Seasonal Suggestions -- SIX Superlative Stocking Stuffers

1. SAARA'S PASSAGE -- by Karen Autio, new out this fall.
2. SISTER WIFE -- by Shelley Hrdlitschka, also new and hot.
3. SEEDS OF TIME -- haven't read it yet? Why not? Time travel, plague & adventure await!
4. SECRET OF LIFE -- Leonardo D as a 15 year old boy -- like you've never seen him before.
5. SHADES OF RED -- Murder & mayhem in Reformation Europe & England.
6. Steven Galloway's CELLIST OF SARAJEVO -- because I just read and loved it last week...

Happy holidays!

~kc

Stress-Free Blogging and Magic

Lots of chatter in the blogosphere these days about the toll that high-stress bloggers pay. This article in the New York Times talks about the recent death of a couple of high-profile bloggers who succumbed to the high-stress, low-exercise, 24-hour-a-day expectations that come from blogging for a living.

I would like to leap into the breach, here, and assure my legions of faithful readers that you need fear not for the health of your humble blogging servant. I don't do this for a living -- you'll note there's nary an ad to be found about the place -- and so for leftwriter -- the pressure's off. (Of course I do spend unhealthy amounts of time communing with my computer. When my son caught me talking to it today, he assumed that I was talking to myself, probably a good thing for both of us.)

***

I spent my time on the elliptical trainer today reducing my stress levels by reading about magic. Since magic is so much a part of my stock in trade, I guess it's lucky I find the subject so fascinating. Right now I am working on a re-write of DEADLINE, but it is a contemporary story and I'm feeling the pull of magic. Time travel, caves and castles, ghost stories and the lure of all things possible.

The cave in this picture can be found in the rocks behind the real-life castle I used as a rough model for Ainslie Castle in my first book, SEEDS OF TIME. This particular cave is in the west highlands of Scotland, and so startled me with its presence that I was quite unable to go inside. One never knows what will happen when wandering into magical caves...

My new Ceilidh stories will be steeped in magic. Time to dip a toe in the water again.

~kc

Snowy Nostalgia

Took this shot last week. The snow is gone now, but I loved the look of it against this old long washed-ashore beach stump. (The tiny lump on the beach in the middle of the shot is a much-hunched and fluffed Blue Heron.)


Many years ago, I sat on this beach, leaned against this enormous driftwood and wrote one of the first scenes for the book that would become SEEDS OF TIME.


This was Delaney's hiding place, his home on the beach, until he took Darrell under his paw and things changed for both of them, forever. When she crawled inside the hollow log and placed her ear against the sea-smoothed surface, the sense of beating drums, smoking fires and salt on her tongue ... all came from this place. I sat with my old Shadow dog on the beach at Ambleside and wrote the scene. Before Seamus and before Silas there was Shady-boy -- the anti-Delaney.

















We all miss him, still.



~kc