I was pissed. I’m an aspiring actor and my agent, Goldie McFintail, hadn’t gotten me into an audition since late last year. I was getting desperate. I picked up my phone and called her up. When she answered I yelled, “What the hell, Goldie, did my number fall out of your Rolodex? Why haven’t I heard from you in six whole months?”
“Who is this?” Goldie asked.
“Oh come on, Goldie, this is Barry Scales,” I answered. “Maybe if you’d pick up the phone and call me every once in a while, you’d recognize my voice.”
“Oh yes. Barry. Of course,” Goldie said. “The truth is, Barry, there aren’t a lot of parts these days that would fit you. And, as the saying goes, there are lots of fish in the sea. The competition for meaty roles is fierce and there are a lot of sharks ready to mercilessly gobble…
Have you read The Crimson Witch by Ashley Oliver? Now’s the time to go back and read the first two books in The Royal Thieves Trilogy before the final installment is released!
The Crimson Witch (The Royal Thieves #2)
Publication Date: September 2022
Genre: YA Dark Fantasy
She will make them pay, even if it destroys her.
The Crimson Witch is determined to free her undead army and wreak havoc on the world, both seen and unseen. Death would be too kind a mercy for those faerie traitors compared to the torment she has endured. And she will get her vengeance, no matter the cost.
Four enchanted objects, each sealed by dark blood and ancient magic, have bound her. But they also hold the power to set her free once and for all.
After being captured and imprisoned in the Black Lake, Enya and the others must find a way to undo the wicked damage done once they escape, even if that means uniting feuding faerie courts, runaway royals, and rival gangs. Deals have been made in the shadows, each at an impossible cost.
But with lies and secrecy around every turn and two more hidden relics remaining, Enya can’t be sure whose word she can trust, if anyone’s.
With everything hanging in the balance, can unlikely alliances keep the world from falling into darkness?
Fans of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, and The Wicked King by Holly Black can’t get enough of this action-packed story!
Take down a tyrannical king, give her gang a decent life, become the leader of Skeyya’s rebellion, and maybe become slightly more rich along the way.
Okay, so maybe those goals aren’t so simple. And everything comes at a cost in the capital streets of Arden; King Eamon is after her head, and shadows lurk around every corner, waiting to spill secrets and blood.
After being captured and sentenced to death in the esteemed royal palace, Enya never expected to run into three princes who need her help—and especially not ones thought to be dead for over a decade. An impossible quest is proposed; an ancient evil is rising, and only they can stop it. The Crimson Witch, a faerie demon imprisoned in the Black Lake, along with her undead army of ghouls.
Enya has now found herself caught in a web of darkness and deceit as she guides these princes and her right-hand man, Carson, on a journey to track down the magical artifacts needed to take down the Crimson Witch once and for all.
Love, friendship, and bravery will all be tested. Can three princes and a thief save the world?
Ashley Olivier is an aspiring writer based in the busy capital city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When she’s not writing, she’s working as a full-time editor with a specialty in fiction and fantasy. You can usually find her spending an unusual amount of time in coffee shops taking advantage of free Wi-Fi and refills.
She prefers matcha green tea almond milk lattes over coffee, sushi over pretty much anything, and cats over humans.
When she’s not working, she’s getting her zen on with yoga, reading young adult fantasy—usually on the adventurous side, running her bookstagram, creating messy masterpieces in the kitchen, petting her cats, and going on midnight adventures.
Ties That Bind follows their epic love story in a suspenseful tale of hidden connections, the mafia, secrets, and a dark, slow-burn romance that unfolds with delicious tension across the series. Together, can Chandler and Cassandra make it out alive? Only fate knows for sure in this unforgettable tale of love and survival.
Welcome to the tour for Obedience, a suspenseful romance by Liza Snow! Read on for more details!
Obedience (Ties that Bind #1)
Publication Date: April 4th, 2023
Genre: Romantic Suspense
🔥Teacher/ Student Romance
🔥Forbidden Love
🔥Slow burn
🔥Dark Secrets
🔥Mafia Connections
Cassandra
Growing up, I was mesmerized by a man soaring the skies. The greatest silk aerialist in the world, Chandler Moreau.
