Because I am a huge fan of Tres Leches Cake
You have got to check out the recipe for Tres Leches Cake with Caramelized Bacon and Bananas. O.M.F.G.
I don’t eat bacon, but I’m gonna make the cake and caramelize something to put on top - bananas and phacon, blueberries, apples, something. Damn, that cake looks good!
She really enjoyed My Everything. Her review is so winning - and you know I appreciate her energy. She’s posted it on two sites:
http://thegeekybookworm.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-my-everything-by-julia-rachel.html
and here: http://book-lovers-inc.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-my-everything-by-julia-rachel.html
I’m having site trouble, i.e., the link upload so I’ll reprint her review here:
“I received this book as a review copy from the author and after reading the blurb I was like “Okay we will see.”. And I have to say this blurb doesn’t do the book any justice.
The book is fast paced and written in such a lovely way, I just couldn’t put it down. We switch from different POVs through the whole story but it made the story more 3 dimensional and not at all confusing. I loved how Ms. Barrett chose an unique voice for each of her characters. It made them so much more real in my eyes.
Our heroine Grace had a few grave moments in her life. She lost her husband to leukemia after only 2 years of marriage and she suffers from really hard migraine attacks from time to time.But she doesn’t give up and tries to handle this all on her own. She is a specialist for pain management and it would look really unprofessional to have problems on exactly the same topic. While she has one of her attacks she meets Ben, her big teenage crush. He helps her and is more understanding and helpful than many other people in her life.
Ben is broken inside. He lost his wife and his unborn child in a terror assasination he should have prevented. He works in the security sector and it was his purpose and task to prevent things like that but he failed and got punished for his mistake. Or that is what he thinks. We all know that there are certain things in life we just can’t stop from happening. We shouldn’t stop trying to but sometimes it’s just the way it is. And especially in this situation it’s not at all his fault. As you can see I really felt for him. Poor man. He’s a strongly caring person and although he vanished from the surface of his normal life for a year to hide and work through his grief, he still cares for his family and friends. When he hears that his best friend is in grave danger he doesn’t hestitate and immediately starts his journey home. The moment he meets Grace again after ten years his first thought is that she is a distraction. But why? He quickly finds out how unlogical this assumption is and discovers his own attraction and perhaps a bit more for her. Surely he feels guilty for that and even more he knows that this is possibly the worst moment ever to get close and personal to someone he really cares about.
The situation gets even more dramatic when Ben finds out that not only his bestfriend is in danger but his sister got kidnapped to draw him out of hiding. The plot is really suspenseful and I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time. The story is a great mix of relationship building and actual story plot. It always gave me what I wanted and it was a real satisfying read for such a short novel.
One thing at the end was a bit “Yeah, sure!” and I don’t mean the supernatural aspect. I won’t tell you more because that would be one gigantic spoiler but if I can forgive something like that other readers probably can,too.
All in all this book was a great read with scorching hot, emotional intense and thrilling action in a perfect mix. I can recommend this book to all the lovers of a nice steamy romance with the right amount of suspense!”
Tied for first - Jennifer and Beth.
Coming in a close second - Mindy.
Answers:
The Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.
John Smith in Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Guy in Galaxy Quest.
Ripley in Aliens.
Imhotep in The Mummy.
White Goodman in Dodgeball.
Annie, or Joanna Stayton in Overboard.
J.C. Wiatt in Baby Boom.
Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It.
Thanks for participating!
Back to work on the sci fi menage - wink…wink…wink…
“One minute Mari is gathering eggs for her sister and the next minute she wakes up on a cold floor in a metal cage surrounded by other cages, all filled with unconscious women. Mari manages to get to her feet; she is nude, cold and terrified. But when she spies two humanoid type beings down the corridor and one approaches, she gathers her dignity like a cloak and tells him what she thinks of him.
It turns out that males from the planet Attun-Ru have been making trips to Earth for over 25 years to capture females. The people of Attun-Ru are vegetarians, but beings on some of the other planets consider human flesh a delicacy. Bad enough that the women are sold for sex or slavery but food? Apparently other planets don’t consider the Earthers to be sentient, more like cattle, at best like pets.
Mari was a linguist back on Earth and slowly she’s learning some of the language of her Attun captors. One in particular, Ekkat Vom Baerkah Elae has taken an interest in her and can’t believe that she is sentient enough to learn some of their words and their ways.
