Friday, March 27, 2020

#Covid-19 #99cent #eBook #Sale by Janice Seagraves

How is everyone doing?

Just in case anyone is wondering, I'm fine and just have an allergy. I'm working on my eBooks, dropped the price to .99 cents, and found one eBook which had the paperback version started but never finished. So, I'm working on that, too.

As of now, my eBooks in the Matrix Crystal Series (four-books) and Windswept Shores (two book) Series are all available for .99 cents each (book).

I dropped the price so everyone during the #covid-19 isolation time can have something to read.

Now only .99 cents 

Windswept Shores Two Book Series

Windswept Shores part one 
Windswept Shores is back, and better than ever with a replaced missing scene. It’s something warm to read while it’s frosty outside. And better yet, there a sequel too.

Blurb: The sole survivor of a plane crash, Megan is alone on a deserted island in the Bahamas. Then she finds a nearly-drowned man. Another survivor, this time from a boat wreck.
With only meager survival skill between them, will they survive these windswept shores and can they find love?
For the first time available as a trade paperback: https://www.createspace.com/4084680
And for the Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AS9NDNO
Excerpt:
His hand lingered on her shoulder. Her trembling vibrated up his arm. Blimey, she’s all shaken up.
“S’kay, she’ll be right.” He grabbed her sleeping pallet, pulled it over, slipping an arm around her waist.
Her body went rigid. “What are you doing?”
“Relax, mate, I’m not trying to get a leg over. You need a bit of comfort so you can go back to sleep. My mum would cuddle me when I’d have a howler of a nightmare. It’s nice to know you’re not alone.”
“So, I’m supposed to think of you like my mom or dad?”
“Or like yer husband if that’ll help?” He grinned in the dark, wondering what kind of reaction he was going to get.
“I think not.”
“I noticed you weren’t wearing a wedding ring. Is it because yer husband drowned?” His heart beat a little faster when he asked the question. He really wanted to know if he had a chance with her.
“No, he’s not drowned,” she snapped. “I lost my ring in the ocean, but I’m not sure when. I just looked down one day, it was gone.”
She’s in denial about her husband’s death. I reckon it’s too soon. A little disappointed, he decided to change subjects. “So, you got any ankle biters at home?”
“Two boys.”
“How old?” he asked. They must be missing their mum, poor little nippers.
“Joshua is twenty. He’s in college. Eli is eighteen and just graduated from high school.”
“Blimey, how long have you been married to your bloke?”
“Twenty-three years this January,” she said.
“How old are you?” He positioned his head where he could breathe in the scent of her hair, and inhaled a floral fragrance. How does she manage to smell fresh in a place like this?
Megan moved a bit forward. “Do you know that it’s considered very rude to inquire after a woman’s age?”
“Not where I’m from, so spill.” He scooted up some, placing his knees behind hers.
She pulled away. “Humph, well, okay I’m forty-two.”
“You’re still spunky.” He wondered how far she’d move until she ran out of room in her tiny shelter.
“Uh, spunky, thanks.” Megan rolled onto her back.
Blimey, she out maneuvered me. Seth was forced to move back, but kept his hand on her tummy.
“You got hitched when you were a young ‘un?” He quickly did the math. She’s a bit older than me. More of a challenge.
“Yeah, I got married at nineteen, but I knew what I wanted, or thought I did. Have you ever been married?”
“Got hitched once.”
“What happened?” she asked. Her bed rustled as she shifted position.
“We got into a blue, she told me to shove off, so I left. So that was the end of that.” His hand drifted to her rib cage.
“Any kids?” she asked, pushing his hand down.
“A son named Nick. He just turned six.”
“Okay, now you have to tell me how old you are.”
“I’m an old prawn. I just had my thirtieth birthday.”
“That’s not old, especially not for a man.”
“I’m starting to feel it when I surf,” he admitted, smoothing a wrinkle on her shirt.
“Oh, you’re a surfer?”
“Back in Uni I got caught up chasing the good breakers on Spring Break. I headed out from Cali to Baja, then from there to Florida. I became a Surfie. That’s what you’d call someone who surfs more than they work. Then I met this old bloke, Bill, in a pub. He’s from Oz too, or so I thought, but it turns out he’s an apple.”
“An apple?” she asked.
“He hails from Tasmania. I was broke doing odd jobs. Bill hired me to help on his fishing boat.”
“Wait a minute, Oz?”
“Oz, short for Australia,” he explained, moving his mouth toward where he thought her ear was, saying softly, “It’s in the sound Au`z-tralia—Oz.”
———————————
Trade paperback: https://www.createspace.com/4084680
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AS9NDNO
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/446101
Janice Seagraves’s website: http://janiceseagraves.org/