He was once my lifeline, the dream I clung to after my parents died. I’ve always believed he was my destiny. To join him at the Dreamers Academy. To perform for him.
To soar with him.
He’s more than I ever imagined. Far more than a mentor. When I am high in the silks, turning, flying, falling, he’s my lifeline once again. Twisting my heart and my body into knots like the knots of his beloved Japanese rope bondage, Shibari.
I don’t want to live without him. With each lesson, each touch, I crave more. Only he can satisfy me. And only he can destroy me…
But I must keep him safe from the past that relentlessly follows me.
Chandler
She is my protégé, the student I’ve been waiting to take under my wing for my entire career. Someone with whom I could share my lifelong journey in my family’s circus, Cirque du Lys.
I never intended to fall in love with the student I was supposed to protect—from myself and the demons that lurk in my shadows. But sometimes fate has other plans.
Cassandra, my beautiful butterfly. I know she’s off limits. Forbidden. Still, I want her in my life. My heart. My bed.
My grandfather’s taunting words still linger. Mieux vaut plier que rompre. Adapt and survive.
It’s what we must do. Cassandra and I share a history that entwines us more than the silks we’ve spent our lives mastering ever could.
There are secrets from the past that must never be told. And truths that could destroy what we’ve just begun…
I hadn’t needed to prompt her. She began, pulling herself upward, drawing those silks around her small frame as she went. Climbing high into the air as the two women began their duet. The French lyrics pulled me in every time. It was perhaps one of the reasons that while I simply tolerated most opera songs I’d heard, I adored this song.
Every time I heard it, every time I got lost in those little nuances of the language, it brought me back to summertime in Melun, France. Playing on the hills overlooking the city, lost in the grasses filled with wildflowers. Climbing into Meme’s apple trees. Perhaps the time in my life when it had felt so simple. All there were, were the memories of when I’d been happy.
And if there was any place I wanted to be, as I watched Cassandra ascending above me, knowing in seconds I would be right beside her, it was in those memories again. Bringing her with me.
The first stanza finished, and my mind immediately centered. My hands had already been wrapped in the silks without having to think about it. She paused, and I saw her attention drift downward. We fell captive to one another, and it was all I needed to see. I knew it was my turn to go to her. She was waiting for me.
In the same fashion she had moments earlier, I began my way up the silks beside hers, which had been a deep royal purple color. The entire time I made my way high into the room, I immersed myself in the French lyrics, the strings complimenting every rise and fall of the two women’s voices. Some moments, I’d lose myself in what I was doing, taking careful note of all the little adjustments my body was making. Other times, my attention drifted upward. Until finally, I was just beneath Cassandra.
When I paused again, I took a few deep breaths, steadying myself. Focused entirely on the beautiful woman above me, who was just as attentive to me. I nodded to her, signaling I was ready, prepared to follow her in whatever she had thought to do next.
At the precise moment when I had met her, she had already begun moving herself into a sailor pose above me, legs splitting, and much to my satisfaction, every single part of her in perfect position. All the small details I’d shown her the first lesson we’d had together were as pristine as when I’d helped her myself.
I would have taken more time to truly enjoy how proud of her I felt if she hadn’t twisted downward, dropping her torso straight toward me in a graceful fall. Before she’d completed it, I knew what she’d done. A Rainbow Marchenko. A famous move of Jeanne’s for many years. But watching her as she settled into it, I would have thought it was hers alone.
Cassandra’s hands dropped, releasing the silks. Dangling inches away. The only thing holding her in the air was the precise folds of those green fabrics wrapped around her legs.
Looking into her eyes as she hung there, waiting for me to act, all I could do was smile. She’d been focused, lost in her own world, but she’d come back to me. We were together again in the very place I had wanted to be with her ever since I’d seen her flying through the silks at her audition. I had dreamt about it every time since, every lesson we had, every time I’d watched her from the shadows of the theater while she practiced.
