Slip Into Summer Contest

Slip Into Summer Contest!

If you’d like a chance to win a print copy of Summersville Heat, which contains the first two books of the Summersville Secrets series, Annabelle Lee and Heat Wave just go to my Website and click on the “contest” page for details on how to enter.

Veterans 2: Nothing to Lose available in print & TRS Round 3 voting open

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

I'm hoping someone spots it in a store soon! It can be ordered from most stores with the title and handy dandy ISBN: 9781596326750

Round 3 voting is open at the TRS Diva competition.

Mechele Armstrong aka Lany of Melany Logen
http://www.mechelearmstrong.com/

http://www.melanylogen.com/

Gardening and Bunnies

A fine Memorial Day to everyone. I hope you all enjoy the day. Anyone else out there like to garden?

I enjoy gardening and am in the process of changing my current plot into raised beds. Well, I have a bunny nest in my onions. Last year, baby bunnies drove me nuts by eating my string bean plants. I’ll bet the mother of this current crop is one of the babies from last year, the stinker. That’s one of the reasons I decided to do the raised beds. I’ll take the fence down — it didn’t keep the baby bunnies out anyway — and lay the wire on top of the bed with the beans. Hopefully that will work. It used to be that our dog scared the living daylights out of any rabbit that dared set foot in our yard, but now at 13, he just lies in the shade and watches them hop around.

Anyway, have a wonderful day and good luck to all my gardening compatriots out there. May the bunnies leave your veggies in peace.

A new look, a chat and more

My lovely and talented webmistress redid my website. And it's gorgeous! Check out my new look. I'm so excited!

My pals, Melissa Lopez, Mari of Marissa Alwin, and I are having a chat tonight. We always have a lot of fun, so pop by. It starts at 9 EST in the chat room.

Voting has started for round 2 of The Romance Studio's Diva Contest for the best author website. Go over and vote!

Mechele Armstrong aka Lany of Melany Logen

The Wounded Hero
by N.J. Walters

What is it about the wounded hero that sucks us in as both readers and writers?

The first step to understanding this question is to ask another one. What exactly is a wounded hero?

The wounded hero is a man who’s been hurt, emotionally and/or physically. Maybe a trusted comrade has betrayed him. Or perhaps it is someone he loves who has offered him the greatest betrayal. He’s a man who had endured great pain and suffering. He can be rough and tough, or hide his hurt behind a suave exterior. But deep inside, the heart of the wounded warrior beats strong. And you can be certain he’s never forgotten the betrayals he’s suffered or his enemies.

The wounded hero has another aspect to him. He has a sense of honor. It might not match the norms of society, but it is his and he lives by it. At times he will appear cruel and heartless, but in truth, he is protecting himself or someone else by acting that way. He might come across as simple to understand, but you quickly discover he has more layers than an onion.

That’s what drew me to Zane York, the wounded hero of Eternal Brothers. He’s a man who’s endured the horror of watching his parents descend into madness. Alone in the world, he works as a cop to help keep the streets safe. Tortured by his past, he now faces his biggest challenge yet—the Dalakis vampires. In the midst of his investigation, he stumbles across Sophia Daring, who had been pulled into the twisted web of a murderous serial killer. Zane must keep her safe while uncovering the truth about the Dalakis brothers, and facing his past once and for all.

How could you not love a guy like this?

I know I can’t help myself. I think it’s the innate sense of honor beneath the cold armor that draws me in. The hint of hope struggling for life beneath the layers of despair. The story of the wounded hero is a story of redemption and hope.

All he needs is the right woman to help uncover who he really is. After all, this is romance I’m talking about and a happily ever after is a given. The wounded hero will step up to any challenges that arise and help the heroine in spite of himself. In doing so, he learns more about himself and who he really is. In doing so, he can break or transcend the pain of the past.

The heroine will have her own challenges to deal with, but that is a subject for another day.

Do you have a favorite wounded hero?

