Shiny Things 6/14/2018

Summer! The kids are off all-day school, though one is retaking a course in summer school. 🙄

Ranger is doing very well! We thought we might lose him in December, but adding enzymes to his food has restored his weight and I hope he’ll soon be totally off prednisone.

We took a family trip for our twentieth wedding anniversary and cruised to Alaska in the week before summer school started.

it was amazing! I gained ten pounds I didn’t need. We saw whales and glaciers and ate fresh caught crab. 

The first pic is Crab.

Second is Juneau from the top of the tram way.

Then we have some pix from the narrow gauge railroad in Skagway. It travels up through Canada (no customs so you can’t get off) then goes back. They have bathrooms in each car and it was fun and comfortable. My phone camera doesn’t do it justice. It is straight up mountain porn. 😜

After that are are pix from the ship of the glaciers. You can see how much they have shrunk.

I enjoyed  every moment! Fresh, hot pizza made in front of your face. Afternoon tea. Fine dining, talented entertainers. The jet-lag when we came back was hard (at one point it’s four hours ahead). It was cold (surprise! 🤓) and the wrong time of year for the Northern lights, but so gorgeous.

I’ve also been busy finishing up the work of my male/Male romance author alter ego Gage Lively. 

If you’re wondering who Kosei Press is, it’s me. This is my Indie project. Not many people read across genres, but this will be out in a few weeks (it’s at the formatters), so if you enjoy M/M romance please keep a look out!

Any M/M romance readers or Yaoi Manga lovers out there?

As for Chimera Book 6 draft title Her Sexy Beast (yes, it’s a loose take-off on Beauty and the Beast) I’m several thousand words in and climbing.

It seems increadible that I’m in the penultimate book of the series.

I wish I were a faster writer! I’m eager for the whole series to be out in the world. I may cry though, when I finish (full disclosure, I cried in the theater after the last installment of Harry Potter.)

(I’m not crying—you’re crying!) LOL Anybody else shed tears at the end of their favorite movie or book series?

Hope you’re having a stellar week!

 

Karin

 

Shiny Things 3/18/18-3/25/18

What’s distracting me this week?

The olympics were fun and in about a week and a half, it’s time for the World Figureskating championships! I hope I’ll be able to catch some of it, despite the Easter festivities. If you’re a fan, too, here’s the broadcast schedule link World championships

I hope Nathan Chen has a strong performance!

On a more personal note, my poor baby basenji (ok, he’s five) has an autoimmune disease and has been sick, but after much tinkering with his meds and food, he’s now gained back three pounds!

Here’s Ranger on the bottom with my vizsla, Lali. Unfortunately, you can also see the seal on my double pane windows are shot, but oh, well.😜

In other news, I dyed my whole bathroom blue. Actually, I dyed my hair blue, but apparently I can’t be trusted with hair dye.

Not the greatest picture of me, but you can sort of see the blue (and not just where I stained my hairline).

Ok, — writing. I’ve been writing a ton since the new year. I semi-finished a m/m novella (I need beta readers!) You may wonder why all of a sudden I’ve diverged from heterosexual PNR. (Or maybe you didn’t, but I’ll tell you anyway) I got big into Yaoi manga like this 

And The Dragon’s Flame (now out in paperback!) trickled out of my brain at a glacial pace, so I wanted to just write for fun to get back to my old pace.

I’m planning on self-publishing the m/m and I need beta readers, so drop me an email if you’re interested. (Karin@shahs.com)

blurb: College Freshman Seiichi Seigo is at the end of his rope. Suddenly orphaned, he’s grieving and one paycheck away from homelessness. When his best friend sprains his ankle, he begs Seiichi to take over as a personal assistant for his older brother, 26 year-old prodigy director Kei Karasawa. Things seem to be looking up. Seiichi has room and board and an interesting job that allows him to stay in school. There’s only one problem. The sexy, magnetic Kei, who seems to hate him, arouses feelings Seiichi never felt for his high school girlfriends or for anyone for that matter.
Can he stop himself from falling for his new boss?

As for The Chimera Chronicles book 6, I solemnly swear I am up to no…I mean, I’ve got a little written and I will turn all my attention back to it once I get my short projects completed. Look for a sort of Beauty and the Beast theme. (But with secret underground fight rings and circuses)

How’s your week shaping up? Gonna dye your hair a weird color? How are your animals? Planning to watch the world championships? Easter preparations? I’d love to hear!

All the best!

