Posted by: Author | December 27, 2010

Top Moment of the Year 2010

My friend, Lynn Rush, is counting down her top 5 moments of the year 2010 on her blog http://lynnrush.wordpress.com/ and it made me think a bit over the past year and I have to say that my top moment of the year occurred on August 31, 2010.  The day started out kind of meh. I had depositions in the day job with another attorney that I have no affection for on the other side. It was with dread that I drove to the court reporter’s office to deal with this guy. The first good thing that happened was he sent an associate lawyer instead of coming himself. A cute, young man with dimples who is utterly charming and a pleasure to be around.  This was 9:00 am. So, the day was looking up.

The deposition ended at around 10:15 am.  I walked out of the court reporter’s office to find four, count them, four, plain clothes deputies. Now, if you know me well, you know that a man in plain clothes with a holster and gun on his hip will make me swoon. So, from cute, dimpled lawyer to four hot cops, that was really the cake for the day. I was happy and fairly hummed and skipped my way back to my car. Nothing else was expected to occur for the day. Just office work.

When I got to the office, I bebopped to my desk and sat down. Pushed send/receive on my email and gasped in shock- said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” My two secretaries skidded around the corner and asked me what was wrong. Nothing was wrong!! It was an email from SirenBookStrand entitled “SOLO HONEYMOON for publication”-  I HAD SOLD MY FIRST BOOK!!! And the funniest part was I’d forgotten I’d submitted it on July 23.

I had to read that sucker four times to be sure it really said they wanted to publish my lil ole story.  I had had short stories published before but this was the first full length book.  I was so thrilled, I didn’t know what to do first. I finally decided to call my awesome beta reader. What a great day. 

AND this day started a snow ball effect as, three weeks later, I sold my second full length novel and then last month, I sold a third.  So, I’m pretty happy with 2010.

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Posted by: Author | December 26, 2010

“Love on a Dime” A Review

I bought the paper copy of Love on a Dime by Cara Lynn James for my mother for Christmas and I downloaded the digital version for myself.  It’s a lovely story set near the turn of the last century- 1899- It’s set mostly in Newport, Rhode Island, enclave of the rich. There are some scenes that occur in New York City as well.

This is the story of Lillian (Lilly) a wealthy young lady that has turned to secretly writing what were called dime novels. She writes romances under a pen name as it would be disastrous for her position in society to be found out. She writes these stories to earn money to help support a charity she is committed to. She enjoys volunteer work.  She fell in love as a young woman and her fiance left her to go and find his fortune.  He didn’t feel that her parents would allow them to marry as he was not wealthy.

The story revolves around her decision on who to marry as well as how to keep her secret from society. 

I found this inspirational novel a lovely read. I liked the story line and the fact that the heroine prayed about the decisions she faced. The religion was not too much. It was blended into the story in a nice way without slapping one in the face that this was an inspirational story.  The setting was nicely described and I felt I was really there. There were also some elements of intrigue which I enjoyed. I recommend Love on a Dime for a light afternoon read- a little adventure story.

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Posted by: Author | December 24, 2010

Friday Facts- December 24, 2010- Noche Buena

The proper name for the plant I picked for this Christmas Eve version of Friday Facts is Euphorbia pulcherrima. My Latin background is telling me that means something along the lines of beautiful and good feelings. That is a very loose translation and the best I can do- LOL!  The Mexicans call this plant Noche Buena, which means the Good Night- Christmas Eve.  We commonly call it the poinsettia.  It got its name here in America from the man who introduced it to our culture in 1828- he was the first US Minister to Mexico and his name was Joel Poinsett.

The symbolism is interesting as well. The red color symbolizes the blood sacrifice of Jesus and the star shaped leaves are said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem.  

I love poinsettias. They are one of the symbols of this month where we celebrate the birth of Jesus and they are also the plant of the month for my own month -I was born in December and I feel an affinity for these blooms because of that as well as because of the symbolism of the holiday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! 

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Posted by: Author | December 23, 2010

My Christmas Card to You

Courtesy of the Partridge Family Christmas album: the lyrics to the song My Christmas Card to You:

To you and all your family, your neighbors and your friends, may all your days be happy with a joy that never ends. May peace and love surround you at Christmas time and all the whole year through. May your life be filled with sunshine, may your every wish come true, may you find a sweet fulfilment in everything you do. May your days be blessed with the very, very best for now and the whole year through.

Yep, David Cassidy a/k/a/ Keith Partridge knew a good sentiment to wish folks at Christmas.  This song was composed by Tony Romeo and I adore it. I echo the sentiment and wish for you all, all of the above.

