Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

The puppy is booked into the kennel.

And on Friday I’m off to Sydney, then on to Melbourne.

This has been a rough year for New Zealanders with a mining disaster, big earthquakes, an oil spill and on a personal level two friends died, both unexpectedly. If this year has taught me one thing, it is to grab opportunities as they arise and not to put off things until a later date. Hubby has always wanted to attend the Melbourne Cup, a huge horse race down this end of the world, and this year we’re going.

We’ll see race horses

And beautiful fashion.

We’ll even have a flutter or two on the horses. The problem is picking the winner. The main Melbourne Cup race has a huge field. My problem – I have zero knowledge of these horses.

Do I choose my favorite number?
Check out the horse’s form?
The horse’s color?
The color of the jockey’s eyes?
The color of the jockey’s silks?
Pick whatever name appeals to me?
Do a special dance?
Chant a children’s rhyme and eliminate horses one by one?

It’s certainly a dilemma, and I’ve been giving the matter much thought. Here’s what I think I’ll do: take a look at the horses before the race. Any horses that seem stressed will be crossed off my list. I’ll pay attention to my favorite number, and if neither of these methods help, I’ll pick a name that appeals to me. One of the horses is called Two for Tea, and since I have a book called Tea for Two this could be a sign!

What do you think? How would you pick a winner for the Melbourne cup?

CONTEST: I thought I’d do a contest today and give away a download of HOUSE OF THE CAT, which features a horse race of the alien kind. I’ll pick my favorite answer late tomorrow night my time (New Zealand) and post the name of the winner in the comments section.

I made an appointment for a haircut yesterday, which made me think about hair. I thought it would make a good Thursday Thirteen topic.

Thirteen Hair-related terms

1. Chignon – when hair is styled in a knot or bun at the back of the head.

2. Dreadlocks – hair that is styled in long twisted locks or braids.

3. Pomade – hair cream or wax, usually applied to hold a style.

4. Bangs – a fringe across forehead.

5. Molt – to shed hair.

6. Ringlet – a single curl of hair.

7. Afro – hair that is bushy or frizzy.

8. Toupee – a wig or hair piece, usually worn by a male.

9. Mohawk – a shaven head with a strip of hair left down the middle.

10. Cowlick – when the hair sticks up in a natural manner.

11. Bedhead – what I have when I get up every morning. Hair that sticks up in all directions.

12. Mullet – a style that’s shorter on top with a tail at the back. I call House of the Cat, my sci-fi paranormal romance my mullet cover. See below:

13. Beehive – a style achieved by backcombing and piling on top of the head.

Do you have any hair terms to add to my list?

Source: Flip Dictionary by Barbara Ann Kipfer

Exciting news! I received an email from Whipped Cream Reviews letting me know that House of the Cat has been nominated for Best Book of 2010.
Voting opens on Mon 14 February.

I’d like to share some excellent writing articles from the Women on Writing website.

How to Trim the Fat from Your Manuscript

Recovering From Injury: Bouncing Back From a Rejection

Get Your Marketing Plan in Shape

I’m visiting The Romance Reviews today and answering questions about my dark side. You didn’t know I had one, did you?

House of the Cat received a Reviewer Top Pick from Night Owl Romances. ” House of the Cat was a fun and erotic story that will have you coming back for more by Shelley Munro.”

Romance Reviews Today reviewed Tiger By The Tail – “Erotic exploration and engaging characters make TIGER BY THE TAIL a captivating story, whether you’ve read the previous books or not.”

Congratulations to Heidi who is the winner of my newsletter members only contest for July. All you need to do to be eligible to win future prizes is sign up for my newsletter. A signup form is at the top right of my blog.

I’ve completed edits for Resisting Tamaki, a sci-fi romance, for Ellora’s Cave. I should have a release date for Resisting Tamaki very soon. Edited to add: My release date is 1 October.

It’s Friday the 13th today. Do you think Friday 13th is unlucky? Is it unlucky for you?

I’ve received some excellent reviews recently, both from Whipped Cream Erotic Romance.

Soldier of Fortune – The plot of this book was really exciting, believable and well done. It was packed with thoroughly described, high action and never got boring. And I liked how the team, after many trials and difficulties, came to be eventual friends and stood strong amongst all of the fighting. And, just to add icing on the cake, the sex was smoking hot!