Karin

 

Shiny Things December 18

Our tree this year.

Things distracting me today, December 18th 2014

1. A serious message from the Authors of Soul Mate Publishing http://youtu.be/xDsabUwY_vE #kindle #books I worked hard on this homemade video. I hope you’ll take a gander! This video sucked away about ten hours of writing time What non-writing/work projects are sucking up your time?
2. Still Christmas shopping. I started early, but when I looked to see what I had it wasn’t as much as I thought. Going into panic shopping mode. This is difficult as I am the queen of indecision! How’s your shopping going? This is the first year I’ve shopped this far from Christmas. It was supposed to relax me, and make Christmas easy, but so far no dice.
3. I’ve got my latest hero and heroine inches from the clinch and every time I sit (or walk) down to seal the deal, I suddenly find something more important to do, like laundry.
Hope you’re enjoying the season!

Karin

Try to remember

In memory of Sky and Banner, our basenjis who await us in heaven.
If they’re not there, I’m not going!

Christmas isn’t like it used to be, for one, both my kids have birthdays on either side of the holiday. I’m responsible for all the trials and tribulations of buying presents and everything associated with spending the holiday at my parents’ house in NYS. (Including the worry of travelling through Erie and Buffalo on the way!)

But I still love Christmas. I love the lights, the food, the festive music, and even the cold (Sorry, Aussies. No matter what you tell yourself, Christmas isn’t the same without snow. 😉 )

Today I got thinking about my childhood and some of the things I loved best back then (besides waking up on Christmas morning to a family room over-flowing with presents.).

I loved the old black and white movie THE MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS. When I was little it was played right around Thanksgiving and signaled the start of the season. We had a channel called PIX back then, that came from NYC (despite the fact we were 5 hours’ drive from NYC). Every Christmas, PIX would have kids call in and play this game, where they had to say PIX when it appeared on the screen and then they would win something. I couldn’t take part being too far away, but the idea of calling in and winning something made me watch these kids say “PIX, PIX, PIX” as if my life depended on it.

My favorite holiday song was, “Do You Hear What I hear?.”

My favorite activity was making (and eating) cut-out cookies. We had all the colors and would try to make the angels, and Santas, boots, and reindeer look like their namesakes. (Now, I confess, I just frost everything white and put colored sprinkles on them.)

There was bad stuff, too. Our church had real evergreen boughs that almost always triggered a horrible asthma attack in me. No one ever knew what to get me for Christmas because I always asked for the same thing—a dog. (See horrible asthma attacks above) There were occasional fights, etc, but when I look back, it’s the good stuff I remember.

How about you? What were your favorite childhood Christmas activities, memories, songs, gifts? (Aussies, you can even mention the sand in your teeth. I was just kidding about the snow thing.)

Of course, being grown up does have its perks. I finally got that dog (or four. Though not all at the same time)

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Karin

 

How I Met Your Father

My handsome husband and I in the Hindu portion of our wedding.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I don’t know that I believe in first sight exactly, but I do think sometimes one meeting is all it takes. Here’s why:

Once upon a time there was a girl (ok, you got me. It’s me, when I qualified for girlhood in more than just the fan girl sense) who had joined a dating service. (I’m not the bar type, ok? I’ll get into that later) Now reading Harlequins since the age of eleven, I was perhaps a tad picky, and after a year (the length of the contract) I hadn’t found anyone I clicked with.

It was time to decide if I should just give up on the dating service and let the universe (if it should be so kind,) either send someone my way without my assistance or give a sign that I was destined to be a happy single.

But the women who ran the dating service were not ready to give up on me. There was a great guy, they said, who had been in the service almost as long as I, but he hadn’t clicked with anyone either. However, as great as he was, the computer didn’t see us as a match. He was a computer programmer from Mumbai who spent his free time jumping out of airplanes and scuba diving. I was an asthmatic bookworm school librarian who loved spending time with my family and showing my basenji. Still, they thought we might hit it off, so I agreed.

We met for lunch at Chi-Chi’s (God, I miss the food at that restaurant). He greeted me on the front steps with a kiss on the cheek and I thought, this won’t take long. He is way too good-looking to be interested in me. (If you ever wondered where some of my heroines get their self-esteem issues, wonder no longer)

We sat and talked, went for dessert at Abbott’s frozen custard, and talked some more. That first date lasted six hours and I saw him just about every day after that. Within weeks we were talking marriage and he proposed to me within months.

It wasn’t love at first sight, but it doesn’t come much closer.

