Tova's Dragon Now Available

My new release from Amber Heat is now available. Tova's Dragon is fantasy erotic romance featuring an earth mage and a sexy dragonshifter. It's part of the Riding The Dragon AmberPax released on March 19.

Blurb:

Tova, an earth mage, rejuvenates through sex magic. She's on a mission to save her homeland, but her magical energy is running low--closing in on empty. How is she to know the handsome half-naked man she encounters is not only a condemned man, but also a dragonshifter? Talk about hot and steamy sex. And nothing is simple after that...

Kane has always loved Velosian women and their sex magic. Tova's warmth stirs his passions and her courage touches his heart, but he dreads telling her of his true nature, certain she will recoil. But Tova is made of sterner stuff.

Together, Kane and Tova have the power to save Velosia. If they survive, can an earth mage find happiness with a dragonshifter? In a land where sex and magic are intertwined, anything may be possible. 

EXCERPT #1:

CHAPTER 1

Once upon a time, in the land of Velosia, lived a young earth mage. Tova, for that was her name, dwelt in harmony with the plants of the fields and the animals of the earth. She felt vibrations in the earth and heard whispers on the wind, basked in the sun and gloried in the rain.

There was but one element that disturbed her. Whene’er storm clouds gathered and thunder rumbled in the distance, she trembled in dread. And when light flashed in the sky, she hid, for the lightning seemed to follow her every movement. The air crackled around and through her, and in her heart, she feared one day it would strike her dead, as it had her father.

In this time also appeared the Outlaw Kane, last of the dragonlords of Velosia, a man-beast who changed shape at will. Back from exile, he bided his time in his aerie high in the mountains, until the day Tova came seeking his help.

And so begins the tale of the Lightning Maiden and the Outlawed Dragon.

*          *          *

Seek help of the Lord of Drakkenberg. Only he can aid you. You must fly with the dragon.

Her grandmother’s words rang in Tova’s head as she climbed the path into the mountains. Why had Mutti Zee sent her on a fool’s errand? Everyone knew the dragonfolk had abandoned Velosia years ago, driven away by Bruno of Grimmdorn’s crusade against them. Until he was accused of putting the king and queen under an enchantment and forced to flee. Now Bruno was back at the head of a mercenary army, if Mutti Zee’s vision was correct. And Tova knew it was. She’d felt the vibrations in the earth.

And somehow it was up to her to save the kingdom.

Stopping to rest her tired legs, she gazed at the path ahead. It grew steeper and narrower the higher it wound into the mountains. She was glad she’d worn men’s breeches and a tunic with her sturdy boots. A gown and petticoats would be but a hindrance.

She raised her gaze to the sky. “Why me? I’m no hero.” But there was no answer, just clouds forming to her left. She shook her head. Now she was talking to herself, like mad Magnus, the village idiot.

Turning back to the path, she started climbing again. The castle was visible now, high on a cliff, its turrets silhouetted against the sky. For centuries, the dragon lords had resided in the castle, ruling the isolated mountain communities. People in those areas were known as dragonfolk, though Tova knew not why. True, dragon motifs decorated the doorframes of their houses, and rumor had it they worshipped some kind of serpent god.

Over the years, many travelers through the mountains had claimed to see large winged creatures flying in the sky at sunrise, and others swore they’d seen men and women change shape and fly into the night. Old wives tales, no doubt. On the rare occasions she’d seen the dragonfolk, they’d looked much like everyone else. But they kept apart, and visitors to the area were discouraged. It was all a great puzzle, but one she had no time to ponder. Too much was at stake and her chances of reaching Castle Novita in time to warn the king were slim at best.

A shadow blocked the sun, and she looked up to see an enormous bird silhouetted against the sky. Goddess, she’d never seen such a large raptor. It turned and the sun’s rays glinted on its shiny red-gold wings and barbed tail. Halting, she stared after it, shaken to the core of her being.

No, it couldn’t be. There was no such thing as dragons.

Tova's Dragon
by Lyndi Lamont
Genres: Fantasy / Shapeshifter / Fairy Tales / Witchcraft / Magic
Heat Level: 3
Length: Novella (20k words)

Buy Link: http://www.amberquill.com/AmberHeat/TovasDragon.html
http://www.lindamclaughlin.com/ / Lyndi Lamont

Book Review Club: The Breath of God

The Breath of God was recommended to me by a friend, but I didn't have time to read it all, so I asked her if I could use her review instead. Please welcome my friend Teresa Zimmerman-Liu, who is currently in the final stages of earning her Master of Arts degree in Asian Studies.

