Archive | August 2013

Have You Ever Had to Get Ready for Christmas in September?

Aug31

If you’ve ever done crafts for arts and craft shows, or created gifts for friends and family, then Christmas has to come early! Or if you write books, like right now, I’m writing A Highland Wolf Christmas, and it’s 103 degrees out!!! And at 7 pm last night, it was 102 still. Then, I have a Christmas release coming early–Sept 24, so another reason to think Christmas… Early. I used to write Christmas short stories for magazines also, and the same thing. I’m writing them 6-9 months ahead of time and it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.

And last year, I visited my son and daughter-in-law for Thanksgiving and got their presents early because my son had to deploy on a mission with the military, but then they canceled it and so they had Christmas early! So all kinds of reasons to have to move up the date a bit!

Here is one of my Christmas Santas I create. Notice no snow in the background? Well, if I waited for snow… you’d never see a picture of him!

Christmas Bears

Santa Bear

I always shake my head when I shop in the stores and start to see the fall fashions–when it is 103 degrees out! I understand somewhere in the world it’s getting to be fall, but not HERE. Which is why I wrote that about Deidre in Bound by Danger when she was buying a swimsuit on sale, and already the fall season was upon them, but she was swimming in the heat at the pool, because the fall season wasn’t about to come anytime soon.

A SEAL Wolf Christmas

A Christmas paranormal romance with the hot combination of a sexy Navy SEAL hero with werewolves, from USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear.

At this time of year, I’m always hoping we’ll get rain to cool off the horribly hot days–while I’m writing about snow and the chilling cold. But the good part about A SEAL Wolf Christmas releasing early is that you can read about all that delightful snow way before you get any!

So do you ignore that the holidays are coming? Excited? Indifferent?

Bjornolf and Anna are not into Christmas… but you can just see what happens when they have to play husband and wife and decorate for the holidays. 🙂

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

An Author’s Life Can Be Just Plain Boring

Aug30

Like everyone else, I had to stop what I was doing and do the laundry, wash the dishes, and all that mundane stuff. Yesterday, I was cutting up PVC with a branch cutter (the pipe was coming out of the outdoor wall and no longer used) but it was banging against the house whenever high winds were coming from a northerly direction. So talk about things going bump in the night!

Then I had to plug up the hole because I can hear buzzing in the walls–hornets. And they keep getting into my bedroom and buzz around my head at night. Okay, so talk about BIG mosquitoes–only they aren’t. And they sound like an airplane when they fly overhead. When you’re trying to sleep.

Then I was out watering in the middle of the night because that’s the only time we’re allowed to water–water restriction 2 nights a week. That’s from 9 pm to 1 am, and guess what? It’s pitch black out there by 8:45 pm. What if I run into a thirsty skunk? I have before. Or what if I run into a thirsty rattlesnake?

Or heck, what if I just walked into one of those giant yellow and black zipper spider’s webs…and he’s in the middle of it???

Yep.

See? Life is just plain boring–until I’m stuck in a cave with Niall MacNeill and we’re trying to find a way out before the bad guys get us. Or I’m sticking him with my pitchfork because he’s slipped into my bed in my croft…when he doesn’t belong! Just a hint here–a shepherdess wielding a pitchfork is no match for a Highlander wielding a big sword. 🙂

That’s why I write. An author’s life can be downright boring. Until we liven it up a bit with those sexy heroes and lots of fantastical conflict.

And here’s the new cover for the first book in The Highlander’s series: Winning the Highlander’s Heart!  I love it. Do you?

Winning the Highlander's Heart

Lady Anice vows to flee the amorous advances of King Henry I, and return to her home in the Highlands, where she hopes to find a laird to wed, when she learns her staff has vanished. Premonitions of imminent danger warn her of foul play and she is certain she is cursed when it comes to marriage.

 

The king orders the Highlander Laird Malcolm MacNeill, seeking an English bride, to provide the lass safe escort and learn what has become of her staff. Escorting her home safely proves a dangerous trial in and of itself and keeping his heart out of the matter, when the king wishes her wed to one of his loyal barons instead, complicates issues further. Losing his heart to the lass means Malcolm could very well lose his head.

 

Ebooks

 

 

 

 

Okay, got to get back to Niall. He needs me!