Here’s the link to the full review for Soldier of Fortune

House of the Cat is an amazing thrill ride of adventure, quests, lost heritage and found love. Extremely well written love scenes spice up a solid and exciting plot line. I was gripped from the first chapter and entertained non-stop until the final and very satisfying happily-ever-after. Ms. Munro knows romance and she’s proved it again with this engaging and fast paced story. Not only am I putting this book on my keeper shelf, I can’t wait to tell all my friends. It rocks!

Here’s the link to the full review for House of the Cat. It received a Best Book rating. Woohoo!

Tiger By The Tail, book nine in my Middlemarch Mates series, has a release date of 9 July. Check out the blurb and an excerpt on the Tiger By The Tail book page.

This week’s theme for Snippet Saturday is a fight. Instead of giving you a scene where my characters fight either physically or verbally, I’ve chosen a scene from House of the Cat where the ship is attacked by pirates. This is definitely a fight for survival!

HOUSE OF THE CAT by Shelley Munro

Camryn gave a gasp of mortified horror, her face flaming. “Get out of my head.”

“I—”

The wail of sirens brought a curse. Ry scooped her up like a troublesome parcel and dumped her on a chair. She’d scarcely settled her butt on it when Mogens leaned over and buckled her into a harness. He sat beside her and strapped in, his body tense while he surveyed the blackness outside the ship.

“What is it?” Camryn finally gathered the courage to ask, alarm swooping through her belly when the ship suddenly dropped. Her stomach followed, feeling as if it’d landed on the floor at her feet. “What’s happening?”

“Pirates,” Mogens said tersely, his attention on the porthole and instruments.

Pirates? Camryn craned her neck, watching the fast-approaching black ship with acute trepidation.

A violent explosion seared her retinas. Their ship tilted. A second explosion tossed the ship in the other direction, forces throwing Camryn against her harness. A squeak squeezed past tight lips. She glared at Ry, casting blame. His fault. All of it.

Hell, she was gonna die.

“Another black ship at Nor-nor-west,” the man at the controls said in a tense voice.

“I see him. Three total.” The captain sat totally at ease.

Why weren’t they firing back?

“Looks like Banio colors,” the warrior said, her blue eyes narrowed to angry slits. “How the hell did they know we were in this part of the universe?”

“Get ready to fire,” the captain said.

“Ready to fire,” the pilot answered.

“Ready to fire,” the warrior confirmed.

Camryn grasped the edge of her seat with a white-knuckle grip. Scared rigid, she closed her eyes to shut out the ships firing on them and almost immediately opened them again. A harsh sob jammed halfway up her throat.

“Fire.” Cat Man—Ry—finally gave the order.

The ship bucked. Camryn’s stomach divebombed south. Yesterday she’d have welcomed a reunion with Gabriel. Now, in the face of death, she learned she wanted to live.

Flashes of light detonated across the black depths of space. Had they hit the other ships? Blind from the bright flares, Camryn couldn’t see. One of the ships returned fire. Their pilot attempted evasive action but wasn’t quite quick enough. The ship tilted at an acute angle. Shook wildly. Alarms screeched. One of the aliens cursed.

“Fire in the hold,” Ry shouted. “Nanu and Kaya to the hold.” Two of the crew unbuckled and leapt to their feet.

“Come in, Indefatigable,” a mocking voice transmitted. “We have you, Monsieur Coppersmith. Surrender so we can claim the très bien bounty on your pretty head, no?”

“Fukk you, Banio. Fire!” Ry took over Warrior Woman’s gun.

Simultaneous shots rang out. A ship exploded in a fireball. Scant seconds later something clipped their ship, sending it into rapid rolls. The other crewwoman flew from her seat, belting into a fixed chair with a sickening crunch. She moaned.

Ry fired his gun again. “Yep, hold steady. Mogens sitrep on Jannike.”

Mogens unfastened his harness, grabbed his satchel and scrambled across the bridge to the woman.

“Camryn, man the gun,” Ry ordered.

“Me?”

“There’s no one else. When I say fire, push the black button.”

Camryn fumbled with the harness release. She teetered across the bridge with gangly foal steps.

“Buckle the harness.”

Another order. Damn, she didn’t want to die. Shaky fingers clicked the harness into place. When she stole a glance at Ry, his green eyes held approval. Calm confidence.

“Ready?”

Camryn licked her lips and nodded, the ball of nerves inside her stomach huge and bigger than any pre-race nerves. This couldn’t be any worse than killing aliens on a computer game. Surely? “Yes,” she said hoarsely. “Black button. Push on command.”

“Line her up, Yep. They’ll expect us to go for the stricken ship. Target the other first. Bloody mercenaries.”
Ry glared out the porthole. “On three, Camryn.”