The Breath of God: A Novel of Suspense
by Jeffrey Small

Reviewed by Teresa Zimmerman-Liu:

Jeffrey Small is a professor of Religious Studies, and the book stars a PhD student who is doing his dissertation on the Issa manuscripts, which are supposed to be located in Bhutan. The book opens with the grad student, Grant Matthews, shooting the rapids in a kayak in a river in Bhutan with his guide. The rapids are a class 5; Grant makes it through with a broken leg, but his guide does not survive. A monk from a nearby monastery saves Grant and takes him back to the monastery's infirmary. The only monk in the monastery who can speak English is also interested in the Issa manuscripts, which happen to be housed in that particular place. 

When Grant emails home about his new data to his dissertation adviser at Emory University in Atlanta, the email is leaked to the press, and a group of fundamental Christians in Atlanta stage a protest. One member of that group is a former Marine, who is not quite stable after traumas suffered in Iraq. The pastor is hoping to use the event to become leader of the evangelical political coalition and wield power in the US like Jerry Falwell used to. His inflammatory sermons convince the ex-Marine that he must kill Grant. Things get really exciting when Grant has to return to Bhutan to rephotograph the texts because the ex-Marine hacks his computer and deletes all his data. The monk in Bhutan is forced by the political situation there to take the texts and flee to India. 

I really liked the book. It has a lot of good information about the major world religions (as one would expect from a professor of Religious Studies), but it is woven into an exciting story. It also shows how important religion is to world politics and power structures. I highly recommend the book.

My thanks to Teresa for the review and for recommending the book which I am enjoying very much. FWIW, FCC, we both bought copies of the book to read on our Kindles.

If you would like more background on the Issa story, may I also recommend Jesus In India, a documentary filmed in India detailing author Edward T. Martin's "quest across 4000 miles of India in search of answers about where Jesus was during the 'Hidden Years' from ages 12 to 30". I got the DVD from Amazon, but it's also available from Netflix. I enjoyed it a lot, too. 

Linda McLaughlin
http://www.lindamclaughlin.com/

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Book Review Club: Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero

When I heard about this book, I checked the local library website and saw that they had ordered it, and wonder of wonders, there was no reserve list yet, so I got my name in quickly. It arrived in mid-December and I checked it out to read over the holidays.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was one of the towering figures of my childhood, and like everyone who was alive in the early 1960's, I have vivid memories of the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination. Over the years, Jack has become even more fascinating to me, so I was anxious to read the book and I found it quite interesting.

Author Chris Matthews is a political pundit, so the emphasis here is on JFK as politician. If you are looking for juicy details about his private life, you'll have to look elsewhere. 

This is a political biography. Some of the things I learned about Kennedy are:

- Jack was the spare, not the heir, so in typical patriarchal tradition, most parental attention was focused on his older brother Joe. As a result, Jack developed an independent streak.

- His health problems were more serious than were publicly acknowledged at the time. Jack was a sickly child who spent a lot of time in bed reading. This experience made him a deeper and more original thinker. I suspect it also made him more empathic than might normally be expected of a young man from a wealthy family.

- In 1947 he was diagnosed with Addison's disease, a disorder of the adrenal glands. He also had a bad back and failed the physical to join the Navy the first time. He exercised to build up his strength and passed the second time. (A few moments ago, I read and reviewed a book called A First Rate Madness by Nassir Ghaemi that talked about Jack's health problems and the steroids used to treat him.)

- He was close to death on more than one occasion and was given Last Rites several times before becoming president. Matthews quotes a close friend of Jack's who said he was "deeply preoccupied by death" and that "quick... was the key". That gave me chills.

- Matthews talks more than once about their being "two Jacks" - the wealthy bon vivant and the serious politician. He was able to compartmentalize the different areas of his lives in order to focus on one at a time. He was anbitious and single-minded in pursuit of a goal, and could be ruthless when he had to be. 

- JFK and Richard Nixon were elected to Congress the same year (1946) and became friendly. Nixon was very upset when Jack became gravely ill. The friendship did not survive the contentious 1960 campaign, however.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and recommend it to those interested in politics and/or Kennedy. But read it now, before we all get heartily sick and tired of politics. It's an election year, after all.