 

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

More Audio Books!!

Aug29

The Accidental Highland Hero

This is the new cover for The Accidental Highland Hero! Winning the Highlander’s Heart is nearly done! 🙂 They’re redoing them to add the ladies. Don’t you love it???

The Accidental Highland Hero–Book 2

Lady Eilis Dunbarton’s life undergoes a drastic change with the death of her cousin, Agnes. Now she’s faced with the disagreeable prospect of marrying the man who was to be her cousin’s husband. Not by a change of contract, though. Instead, by deceit—pretending to be her cousin. But if her husband-to-be discovers she’s not really Agnes, her life is forfeit. So what choice does Eilis have but to flee?

When Laird James MacNeill’s clan rescues a half-drowned lass from the sea, there is speculation she is of the enemy clan, especially since she doesn’t remember her own name. James is immediately enticed with the lady, but his focus must remain on finding the proper bride. For if he does not wed soon, he must give up his holdings to one of his younger brothers.

Focus slips away with each day Eilis is close, and James finds himself contemplating the thought of taking her to wife without knowing her true identity.

But how dangerous would the end result be?

And what will happen if Eilis’s husband-to-be comes looking for her only to find her in the arms of another man?

Ebooks

AMAZON

B & N

And just released, both the audio books for Taming the Wild Highlander and Lady Caroline and the Egotistical Earl!

Edana Chattan senses concerns where people she knows could be in danger. When her brothers warn her they’re in trouble, she can’t convince her father to listen to her, so with an escort, she tries to locate them. Separated from her escort during a storm, she is discovered by Angus MacNeill, who is tasked to return her home. Only Edana has other notions – and convinces him and his companions to allow her to use her abilities to locate her brothers who are manacled in a dungeon somewhere.

That leads to a faux marriage and more dungeons and more trouble than Angus had ever thought possible. So why is the bewitching, fiery-haired lass making him think of marrying her for real?

 

 

Amazon

 

Lady Caroline and the Egotistical Earl

 

 

Lady Caroline has one mission in mind, helping her mother maintain their estates after her father’s death, while knights posing as the earl’s men continue to kill their livestock. But as soon as her mother wishes the earl’s intervention, Caroline has a new problem–the earl is intrigued with her and wants her to reside at his castle and serve his mother.Caroline refuses, but as the raids on her family’s lands turn more deadly, Lord John Talbot forces the issue. Caroline continues to attempt to uncover who is behind the raids, and with her unnatural ability to remember details, she intends to see justice done.

The lady may be his undoing, but the earl decides she is the one for him and no other will do, if only he can keep her safe from the danger that follows her every move until he can wed her.

 

Amazon

 

B & N

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off to write!!!  Have a super Thursday! Here, it’s going to be 100 today and 103 tomorrow. Argh. And NO rain. Keep doing rain dances, but it’s not working….

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

Summer is for… Giant Sunflowers

Aug28

sunflower just right (640x427)
My father planted the giant sunflowers many years ago, so every year I look forward to seeing them–and feel they’re like a memorial to him today. The farmer plows under the fields right next to them, and I always worry that one year they’ll disappear. And every year, I take new pictures of them.

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The wind was blowing really hard when I took this pictures, so trying to take a picture that wasn’t blurred was a challenge. 🙂

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Do you have any flowers or plants that remind you of family or friends?

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

Do NOT Feed the Alligators–Why Need a Sign???

Aug27

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Here, you go to the swamplands and there are signs–watch out for rattlesnakes, no alligators. 🙂  But in Savannah, who would think to feed the alligators???

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When we were walking through Savannah and taking pictures of the old buildings, one of the ladies pointed up at the “lady in white” watching out the window. How cool to see such a sight and make us feel as though we had really stepped back in time!

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This is the paddle wheeler we took for a night of wild partying.

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Suspension bridge cloaked in fog that night.  Cool, right?

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It’s hard to tell from this picture, but these cargo boats are HUGE.

Okay, that’s it for today. Have to get back to editing Hero of a Highland Wolf.

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Have to show him off every chance I get…and then it’s back to writing.

Have a super Tuesday!!!

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

Interesting Pinnacles in Savannah

Aug26

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Some of the interesting old buildings and statues  and memorials in Savannah. Love interesting architecture like this. Just like I love clouds. 🙂

Pinnacles seen from cemetery.

