“Hey, it’s not the end of the world. It’s only your twenty-fifth birthday.”
Hearing the words ‘twenty-fifth birthday’ sent a shiver up Aurora Chandler’s spine. It wasn’t that turning twenty-five was such a bad thing, but being a twenty-five-year-old unbonded witch was as good as being dead.
Suddenly, her best friend Sandra Lennox cupped her hands to her mouth and commanded “Robby Miller! Get down from there right now!” Sarah doubted she ever would master that voice common to elementary school teachers and military drill sergeants the world over. Robbie looked down at her from the top of the monkey bars. “I mean it Robby. Get. Down. Right. Now.”
After Robby reluctantly climbed down to safety, Sarah continued as if she wasn’t interrupted. “I didn’t find the perfect man until I was your age, and look at me now.” She twirled around with her hands on her hips. “I’m happy as can be!”
Yeah, but when was the last time you saw your husband? Aurora wondered silently. She genuinely felt sorry for the couple. He’s always away on business and you never get to spend any time with him. I’m not sure I could live with a husband who’s gone so much.
“He may be away on business a lot,” Sandra said, “but there’s a special kind of bond between us. We’re always together, no matter what the distance between us.”
“Huh?” Aurora crinkled her brow in confusion. She was certain she hadn’t said a thing about Sandra’s husband aloud, and yet it was as if she had heard every word of it. Could Sandra read minds? Only a bonded witch had the power to read minds…
A small voice called out, “Look at me, everyone. I’m magic!”
Aurora’s eyes shot upward in the direction of the voice. Robby again. But this time Robby was dancing around on the edge of the school’s roof with a broomstick between his legs. Damn those movies about that little geeky wizard kid. If it weren’t for them, Robby wouldn’t have tried to fly that ratty old broomstick.
Glancing around the walls of the school, Aurora found the ladder that the painters used to reach the top of the building. That must be how little Robby climbed up onto the roof. Knowing that he could fall at any second, Aurora raced toward the ladder.
“Wait right there, Robby!” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t move. I’m coming to get you” Standing at the bottom of the ladder, Aurora stared up at the roof and felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She wasn’t big on heights, but she also wasn’t big on seeing children in her care get hurt or, God forbid, worse.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Chandler. I can fly!” He jumped up and down excitedly, his feet landing ever closer to the edge with each jump. “Do you want to see?”
“No, Robby,” Aurora called back as she placed a hand on each side of the ladder. “I want you to stay still until I get there.” Aurora began the climb. “Promise me you won’t move, Robby,” she insisted as she placed a foot on the second rung. She didn’t stop to hear his answer. She just kept climbing. Aurora didn’t realize how rickety the old ladder was until she felt it sway half way up the side of the building.
Knowing that the painters had already used the ladder didn’t do much to calm Aurora’s fears. But one look at Robby and Aurora pushed her fears behind her as she continued her climb.
Robby turned to face his teacher. “Do you want a ride on my broom too?”
“No Robby. Just wait. I’ll be right there.” Aurora looked down and saw that a small crowd had gathered below them. Mostly students, teachers and staff, but the news must have gotten, because she also recognized a few parents and other people from their small community. Now everyone would see how bad of a teacher she was, Aurora thought sadly.
But she couldn’t – no, wouldn’t - let anything stop her from reaching the child. Aurora focused her eyes on Robby as she walked slowly along the edge of the roof. Fortunately the roof was as flat as her shoes, so the journey wasn’t quite as scary as it could have been. “Robby, why don’t you take a few steps back from the roof.” Her voice was shaky with the plea.
“Buy why, Ms. Chandler? I can fly gooder if I jump from here.” He stomped his foot to mark the spot.
As she surveyed her surroundings, Aurora felt that pain in her stomach again. It was somewhere between a sharp stab and an overwhelming nausea.
Only ten more feet to go, she told herself. You can do this! Now five. Three. One.
“Bye, Ms. Chandler. See ya down below!”
Just as Aurora was about to reach her arms around Robby, the boy jumped. In that instant, time slowed for Aurora. An eerie silence accompanied the change in time. Robby’s fall was sort of like one of those slow motion dream sequences in the movies. She focused her attention solely on Robby. Her focus was so intense, the rest of the world didn’t even exist for her. Robby’s fall slowed immensely.
Aurora followed Robby’s path with her eyes and saw that he was going to hit the concrete sidewalk with disastrous results. Expanding her focus slightly, she Sandra standing near where Robby would land. An idea popped into Aurora’s mind. But to make it work would take serious magic. Not being a full-fledged witch yet, Aurora had no idea if she could pull it off, but she had to try. For Robby’s sake as well as her own.
First, she slowed time even more. Robby’s fall almost stopped completely. She then summoned all of her magical skills and visualized Robby falling into Sandra’s arms. Then Aurora shifted her attention to Sandra. Sandra had already started to open her arms as if to catch the child.