Camryn gave her palms a furtive wipe across her trouser legs. She swallowed, wished for a shot of whiskey. Her knees quaked and she felt strangely disembodied. Just a game, she told herself. A silly kid’s game.

“One. Two. Three. Fire!”

Camryn’s sweaty finger slid across the black button, depressing it. The ship bucked, a metallic screech grating against her ears.

“A hit! Great shooting,” the pilot shouted.

“Once more,” Ry ordered.

The pilot lined them up. Ry shouted orders. Camryn fired. When she focused, after a huge explosion of bright light, not a single ship showed in the black vacuum outside.

“We got ’em, Captain,” the pilot shouted in jubilation. “They’ll think twice before they engage a frigate again. Long-range guns get them every time.”

Purchase from Ellora’s Cave
Purchase from Amazon Kindle

To read more Snippet Saturday excerpts follow the links below:

Shelli Stevens
Emma Petersen
Shelley Munro
Mari Carr
Lissa Matthews
TJ Michaels
Juliana Stone
Taige Crenshaw
Eliza Gayle
Elisabeth Naughton
Ashley Ladd
McKenna Jeffries
Lauren Dane

This week’s theme is lost love. I think I’ve posted this scene before, but I like it, so I’ve posted it again. Camryn Sullivan has lost her older husband and his death sends her on a downward spiral–until she is kidnapped by aliens.

HOUSE OF THE CAT by Shelley Munro

“I don’t care if Camryn’s your sister. She’s an alcoholic, and I swear she’s overdoing the prescription drugs as well. I don’t trust her near our son.”

“She loves Luke,” Max said.

“Last time Camryn baby-sat, she let Luke wander onto the racetrack. She was blind drunk.”

Her sister-in-law’s angry words brought Camryn O’Sullivan to an abrupt stop. She wavered on unsteady legs, not wasted but experiencing a buzz and blissful ignorance of the true state of her life. She smothered a giggle, slapping her hand over her quivering lips. Okay, she’d had drinks. Lots of drinks in pretty colors. Teeny umbrellas to match.

“What do you want me to do? I can’t throw her out. She’s my twin sister. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

A hit! Camryn screwed her eyes shut, protecting herself against the onslaught of pain. No, she didn’t want to think about Gabriel, about being alone. How much it hurt. Max couldn’t make her leave. He wouldn’t.

She had nowhere else to go.

“Max, it’s almost two years since Gabriel’s death. Camryn’s not improving. She needs help. More than we can give her.”

Silence fell, but Ellen’s words throbbed like the harping notes of a badly played violin. They hurt her head and brought forth a wave of indignation. She didn’t need help. She needed Gabriel, dammit. Only her husband’s presence would belay the paralyzing guilt she carried with her every day.

A rough masculine sigh sounded. “Love, you’re right. Camryn needs help, but she doesn’t see it. Until she realizes, all we can do is be here for her. She has to want change.”

“Fine, and meantime Camryn drags us down with her. I found her smoking inside the stables this afternoon. She reeked of alcohol. Other people have noticed. She won jockey of the year two years running, but have you noticed she’s not getting the rides she was a year ago? Camryn has real aptitude with horses, the gift you both have, and she’s throwing it away.”

A direct hit. Ellen’s words sliced with precision, ripping open wounds barely scabbed. The agony hit instantaneously, ferocious and heart-stopping. Silent tears ran down Camryn’s face, and she staggered against the door. Invisible bands clamped around her ribs. Camryn gasped hoarsely, the last of the drunken buzz bleeding away as she attempted to breathe. She wanted to rock away the pain, the guilt that came from knowing Gabriel would never return.

The wind caught the door, slamming it shut and the murmur of voices from the kitchen stopped abruptly.
No, not here. She couldn’t fall apart here. Camryn fumbled with the handle, increasingly desperate when footsteps neared.

“Camryn? Is that you?” Her twin brother’s baritone sounded in the passage not far from where she teetered.

Camryn finally managed to coordinate brain and hands. The door opened. She stumbled into the winter air. The bite of the wind brought a shiver, an increase to her misery. Whiskey. She needed a drink. And maybe one of those little yellow pills the nice doctor had prescribed to help her sleep. Anything to escape the horrid truth. She hadn’t meant to leave Luke alone. She loved her nephew. He raced about, so fast on his feet, and the sleepless nights had taken their toll. She’d fallen asleep in Gabriel’s favorite chair.

