brush up on our rusty high-school French, mostly by way of reading Harry Potter et la Chambre des secrets out loud during our commute. It worked surprisingly well. We got to the point of carrying on conversations with each other, and just barely making ourselves understood during a trip to Montreal, before running out of steam. But I haven’t lost everything. I’m still quite a bit better at reading French, and slightly better…

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In the Forests of the Night

    Seize the Fire Book 2 As a Keeper-Apprentice, Hiro Takai followed his master everywhere. The adept Eshan Kisaragi taught him swordcraft and spellcasting and demon-fighting, but it was only after Hiro’s Kindling that he learned what Eshan couldn’t teach him. Such as what could go wrong in a ritual that tied the soul of a human mage to a creature of elemental power. Or how quickly the Keepers could turn on their own. Damaged and dangerous, Hiro fled, seeking the one person he knew would help—his teacher and his beloved, Eshan. Now, though—Hiro found Eshan, in the midst of a battle he could not win and would not lose. Now Eshan’s body lives but lies withering, while his soul clings to the elemental tiger…somewhere. Hiro can feel it to the south, in lands his studies never reached, where demons are unknown but spirits walk the paths of the Forests of the Night—and sometimes wander out. Hiro has one chance to save his beloved. If he can find the tiger, if he can retrieve Eshan’s soul before his body fades, a way may be found to make his master whole. With a failed priest and a possessed boy as guides, with a mad phoenix in his soul and a growing understanding of just how little he knows of magic, Hiro will follow wherever the tiger leads. As Hiro searches for his lover’s soul, Eshan, more than half-mad from the sundering of his being, meets a child fleeing both his…

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