Aurora kept that image in her mind and let time speed up a little bit. Robby’s fall shifted a bit toward Sandra, but not quite enough. With another mental nudge, Robby was right on course. The young teacher continued to watch her student fall. Fall right into Sandra’s arms.
For the first time in what seemed like hours, Aurora took a breath and let time return to normal. Her senses were assaulted with the noises that came from the everyday world. But all she could think about was that Robby was safe and all was right with the world.
Looking down, the people had crowded around Sandra, clapping and cheering. She was a hero. With a smile and a sigh of relief, Aurora decided it was time get off the roof and back onto solid ground.
Suddenly, the wind blew just hard enough to shake Aurora’s balance. She realized just how close she was to the edge of the roof. Taking a couple of wobbly steps back from the roof’s edge reminded Aurora of the price she had to pay. Using that much magic physically drained her body.
A few deep breaths helped Aurora regain her composure walked back over toward the ladder. Her steps were short and tentative. With only a little difficulty, she managed to climb over the edge of the roof and back onto the ladder. For some crazy reason, she glanced down to the base of the ladder. It was then that a gust of wind blew the hem of her skirt into the back of her head.
Damn! I forgot about the skirt!
Ignoring the whistles from below, Aurora shrugged and began her descent, one tentative rung at a time. When she reached the halfway point of her journey downward, the ladder began to sway. Her pulse raced despite reminding herself that the ladder had to be safe or the painters wouldn’t have used it.
But the ladder continued to sway. The line “I think I can” from this morning’s story time kept running through Aurora’s mind. And with each step she moved closer to the ground and safety. But with only six feet to go, something snapped, and she fell to the ground, scraping her legs and arms and ripping her skirt to her waist. But the biggest injury was to her dignity, as she noticed somebody standing nearby with a camera taking her picture.
Of all the days to run out of clean panties.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Game Is On: Chapter 1, Scene 1
“Every woman should know how to kill with the first shot,” Michelle Blackstone heard from behind her. She ignored the wisecrack, remaining focused on the dark and dreary maze of hallways before her. Her heart raced frantically and her palms grew slick with sweat as she leveled her weapon, fired another round, and watched the dying man slump to the floor in a pool of blood. Once Michelle was certain her target was no longer a threat, she reached over, pulled a silver security card from the dead man’s shirt, and tucked it in her pocket. Piece of cake, she muttered to herself.
Stealthily, Michelle inched forward, keeping her slender body pressed against the black textured cement wall. When she finally reached the next hallway, she saw another pair of bulky camouflage-clad men striding toward her. Two well-aimed shots from her silenced pistol stopped them in their tracks.
The sound of a bullet hitting concrete caused Michelle to spin around and look behind her. Intense blue eyes focused on their mark, she fired, sending the guard to the floor like a floppy rag doll. She watched intently as a stream of deep red blood oozed out of the hole her weapon made in his uniformed chest. She could almost smell the hot, coppery scent of his blood. Bond. Jayne Bond, she joked inwardly.
Before she could turn around and continue her journey down the dingy hallway, another shot hit, pocking the concrete floor behind her. A quick glance in the direction of the shot’s origin revealed the head of another guard peeking out from a side corridor. Michelle pulled the trigger, fully expecting this guard to meet his demise as well. Instead, the gun simply went ‘click’.
“Damn!” she cursed aloud. Her gun was out of ammo. Michelle needed to reload the weapon, and quick! With a flick of her wrist, the gun was ready to shoot again. Good thing, too, because another guard’s head popped out of nowhere a few seconds later. Feeling confident once again, Michelle pulled the trigger. The man’s head exploded with a surprising amount of blood and gore, most of which was splattered all over the wall behind him. His collapsing body smeared the blood down the wall as he sank to the floor. Surprisingly, Michelle didn’t feel the least bit squeamish about the bloody carnage before her.
She sensed rather than felt the pair of hands reaching for her from behind. Twirling around, she managed to kick both guards under their chins, sending them down for the count, possibly permanently. She wasn’t going to wait around to find out though. Michelle scolded herself for not reacting quicker to the situation, as hand-to-hand combat was one of the quickest ways to get killed on a mission like this.
Five more guards met their maker as Michelle worked her way down the blood splattered hallway. Finally, she reached the end of the corridor where a security door blocked her way. She pulled the security card she had taken from first dead guard out of her pocket and inserted it into the narrow slot. A loud click echoed throughout the hallway, and the door slid open with a mechanical whir. Michelle made her way through the doorway, keeping a watchful eye out for more guards. They never came.
Instead, the room was completely empty except for the diabolical machine in center of the room. A metallic voice was counting. Thirty... Twenty-nine... Twenty-eight... Prominent on the control panel was a flashing red button, labeled stop. Next to it was a much smaller button with a neon green glow. Its label said simply, go.