Now only .99 cents

Windswept Shores Two

WindsweptShores2_432
Blurb: Megan and Seth are finally rescued off their little island, but things are far from idyllic. Seth is arrested for murder, and Megan is order to return home to her philandering husband who is somehow still alive. Will they ever get back together again or see the life they envisioned?
Except:
“Megz, I thought you were going home?” Seth chided as she took the seat across from him at the old beat up wooden table.
“I have a flight in two hours. Time enough to see you before I leave.” She blinked back tears.
This is so unfair. This can’t be the last time I see him.
Megan folded her hands on the table. “We already checked out of the hotel, but I brought your luggage. The commissioner gave me the okay, so now you have a change of clothes for when you go in front of the judge. I also bought you a few necessities. Since soap and such are not provided, I was told it’s customary for family members to buy those items for the inmates.” She sat a white plastic bag on the table. “These have already been cleared for your use.”
He eyed the bag. “Did your boys pay for it?”
This is the last thing I can do for him, and he doesn’t want it? “Don’t you argue with me, Seth Dawson. You need these.” She fisted her hands. “I also put some money into an account here at the jail for anything else you might need.”
“Ta fer that, love. I’ll pay your sons back somehow.” Seth took one of her hands and uncurled her fingers. “I did want to see you one last time. I didn’t reckon with us parting this way. You to yer rotten bloke, and me here on charges.” He smiled. “Cuddling up on one of your siblings’ sofas sounded nice.”
“Crowded maybe, but we would’ve been together.”
“I heard you made a statement.”
“I did.” She sighed and looked down. I’m not sure what good it’ll do, Seth.
“Thanks for trying, love,” Seth murmured. “I don’t reckon on it being much since you didn’t know Bill before he died.”
“The commissioner said most of my statement is hearsay.” She shrugged. “The only thing I could really tell them was: Bill was dead when we found him and looked the same as the other drowning victims. Also, you never said a bad word about him and showed genuine grief at seeing his body.”
“Not much to go by.” Seth rubbed his thumb across her knuckles.
The slight touch sent a tingle through her, and she wanted to throw herself across the table at him. “The commissioner said he was going to contact the harbormaster where the Dinki-Di had been birthed to see if you two had gotten into any fights.”
“We didn’t.” Seth shook his head. “We got along.”
“Maybe he’ll make a statement too.”
“Gawd, I hope so,” Seth said. “I don’t have enough character references, being from out of town.”
“No, just me.” She tried to smile.
“And old Bill who’s gone.” He lifted her hand to kiss her fingers.
“Times up,” said a guard.
Megan stood and stared at Seth wanting to remember him. Not like this in the black and white jail clothes, but the way he was on the island, happily rumpled in his threadbare outfits.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/637092https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/637092
Buy Link: Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/Windswept-Shores-Two-survivors-story-ebook/dp/B01BPLNHTI/
Buy Link: Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.com/Windswept-Shores-Two-survivors-story-ebook/dp/B01BPLNHTI/

Kat Martin


Another exciting release from Kat Martin
This one has a twist

PIVOT

An interesting Concept
PIVOT by Kat Martin, Alexandra Ivy, & Rebecca Zanetti
(Zebra MM/April 2020/978-1-4201-5114-5)


The three novellas featured in this high-octane romantic suspense anthology form a captivating whole…Remarkable tonal consistency and interlocking elements ensure that these twisty, sizzling love stories flow seamlessly together. Readers won’t want to put this one down.” – Publishers Weekly

“The novellas are loosely connected, set during roughly the same time period and sharing some characters and plot threads. Each story can be read in a single sitting and contains a complete arc for its characters that is both believable and engaging, despite the shorter format…This anthology is perfect for readers of romantic suspense who are looking for more from the included authors or for introductions to writers who are sure to become future favorites.” – Library Journal

