Home Articles posted by KD Sarge (Page 13)

Grave Touched

Book 2 of the Fey Touched series. Fey Touched, book 1, is ON SALE for $.99 for a limited time!  Fey Touched – humans, genetically engineered for immortality and flight, tasked with protecting the rest of the world from rogue Fey… Grave Touched – dead souls in search of living bodies to possess, especially those who’ve had a brush with death…  When Fey Touched Hunter Emily wakes up in a hospital, she doesn’t know that she was in fact dead. Nor does she know that her lover, Nick, broke all kinds of rules to bring her back. But the grave touched do.  Fey Touched Healer Asha does know that her mate, Joe, saved her when her abilities nearly killed her. And she knows the voices in her head are the grave touched trying to stake their claim. Asha needs Joe’s help again, but unfortunately she’s the only one who believes the grave touched exist.  The grave touched are plotting to take over the corporeal world, and they’re gaining strength. Only Emily and Asha stand in their way – and both are about to be possessed.  Grave Touched. Please note that this book contains explicit sex, explicit language, and violence and is not suitable for those under 18.  

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Kittens and Books

Yesterday was a rough day for me. I hurt my knee just walking and had a hard time getting my steps in. I discovered a mistake I made that could have cost my school thousands of dollars.† I came out of work to a flat tire with two nails in it–and the other front tire had a nail too, it just hadn’t gone down because the nail was blocking the air. Both had damage too near the sidewalls to be repaired. $228 later, the kind gentlemen at Discount Tire had put me in their long queue to put two brand new tires on my car. As I sat down to wait the estimated ninety minutes, the pharmacy called to say that my daughter’s prescriptions weren’t covered.* Did I want to pay cash?

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Accountability

On Saturday, March 14th, at a quarter to six in the morning, I changed out of my pajamas and into the clothes I would wear to drive from Tucson, Arizona to Dana Point, California. Unfortunately as I did, I changed from my blue flannel shirt to my red one, and left my new Fitbit Zip attached to the blue shirt. Which I then flung across my bed before packing up my car and herding the family out the door for possibly our most highly-anticipated vacation ever. What I did, basically, was shoot myself in the foot for the next four days as far as my fitness goals went.

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Technological Advances

  Technology is great. The advances in the medical field alone, in the last ten years… Okay, but this isn’t about that. In my humble opinion, technology isn’t just for making things happen faster and supposedly (often) better. Technology is fun. I am certainly one to hop on any interesting-looking technology train when it comes along. I’m not an “early adopter,” though. Usually I don’t jump on the the little push-car that gets that train started. I wait till mid-train when things are moving a little slower and the cost is a little less. Yeah, I’m not sure that metaphor works as well as I’d hoped. Recently I wrote about getting a smart phone. I dragged my housemate into the 21st century shortly thereafter, and she is still muttering about those darn kids and her lawn. But I see her internetting on the go, and I know she reads books sometimes, and we sure text a lot more now that she gave up the flip phone… And me? I’m still having fun. Since I wrote that post, I have found some more awesome apps.

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2015 – The Year of Balance and Finishing Things

  The library in my elementary school was half the size of a classroom, but as full of books as they could make it. Still I’d read nearly every book in it before I escaped to middle school and more books. In middle school and high school, I read a book a day most days. I read through the middle school library in just over a year, and the kind librarians let me into the high school section early so I wouldn’t starve for books. On a rare trip to the county library I looked like a contestant in one of those “all you can stuff in the cart in ten minutes” contest winners. When I got home I always needed help with my stack of treasure—especially since I was generally eyebrows deep in the first book while I tried to carry the rest. In those years, pretty much if I wasn’t reading, I was writing. I had an old electric typewriter on a table in my room, and a bunch of notebooks for when I needed to hide somewhere else (and a 35-acre farm full of places to do the hiding!) and I loved to write the stories that I couldn’t find to read. (Stories I can now identify as self-insert Hardy Boys fanfic? Yeaaahhhh…there might be a reason that stuff wasn’t in the library.)

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Yay. Sparklies.

