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Grandparent’s Day 2019

~ Gina Briganti ~ 3 Comments

Today I took a few hours away from my careers to spend time with one of my inspirations, my preschool-age granddaughter. The occasion? Grandparent’s Day at school.

When her mom and uncle were in school I went to as many events as I could. It always felt like I didn’t make it to as many as I wanted to despite the fact that I was working and studying for the credentials that follow my name today.

Now it’s my granddaughter’s turn and there isn’t much that would keep me away from fun in the classroom and crafts with her. We both felt special when we walked down the hall to the conference room.

This is the what she made for me in honor of Grandparents Day. It’s on the refrigerator until it gets replaced there and goes into my scrapbook journal where it will stay forever as one of our best memories.

Her little voice, her cute face, her sense of wonder, the knowledge that we are part of one another, is so sacred to me. She’s one reason why this life is precious.

I spend a lot of my time writing books she won’t be able to read for a long time yet, and may never want to read because they are fantasy romances written by her grandmother, but that doesn’t stop her from being my inspiration. One of the reasons I work hard is to leave a legacy for her.

We’ll see how that works out!

Spending time with my granddaughter refuels my spirit. What do you do to refill yours?

Thanks for reading!

Gina

New Release In Romantic Suspense! Shattered Sunset Promises By Nancy Kay!

~ Gina Briganti ~ 6 Comments

Nancy is here to share about her her new novel, Cranberry Pond, and a muffin recipe.

Thank you, Nancy!

A Cranberry Connection

Presque Isle State Park is a sandy peninsula that juts into Lake Erie near Erie, Pennsylvania. The peninsula has 21 miles of hiking trails.

Ridge Trail, a favorite, follows the edge of Cranberry Pond, one of many ponds on Presque Isle. Many years ago Cranberry Bogs thrived on Presque Isle, a little known historical tidbit. Today only the Pond bearing the red, tart fruit’s name remains.

If you ever visit Erie, Pennsylvania make it a point to visit Presque Isle. Take a walk down Sidewalk Trail and Marsh Trail, and venture onto Ridge Trail past Cranberry Pond. Once you read Shattered Sunset Promises you’ll have a very real connection to the park’s trails. I didn’t mention the cranberry history in my story, but there is a definite connection to the shady, secluded trails between the pages.

I love Presque Isle, and it was while hiking one of the many amazing trails my story, Shattered Sunset Promises, began to unfold. Of course my story is fiction, but the beautiful peninsula blessed by sunsets like none other year round is real.

Cranberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups flour

½ cup sugar

1 Tab. Baking Powder

¼ teas. Salt

1 cup quick cooking oatmeal

1 to 1 ½ cups fresh or frozen cranberries.

1 egg

1 cup orange juice

¼ cup Canola oil

Directions: mix all dry ingredients. Add cranberries and toss gently to coat.

Whisk egg, oil, and juice together then add to dry mixture.

Fill 12 muffin tins for baking. I sometimes sprinkle some raw sugar on each raw muffin before baking. It give a nice sweet/tart flavor with each bite.

Bake at 400 degrees for twenty minutes.


Suspense to make you shiver with Heart to make you sigh.

Her inheritance is disastrous. His murder case is stalled. Then a link between her bequest and his homicide entangles and threatens their lives.

Malory Williams faces an uncertain future. Ten years ago she lost the love of her life, and now she’s lost her job. Fate presents an appealing blank slate when she inherits Bay Bluff Cottage, and Mal doesn’t hesitate. She sells her current home and pools her assets. Life if looking up….until she discovers she’s inherited an albatross.

Two grisly homicides pose a challenge for seasoned investigator John Ryley. A single, precise slash ended both lives and the women’s savaged bodies were dumped at the exact same location. The brutal murders occurred ten years apart, though, and John’s skeptical…until clues point to a connection between the murders and Malory’s inheritance.

Neither John nor Malory are looking for involvement at this point in their lives, yet he finds the stunning widow’s perseverance sexy, and she discovers irresistible charm beneath the investigators’ tough demeanor. But when a well-kept secret is uncovered the homicide explodes, and John races against the clock to keep Malory from becoming a killer’s next victim.