My upcoming release, PIVOT, began as a novella that I wrote to sometime back to introduce my BOSS Inc. series.  Ian Brodie was the owner of the security firm, a tall, good-looking blond man, one of the Brodie cousins.  The novella was AGAINST THE HEART, a Romantic Suspense set in a rural area of Spokane, Washington.
A year ago, Alicia Condon, my editor at Kensington, came to me with an idea for a collaborative novel that would include novellas by two other authors.  Their stories would revolve around Ian Brodie and Meriwether Jones, the hero and heroine of AGAINST the HEART.  The idea intrigued me and we decided to go forward.
Alexandra Ivy and Rebecca Zanetti, both bestselling authors of Romantic Suspense, came on board and started writing, taking sub characters from Ian and Meri’s story, telling their own stories, and giving us a glimpse of Ian and Meri’s life going forward. 
In PIVOT, Alexandra and Rebecca started with the premise that the three girls involved in the stories shared brutal childhoods and grew up together in foster care.
Now as women, they’re fighting for their lives again.
When Meriwether Jones and her young daughter run from trouble in L.A., that trouble follows. By the time Meri reaches Spokane, she’s out of gas, money, and ideas.  Then her prayers are answered when ex-cop Ian Brodie hires her to help his aging father.  But Meri is keeping a dangerous secret—-and Ian is in danger of losing his heart.
Melanie Cassidy finds trouble when she tries to save a young boy from being kidnapped. The last thing she expects is former love-of-her-life, Detective Gray Hawkins, to appear and rescue them both.  But her good-Samaritan efforts pull her and Gray into a conspiracy of drug dealers and dirty cops—-and forces them to examine the relationship they’d once abandoned.
    Michelle Peach is one of Meri’s closet friends.  She is finally content in Portland—-until two rough men break into her home and threaten her life.  The last person Michelle wants to see is Evan Boldon, a former Marine turned sheriff. But this time Evan is going to stop the trouble stalking Michelle-—and win her heart for good.
I hope you’ll give this fun read a try.  And if you haven’t read the BOSS Inc. series, INTO THE FURY, INTO THE WHIRLWIND, and INTO THE FIRESTORM, I hope you will.  

Till next time, happy reading and all best, Kat 


PIVOT EXCERPT 

He hammered in another nail, looked up to see Meriwether Jones running toward him.  With the sun highlighting the gold in her dark hair, damn she was pretty.  "What is it?"
"I can't find Lily.  She isn't in your room." 
Ian dropped the hammer and started back toward the house, Meri hurrying along beside him. 
"She never does this.  She always stays where you tell her."
They shoved through the back door together, walked through the mudroom.  It took a moment for him to register that the dishes were all washed and put away, the countertops wiped clean.  He caught the scent of Lysol as he made his way toward the stairs.
"Lily!" he called out.  "Lily, where are you?"  They went upstairs and searched his bedroom, then the other two upstairs rooms and both baths.  No sign of Lily. 
His worry kicked up as they headed back downstairs and he strode into the den.  "Dad, Lily is missing."


Pivot Purchase Links
AMAZON
Barnes & Noble



Kat Martin Bio


Bestselling author Kat Martin, a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, currently resides in Missoula, Montana with Western-author husband, L. J. Martin.  More than seventeen million copies of Kat’s books are in print, and she has been published in twenty foreign countries.  Fifteen of her recent novels have taken top-ten spots on the New York Times Bestseller List, and her novel, BEYOND REASON, was recently optioned for a feature film.  Kat’s next hardcover, THE ULTIMATE  BETRAYAL, a Romantic Thriller, will be released on July 28th.


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Wednesday, March 18, 2020

To Reread or Not Reread

Recently, I decided to reread the classic novels that I had read in school.

Why? 

I came to this decision after hearing a discussion about Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. I had read it in school and I hated it. Which is surprising because I love Edith Wharton. Nothing pulls at my heart like The Age of Innocence. 

As I listened to these two speakers talking about the book, I wondered what had my teenage self missed and what would my adult self discover now.

But I decided that I wouldn't stop with just that novel. This endeavour is more about reading classics. It has become about me seeing how I have changed, how I see the world has changed.

When I read The Age of Innocence as a teenager, I hated that Archer didn't end up with Ellen. To me happiness was all that mattered and to give that up and be miserable with May--pure foolishness to me.

As an adult, I see that ending differently. Archer had a duty to loved ones and would have hurt many people he cared about and perhaps himself. What would have happened too him and the Countess if he had left May. As May wasn't the stupid, blind, weak person I thought her once.

