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Month: June 2015

Happiness

Last weekend I read and reviewed a book by a woman, about my age, who lives with Bipolar. We exchanged a few emails. The weekend before I tweeted to a woman who has been a ‘mum’ to a child who has grown into the body of a man, but with the mind of a toddler.

These are remarkable heroines with incredible strength and I am blessed to have their lives intersect with mine, even so briefly. I am changed just by knowing them.

Everyone knows that likes attract so I humbly pondered how I got here.

Long ago, I remember my first foray into goal-setting. I had chastised a younger worker for his shoddy work on the repair of a video tape machine. My boss figured I needed a few lessons in how to deal with people and sent me off to a Dale Carnegie course. About the same time, the company decided we needed to be more productive, and a few of us headed off to NYC for a course in Time Management.

Of course, they sent me home with brochures to buy tapes, (it was the eighties), and more self-help tapes. I gobbled everything down because I was starving. I was thirty, stuck in a job I hated, had two young kids, a mortgage, and no way out. I cried a lot.

It took a lot of hard work to change my thoughts but I did. After my thoughts changed, my life changed, and here I am.

Believe

Where am I? Content. Not complacent, by any means, but most of the time, pretty happy.

When I need to ‘pay it forward,’ I write about strong women, facing adversity. A romance is the perfect place to do it. If thoughts become reality, (and I believe they do), then my life’s goal is to empower women as they imagine themselves as my heroines.

That makes me happy.

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Lady Ann Defends Damaged Heroines

As a dutiful author, this morning I did a Google search using the key words: ‘Romance Novel Review Requests 2015.’ ‘How to Train Your Knight’ needs to get to fifty reviews to gain in the Amazon rankings.

I read through one reviewer’s likes and dislikes, and she fumed inside my head. “What does that mean, she doesn’t like damaged heroines?”
I tried to calm her down and stopped typing. “I’m sure she meant no offense. There’s lots of other-”

“Stop right there, Stella, Put me down for review. I am not damaged.”

I sighed and went to make my oatmeal. This could be a long conversation. “Technically, getting abused by your first husband, almost to the point of death, counts as damaged.”

“Not so. I am completely healed. And happily married with two children and one on the way.”

“Yes, yes. I agree, but not at the start of the book. Don’t you remember?”

“Well I think that’s just wrong. Characters who grow strong through the course of a novel should not be called damaged.“

“I agree.” I read forward a bit on that same page, glad we’d settled the issue

“Wait a second… She likes damaged heroes? How in God’s Blood is that fair?” She virtually screeched inside my brain.

“Listen, everyone’s entitled to an opinion.” I quickly went to the next site and began the process of filling in a form.

“But it’s downright insulting. She allows Marcus his bad dreams but not me?”

“Now, now. You’ve got lots of excellent reviews, Ann. Many women applaud your endless energy, devotion to your town, and the way you handle Sir Marcus. We’ll find some more accommodating and understanding reviewers, okay? Some people just don’t get the courage it takes to be truly happy and content despite adversity in the past, but I do.”

I looked at the clock. I still had to get dressed and ready for work.She snorted and left my head.

Thank God.

Read about Ann in ‘How To Train Your Knight’

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Help Me Find A Title

Year of our Lord 1283
England

A naked goddess, she arose from the top pool in the Roman bathhouse. A Venus in a fountain, her melon breasts dripped with water and rosy nipples pointed where they met the cooler air. She took a linen from the ancient mosaic floor and dried herself inch by inch with her eyes closed.

From the bottom tier, hid safely behind one of the thick marble columns, Sir Thomas D’Agostine could not make his legs move, nor divert his eyes. He hoped it was of him his lady dreamed as she touched herself. Did she remember her promises to him?

The lady Meredith, with lips the shade of poppies in spring, pouted, and let the towel drop from between her legs. Her gray eyes, that he’d once known so well, lowered towards the pile of clothing that lay beside her feet. Look up.

One thick lock of burnished gold hair escaped the mass tied to her head. The length twisted past a full breast, beyond her navel, and just above a thatch of curly hair. There, he had almost known her. Would she take him back? She’d haunted every one of his dreams, followed him like a wraith from London, to France, to Italy, the Holy Lands, and by God, back again. She would marry him. This time he would insist. He cleared his throat and stood out in the open, on the lowest tier of bricks.

Eyes wide, her mouth dropped open, and she screeched with hands covering her nakedness. “Thomas? Is that you? Haunt me not. Be gone. Damn you.”
He put melody to one of the hundreds of poems he had composed as his lower appendage swelled for her. “Merry, Merry. So very ever fair-ye.”
“Good heavenly Father above. Now it sings?” She picked up a scrubbing brush lying beside a pile of her clothing. Fire from the hearth reflected red into her crazed eyes.

Jumping up three stairs, he stood at the second tier of pools. Water gurgled from the top tier and dribbled out the other side to the bottom in perfect harmony, granting him the peace he needed to continue. He opened his arms wide with his best smile. “Nay a ghost, love. I have come back for you.”

A small nugget of soap whizzed by and would have grazed a cheek had he not stepped aside. She dropped to her knees with what he thought was a prayer, jostled in her belongings and rose with the vicious edge of a dagger. She hissed and jabbed in his direction. “Nay. Be gone ghost. You cannot be you. They said you were dead.”

“They? Who are these they, dearest? There is only I, your love. I have come back for you.” He jumped up three more stairs until only an arm’s length separated them and reached with palms up.