I had taken her to those fields in Melun with me, high in the trees. Trapped us both in those treasured memories, made all the better knowing she was there.
“I’ve got you, Cassandra,” I called out to her, gently. Steadying myself, my body locked in place. Breathing slow and rhythmic and calm. I watched her take the same breath as I had, waiting for the little drop in the lyrics before the next few lines began.
The moment their voices bellowed into the theater again, she let herself drop in a salto. In a gentle sweep of my body, I caught her gracefully into my arms. Twisted us together, letting the silks take hold of the two of us as we swung across the room, dozens of feet above the stage below us. Falling like two feathers locked together, dancing into the wind.
When the fabrics released us, I swung us outward. Our bodies drifted apart again as she spun around me, both of us still descending toward the floor. As beautiful as she looked, circling outward away from me, the moment she had, I wanted her back. I used my legs to give myself enough momentum to swing forward, latching on again once she’d appeared.
Cassandra had been so close I’d felt her breath against my face while we dangled above the stage. I got lost in the way it felt to be tangled up with her, a mess of bodies and fabric. Consumed by it. Convinced I might never let go of her again.
As we’d traversed the rest of the way back to the stage, I didn’t. The two of us descended together as a singular unit, just her and I and the fabrics. Improvising the graceful fall we were doing, finding little tricks and motions to carry out, all the while never leaving her side.
We’d both reached the floor, perfectly in sync with one another. I heard a gentle thump as we landed. Followed by the sound of both of our light, audible breaths. Steadying ourselves back on the ground.
Even having left the air, the silks still wrapped around us. Neither of us had freed ourselves. Cassandra was still in my arms, something I realized, when I hadn’t been so caught up in what we were doing all those feet above us, was happening for the very first time.
The sweet smell of oranges overwhelmed me. Her beautiful hazel eyes, those captivating flecks of grays and greens and browns, drowned out the world around us. I watched her breathing softly, holding her to me and those silks holding me to her.
And in those next few moments, every single solitary thing keeping me from her since the day we had met no longer existed in the little reality we were trapped in. Every fear I had, every reservation, disappeared. I tightened her to me, my hands capturing the sides of her face in a gentle sweep, as elegant as every other thing we’d done those last few minutes.
Our mouths fell together, and I lost myself in her. Trapped in those profound and so unbelievably relieving seconds in which the things that had stood in our way no longer mattered.
I hadn’t thought anything could have surpassed the experience the two of us just shared. Undeniably, it had been the best minutes I had ever spent in those silks in my entire career. As simple as it had been. And we had barely started. This was only the beginning.
But this moment now was just as wonderful. As perfect as I could have hoped.
In addition to the paperback, Obedience is also available in a full-cast narrated audiobook, starring Daniel Zbel and Rapunzaroo, along with a cast of additional voiceover actresses. Brought to life in the way the story is meant to be told, and it will be the best audiobook you listen to this year—possibly for a very long time. You’ll love listening to the two voices of these iconic characters. And don’t forget to read along with them and enjoy a fantastic, immersive experience. You’ll need the paperback copy to fan yourself off from some of the narration!
A bestselling independent author from Florida, Liza has been putting romance books into her readers hands for over a half decade, and has loved every minute of it.
Liza lives with her husband, her two dogs and her cat, ten minutes from the beach. When she isn’t writing, you can often find her walking and enjoying outside, with a coffee and a book in hand.
David was talking to his boss the other day and noticed a picture on her desk that is a spitting image of our Brody! He made a comment and she told him that her dog is a pure bread Norwegian Elkhound. We watched some videos and I think that is what he is!
We always thought, as did the vet, that Brody was a German Shepherd and Beagle mix of some sort. He was adopted off one of the trucks that brought dogs up to CT from Tennessee. Last night I bought a doggie DNA kit so I will be sending that out and we should get the results in two to three weeks! It is very exciting.