Life has thought me that lesson. Though, I write romance and always have an Happily Ever After in my novels, that doesn't me that I or other romance authors don't see that life doesn't always work that way.

Sometimes, the happily ever after is not the one expected but doesn't hold any less importance. We just have some time and wisdom to see it.

 


Tuesday, March 10, 2020

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: Ada Lovelace:


March is here and it’s time to share stories about women who have made a difference in our world.
On one hand, I’m grateful there is a month when we acknowledge women’s contributions; on the other, I would like to be in a world where everyone’s contributions are honored by everyone, and there is no need to distinguish those people by some artificial grouping.
That world will come, but not in my lifetime.
Today I want to draw attention to a woman who thinking was a hundred years ahead of her time, and you may or may not have ever heard of.
ADA BYRON LOVELACE
Ada Lovelace -- born Augusta Ada Byron (1815); died Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1852) -- is considered by much of the computer science profession, as the world's first computer programmer and the first person to recognize the full potential of a computing machine.
Lovelace wrote the world’s first machine algorithm for an early computing machine developed by Charles Babbage, that existed only on paper. Of course, someone had to be the first, but Lovelace was a woman, and this was in the 1840s.
Ada Lovelace was a brilliant mathematician, thanks in part to opportunities that were denied most women of the time, but credit for her significant insights were played down, then forgotten, by the male-dominated world of mathematics and computing. Her contributions have been recognized only recently. Better late than never.
Photo: Alfred Edward Chalon / Science Museum Group
Photo source:  https://inews.co.uk/ada-lovelace-day

A VERY INTERESTING WOMAN

Her achievements in computer programming are not the only interesting things about Ada Lovelace.
She was born Augusta Ada Byron, the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle (called Annabella) Noel Milbanke. Lord Byron expected a boy and was disappointed the child was of the female persuasion.
Ada was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and he called her Ada … but not for very long. The marriage ended about two months after Ada was born. Lord Byron left England shortly after that, and Ada, his only legitimate offspring, had no contact with him during her lifetime.  She was eight years old when he died, and never even saw a portrait of him until her 21st birthday.
Ada Byron at seventeen - Artist unknown
photo source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
Lord Byron must have left Annabella with “a bad taste in her mouth” for romantic poets, because she did everything possible to make her daughter Ada as unlike her poetical father as she could. Lady Byron herself had mathematical training--Byron had called his wife his Princess of Parallelograms–and she made sure Ada had extensive education in mathematics, logic, and music, the disciplines Annabella considered necessary to divert dangerous poetic tendencies…which Lady Byron considered “insane”. 
Although Ada and Lady Byron shared a love of mathematics, she and her mother were never close, and she was raised primarily by her maternal grandmother.
Lord George Gordon Noel Byron – poet
Photo source newworldencyclopedia.org/Byron