Happy New Year and don't forget to check out the other reviews in the Book Review Club. Click on the graphic below.

Linda

Update: I finished the book last night and have a few final thoughts. I grew up in a family of Republicans who had no love for JFK when he was alive. In retrospect, I have come to realize what a great president he was. Matthews makes that apparent in this loving portrait of a remarkable man who accomplished so much in such a short time and at such great personal cost.

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@Barrie Summy

Book Review Club: Bewitching Season

BEWITCHING SEASON
by Marissa Doyle
Young Adult fantasy / romance 

Henry Holt Books for Young Readers

Bewitching Season is the first in the "Leland Sisters" series, though there are only two girls, so I don't know how many books are planned. The setting is England in 1837, right before Victoria came to the throne, and it revolves around the London social season. The twist here is that the sisters, Persephone and Penelope (Persy and Pen) are hereditary witches.

The first book is Persy's story. She is the more talented witch of the two twins, which comes in handy later. Persy is also more studious and shy than Pen, so the social season is a bit of a trial for her. To her surprise, she attracts the interest of several young men, including their neighbor, Lochinvar Seton, with whom she is secretly in love. After indulging in some champagne at a ball, she performs a love spell on Lochinvar, but then when he shows interest, she thinks it's because of the love spelll not because he really likes her, so she starts avoiding him which alienates her twin. (In so many ways, the twins are typical teenage girls and behave accordingly.)

The external plot revolves around the kidnapping of the twins' governess, Miss Allerdyce, a very talented witch. She has been spirited to Kensington Palace where Princess Victoria lives with her mother and the villainous Sir John Conroy, who wants Ally to help him bewitch Victoria so he can be the power behind the throne when the old king dies. Of course it is up to Persy and Pen to find Ally and free her (and Victoria) from Conroy's clutches. (Conroy was a real person and he did try to control the young Victoria though I would be surprised if he ever resorted to witchcraft.)

The characters are likable and book is well-written, fast-paced and amusing. Nothing serious here, but a nice diversion. Recommended for YA readers.


Linda 

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Book Review Club: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
by Jules Verne
Master Edition prepared by Kent David Kelly
Wonderland Imprints, 2011

Jules Verne was one of the fathers of science fiction and a main inspiration for the steampunk genre, so I picked one of his books for the subject Classics. I looked at amazon.com and found a recommendation to this illustrated edition which I read on my Kindle.

The story of Captain Nemo and his wondrous submarine, The Nautilus, is fairly well known, but for those who aren't familiar with it here's a brief recap. In the late 1860's, a large and mysterious force is detected in the oceans, one that becomes a danger to shipping. Is it an enormous Cetacean or a man-made phenomenon? The US frigate Abraham Lincoln is sent to investigate and the captain invites French professor Pierre Arronax, a well-known marine scientists, to accompany them. A collision with the mysterious behemoth leaves Arronax, his man-servant Conseil, and Canadian harpooner Ned Land adrift in the middle of the Pacific on top of their quarry. They are taken inside the submarine where they become enforced guests of the enigmatic Captain Nemo, who has no intention of letting them go. Arronax, as a scientist, is fascinated by the wonders of this undersea world, but Ned chafes at the lack of opportunities to escape.

I enjoyed the book more than I expected. It was interesting to contrast the areas where Verne foresaw technology we now take for granted (self-contained diving suits with oxygen tanks, stun guns, submarines that can travel beneath the poles) and the limits of nineteenth century science. His explanation for the cause of yellow fever was particularly hilarious (poisoned air from rotting weeds that clog the mouths of tropical rivers) though not surprising, given that the book was written in the 1860's, long before medical science had figured out the real cause.

Verne grew up in Nantes, a port city, and later owned a ship, and you sense his love of the sea and his love of science. As I read, I felt a sense of wonder at the beauty, power and majesty of the sea and the bravery of the men who explored it. There are a places where Verne's story stops as he details and classifies the marine life encountered in various seas and oceans, and I'll admit to skimming over those parts. The vintage black-and-white illustrations added a lot to the enjoyment of the book. Recommended for lovers or science fiction and/or classic literature.

If you enjoy steamypunk, check out my review of The Inventor's Companion at  Lyndi's Love Notes.