Shattered Sunset Promises is available in ebook and paperback from these etailers and stores:

books2read.com/u/4AxpxK

alacarteshop.com

heartlandinnandcafe.com

romolochocolates.com

North Star Winery & Market


Nancy Kay resides near Lake Erie in Western Pennsylvania with her husband, a former member of the Marines and the Pennsylvania State Police Department who provides valuable insight for her stories. Nancy is a long time member of Romance Writers of America. Her stories are set in small towns and inland communities scattered along the shores of the Great Lakes. They focus on romance, intertwined with the love of hearth, home, and family. Yet, they are sprinkled with suspense, danger, and intrigue. Learn more about Nancy on her website and blog.

Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

Trader Joe’s Simply Almond Beverage Review

~ Gina Briganti ~ 13 Comments

Videos are on hold while I put extra time into a project I hope will delight my newsletter subscribers, but I still have fun news to share with my foodie friends this week.

Trader Joe’s released a new almond beverage!

Simply Almond Beverage reminds me of the first time I had almond “milk” at a festival. Thick enough without additives of any type, creamy, the taste of almonds dancing across my tongue, with a natural sweetness, all these qualities make this a winner. There was one surprise from this beverage; the soft almond pulp floating in it. It adds a creamy texture that I found addicting. I drank a whole cup the first time I tried it.

I’m adding this to my essentials shopping list at Trader Joe’s and it is replacing the Trader Joe’s unsweetened vanilla almond beverage. Simply Almond Beverage is a bit pricier than the one with additives, but I’d rather skip those all together.

Look for it in the refrigerator and please share your impressions when you try it.

*This review is not sponsored. I purchased and reviewed the beverage all on my own.

Thanks for reading!

Gina

Villainous Writing Advice From Chris Pavesic (Unquiet Dead)- Writing Advice From The Pros

~ Gina Briganti ~ 2 Comments
Villainous Writing Advice

I like reading advice on writing from other authors. Many times I find really great ideas that help improve my own writing abilities. For example, in On Writing, Stephen King (2001) recommends listening to music to help a writer block out the world and focus on the work at hand. I have multiple dedicated writing playlists for just this purpose. Certain advice, though, does not resonate with me. For example—certain writers suggest modeling villains after people in your own life that you dislike. I would find that difficult advice to implement in my writing.

First—there is the time factor. Writing a novel generally takes time. Even if a writer aims for a thousand words a day of good, solid prose, the writing stretches into months. Imagine this time actively thinking about people you do not like. This would not be an enjoyable activity in my perspective.

As a writer, I want to like my villains. Not everything that they do—many of their activities to me would be morally objectionable. But I need to understand them—to know why they are doing certain activities so that I can put this down on the page. I need to sympathize with their motivations and to realize that, in most instances, the villains do not see themselves as evil. These characters need the same depth as the heroes or, in my opinion, they will never be more than a caricature.

In Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett (1991, p. 185) has the villain of the story, Lilith, makes the following comparison: “She wondered whether there was such a thing as the opposite of a fairy godmother. Most things had their opposite, after all. If so, she wouldn’t be a bad fairy godmother, because that’s just a good fairy godmother seen from a different viewpoint.” Later in the story, readers learn that Lilith firmly believes she is the good fairy godmother and is not the villain. It’s a matter of perspective, and in her viewpoint, those working against her are evil. She’s trying to improve people’s lives, and those working against her are trying to impede progress.

This is not the only type of villain in literature, but it is the type that I tend to find the most interesting. It is why I can sympathize with Khan in Star Trek (both in Into Darkness and in Space Seed) and Loki in The Avengers while at the same time being morally appalled by many of their actions.

There are obvious exceptions to this—Sauron in The Lord of the Rings trilogy does not generate sympathy for many readers, (although Tolkien does give him a fascinating history in The Silmarillion that explains his fall into darkness) but the Nazguls always had a touch of sympathy to their story for me because they were tricked by Sauron into becoming the Ring Wraiths. The detail and care that Tolkien invests into the story keeps these characters from being caricatures.

Amazon

Audible

Smashwords

Thank you, Chris, for sharing your writing wisdom with us!

Middlegame by Seanen McGuire Video Book Review

~ Gina Briganti ~ Leave a comment

Blurb

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

Author Biography

Seanan McGuire is a native Californian, which has resulted in her being exceedingly laid-back about venomous wildlife, and terrified of weather. When not writing urban fantasy (as herself) and science fiction thrillers (as Mira Grant), she likes to watch way too many horror movies, wander around in swamps, record albums of original music, and harass her cats.