Despite suffering poor health during her childhood and being bed-ridden for a year, Lovelace diligently pursued her study of mathematics. At twelve she designed a sophisticated flying machine powered by steam.
Her late teens were busy eventful years (1833-1835). Ada had an affair with her tutor and tried to elope, but was recognized and returned to her mother who hushed up the disgrace. The same year, her friend, Mary Somerville, introduced her to Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He found her mind brilliant, and they formed a lifelong friendship during which they wrote long letters about mathematics, logic, and his plans to build a difference machine, a kind of calculator.
Having been raised in an elite London society, Ada was introduced to court, and by 1834 she had become a regular there. She charmed everyone, impressed them with her brilliant mind, and had an impressive circle of acquaintances including Charles Dickens, and Michael Faraday.
In 1835, Ada married William King-Noel, and had three children, born in 1836, 1837, and 1839. She suffered from illness after the second child. Three years later, King inherited a noble title, and the couple became the Earl and Countess of Lovelace. The family and its fortunes were very much directed by the domineering Lady Byron, to which William-King raised no opposition.
A WOMAN A HUNDRED YEARS AHEAD OF HER TIME
In the mean time, Lovelace’s friend Babbage abandoned the construction of his difference machine in favor of a more advanced idea for an Analytical Engine. He found financial support from Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea for his new project. In 1842, Menabrea published a paper in French on the subject of the engine. Babbage recruited his friend Ada to translate the document.
She spent nine intense months during 1842-1843 translating the paper and appending a set of her own notes containing a detailed description of how the proposed Analytrical Engine could be programmed to compute Bernoulli numbers. Her addendum -- Ada’s claim to fame -- was three time longer than the paper itself.
Unfortunately, the men of mathematics and history have spent a lot of time in the past one hundred years trying to discredit her and minimize her contribution. As late as 1990, Allan G. Bromley, in his article Difference and Analytical Engines, states “
“Not only is there no evidence that Ada ever prepared a program for the Analytical Engine, but her correspondence with Babbage shows that she did not have the knowledge to do so”
According to the Doron Swade, museum curator and author, specializing in Babbage and the history of computing, writes,In Babbage's world his engines were bound by number...What Lovelace saw—what Ada Byron saw—was that number could represent entities other than quantity. So once you had a machine for manipulating numbers, if those numbers represented other things, letters, musical notes, then the machine could manipulate symbols of which number was one instance, according to rules.
It is this fundamental transition from a machine which is a number cruncher to a machine for manipulating symbols according to rules that is the fundamental transition from calculation to computation—to general-purpose computation—and looking back from the present high ground of modern computing, if we are looking and sifting history for that transition, then that transition was made explicitly by Ada in that 1843 paper.”
Even critics of the “Ada Lovelace, world's-first-computer-programmer claim” seem to agree that she was the only person of the time to foresee the potential of the analytical engine as a machine capable of expressing entities other than quantities, the evolution from number crunching device (a calculator) to a general purpose computer.
FATE OF THE ANALYTICAL ENGINE

Due to lack of funding, Babbage never completed the building of the Analytical Engine, but the design is considered by historians as the first general purpose computer. A portion of the machine was completed in 1910 by Babbage’s son Henry, and it was able to perform basic calculations as designed.
Trial model of a part of the Analytical Engine, built by Babbage, as displayed at the Science Museum (London)
Photo source:: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine
FATE OF ADA LOVELACE

Apparently, after that, Ada continued her life as a countess, a mother, and a student of mathematics, phrenology and mesmerism, along with a number of flirtations and gambling. In 1851, she formed a syndicate and attempted to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. The failure of this venture left her in debt to the syndicate, and she had to fess up to her husband. Presumably, he paid her debts, but no source I used commented on that. However, from the looks of their home, her husband probably had enough pocket money to reimburse the syndicate.


In 1852, after a few months of illness, Ada Lovelace died at the age of thirty-six – the same age as her father when he died – from uterine cancer. She was buried next to her father, at her request, in Huckinall, Nottinghamshire at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.
HOW SHE IS REMEMBERED
Despite the controversy about the mathematical ability of the Countess of Lovelace, her contributions and foresight have made a difference in the world. After all, Babbage himself referred to her as the "Enchantress of Numbers.”
She is remembered and honored in many ways, including
Ada Lovelace Award: Created in 1981 by the Association for Women in Computing.
Lovelace Medal: Awarded by the British Computer Society (BCS) since.1998. This organization has also initiated an annual competition for women students.
National Ada Lovelace Day: On 27 July 2018, Senator Ron Wyden submitted, in the US Senate, the designation of 9 October 2018 as National Ada Lovelace Day: "To honor the life and contributions of Ada Lovelace as a leading woman in science and mathematics". The resolution (S.Res.592) was considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by unanimous consent
The acknowledgement is late in coming. I believe that in the future she will still be a person of importance in the computing field.
AUTHOR R. ANN SIRACUSA
Travel to Foreign Lands for Romance and Intrigue

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
en.wikipedia.org/Ada_Lovelace 7
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/ada-lovelace-the-first-tech-visionary
https://www.biography.com/scholar/ada-lovelace
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelace
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/ada-lovelace-day-2018-facts-female-scientists-506562
https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/blog/computers-around-century-ago/
https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/how-ada-lovelaces-notes-on-the-analytical-engine-created-the-first-computer-program/
https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/analyten.htm
https://www.cnn.com/ampstories/tech/meet-ada-lovelace-the-first-computer-programmer
https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/
https://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/lovelace.html
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Babbage
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53131/ada-lovelace-first-computer-programmer
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/ada-lovelace-day-2018-facts-female-scientists-506562
https://www.1843magazine.com/intelligence/cracking-coder
https://www.uvu.edu/wsc/blog/blog_posts/whywomenshistorymatters.html