Over time, Ekkat grudgingly acknowledges, at least to himself, that Mari and therefore her people are sentient. Can he with a clear conscience allow her to be herded with the other women to the sheds and then to auction? For her to become a slave, a pet, or a meal once she is sold off? For an Attun to have a relationship, especially sex with a human is a death sentence on his planet. Whatever happens next will change everything for Ekkat and Mari. Once the decision is made there is no going back.
Incredibly unique, Captured skillfully blends a sensuous romance with a dark sci-fi story. Captured is painfully brutal at times, but also mixes passion with heart pounding action. Mari and Ekkat are fascinating main characters with pain and angst in their pasts, yet never willing to give up or give in. Not only is the overall story compelling, there are little twists and turns throughout the plot which makes it really hard to put down. Eroticism, drama, action, heart, and soul – Captured has it all!”
Thank you, Lisa!
I love mindless movies. Totally love them. The more mindless, the better.
Here’s a little mindless movie trivia. I’ll leave the questions up for a few days. Whoever can come up with the most correct answers will win a very nice prize - a copy of my upcoming contemporary romance from Resplendence, Beauty and the Feast, and ten dollars in Strandbucks for use at Siren-Bookstrand! Yay!
Leave a comment here and email me your answers at Julia@JuliaRachelBarrett.net
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say the following -
A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say this -
That left of yours is a thing of beauty.
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say this -
Didn’t you guys ever watch the show?
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say it -
Let go of her, you bitch.
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say this -
Death…is but the beginning.
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say this -
Fuckin’ Chuck Norris.
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say this -
Caviar should be round and hard and of adequate size, and it should burst in your mouth at precisely the right moment…
Who says, and in what movie does he or she say this -
...and anyway, I really think I’d miss my sixty-two acres in Vermont. I mean, Elizabeth is so happy there…and…well, you see…there’s this veterinarian that I’m seeing…
Last, but not least, and this is not from a mindless movie, but from one of my very favorite movies adapted from one of my very favorite stories…who says, and in what movie…
Maybe all I really know about Paul is that he was a fine fisherman. “You know more than that,” my father said. “He was beautiful.”
I’ve been paying attention to the wider world - the non writing, non romance author world and guess what? It’s really interesting! I’ve decided to link to a couple new, earnest bloggers ~ both with a different hobby.
http://craftydana32.blogspot.com/
Craftydana is all about knitting, blogging, reading, life challenges…it doesn’t hurt that she read and is reading my books - but I just plain old like the site. Besides, I know how hard it is to get anyone to look at your blog when you’re new.
Here’s another goody ~ http://projectbacon.wordpress.com/
Yummy photos and an interesting take on bacon, the new candy.
And oops! She fell on her really nice skating butt! Pairs skating. Once one person falls, it’s like Dominoes - everybody starts falling.
The real problem is that I’ve been watching the Olympics for years and I still can’t tell the difference between a Triple Lutz and a Triple Salko, a Triple Axle and a Triple Toe Loop, but I know the lingo…
She stuck that one…
She barely managed to hold on…
He over-rotated…
Look at the height on that quad…
He needed that quad triple after failing on that triple double…
Look at the disappointment on …..’s face…..
The skaters like to pull out all the tearjerkers from the sixties and seventies to skate to. Love Story. The Way We Were, and by the way, that sailor suit kinda sucked. I’d like to see them skate to the music from Porgy and Bess or Westside Story, you know, give me a rumble between the Jets and the Sharks. Now that would move me and you could fit in lots of triple flips and the costumes wouldn’t look as if they’d been designed by Cirque du Soleil.
My favorite all time tragic skating pair? Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. Goddamn, they were beautiful and their love story was one for the ages. So sad he died at the age of twenty-eight of a massive heart attack.
In other news: WATCH!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw
Emily (MacInnes) Somers, created, directed and choreographed this in Portland last week for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves.
When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community. Please check it out. It’s an easy and great way to donate to a wonderful cause, and who hasn’t been touched by breast cancer?
vs. the size of people…the twitter saga of director Kevin Smith.
I have questions. Did Southwest Airlines have a valid reason for refusing to seat Mr. Smith on a flight to Burbank?
Hmmm. I don’t know. Could he buckle his seat belt? Mr. Smith says…yes, he did buckle his seat belt on a subsequent flight.