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Posted by: Author | December 22, 2010

Wordless Wednesday

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Posted by: Author | December 21, 2010

My First Ever Review-by Monica at Happily Ever After Reviews

I was pleasantly surprised to see this, my very first, review. I’ve been very paranoid about reviews in general.  I was thrilled to earn four out of five teacups from Happily Ever After reviews.  I’m not sure if I can reprint it here but I will until they ask me to take it down: 

4 TEA CUPS: “Solo Honeymoon by Jillian Chantel is a romantic, enchanting story about these two sweet adorable characters Emma and Dario. Emma is an interesting woman with some interesting challenges in her life. She does right for going on her honeymoon to get away from her ex-fiancé. Wow, how dare he after he is cheating on his fiancé to be able to think that she could take him back for that “Oops, sorry I was not doing anything wrong”, like that is supposed to justify his actions. I applaud Emma her going to her honeymoon and making the best of her new life and not thinking about the idiot. Sure she believes that she has to move on but does not suspect that some arrogant handsome man can sweep her off her feet and make her feel like a new woman with so much passion from love making. There is something about this man Dario that taunts Emma and makes her want more but she just doesn’t realize it just yet. Dario comes off as an arrogant, cocky man that makes you just want to slap him and tell him who the hell does he thinks he is to make certain remarks to Emma who is going through a desperate time in her life. After reading more into the story you find out that Dario can be charming, passionate, adorable, heroic, but he has his own problems in life that he needs to sort out before he can think about forming a new relationship with Emma. Both Emma and Dario need to deal with their life situations before commencing a new relationship and seeing if this will even work. Dario has some secrets that he needs to reveal before it is too late and is left in the dark so to speak, will it be too late? Emma also needs to realize that her ex-fiancé will not take no for an answer, she has something else coming because he is a crazy lunatic. Read this wonderful book by Jillian Chantel and find out how these two fascinating characters in the book, Emma and Dario, find out if they are truly meant to be together after they realize that they truly love each other and it is not just another “fling” of a Solo Honeymoon.” — Monica, Happily Ever After Reviews

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Posted by: Author | December 20, 2010

Christmas Cake

This cake was delivered last week to my office as a thank you for referring a case to another lawyer. He already sent me the referral fee back in the summer so I was shocked to get this cake. I said it was as big as my head, but in retrospect, it is actually bigger than my head.  The shavings on top are white chocolate. The cake itself is a very light vanilla flavor. I brought some of it home and #2 son says it’s the best cake he’s ever eaten. High praise indeed.

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Posted by: Author | December 19, 2010

Eternal Flame- A Review

 This is book three in the Night Hunter series by Cynthia Eden. This volume is where we learn about Zane Wynter, a hyrid demon/human. He’s been a fixture in the other two books of the series and I for one, am glad we’re finally getting some insight into him. He’s a hot, sexy demon and Ms. Eden has done a good job in fleshing out this character’s background as well as telling the story of how he and the heroine, Jana Carter, try to bring down Perseus, an organization that wants to rid the world of paranormals.

Ms. Eden creates some truly wicked villains in this story. I, for one, enjoyed the evilness of Beth and Kelly. Their characters were well done and made the reader want to clobber them herself. 

I like that Ms. Eden used the myth of Perseus to name her organization. Being a big fan of mythology, I liked the symbolism of the name for a group of people who wanted to rid the world of monsters- but did they in fact become the monsters themselves?  Read this book and make your own decision on that.

I highly recommend this one.

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Posted by: Author | December 18, 2010

Silent Saturday

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Posted by: Author | December 17, 2010

Friday Facts- December 17, 2010-Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia is the disorder wherein the affected person can’t recognize faces. They have an inability to process the face as a whole and recall the features.  This is interesting to me and I think it would be a great characteristic to give a hero/heroine in a story such as a romantic suspense. Wouldn’t it be an awesome plot point to have  a character being stalked by someone that they couldn’t recognize from day to day? After all, these Friday Facts are supposed to give some writing ideas.

I  have not researched this condition in any detail and I would do so before I used it in a story.  I mean no disrespect to anyone that suffers this disorder as it must be horrible. I just think it is something that could  be worked into a novel. 

 I myself have whatever disorder that would be the inability to remember names. Faces I can recall. Always. Names, not so much.  It usually takes  me four or five times meeting someone to get their name down. I have tried all those little memory games and they don’t work.  I’ve gotten to where I just tell people when I meet them that this will be the first of five times I will be asking their name. Better to own it, yeah?

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