  Tis the season for sparkly cat vomit. (Cats + Tinsel. You do the math.) It’s the season for my 16yo to prance around the house like a velociraptor in a Santa hat saying “Chrisssstmmaaaass…” “Child, did you put the dishes away?” “Chrissssttmaassss…” “Did you feed the cat?” “Chriiiiiisssstmassss…” “Do you want some gravy?” “Chriiiiissssssttmmmmaaasssss…” It’s the time my inner Evil comes out, as I wrap the three new videogames that are cool but not what she asked for in the same wrapping paper (no disguising box either, she KNOWS those are games), and then hide the game she begged me for in the very bottom of the only gift bag, with another present on top so she’ll be more surprised when she finds it. It is, alas, the time of year when I run out of holiday spirit well before the holiday. It doesn’t help that I’ve been sick for a week and my 16yo is currently down an excellent impression of a seal. 

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Writing the Wrongs

  I had a plan for this blog post. I don’t remember what it was. Last night’s events in Missouri have left me saddened, outraged, and deeply distressed. I can’t talk lightheartedly today. In this world, we’re not supposed to hit people. We’re not supposed to react with violence to the hate and harm piled on us. And I get it. I do. Anything that can be solved with violence can be solved better and faster without it, if people are willing to try. And we need to be willing to try. Or it just gets worse. I know that. But sometimes, man…sometimes the need to just hit someone is pretty darn strong.

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Introducing Even the Score

  One, two, three, How many will my victims be? One, two, three, four, How many more to even the score? When Taro Hibiki leads a survival class into the backwoods, he has two goals: to prove himself as an instructor, and to propose to his beloved Rafe before he loses his nerve completely. In the wilds might seem a strange place for that, but it’s where Taro feels most at home—and the only place the couple can escape all their other responsibilities. BFR’s colonists claim the name stands for “Big Effing Rock,” and boast of their planet’s dangers. Yet more treacherous than sight-scamps or bomb bugs is a human seeking vengeance. Soon Taro’s students are dropping one by one, and no matter what Taro does, the killer stays a step ahead. Worst of all, Taro suspects the students are targets of opportunity—that the ultimate goal is Rafe. Taro would die for Rafe in a heartbeat, but who’s going to take care of Rafe if he does? As it happens, the killer has a plan for that, too. Even the Score will be available December 1st from Turtleduck Press. It takes place two years after the events of His Faithful Squire. Find a chronology of the Dream’verse here. § Trust Rafe to set the scene perfectly. We huddled in the deepest, narrowest part of a canyon called Fools Rush In. Sharp grey cliffs rose all around. Rafe the Victim lay in a tangle of rocks at the base of a blank…

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Even the Score

A novel of the Dream’verse One, two, three, How many will my victims be? One, two, three, four, How many more to even the score? When Taro Hibiki leads a survival class into the backwoods, he has two goals: to prove himself as an instructor, and to propose to his beloved Rafe before he loses his nerve completely. In the wilds might seem a strange place for that, but it’s where Taro feels most at home—and the only place the couple can escape all their other responsibilities. On BFR, proud colonists say the name stands for “Big Effing Rock,” and brag about their planet’s dangers. More treacherous than bomb bugs or sight scamps, though, is a human seeking vengeance. Soon Taro’s students are dropping one by one, and no matter what Taro does, the killer stays a step ahead. Worst of all, Taro comes to suspect that the students are targets of opportunity—that the ultimate goal is Rafe. Taro would die for Rafe in a heartbeat, but who’s going to take care of Rafe if he does? As it happens, the killer has a plan for that, too.  

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On a Higher Level

  I saw that on Tumblr the other day—the writer knew she was an adult, but she needed help from a higher-level adult. It resonated. A lot. I don’t think I’m particularly bad at being an adult. I pay my rent, maintain my car, and mostly keep my kid out of major trouble. But I don’t really feel like…a higher-level adult. I mean, I’ve been adulting for more than twenty years and I still can’t make myself keep my bedroom neat. I like it neat—I just don’t always keep it that way. And writing. You’ve read Siri trying to find ways to write more. You’ve heard from Erin and Kit when they don’t get enough writing in. Well, I’m with them. It may look like I produce, but I know that I spend way too much time not writing. So I’m trying to organize my life. To level up. To get my stuff together. I mean, if I can learn to think of doing the dishes and keeping up on the litterbox as grinding, maybe I can make this work.

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