As the story goes, he had a reservation for two seats on a later flight but then decided to go standby on an earlier flight. There was only one seat left on the earlier flight. Was it a middle seat? If so, I can see where he might not fit, especially if no other passenger was willing to move to accommodate him and allow him an aisle seat. Seems like everybody hates the middle seat. If you sit on the aisle, you have a little more room. If you get the window seat, you not only have a little more privacy, you can look out the window and lean against the window sill to sleep. No matter your size, in the middle seat, you’re just plain old squished.
I’m one of those disgustingly polite people willing to take a middle seat because I fit, even if my fellow seat mates spill over into my territory…I still fit.
The fact is, airline seats are pretty dang small and there ain’t a whole hell of a lot of room. Most airlines pack as many people onto every flight as they can. That’s tough for larger than average people.
From my thinner perspective, the lack of leg room in all but the front row, and people who try to shove giant so-called carry-on luggage into the overhead bins, kind of bug me more than big people on either side of me. But, in defense of Southwest Airlines, I’ve flown with them for years and they have provided excellent, convenient, consistent, professional service and I’ve never once seen them ask a plus size person to get off a plane. Southwest is one size fits all, so when I want more space on long flights, I fork over my hard-earned dollars for Business Class on another airline.
I can only imagine Mr. Smith’s indignation and embarrassment and I would not want something like this to happen to one of my best friends who happens to be a very large woman, but I’m wondering if you kinda sorta had to be there. Maybe SWA just picked the wrong guy to mess with. I guess what concerns me is something larger, no pun intended…men and women in the developed world are growing, as are the health problems related to obesity, while the seats on SWA are not…
Tomorrow, back to romance.
Ruth Anne Dodge was the wife of General Grenville Dodge, Chief Engineer and Surveyor of the Union Pacific Railroad.
The angel sculpture at the Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is said to be the translation of a dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge on the three nights preceding her death in 1916. According to the legend, Mrs. Dodge related to family members that she had a vision of being on a rocky shore and, through a mist, seeing a boat approach. In the prow was a beautiful young woman whom Mrs. Dodge thought to be an angel. The woman carried a small bowl under one arm and extended the other arm toward Mrs. Dodge in an invitation to partake of the water flowing from the vessel. Then, according to accounts later published by Mrs. Dodge’s daughter, Anne, the angel spoke twice, saying: “Drink, I bring you both a promise and a blessing.” The daughter wrote that the vision came three times to her mother and, on the third visit, Mrs. Dodge took the drink as offered and felt “transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being.” Mrs. Dodge died immediately after her supposed third vision, on September 5, 1916. She had died in her sleep at her home in New York. Her body was brought back to Council Bluffs where she was buried in a mausoleum in Walnut Hill Cemetery.
Mrs. Dodge’s two daughters, Miss Anne Dodge and Mrs. Frank Pusey, decided to build a memorial in the memory of their mother complete with a statue sculpted in the likeness of the angel that appeared in their mother’s dream. The memorial was commissioned in 1917 to Daniel Chester French, the same man who sculpted the statue of the Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts and the Lincoln Memorial Statue in Washington DC. The ten foot tall angel statue is made of solid bronze. The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is located in a small fenced-in park overlooking and adjacent to the Fairview Cemetery, not the Walnut Hill Cemetery where Ruth Anne was buried.
I’m very familiar with this statue as I grew up nearby. A boyfriend and I also crashed on his motorcycle riding down the wet brick street leading away from the cemetery after we’d spent most of the night at the foot of the statue, waiting for the mythical tears that supposedly flow from the Angel’s eyes…they don’t. The statue is pretty amazing though and gives off a bunch of spiritual energy.
So I became The Black Angel this Valentine’s weekend - the harbinger of death. The nurses I work with have dubbed me the Angel of Death because whenever I’m on it seems as if I hustle from one death bed to another. Of course, that’s what hospice nurses do…and I’m okay with it. Cuz, ya know, I got kilt in a horseback riding accident at sixteen and had a NDE - but came back because I wasn’t dead enough.