Seanan is the author of the October Daye, InCryptid, and Indexing series of urban fantasies; the Newsflesh trilogy; the Parasitology duology; and the “Velveteen vs.” superhero shorts. Her cats, Lilly, Alice, and Thomas, are plotting world domination even as we speak, but are easily distracted by feathers on sticks, so mankind is probably safe. For now.

Seanan’s favorite things include the X-Men, folklore, and the Black Death. No, seriously. She writes all biographies in the third person, because it’s easier that way.

Thanks for watching!

Gina

Cover Reveal – Reality Check by Carol Browne

~ Gina Briganti ~ 4 Comments

REALITY CHECK is a quirky, surreal, dark, humorous novella that resists being put into a specific genre. My publisher and I had to pick one for Amazon, however, so we settled for Fiction: Psychological. Readers can decide for themselves when the book is released by Dilliebooks on 2nd September, 2019. If the cover makes you feel off balance, perhaps the contents will do the same. But thought-provoking and unsettling though it is, I hope everyone who reads it will be thoroughly entertained.

Blurb
Gillian Roth finds herself in middle age, living alone, working in a dull job, with few friends and little excitement in her life. So far, so ordinary.

But Gillian has one extraordinary problem.

Her house is full of other people … people who don’t exist. Or do they?

As her surreal home life spirals out of control, Gillian determines to find out the truth and undertakes an investigation into the nature of reality itself.

Will this provide an answer to her dilemma, or will the escalating situation push her over the edge before she has worked out what is really going on?

Carol Browne:
Amazon author page US: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0034P87QC
Amazon author page UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B0034P87QC

Thanks for reading!

Gina

Romantic Meals To Dine al Fresco by Sloane Taylor – Cookbook Review

~ Gina Briganti ~ Leave a comment
Egg Drop Soup
Our first time making it at home, which is one of the reasons we love Taylor’s cookbooks; she makes it easy to try new recipes. This egg drop soup is less salty (much more pleasant) than any we’ve been served in a restaurant!
Photo credit: Nina Lackey
Oven-Fried Chicken
Lemon Garlic Broccoli
The chicken was tender and juicy with a delicious fried coating. We substituted gluten-free flour for the flour listed in the recipe and it was perfect!
The broccoli was tasty and easy for a weeknight dinner.
Photo credit: Gina Briganti
Oven-Fried Tempeh
Tempeh Salad
We eat mostly plant-based here and wanted to try the oven-fried recipe on one of our favorite proteins. The crunch was perfect and the recipe converted exactly as we would want it to, including the gluten-free adaptation.
We made tempeh salad with the leftover cubed tempeh by adding celery, chives, and mayonnaise.
We’ve made this a few more times and it’s on our family menu now.
Photo credits: Gina Briganti
Cheesy Cauliflower
Five-star flavor and so easy it amazed us! We subbed non-dairy ingredients and it was a one for one match. Taylor’s recipes are well researched and convert perfectly on the first try. No guesswork on our parts makes us very happy!
Photo credit: Nina Lackey
Sauteed Mushrooms
I had to snap a picture while they were in the pan because the aroma lured the family into the kitchen with forks in hand. Some made it into the serving dish. Next time we’ll make a triple batch.
Photo credit: Gina Briganti

We been enjoying our copy of the cookbook since it was released in June and have made a few recipes we didn’t take pictures of, but that we enjoyed and want to mention. The avocado salad is a nice blend of creamy and crunchy, with a light dressing. The fried shredded potato cake takes more steps than we usually spend on a potato dish but it was truly well worth the time and we will make it again.

Taylor has a secure place on our cookbook shelf and we’re anticipating her next book! We make more recipes from her books than any other cookbook author we have on our shelf or Kindle.

Click here to see my video review of Taylor’s cookbook, Date Night Dinners,

Which recipes interest you?

Thanks for reading,

Gina

Black Dagger Brotherhood By J.R. Ward! My TBR Countdown From #RWA19

~ Gina Briganti ~ Leave a comment

The challenges faced by these characters are rivaled by my own – getting all the books my suitcases could hold home and now deciding which order to read them in.

I spent time with almost every author on this list at the Indie Author Signing. So much talent in that room and every one of them was gracious and fun to talk with. I’m more excited than ever to be a fantasy romance author.

There was so much inspiration at this conference that I can’t help but tap away at the final book in the Natural Gift series. It’s coming along very well. I have surprises for you!

