London was soaked through to the bone. TO THE BONE! Chanced across a protest. And then it became impossible to get a cab. Okay so that’s all just stitched up together there. But those were the events.

Couldn’t get to Baker Street mostly because the tour company we hired had the buses running late. So we went on the Red Line and then the skies opened up. There were waterfalls running the Tube’s stairs. It was insane. I got soaked. We all got soaked.

But I got a picture of one of the Tower’s Ravens.

And had Fish and Chips for lunch.

So dead tired. So this will be quick. See you in the morning. Well my morning.

So we’ve come back from Oxford. I am dead tired. We had Indian food for dinner. I’d tell you more but there’s a bunch of silliness and giggles. I have a cup of tea and we’re watching Banshee.

So far I’ve been embroiled in the war of Nero and Costa coffee. Tamm however swears by Café Nero’s hot chocolate. Penn swears by Costa coffee. I didn’t care which so long as I got coffee.

Oxford was really nice and I really did a good twist to my knee. Life is so good right now. We’re heading to London tomorrow. There will be some walking so I’m hoping it feels better by tomorrow morning.

Today is a special shout out to Harry Potter fans in the area because there’s a huge Potter connection with Christ Church, apparently. And it’s so adorably cute. No really. It’s all over. As well as Alice in Wonderland but that makes sense because of Carroll. I’ll be uploading pix at the end of this so you can see. But I’ll be picking out certain photos and I just don’t have the brain to go through 1000 shots. I shall have brain at some point.

Starting JD Robb’s latest In Death tonight. Maybe. Watch me pass out.

Mary Calmes and Jordan L. Hawk have books coming out. Get them. I’ve read them. They’re gorgeous.

Fit To Be Tied by Mary Calmes

Deputy US Marshals Miro Jones and Ian Doyle are now partners on and off the job: Miro’s calm professionalism provides an ideal balance to Ian’s passion and quick temper. In a job where one misstep can be the difference between life and death, trust means everything. But every relationship has growing pains, and sometimes Miro stews about where he stands with his fiery lover. Could the heartstrings that so recently tied them together be in danger of unraveling?

Those new bonds are constantly challenged by family intrusions, well-intentioned friends, their personal insecurities, and their dangerous careers—including a trial by fire when an old case of Miro’s comes back to haunt them. It might just be enough to make Ian rethink his decision to let himself be tied down, and Miro can only hope the links they’ve forged will be strong enough to hold.

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Fit-Be-Tied-Marshals-Book-ebook/dp/B014V4EDHQ/

 

Dangerous Spirits by Jordan L Hawk

After the events of Reyhome Castle, Henry Strauss expected the Psychical Society to embrace his application of science to the study of hauntings. Instead, the society humiliates and blacklists him. His confidence shaken, he can’t bring himself to admit the truth to his lover, the handsome medium Vincent Night.

Vincent’s new life in Baltimore with Henry is disrupted when a friend from the past asks for help with a haunting. In the remote town of Devil’s Walk, old ties and new lies threaten to tear the lovers apart, if a fiery spirit bent on vengeance doesn’t put an end to them first.

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Spirits-Jordan-L-Hawk-ebook/dp/B01255T684/

The sans part has since been rectified.

Yesterday we were in Bath. Lovely place. There was an art gallery that was on the bit of the odd side but then we like odd. The Herne sculpture was awesome, especially since the deer rack’s shadow cast down as wings on the wall.

Went to the Ale House on the corner of the square. Absolutely adorable bar man there and we got lunch. I got a meat pie, the rest of the Five got chili. Really. Chili. I am judging so hard. *grins* To be fair, we also got a plate of nachos to share. I have to make actual guacamole for them. But it was nice. No mushy peas for me. Minty or otherwise.

The Abbey itself was gorgeous. Took a lot of inside pix there. I’ll post those out in a bit. I’m doing this blog post on the fly before we had over to Oxford.

We walked about a bit, looked at the Roman Bath building but the queue was huge. They were processing tour groups through so it was chaotic.

Tried to take tea in a tea room. Got shunted around to their other tea room then ended up in the front room and they put us at a table above the others. Soooo much food. Ended up taking the cake home.

Hope everyone’s doing well. I’ve got to start plotting Kai out and then just going for it. I’ve got some inklings of what I want.

Right now, I have coffee and Halle the Cairn is keeping me company.

