Julia Barrett's World

*Enjoy Seven Days of Valentines with Siren-Bookstrand Authors*

Get all your romance over at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SirenBookstrand/

You can win ebooks and Strandbucks by reading the following post and answering one simple question…send your answer to: sandys36@yahoo.com

I’m offering a copy of Captured, my sci fi romance with Siren.

So…follow along here…Have your read or seen The Princess Bride?  The heroine and hero, Buttercup and Wesley are star-crossed lovers.  They dislike each other, fight a growing attraction,  and when they finally admit their true feelings, Wesley goes off to earn his fortune so he’ll be worthy of his true love.  Unfortunately, he vanishes and Buttercup believes him to be dead, killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts.  Apathetic, knowing she will never again experience true love, she agrees to marry the evil Prince Humerdinck.  And then Wesley returns and the passion between Wesley and Buttercup reignite.

My husband and I lived through a similar story.  We fell in love at a young age, were separated by time and distance, and had no contact whatsoever for six years.  In the meantime, I married the evil Prince Humperdinck.  The man who is my husband, the new Dread Pirate Roberts, returned and saved me.  Our true story is every bit as romantic and harrowing as The Princess Bride.  I’ll post it sometime!

For a chance to win a copy of Captured and Strandbucks, answer this question correctly – In what romance does a character say the following: “You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The first is never get involved in a land war in Asia. The second, only slightly less well known, is this: never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha –” Email your answer to Sandy, sandys36@yahoo.com

Captured:  Blurb

Mari never expects to find herself caged in a cargo hold on a spaceship. She quickly learns from her captors she’s headed to the meat market. When they try to return her to hypersleep, she resists. After allowing her to stay awake, Mari realizes her survival depends on connecting with the male in charge, Ekkatt. She must make him see her as a sentient being or she will end up as dinner.

Ekkatt has never spoken to any human. They are valued for one thing, the money they bring at auction. The Attun race are vegetarians, but other species prize human flesh and bring in good money. Then the female with red hair speaks to him and forces him to admit she has a name. Mari throws Ekkatt’s entire life into question, the biggest question…can he watch her sold to the highest bidder?

Happy Valentine’s Week!

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My Cat is a Newt Addict

Did you know that newts are poisonous?  They have glands on their skin that secrete a neuro-toxin.  The toxin is similar to that of a pufferfish.  Did you know that ingesting one rough skin newt can kill a large college student?  In fact, the second most poisonous newt in the world is the California Newt.

The picture above is of an Arboreal Newt.  My cat brings in three to four of these a night – all sizes.  Apparently, now that our court is half-empty and has been for over a year – with neighbors turning their homes over to the bank, nature has returned with a vengeance and we are overrun with Arboreal Newts.  I really don’t care…they’re kinda cute in a squishy sort of Martian-like yucky way, but they are poisonous and my cat carries his newt around as if it’s a delicate crystal figurine, gagging and wheezing and frothing at the mouth all the while.  He drops it on my foot – if I happen to be awake, or on my neck, if I happen to be asleep.

As a consequence, I’ve stopped sleeping.  I’m terrified he’ll drop a newt on my face and it will crawl into my mouth.  This habit he’s developed is taking a toll on me.  I go flying out of bed at the slightest movement, sound, imagined slow-motion newt wiggle.

I’m trying to decide what the fascination is – does my cat get this weird newt high from the toxin, you know…like toad licking?  Or does he just want me to know newts are intruding upon his territory?  Or does he want me to lick them and join in on his newt-induced acid trip?  He doesn’t eat them – he would be very dead if he did, and he doesn’t kill them either.  We release them in various areas and the next night, he finds more.  My husband says the cat is probably building up an immunity to newt toxin much like the Dread Pirate Roberts did in The Princess Bride with iocaine poison.

The interesting thing about our lack of neighbors is the very notable increase in birds, frogs, hawks, owls, newts, snakes…we’ve always had raccoons and possums, skunks and squirrels, but now we’ve got a bobcat hunting in the court – he grabbed a raccoon off our roof recently.  Those of us remaining on the court have noticed a dramatic increase in wildlife – we live just a road away from open space – in a single year of decreased human activity.

Tonight I’m locking the cats in.

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