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The Cotton Exchange.

Cotton Exchange 1 (533x800)

Church pinnacle.

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Clock tower.

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Golden Dome of City Hall.

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Another lovely church.

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It was so much fun in Savannah because we could walk everywhere if we wanted, or take a free trolley car ride. And take tons of pictures! 🙂

I’m here with a giveaway!!! I’m listening to the narration of Bound by Danger for the audio book and totally forgot I was anywhere today. 🙂 So be sure and stop by! Only one comment so far–chance at a win! 🙂 http://masoncanyon.blogspot.com/2013/08/author-terry-spear-jaguar-research-and.html

Back to writing! 🙂

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

Relative Danger and the Audio Book for The Deadly Fae (book 2) Are Now Out!

Aug25

Relative Danger is now out!  The audio books for Lady Caroline and the Egotistical Earl and Taming the Wild Highlander should be out soon. They’re in the review process now, but otherwise complete!

Murder, mayhem, and family secrets abound when some beneficiaries of an insurance magnate’s last will and testament plot to get their money early. During a week of togetherness orchestrated by her not-quite-departed uncle’s will, headstrong heiress McKenna Sutherland has to team up with resort manager Thomas Hampton, the man who stole her heart five years ago, or she’ll lose her inheritance—to him! McKenna and Thomas need to uncover the villain among a cast of colorful characters who have joined them for the week, each of whom has a stake in the ultimate outcome—Uncle Sheldon’s money, and loads of it. Thomas’s job is to keep Sheldon’s faked death a secret, while he makes sure McKenna isn’t next on the killer’s hit list. With everything around them a lie, can Thomas regain McKenna’s love and trust before it’s too late?

Kobo

Smashwords

Amazon

B&N

 

And just received notification that The Deadly Fae is now available in audio book!

The Deadly Fae: The World of Fae, Book 2 | [Terry Spear]

Lady Sessily is a dark fae, an assassin, and she intends to retire and take up some other occupation so she can lead a normal life. Get a boyfriend. Visit the human world to hassle humans like many of her kind do. Attend fae kingdom parties, not as the mystery woman who is scoping out her next intended victim, but just to have fun. Until tall, dark, handsome, and deadly interrupts her plans. She is on a mission to assassinate a fae lord who is the most evil kind of fae. But when she is thwarted, not once but twice by another fae lord, she is ready to strangle him. And she’ll do it for free.

The crown prince of the cobra fae doesn’t know what to think when he hires a master assassin who turns out to be a woman – not her father like he’d been led to believe. But can she eliminate one of the most powerful queens of any of the fae kingdoms without getting herself killed? He soon rethinks his plan as he gets to know the woman he begins to think of as his angel assassin.

Audio Book

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”

DAR Cemetery–Yellow Fever Epidemic, Savannah

Aug24

yellow fever 1820, AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 152

The cemetery wasn’t very big, and there certainly weren’t this many headstones, so they must have had mass burials. Really sad.

Yellow Fever Wall, AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah (800x533)

Here was one of the walls where headstones were set in memory of the yellow fever victims. Family members died within days of each other.

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And another.

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This shows the length of the wall where the yellow fever victims headstones were set, though certainly not enough to identify the masses that died in Savannah. A hurricane had hit before that and then the mosquitoes descended on the area, infected with the virus, and then the yellow fever struck.

I’ve written a historical western romance set in New Orleans that had something similar, a ship even had been quarantined at the docks once it was learned some of the sailors had it. It’s not contagious, but a deadly flu-like virus carried by the mosquitoes. And though we still have it today in South America and Africa, it’s not curable, but prevented by a yellow fever vaccine.

I remember reading about a place in Italy that had the most beautiful lilac trees blooming all around ancient castle ruins. But the people kept dying from mosquito-carried viruses like malaria, and those ancient people finally vacated the lands and their homes. Now the area is well drained to prevent that, but back then, they didn’t have a way to drain off the water that would breed the mosquitoes.

Even with the dryness we’ve been facing, we’ve still got mosquitoes, and have had cases of the Nile River virus in parts of Texas…

Vampires might be scary, but blood-sucking mosquitoes can be lots more dangerous.