One of the authors on my TBR won the RITA for best paranormal romance. This is shocking news, but I must admit I haven’t yet read J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. I admit this with an embarrassed laugh and I’m going to fix that, pronto.

What’s on your TBR? I’d love to know. What are you reading? Let’s talk!

Thanks for watching and reading!

Gina

I’m Back And I Brought A Dragon Home With Me

~ Gina Briganti ~ 6 Comments

I’ve been to New York city for #rwa19, where Amber Kell gifted conference attendees with a red dragon, who has not left my bedside since I met him.

Here are more highlights from my trip.

I had a remarkable meal with DARA members at The View restaurant, 48 stories above the city. This is a salad-lovers dream with marcona almonds, hearts of palm, and pomegranate seeds.

Of course I had a New York deli potato cake, so I wouldn’t have to hand back my status as a foodie. It was scrumptious. Junior’s was reasonably priced and fast!

You will be proud of my self-restraint, because I only brought home twenty physical books from the conference. I would have brought them all home, but the airline has rules or something. We won’t talk about how many cards I received from the lovely, generous romance authors with download codes on them…until later. I can’t wait to show you my haul!

The final leg of my vacation was to Bangor, Maine. Have you been to Bangor? I believe it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. Their summer high temperature during my visit was our Texas low temperature. One night I needed a sweatshirt. They get buried in snow every winter or I might consider moving there.

Last time I was in Maine we drove by this bookstore and I wanted to check it out this time. If you’re in Bangor, stop in for a book lover’s dream. Reasonable prices, great owner, and stunning selection.

Maine brings out the history buff in me.

This apothecary’s table is fascinating. We still use some of those ingredients in homeopathic remedies. They have stood the test of time.

Toy and tea enthusiasts, check out this children’s tea set, circa mid 1800’s.

This board book and candies are also from the mid 1800’s! The book looks so modern to me! Being near this table was a major thrill.

Did you know that Maine is full of museums? I found out the good way, by visiting another one. Note that all of the machines at the logging museum are working machines. This is living history. You’ll have to visit on a Thursday when the buildings are open or during an event to see them in action.

This path is on the way to the settler’s area. It was pristine and serene. If they could make the scents and sounds I experienced here into a portable candle it would rob me of what it was like to be there. I will hear that bubbling brook and taste the sweet water we pumped after our walk for the rest of my days.

One of our last day trips was to Bar Harbor. There’s magic in that harbor, walking those cobblestone streets.

My souvenir is these sea glass earrings from Sherman’s. They are my reward for finishing the first draft of April 4th: World Reset Day. a.k.a. the fifth and final book in the Natural Gifts series.

Vacation ended this past weekend at the most fabulous writer’s retreat a romance author could ask for. This is what me and 13 of my chapter members did there.

What’s your favorite snapshot from my trip?

Thanks for reading!

Gina

Whiskey In A Teacup Video Book Review

~ Gina Briganti ~ Leave a comment

A five-star book that feels like chatting with a friend, talking about life, kids, music, books, childhood, and recipes. I totally enjoyed it.

There is also a bit of Youtube channel news and a reveal at the end of the video.

The character from my Natural Gift series who I think would appreciate Whiskey In A Teacup the most is Brittany. Her book is No Yesterdays, where she (spoiler? I don’t think so.) and Carter finally get together. Brittany needs recipes to impress her chef boyfriend with, and these could do it.

Soul mates are being drawn together in numbers we’ve never seen. Gifts are unlocking faster than racing hearts, adding eight new people to the soul group. The group is growing, their energy blending in ways they didn’t know could happen. The big question is why is the soul mate bond in a hurry?

Brittany has been pining for Carter for years now. She needs a push.

Jack is stubborn personified and close to having Darah walk away, keeping her secrets to herself. They need a shove.

Jason is having the time of his life in college. All those beautiful women. Ha. Not the plan. Angelina can handle him.

Rowan is convinced that his soul mate didn’t incarnate with him in this lifetime. Surprise! This psychic finds out exactly why the women in his family told him his arrogance was blinding.

There’s no looking back now.

There are No Yesterdays.

Buy No Yesterdays to join in on the fantasy and the romance today

Announcements

I will be travelling for the next few weeks. There won’t be any new posts here on the blog until August 12th. It’s possible that I’ll be on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram because that’s where we like to hang out so if we’re not already connected there you can find me under my name.

How do you feel about breaks? Do you take them?

Thanks for watching!

Gina

*This is not a sponsored post.