Good morning and hello from slightly damp Swindon. Today we are going to head down to Bath once we get all of our bits and knobs together. The UK has been great as have been the people. At the moment, I am having coffee with the Five. Well one of the Five and one of our cairn mascots named Halle.

To be fair, Halle is snoring. She’s very sweet but a bit disgruntled she doesn’t get any excess food because the increased ratio of people to dog should work out in her favour but for some reason it doesn’t seem to result in additional bacon or biscuits.

There are roundabouts galore here. I hit about five of them. There is a Magical Roundabout which I think I posed a video of once… but it’s pretty much a squillion roundabouts with tiny roundabouts inside of it where people go about in circles for hours and sometimes just give up, pull over and live their lives in the glorious town of Roundabout.

Sleep has become a distant memory. I imagine I will pass out tonight. I sincerely doubt I’ll be able to sleep in because well, coffee aroma in the morning rises up and tickles the brain.

Hope you all are doing well. *grins*

The view from the UK Meet’s chatting room.

Well, I broke the hotel’s internet.

I didn’t mean to and the front desk clerk assures me that I did nothing of the sort but I know she is lying just to make me feel better. Went and grabbed something to eat downstairs and came up to do a post for tomorrow morning.

So there we have it. The first casualty of the trip…the internet.

It was a very long 10 hour flight mostly because the flight attendant really didn’t want to be there and it showed. It was hot but my seat mate was okay. Chair was meh. Food was… well, they were preparing me for a Sunday Roast at Aunt Edna’s house down in Leeds. Aunt Edna who doggy bags her friend’s BBQ leftover because she knows you’re coming to visit and can’t be bothered to cook.

The UK is the UK. Just as you’d imagine. But with more Jaguars. The driver… yes I had a driver because I knew I’d be sick as a fucking dog when I got off the plane and tackling a bus or train wasn’t going to happen. Especially after UK Border / passport check and luggage retrieval.

Landed at 330. Got out of Passport and all of that at 510 then off to Bristol. I had the windows open and practically hung my head out of the car window like a golden retriever.

But I am here. And planning to go to bed because it’s that time here. And I’ve had a really long day ;D

If you are here, let me know. I will say hey. 😀

By the way, I am sharing the floor with the Japanese Rugby team. God, damn. Life is good.

Morning all!

I’ll probably still be in the air when this is posted but I thought I’d preload a blog entry just to have something here.

There are a lot of things to worry about when traveling and apparently having enough power cords is one of them. Seriously, does EVERYTHING have to have its own power cord? Apparently so. Damned electronics. I’m lugging a bunch of tablets, phones, laptops and cameras with me. You’d think I was going to go shoot a documentary and cut it on the fly.

Also in my luggage are skanky My Little Ponies for one of the five to dissect and make pretty horrid things with. With any luck, one of them will be a fanged pony. I’ll ask for pix.

This isn’t going to be one of the longer flights I’ve been on and truthfully, I’ll be able to sleep through most of it. Redeye to London isn’t that bad. Fighting the traffic to the airport probably will be worst. So we’ll see how that pans out.

I don’t have a lot of writing news. Mostly my brain’s been taken up with how I’m going to get on at Bristol and what else I have to do for GRL. I do need to just sit down, have a cup of coffee someplace and ruminate about Kai 2. Which reminds me. I need to shove a notebook into my luggage so I can just jot notes down instead of dragging out the laptop when I want to go wander.

Unfortunately for me, British Airways doesn’t do TSA Pre-Check so I have to stand in line with everyone else. Sighs. The horrors. *Grins* Knowing Security, that’ll take a bit. Especially at San Diego International.

When I get back, I’ll have to get on my swag for GRL. Just the paper bits since I’ve got the physical stuff. I don’t know what my plans are for cons next year but I’m thinking of doing a MidWest tour, mainly so Mary Calmes can lock me up in her house like she did last year and then her cat, Dewey and I can sing the blues together in Stalag Calmes.

There’s a bit of an ear stuffiness going on with me but I have Sudafed. I’m taking a bunch with me because you know, ear stuffiness is horrible. A lot of it has to do with the hot/cold air San Diego is having right now. It better be gone when I come back. *grins*

Talk to you all once I get landed, settled and probably some sleep and coffee. If you’re attending the UK Meet, wooooot! Say hey.

