If you have a minute, go check out Book View Café! Today we rolled out the New! Improved! bookstore. Easier to navigate, cleaner and better organized, plus, new bells and whistles (you can buy more than one book at a time! We can issue "coupons" for discounts! Joy!).

And while you're there, check out ramblin_phyl's Guardian of the Freedom, released today.

1763: all of Europe is at war with each other and the Turks are storming toward Vienna. The magical protection of Britain requires that Georgina Kirkwood, a potential Merlin, leave the secret Pendragon Society and disguise herself as man to fight for England.

Wounded and no longer able to carry a sword, Georgina is recruited by the King as a spy in the American Colonies. Transplanted to a land and people vibrant with life and ideas, she begins to question her loyalties. Only her love for Major Roderick Wythe gives her the grounding and stability to work with Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams and many other notable leaders to discover what being the Merlin truly means and to determine who she is protecting from whom.

Irene Radford has been writing stories ever since she figured out what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian who lives in Oregon, she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon where deer, bears, coyotes, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck.

A museum trained historian, Irene has spent many hours prowling pioneer cemeteries deepening her connections to the past. Raised in a military family she grew up all over the US and learned early on that books are friends that don't get left behind with a move. Her interests and reading range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a whole lot in between.

Guardian of the Freedom (historical fantasy)
Merlin's Descendants #5
Irene Radford
May 15, 2012 $4.99 ISBN: 978-1-61138-171-9

I have got everything on my non-writing ToDo list done except for the BVC book keeping, which is about half done (maybe 2/3 done).

I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch the dog snore for a while. How about you?

Which fall mainly on the plain?

A couple of weeks ago I listed the following:

1) Two quilt squares to finish by May 8th (co-worker's wife is having twins; company tradition, each baby gets a quilt). Deadline etended to 5/14

2) Involved cool craft project, due May 15th. (More when it comes out of the Cone of Secrecy.) All done except for shipping it out tomorrow.

3) BVC Royalties bookkeeping. Er. Um. Moving glacially, but moving.

4) Transport all my BVC books from the old platform to the new one for the BVC bookstore. Preferably by Monday.

5) Get The Spanish Marriage, the last of my Regencies, ready for its late-May debut on BVC.

6) Older daughter turns 22. Festivities must occur.

The light at the end of the tunnel beckons.

And it's Mother's Day. And my darling daughters are squabbling. This is what family's all about, right? Back to my embroidery.

Anyone who has a kid has very likely been to a nursery-school age party where the kids did the Chicken Dance ("I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, so I shake my butt...")

But this, which a co-worker showed me last week, is just so very wrong. No one over the age of 5 should be doing this without heavy lashings of irony. Plus: the losing battle the performers fight to keep those grins pasted on their faces is just...sad.



Since I have had this running through my head for several days, I just thought I'd...share.

They're all nice kids, but they are loud.

Perhaps because of my job (or perhaps because I'm just like this) I sometimes get totally pulled in by a process.

This is my high-falutin' way of saying that I spent ten "I should be getting dressed" minutes this morning watching water come to a boil. Fascinating, watching all those minute pockets of steam trying to make their way from the bottom of the pot to the top. Fly free, little bubbles of steam!

I suppose there's a reason my children think I'm odd.

Maurice Sendak is gone. Dammit. One of the most singular, crotchety, kindly, gorgeous visionaries of the world.

I told you once, I told you twice: I'm eating chicken soup with rice.

Sarcasm Girl, aka ophelianoiepas, aka my daughter Julie, is 22 today.

And, as a birthday present from the Universe (and the UC system) she got accepted into UC Davis for next all as a transfer student.

It's been a long exposition, as Firesign Theatre would say, but I am so proud of my girl that my teeth hurt from smiling. I think hers do too.

Just got a copy of my story "Boon", reprinted in the French edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It's always cool to see a story rendered in someone else's language and words.

The Café, that is. And waiting for an explanation from our host about just what happened. As you were.