Michelle hesitated and then felt her mother’s hand rest on her shoulder. Eight... Seven... Six... Finally she pressed the green button as the voice said two. The countdown stopped and the computer screen flashed, “Mission Accomplished. Your rating is Omega Master Agent.” That made the third time Michelle had saved the world that morning.
Michelle turned away from the computer screen to face her mother. “See?” She gestured back toward the monitor. “I told you it was too easy.”
Stealthily, Michelle inched forward, keeping her slender body pressed against the black textured cement wall. When she finally reached the next hallway, she saw another pair of bulky camouflage-clad men striding toward her. Two well-aimed shots from her silenced pistol stopped them in their tracks.
The sound of a bullet hitting concrete caused Michelle to spin around and look behind her. Intense blue eyes focused on their mark, she fired, sending the guard to the floor like a floppy rag doll. She watched intently as a stream of deep red blood oozed out of the hole her weapon made in his uniformed chest. She could almost smell the hot, coppery scent of his blood. Bond. Jayne Bond, she joked inwardly.
Before she could turn around and continue her journey down the dingy hallway, another shot hit, pocking the concrete floor behind her. A quick glance in the direction of the shot’s origin revealed the head of another guard peeking out from a side corridor. Michelle pulled the trigger, fully expecting this guard to meet his demise as well. Instead, the gun simply went ‘click’.
“Damn!” she cursed aloud. Her gun was out of ammo. Michelle needed to reload the weapon, and quick! With a flick of her wrist, the gun was ready to shoot again. Good thing, too, because another guard’s head popped out of nowhere a few seconds later. Feeling confident once again, Michelle pulled the trigger. The man’s head exploded with a surprising amount of blood and gore, most of which was splattered all over the wall behind him. His collapsing body smeared the blood down the wall as he sank to the floor. Surprisingly, Michelle didn’t feel the least bit squeamish about the bloody carnage before her.
She sensed rather than felt the pair of hands reaching for her from behind. Twirling around, she managed to kick both guards under their chins, sending them down for the count, possibly permanently. She wasn’t going to wait around to find out though. Michelle scolded herself for not reacting quicker to the situation, as hand-to-hand combat was one of the quickest ways to get killed on a mission like this.
Five more guards met their maker as Michelle worked her way down the blood splattered hallway. Finally, she reached the end of the corridor where a security door blocked her way. She pulled the security card she had taken from first dead guard out of her pocket and inserted it into the narrow slot. A loud click echoed throughout the hallway, and the door slid open with a mechanical whir. Michelle made her way through the doorway, keeping a watchful eye out for more guards. They never came.
Instead, the room was completely empty except for the diabolical machine in center of the room. A metallic voice was counting. Thirty... Twenty-nine... Twenty-eight... Prominent on the control panel was a flashing red button, labeled stop. Next to it was a much smaller button with a neon green glow. Its label said simply, go.
Michelle hesitated and then felt her mother’s hand rest on her shoulder. Eight... Seven... Six... Finally she pressed the green button as the voice said two. The countdown stopped and the computer screen flashed, “Mission Accomplished. Your rating is Omega Master Agent.” That made the third time Michelle had saved the world that morning.
Michelle turned away from the computer screen to face her mother. “See?” She gestured back toward the monitor. “I told you it was too easy.”
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
2006 Year in Review
I read 166 books in 2006 from a total of 108 different authors and 30 different publishers. With 8 books, Julie Kenner tops my most frequently read author list, followed by Kate Hoffman with 5. In third place with 4 books is a five way tie between Janet Evanovich, Jennifer LaBrecque, Kimberly Raye, Leslie Kelly, and Rhonda Nelson.
The top three most frequently read publishers (I consider each line within Harlequin to be a unique publisher) is Blaze with a total of 72 books. In second place with 20 books is HQN and in third place is Avon with 10.
In case you're interested, here are the distribution of scores I assigned to each book:
While there appears to be a strong bias toward Great and Very Good, it really isn't. Considering Blaze's reputation for publishing quality books, this shouldn't be so shocking and when you consider the non-Blaze books, I've either have read the author before and knew they were worth reading before I picked up the book or I listened to your suggestions when when I didn't have experience with a particular author and/or publisher.
When I tried to list my favorite books of 2006, I decided to group them into two categories: Blaze and Non-Blaze. I also decided that an author can appear only on one list or the other. Also I choose only one book from each author, even though several authors deserved to have multiple books selected.
Non-Blaze:
Blaze:
My personal goal during 2006 was to read every Blaze with a 2006 publishing date, which I accomplished with ease. I think I leared a lot from this exercise and I'd definitely recommend doing something similar if you want to write for a particular Harlqeuin line.
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