In Savage Hunger, the heroine comes down with a fever–and in the Amazon jungle, there are a number of different ones she could have caught–

Savage Hunger

(Book 1)

Sourcebooks

October 2012

In the heat of the jungle, jaguars are clawed, dangerous, and hungry for love. With hopes of overcoming night terrors and thanking the man who saved her life, Kathleen McKnight returns to the Amazon. A jaguar at heart, Connor Anderson doesn’t just protect her, but wants to claim her for his own.

B&N

Amazon

Have a lovely Saturday, and wear that bug spray! And if you’re going to the jungle–get vaccinations first!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

 

Storms!!

Aug23

I love storm clouds. I think it’s because they bring refreshing rains, break up a boring sky-scape, add conflict, and bring change. While we were in Savannah, we had storms every day.
Storm clouds AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 248 (755x800)
But even on the flight out, we witnessed some humongous storms also over Texas.
Clouds over Texas AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 001 (800x533)

Some of them were really quite impressive.
Storms over Texas, Aug 2013 (800x533)

We hurried back to our hotel while the storms gathered. They’re very fast moving so we just reached the hotel when the rains began to come down in a deluge.

AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 077 (800x403)Every day and night we had storms on and off, lightning, thunder, and had to take a taxi to reach the Pirate’s House even though it wasn’t too far to walk to, but it had just started to pour.

What about you? Do you love clouds?

And a new release! Storms in this story too!!!

Murder, mayhem, and family secrets abound when some beneficiaries of an insurance magnate’s last will and testament plot to get their money early. During a week of togetherness orchestrated by her not-quite-departed uncle’s will, headstrong heiress McKenna Sutherland has to team up with resort manager Thomas Hampton, the man who stole her heart five years ago, or she’ll lose her inheritance—to him! McKenna and Thomas need to uncover the villain among a cast of colorful characters who have joined them for the week, each of whom has a stake in the ultimate outcome—Uncle Sheldon’s money, and loads of it. Thomas’s job is to keep Sheldon’s faked death a secret, while he makes sure McKenna isn’t next on the killer’s hit list. With everything around them a lie, can Thomas regain McKenna’s love and trust before it’s too late?

Kobo

Smashwords

Amazon

Coming soon to:

B&N

 

And just received notification that The Deadly Fae is now available in audio book!

The Deadly Fae: The World of Fae, Book 2 | [Terry Spear]

Lady Sessily is a dark fae, an assassin, and she intends to retire and take up some other occupation so she can lead a normal life. Get a boyfriend. Visit the human world to hassle humans like many of her kind do. Attend fae kingdom parties, not as the mystery woman who is scoping out her next intended victim, but just to have fun. Until tall, dark, handsome, and deadly interrupts her plans. She is on a mission to assassinate a fae lord who is the most evil kind of fae. But when she is thwarted, not once but twice by another fae lord, she is ready to strangle him. And she’ll do it for free.

The crown prince of the cobra fae doesn’t know what to think when he hires a master assassin who turns out to be a woman – not her father like he’d been led to believe. But can she eliminate one of the most powerful queens of any of the fae kingdoms without getting herself killed? He soon rethinks his plan as he gets to know the woman he begins to think of as his angel assassin.

Audio Book

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com

The Living and the Dead in Savannah, Georgia

Aug22

In the old Savannah Cemetery, it’s sad to see so many had died due to a yellow fever epidemic after a hurricane hit the area. But here are some of the creatures who live in the cemetery among the dead.

Cemetery AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 210 (621x800)

There were two red hawks flying overhead, resting in the trees, calling out to each other.

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And two baby doves who wanted to take off when I was trying to take a picture of them and not disturb them too much.

Doves AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 162 (800x533)

And a squirrel who was in a hurry to reach the safety of one of the huge trees dripping in Spanish moss.Squirrel in Cemetery AAD Conference, 2013, Savannah 177 (800x398) (2)

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And here was a bird’s nest among the green leaves and the Spanish moss, perfect place for a home for the baby birds.

The cemetery was ghostly looking and feeling because of all the Spanish moss, and the story behind the deaths of those entombed there. The ghost meters were going off like crazy, of course. But that’s to be expected because the “ghost” app on the phone is meant to do that. 🙂

More on the cemetery tomorrow!

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com