We must make-up a story in only six minutes using the photo below as inspiration.
I was busy making my granddaughter toast as a news report played on the TV in the background.
My application of Nutella to her toast became inadvertently hostile, when I heard that, producing a tear in the bread. I couldn’t help but comment.
” The use of fear as a political weapon is out-of-control. Getting what you want by misrepresenting the truth to scare people is ubiquitous these days! Do you know what ubiquitous means, Dear? It means something can be found everywhere.”
“Look Grandma! Even Goldie is trying to scare us to get attention! It IS everywhere.”
His motto was to be fearless and if something prevented him from doing that, then he was going to fake it. If he was a shark, nobody would ever bother him and he could do whatever he desired. Sharks are the ones that do the messing around with everyone else, but they seem to steer clear of dolphins, because they don’t want to get rammed by their snouts. Dolphins and sharks are often confused for one another because of their streamlined bodies and dorsal fins on their backs. If he had a dorsal fin on his back, then he could pretend that he was a shark and hope that no dolphin would come along and try to ram him.
Welcome to the tour for the highly anticipated sequel to The Pain Eater, The Magic Man by LaShane Arnett! Read on for more!
The Magic Man (The Sadie Reed Stories #2)
Expected Publication Date: March 20th, 2023
Genre: Paranormal Thriller/ Dark Fiction
NATURE vs. NURTURE
THE MAGIC MAN:
From the time he was little he knew he was different. He enjoyed pain. Inflicting it. Seeing it swim through the eyes of others. His mother suspected what he was, a sociopath, like his father. He loved hurting animals and never smiled. She did everything in her power to instill goodness in him. But would nurturing him with goodness be enough, when at his core he was pure evil? Only time would tell. Or, would time help him see that if he gave in to his true nature, he would grow to be something more powerful than even he knew possible?
THE PAIN EATER:
It’s been two years since Sadie found one of the Magic Man’s victims, Maxine Powell. With her growing abilities and her dad’s notes she believes finding the missing women is her destiny. When her health takes a dark turn, Adrian and Lupita urge her to take a step back. She reluctantly agrees. But after she starts receiving mental messages from one of the victim’s six-year-old son, she questions whether her hiatus is a good idea. If she answers his call will she find one more victim, or move closer to becoming a victim herself?
LaShane Arnett is an African American poet and author living in Southern California with her husband of thirty+ years. She is the creator of Arnett Publications and the author of The Sadie Reed Series. The first book in the series, The Pain Eater, is highly recommended for anyone who loves Paranormal Thrillers.
*****For any participants that do NOT like restrictions, please feel free to participate in any way you would like. It is great to read the contributions!****
Set up a timer or sit near a clock so you can keep track of the six minutes you will be writing.
You can either use one of the prompts (photo or written) or you can free-write.
Get ready and write for 6 minutes, that is it! Can you write a complete story? Can you think of a new Sonnet? Can you write 400 words? 400? 500? There are no restrictions on what kind of writing you do, but you should try to be actively writing for six minutes.
After you are done writing, include your word count and then post back to this page #Simply6Minutes or include your link in the comments section. Pingbacks are enabled.
*Feel free to leave your work completely unedited. I believe it is good to see, especially for new writers, that even very seasoned writers don’t write a perfect first draft.*
Have fun, challenge yourself if you’d like, read and respond to others’ posts.
So I know that many of my blogging “friends” are also published authors and I also realize that some of these works have been self-published. I am not going to ask the pros and cons of both, I think anyone that has looked into any sort of publishing of any kind knows the whole list. There is one question that I am so perplexed by because I see it so frequently…
People often ask: Should I go the Traditional Publishing route or should I self-publish?
So what is my question? Well, I have tried to submit many different transcripts to many different traditional publishing companies and I have yet to be offered any sort of publishing contract. Am I missing something? Can anyone really choose between traditional and non-traditional procedures? Is this question seemingly only hypothetical?
This may or may not make sense to anyone, as my question is vague. Please share your thoughts and comments.
Stine Writing 
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