With her un-daggered hand, she finger-poked at him and her gray eyes went wider still when she hit the mail under his tunic. She paled. “Why did you never send word? Did you eat all your pigeons? Your messengers all up and died? It matters not. You cannot be here. You’ll ruin all I have planned. Go away and remain dead.”

He inched forward and the sweet smell of lavender lay siege upon his already assaulted senses. His already thick lance swelled under his tunic and fought forward to find a sweeter sheath. “Dead? No, not dead, love. Wed. A better option. Besides, how can I remain dead when I have never yet visited in that holy place?”

“Holy place? Nay, Sir Thomas. You’ll be dancing with the king of darkness by tonight, if I have any say.”

The love of his life lunged at him with her dagger, he twisted, and she splashed into the baths. She came up for air with long angry snake-like locks surrounding her head.

He squatted and pushed the top of her head under the water. “Drop the dagger.”

When blade drifted to the bottom of the pool, he let go. An angry maiden with a sharp object was not of his liking. Whatever happened to the giggling maid he had all but bedded five years ago? Who was this cantankerous creature? Where was his merry maid? His Merry of all days? Merry, lovely, Merry who had laughed at every one of his jests. She’d claimed the sun rose and set on his bidding.

For years he had dreamed how he would twist these golden locks between his fingers. But not thus. Oh no, but to them to bring close her lovely lips and claim them until she moaned and begged. Only then, would he thrust and pump and lay back spent. Gird up your loins, sir jester-knight of lost loves, life is full of disappointments.

It was then he noticed a boy of about five seasons wielding a sword half his size. The warrior with dark locks, dark eyes, and tiny penis, charged up the stairs with his sword steady. A good lad. “Let go of my Mama, you horse’s arse.”

Mother? So that was it? Five years of longing twisted his gut into a knot. She must’ve married another before he’d even set sail for France. Thomas howled within. “Now you work with your legs open, you, you, Magdalene?”

“What? How dare you? I’m no harlot.” She clawed her nails down the center of his face. The bloody wounds could not match the one tearing at his heart. He strode out, and swore when a brick of soap struck the back of his head.

“He is your son, you dolt.” Her words were plain as the unique shape of the boy’s nose. Thomas turned, put a hand to the rising bump on his daft noggin, and for the first time in his life, could find naught to say.

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Midwest Book Review

MidwestBookReviewHow To Train Your Knight
Stella Marie Alden
Soul Mate Publishing, Macedon, NY 14502
ASIN: B00WRNKOOU $2.99 Free with Kindle Unlimited
www.stellamariealden.com http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WRNKOOU

D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

Most medieval novels don’t offer up a steamy romance theme; but then, How To Train Your Knight isn’t your usual historical novel, but offers a gripping love story set in 1276 that opens with the bang of a screaming woman accosting Sir Marcus Blackwell, a holy crusader forced into a marriage with a foul-tempered widow.

Lies, ladies, she-witches, murder and love are vividly portrayed as characters are well-developed and dialogue and description nicely done to capture the sounds, scents, feel and lingo of Medieval times (without resorting to confusing vernacular, which makes for an exceptionally smooth read).

Where other romances would fall into modern description, How To Train Your Knight stays true to its times, tailoring its graphic sexual encounters with a sense of the decorum and trappings of Medieval times. From the period clothing of the era which is removed with a different touch (“…finally he undid the leather ties holding the three sheaves, and her knives clunked to the floor.”) to a woman’s acceptance of the pleasure involved in making babies (which doesn’t translate to the usual confession to a priest if a husband is involved), Stella Marie Alden excels at presenting powerful protagonists who both express their sexuality and discover riches of the heart in the process.

Because romance is the key, binding factor in How To Train Your Knight, audiences should be genre readers looking for a healthy dose of history to spice the steamy interludes. These factors contribute to a powerful story line that is as much about sexual awakening and love as it is about the process of becoming a powerful partner and surviving the medieval world.

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Midwest Book Review

How To Train Your Knight- credit to D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

MidwestBookReview

  • Stella Marie Alden
  • Soul Mate Publishing, Macedon, NY 14502
  • ASIN: B00WRNKOOU     $2.99  Free with Kindle Unlimited

Most medieval novels don’t offer up a steamy romance theme; but then, How To Train Your Knight isn’t your usual historical novel, but offers a gripping love story set in 1276 that opens with the bang of a screaming woman accosting Sir Marcus Blackwell, a holy crusader forced into a marriage with a foul-tempered widow.

Lies, ladies, she-witches, murder and love are vividly portrayed as characters are well-developed and dialogue and description nicely done to capture the sounds, scents, feel and lingo of Medieval times (without resorting to confusing vernacular, which makes for an exceptionally smooth read).

Where other romances would fall into modern description, How To Train Your Knight stays true to its times, tailoring its graphic sexual encounters with a sense of the decorum and trappings of Medieval times. From the period clothing of the era which is removed with a different touch (“…finally he undid the leather ties holding the three sheaves, and her knives clunked to the floor.“) to a woman’s acceptance of the pleasure involved in making babies (which doesn’t translate to the usual confession to a priest if a husband is involved), Stella Marie Alden excels at presenting powerful protagonists who both express their sexuality and discover riches of the heart in the process.

Because romance is the key, binding factor in How To Train Your Knight, audiences should be genre readers looking for a healthy dose of history to spice the steamy interludes. These factors contribute to a powerful story line that is as much about sexual awakening and love as it is about the process of becoming a powerful partner and surviving the medieval world.

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