I know that the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward is at the top of my list!

Emotional~Sensual~Satisfying Reads!
http://www.njwalters.com/
http://www.njwalters.blogspot.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/awakeningdesires/ (newsletter group)
A Legal Affair—Samhain Publishing—July 15th
Jackson’s Jewel—Ellora’s Cave—July 25th

Anniversaries and how they should be used

5 PM today (Central Daylight Time) will mark the 10th anniversary of my father's death. I know the exact time because I was at his side, holding his hand as he breathed his last, as was most of my family.

Let me rush to say I am not sad about this: my father had a long and generally healthy life marred only by a week of terrible illness at the end, illness I was able to share and help to mitigate. I don't mourn him daily. In fact, I don't even think of him as 'gone'. He's simply 'not around', I guess.

But anniversaries of this type serve a useful purpose in that they mark the passing of time, allowing us to pause and look back at a benchmark or spot and say, 'wow. I've done this since then' or 'I can't believe that happened.'

In the world in the last 10 years:

• countless (and I mean that literally: I've lost count) storms, hurricanes, cylones, earthquakes, floods and other disasters resulting in millions of deaths.
• 9/11 (which changed much of how we view the world)
• a war (in progress) and others still raging (civil and otherwise)
• jobs lost and found (I was laid off and found a new job; my sister retired; my other sister had her company downsized but stuck with the little version which resulted; my nieces have since found their niches in the world)
• other deaths (my ex-husband died [no comment on poetic justice that he died relatively young]; my ex-brother-in-law died;)
• deaths avoided (a dear friend who has successfully beat breast cancer; a dear friend who survived a terrible heart attack)
• assorted accomplishments (I've seen 5 books published, have contracts for 5 more)
  

You see how 'accomplishments' pale in comparison to other events? Don't get me wrong, I'm damn proud of those books and what they represent. But every now and then it's good to step back and look over my shoulder and see where I was, where I am now, and where I might be ahead. It's an interesting journey -- life -- and death will probably be an equally interesting journey, as well. Sometimes it's nice to pause and just reflect on that.

At 5:00 today I plan to hoist a glass to my father (cocktail hour always began promptly at 5:00 PM in our house) and spend a few moments remembering family vacations, little jokes, fun Father's Days spent together, and other memories. Then I'm going to get working on making the next 10 years of memories.

Gas (damn it!) and Pictures From Ireland ;D

I promise there are pictures from Ireland below, but first I just have to say...

I am not going to complain about gas prices in the U.S. anymore. Hell, I'm not even going to whine or whimper. Why? Because I just came back from overseas and the price of gas over there is ri-goddamned-diculous!

For example, I spent $57 USD to put a QUARTER TANK of gas in a little Mazda rental car. Most folks on this side of the pond I've told this story to jump on the, "Well, it's because the dollar is weak right now" band wagon. But let me tell you what the folks over there said.

One guy told me, "Well, it's so bloody expensive because almost 80% of our gas price goes to taxes."

Another said, "Even before the dollar started takin' a beatin', I can remember paying alot for petrol. We buy it by the liter here at about 1.25 GBP right now. But it was around .89 GBP back in 2003, which would amount to more than 7.00 USD. And the dollar wasn't quite outpacing the GBP at the time, but it was kicking the piss out of the Euro by quite a bit back then."

While I was blessedly oblivious to how much it would cost me to replace the gas in our little rental, these are a couple of scenes from the streets of Dublin.

Next, hop over to www.dynamicthree.com/blog to see more pics of our trip to Dublin, Ireland and Liverpool in the UK.


A really cool billboard promoting a local theater production


This is the coolest damned bus I've ever seen. And I spent quite a bit of time behind it ;D


Shops don't stay open late on Sunday as people are usually hanging out with their families. These folks are enjoying the nice weather on a Sunday afternoon.

Happy Almost Friday!

TJ
www.tjmichaels.com