So, I write Shifters and I use the mating bond. It isn’t love at first sight, but it breaks down the barriers characters have that stop them from admitting that they are truly worth loving.

Take one of my heroes (please), Ethan of Entity Mine. He’s a tortured, former abused kid, ex-Navy SEAL, virgin, alpha male who doesn’t know he’s a chimera shifter. His history is such that he would never believe Devon, a lawyer in town to re-group from a bad experience, could love him, but the mating bond forces the issue.

Excerpt: (My apologies, Pages takes out my tabs)

The angry woman paced, her
sandaled feet slapping the concrete, though he didn’t think it
could be summer anymore, but she didn’t seem to be talking
to the woman blocking his view. A cell phone, then.
Here was a mystery, something to take his mind off his
unending hunger, if only for a moment. He moved closer.
Her scent, fresh, with an overlay of cherry blossoms
and a hint of musk, drifted to him through the screen door
on the air current she’d stirred with her sharp movement. He
inhaled. She smelled like spring. His favorite season.
How strange was it that he could still smell? He’d spent
a lot of time when he first died pondering the hows and whys
of his condition. The oddity of seeing, smelling, feeling,
without eyes to see, a nose to smell or hands to touch. Bitter
hunger and thirst from an incorporeal gut and throat. He
supposed the illusion was some construct of his brain, but
how his brain still worked was beyond him.
The woman ended her call, clutching the phone to her
chest, and turned to the blonde on the step. “I’m sorry,”
she said.
As he’d figured, her voice stroked across his ears like
the rough caress of a warm, ocean wave on sunbaked skin.
He moved to study her through the screen. There was
something familiar about her, but he couldn’t put his finger
on how he might know her. Probably about thirty, she had
light, red hair and pale skin. Her brown eyes seemed weary
and sad. A streak of something gray banded her forehead,
but all it did was highlight her delicate beauty.
He felt the sudden urge to hunt down the person who’d
kindled the hurt he’d heard beneath her anger and tear him
a new one.

For more: http://www.amazon.com/Entity-Mine-Chimera-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LG4WQOM/

So what do you think? Do you believe in love at first sight?

FREE Blood and Kisses and In Like a Lion until July 2nd

Pretty please, tweet, share, etc. if you have time.:-)

I’m excited to announce that to celebrate the July 2nd release of Entity Mine (The Chimera Chronicles 2), Blood and Kisses, the book the Chimera Chronicles is a spin-off from, and In Like a Lion (The Chimera Chronicles 1) will be free on Amazon from June 28th until July 2nd!

Blood and. Kisses http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005VHL4DE/

http://KarinShah.com
The Things That Go Bump in the Night need love, too
ENTITY MINE (Chimera Chronicles 2) coming July 2014 Soul Mate
IN LIKE A LION (The Chimera Chronicles 1) available now! Soul Mate
BLOOD AND KISSES available now! Soul Mate
STARJACKED available now! Samhain

It’s a B-what now?

Thalia’s familiar spirit is a basenji. Basenjis are about the size of a fox terrier. The standard male weighs 24 pounds and is approximately 17 inches at the shoulder.
Basenjis are members of the hound group and use both their eyes and noses to hunt. Originating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, they were used to flush game into nets.

Basenji-like dogs can be found all over the world, but the basenji is distinct from these village dogs, because it doesn’t bark. They may bark a few times as puppies, but almost never as adults. For the most part, basenjis are silent, but they’re not mute and make many other sounds. Their growl sounds a bit like a rabid duck. They make a noise basenji owners call a yawn meow. They can howl and they make a charming sound called a yodel when they are happy to see you.:-)

Here is video of a red and white basenji puppy yodeling:

Basenjis come in five colors, Red and White, Black Tan and white (Tricolor, think Bernese mountain dog colors) Black and white, Brindle and white, and Black Brindle and White (we call it trindle)

So why a basenji? The simplest answer is because I love basenjis. All the things I love about them make them great familiars. Small enough to pick up, quiet, they clean themselves like cats, they have no doggy odor, they shed some in the summer and the fall and the rest of the time very, very little. They are charming little clowns.

Check out this video: (give it a second to load) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deoESC_q_aE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

And this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSQiuF2YECg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

They are not for people with very small children. If you hurt them, they will nip!
But for respectful older children and adults they are fantastic companions.

Check out the interstellar support crew and furry familiars page to see Sky and Banner my late red and while basenjis. And scroll down to see my brindle puppy, “Ranger.”