Luke loved horses. No surprise since his father bred and trained racehorses. She and Max had lived and breathed horses since they were Luke’s age. Camryn lurched along the muddy track leading to the cottage at the back of the main house.

Really, she didn’t need help. If Gabriel returned things would improve. She could kick the alcohol any time she wanted. A few pills to lift her mood. Camryn didn’t need them either. She needed Gabriel.

Camryn burst into her cottage, tracking mud across the tile floor. She staggered through the cluttered kitchen and into the dining room where she’d instructed her brother and his workers to place Gabriel’s chair. Camryn slumped into the big, masculine chair and pressed her nose against the cool leather. The faint scent of lavender soap and whiskey filled her senses, and a surge of tears blurred her vision. The chair didn’t smell of Gabriel anymore.

It smelled of her.

Camryn crawled onto the chair properly, ignoring the muddy boots on her feet. She curled into a tight ball, her thin shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. The cruel truth hit then. Gabriel wouldn’t be coming home. He would never come home. Gabriel was dead, and it was all her fault.

Purchase House of the Cat from Ellora’s Cave

Purchase House of the Cat – Kindle

To read other Snippet Saturday excerpts follow the links below:

Emma Petersen
McKenna Jeffries
Vivian Arend
Ashley Ladd
Shelley Munro
Lauren Dane
Mari Carr
Lissa Matthews
TJ Michaels
Shelli Stevens
Elisabeth Naughton
Juliana Stone
Leah Braemel

The Rocket Chemical company scientists invented WD-40 to help prevent rusting and corrosion in the aerospace industry. NASA used it for their rockets. According to the WD-40 website, the original formula was so good that it’s still in use today. These days the product is used both commercially and around the home. On the TV ad I saw last night, the manufacturers stated it has thousands of uses, which made me decide to use it as this week’s TT topic.

Thirteen Uses for WD-40

1. Cleans piano keys.
2. Helps clean rust from wire shelves.
3. Removes silly putty from furniture.
4. Cleans lime scale from toilet bowls.
5. Removes crayon from wallpaper.
6. Frees stuck Lego blocks.
7. Lubricates and protects air conditioner blades.
8. Stops squeaky doors.
9. Cleans rusty bolts.
10. Lubricates baby buggy wheels.
11. Cleans gunk from pistons.
12. Cleans cell phones.
13. Removes oil and tar from hands.

Extras: Two fun facts from the WD-40 site

A bus driver in Asia used WD-40 to remove a python, which had coiled itself around the undercarriage of his bus.

Police officers used WD-40 to remove a naked burglar trapped in an air conditioning vent.

You can print out a handy PDF document listing some of the thousand ways to use WD-40 at the website.

I think I might include a can of WD-40 in the follow-up book to House of the Cat. It sounds like something Jannike might be able to use to get out of the jams I have in mind for her.

Have you used WD-40 before? What is your favorite use?

It’s my birthday today–well, in New Zealand. It will be my birthday tomorrow in the Northern hemisphere – December 8. Definitely an auspicious day!

I received a wonderful review for House of the Cat from JERR (Just Erotic Romance Reviews)

Karen said, “House of the Cat is a great adventure saga and love story, fresh with new beings, new worlds, and definitely new animals. Ry did as much to help Camryn as she did for him. She also became the sole focus of his uncontrollable, constant, blinding need for sex that plagued him in spite of medication to stop the desire. The interaction between the crew members, all different species, and their reactions to Ry and Camryn’s very heated and constantly everywhere sexual relationship kept me entertained as much as the mystery and adventure. Lots of surprises to keep those pages flipping as quickly as the reader can scan them. House of the Cat is thoroughly entertaining as well as very physically stimulating. Of course, it does have Shelley Munro’s name on it, which usually means you can count on a great reading experience. House of the Cat is certainly no exception!”

I’m taking part in one of the four Scavenger hunts sponsored by Samhain Publishing authors. Win a Kindle or a Sony ereader plus lots of books. To learn details of how to win an ereader visit the Samhellion.

During the month of December there will also be free short stories for readers to download at the Samhellion. I have a short story called Turning Point that will be available for download on 17 December. Turning Point is a sort of a prequel to my upcoming Samhain Publishing release called The Bottom Line.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do on my birthday. I know I have edits I need to do, but I’m thinking I’ll have some down time as well.

How do you like to spend your birthday?

I’m guest blogging with Debra Parmley today and talking about writing, books and Middlemarch. Here’s the link to my Make-Believe Monday post.