Linda

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Book Review Club: A First-Rate Madness

A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness
by Nassir Ghaemi
Penguin Press, 2011

I saw the author interviewed on The Daily Show and had to buy this book. It's political/historical psychology, but also collected biography because he has thumbnail sketches of a number of famous world leaders. The emphasis is on their mental state and degree of mental illness (or lack thereof), focusing specifically on bipolar disorder and/or depression. He includes FDR & JFK, whom he contends had something called hyperthymic personality, a mild version of mania.

Obviously, it's difficult to do psychological evaluations of people who are long dead. Ghaemi's approach looks for four aspects of mental illness: symptoms, family history, course of illness and treatment. Sherman, who was bipolar, mainly treated his condition with alcohol. Of course, that was one of the main drugs available to him at the time.

Ghaemi's contention is that a crisis calls for extraordinary leaders and that "normal" folks just don't cut it. They're not creative or realistic enough in their thinking. (Depending on the need of the moment.) FDR was hyperthymic and he was able to be creative in responding to the Great Depression. He tried different things; if they didn't work, he tried something else. But he didn't think conventionally.

Churchill, on the other hand, was a "depressive realist". He suffered from depression but not mania. New studies now find that people who have experienced depression are more realistic than "normal" people, who tend to be unrealistically optimistic. Churchill's "depressive realism" allowed him to see the danger in Hitler's Germany when all the normal people, like Neville Chamberlain, could not. Sadly, Churchill was right.

(I love the wonderful cover graphic. Here it is closer up.)

There's a separate section about JFK & Hitler and how the drugs both took affected them. JFK had good results from drugs for his Addison's disease, at least in some of the time, whereas Hitler's quack of a doctor had him mainlining speed. No wonder he was so crazy. Amphetamines make bipolar people cycle off the charts.

Oddly enough, the most disturbing part of the book was the chapter on homoclites, i.e. normal, mentally healthy people. Being mentally healthy doesn't mean being a nice person. Most of the Nazi leaders other than Hitler were quite normal. Ghaemi cites a study of mentally healthy people and goes on to explain that Nixon, despite his paranoia, was mentally healthy. (He had good, rational reasons to be paranoid. "They" really were out to get him!)

I can't say that Ghaemi is correct in all he says (what do I know?) but the argument is persuasive. I do know that I'll never look at a political leader again without trying to assess his or her mental health. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. I will look at them very differently!

This is the most fascinating book I've read all year. You can find a short excerpt from it at Nassir Ghaemi's website.

Linda

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Book Review Club: The Coffee Trader

THE COFFEE TRADER
by David Liss,
Ballantine 2004

Amsterdam, 1659: On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city’s close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has suddenly lost everything. Now, impoverished and humiliated, living in his younger brother’s canal-flooded basement, Miguel must find a way to restore his wealth and reputation.

Miguel enters into a partnership with a seductive Dutchwoman who offers him one last chance at success—a daring plot to corner the market of an astonishing new commodity called “coffee.” To succeed, Miguel must risk everything he values and face a powerful enemy who will stop at nothing to see him ruined. Miguel will learn that among Amsterdam’s ruthless businessmen, betrayal lurks everywhere, and even friends hide secret agendas.

Since I love coffee and history, the subject of this book intrigued me, and I found more intrigue inside than I anticipated. Late 17th c. Amsterdam is a tolerant city that offers sanctuary to oppressed Jews from other countries. The main character, Miguel Lienzo, is a Portuguese Jew from a family of conversos. A commodities trader at The Exchange, he was once prosperous, but is deeply in debt as the book opens. A Dutchwoman, Gertruid Damhuis, suggests that he invest in a new commodity: coffee. Miguel hatches a scheme to corner the market, unaware that he is being manipulated by others, including two fellow Jews who despise each other.

I liked Miguel, even though he's not the most honest guy. Apparently, lying is a business tool in commodities trading, at least as it existed then. He does have a core of integrity and a streak of chivalry where women are concerned, esp. his brother's wife, Hannah, who secretly longs for him. And for his coffee beans. She finds both irresistibly stimulating.

But what a nest of thieves and liars! Everyone seems to have an agenda and multiple secrets. Who should Miguel trust, if anyone?

I found the historical setting detailed and fascinating. The Coffee Trader is well-written, with complex characters and more twiests and turns than I could keep track of. Recommended for fans of historical fiction.

Read on my Kindle 3.

Linda

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@Barrie Summy