As I am packing up today, I’m gathering up all the bits and pieces…and losing my mind about not putting everything in I needed… I ruminated about Kai.

Mostly because I have to write Kai 2. So I’m going to spend a week immersing myself in the first one and see where it leads me. Luckily, I’ll be listening to Greg Tremblay’s narration of the book as well as reading it as I go.

I haven’t decided on a plot. To be honest, while I have really vague ideas on what I wanted to do with Kai, I never thought I’d get to do them. Now, I have way too many. And what to choose.

The opening scene is set. That much is certain. Where it leads from there… oh so many possibilities. So, over the next few months I’ll be diving into Kai’s brain and seeing where it takes me.

Last time we left our intrepid Stalker, he was missing parts of his Mustang and had gained a couple of nieces. Ryder began his Dawn Court and intended to move into Balboa Park. Alexa, Ryder’s cousin, had taken over security for the San Diego’s Court and Dempsey, Kai’s mentor, is probably drunk off his ass in Lakeside, counting the money he got for saving the twin babies.

But where does that leave Kai? Big question.

Urban fantasy is a very different voice than murders and other stuff. There’s a certain rhythm and tone so I’ll have to get into that head as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve written Kai but I’ve been gearing up to it for almost a year now.

It’ll be interesting to see what gets plotted out. I have a firm inkling. But you know, there are always right turns when you least expect them.

Or at least there are when I’m driving.

One of the things I will be doing in the UK is recharging my batteries. I’ve been kind of writing and working non-stop for the past few months and it is definitely taking a toll.

I finished writing Dirty Heart this past weekend, the last of the Cole McGinnis series. While there will be books later at some point with Cole and Jae, it was time for the series to end. It was kind of bittersweet. Because it was time. God knows you KNOW when it’s time for a series to end but I do adore writing Cole.

When I first started that series, I fully intended the voice to be over the top, a rollicking 1970s bang of action and a little bit on the edge of Oh God, Now What. Each series has its own tone but Cole’s was something I really wanted to dig into. A hint of noir and a lot of booms. Earth Shattering Booms.

Along the way there were going to be characters he met and loved. Most notably Jae. But Claudia, Mike, Maddy, Bobby, Ichi and Scarlet really filled out the cast and it was a pleasure to create them and weave them into the story.

It will hopefully be out in March 2016. The beta readers are going at it right now and I’ll see what they say but I’m happy with how it came out. It’s a more tight in book, focused pretty much on Cole. Which was just how it ended up.

Yes, a bit sad. But new horizons. Murder and Mayhem will be picking up the Los Angeles thread, heavier noir and a bit more traditional murder mysteries with a bit of a twist with Rook. Classic two sides of the law.

Oh… and then there’s Fish Stick Fridays… but we’ll talk about that another time.

Morning everyone!~

Today is Labour Day in America. The day where we honour labourers everywhere. Not Labradors. Although I suppose those could be honoured.

I’m bound for the UK tomorrow evening. It’s a ten hour flight direct from San Diego to London and from there I’m in a car to Bristol. There was a bit of discussion on whether I was going to do Coach or Train. Well, after looking at the timeline and how many planes, trains and cabs I’d end up taking, I went with a car because it cut about two hours off of the trip. Which means less time lugging baggage from the terminal to the station then to the cab then to the hotel.

It’s funny how certain things really make or break a decision. For me, it was time spent in a moving metal box. So… wooot. See? My life is so exciting.

Even more exciting? I’m writing this on Sunday night. Watching Expendables 3 while waiting for the rice to finish cooking. I made a red Hawaiian salt, garlic and pepper dry rub and tossed beef cubes into it. Braised those and now just waiting on the rice. Did laundry ALL day. Okay so I also apparently am here to run the cat’s ears. Because you know… cat.

Tam is this particular cat. The one with diabetes. He’s an ear scritch whore.

Wesley Snipes is such an overactor.

You know that adage that says if you burn yourself the meal will be good? Then the beef will be great because I somehow got an oil splash on the underside of my left arm. Go figure.

Whatcha all up to this morning?

I am not an atheist. That’s probably obvious. I’m not even sure what I am. Mostly I’m too busy taking care of my own shit to really care who is talking to God, what name they call him/her or who doesn’t want a God. Still…. this pretty much sums stuff up.

Oh and you should all know.. the are you fucking kidding me is about ketchup on scrambled eggs 😀 Heh. Long standing debate among our friends.