Anywhoo - if you happen to find yourself in Council Bluffs, Iowa, pay a visit to The Black Angel and try to swing by the totally - and really - haunted Squirrel Cage jail, check out the ghost residing in the former Carnegie Library - I’ve seen her a bunch of times, plus the Dodge House itself is way haunted as is the old Christian Home building. There’s even a section of the old Underground Railroad that stretches between two pre-Civil War era homes and walking that tunnel is one of the most memorable experiences of my life - the homes may be privately owned now and I’m not sure you can visit, but I’d ask around. Plus you can see where Abraham Lincoln stood and looked over the site of the Union Pacific Railroad, the Lewis and Clark Monument, where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met with the local Native tribes and the Golden Spike Memorial, which is I think where the Eastern tracks of the UP met the Western tracks of the UP. Oh yeah, across the street and up the bluff from Abraham Lincoln High School, hidden behind a line of condos, is a forgotten cemetery - the stones are weathered and the inscriptions hard to make out, but it’s where the Mormons stopped and buried their dead - mostly women and children - on their trek out west.
Me and the dead - my next book. Love and Happy Valentine’s Day yesterday! julia
Playing with the big cats - so much fun!
The Cougar Book has been officially released over at Logical Lust. Yay! I cannot say enough good things about Logical Lust’s professionalism and personal touch. The pub has been amazing and the book is just as fine.
http://www.logical-lust.com/cougar.html
For a great read, pick up a copy. My contribution is You Might Just Get It, featuring a forty-something nurse and a twenty-something chef. The story is yummy!
So…one more hell day at work and then back to the usual schedule. I do love me some cats! Just ask Yoshi, Rico and Ichi-ban…and that cougar mama and her cub I run into at the wilderness park. Shhhhhh - keep it to yourself, somebody will trap her…
While I’m working my little heart out on the day job, Tina’s hosting me today, so head on over and leave a comment - maybe it’ll ping you back a copy of My Everything!
http://www.tinadonahue.com/blog/
Ya’ll be good while I’m gone - and Dana, if you’re reading, hope you enjoy your book! love, julia
P.S. Got a sweet review of Captured from Roni over at: http://romancebookscene.blogspot.com/2010/02/romance-book-review-captured.html
Author Cindy Spencer Pape gave me a nice mention so right back at her: http://cindyspencerpape.blogspot.com/
Release Day from Cobblestone Press.
My Everything is a sweet, spicy, exciting romance/suspense.
Blurb:
Security consultant Ben McCall is alone. His wife and unborn child are dead, victims of an assassination attempt meant for someone else. Grieving, he disappears. When his best friend is in danger, Ben resurfaces only to find his friend isn’t the target of a murderer, he is along with his sister Angel. On the night of his return, Ben unexpectedly comes face to face with a woman from his past. She needs his help. He learns that he needs hers even more.
Grace Adams is one of the walking wounded. Her husband died two years ago. One night she is incapacitated. A man comes to her aid. He’s the man she fell in love with years before, Ben McCall. As the passion between them reignites, Grace too becomes a target of the madman who stalks Ben. She, Angel and Ben must use their wits to stay alive as they fight a man desperate for revenge.
Check it out: http://www.cobblestone-press.com/index.htm
In other news…Romance Junkies is running a fun Valentine’s contest. Here’s the link to my contribution:
http://www.romancejunkies.com/rjvalentinescontest/JuliaRachelBarrett.html
Here’s the main page for the contest:
http://www.romancejunkies.com/contests.html
Enjoy! Hint…breathes fire…
**Dana is the winner of My Everything from Stumbling Over Chaos!
or working on my current and/or next project (cuz it’s gonna be fuckin’ great)…but…
I’m one of the lucky ones on my block who has a job, so by God, I’m there.
At least my kitty is home and on the mend and my dog and I got out for a hike early this morning on muddy trails loaded with deer tracks. Big deer, little deer, medium deer. Yesterday I watched the mating ritual of two gorgeous, huge red-tailed hawks.
The female, at least I assume it was the female, landed on one of the highest branches of a tall, bare oak tree. The male followed with a low, raspy cry. As I watched, he handed her something that got her all excited. She kept bobbing her head and adjusting it in her claws, poking at it, plucking at it, while he stood on a branch facing her looking like he was all that. Since my dog and I were the only other large creatures around, I stood and watched for about twenty minutes without interruption. The female would spread her wings and flutter them gently, bob her head up and down. She repeatedly touched the male with her wing tips. It was so dang sweet. Now that’s love. Hope they build a nice big nest and raise a couple of beautiful chicks.
So…working the next four days. My Everything comes out tomorrow - hope I have time to celebrate, but I doubt it…maybe Monday. See ya! Julia
***New link for the contest at Stumbling Over Chaos - to win a copy of My Everything!
http://www.stumblingoverchaos.com/archives/5864
release date: 2/12/10
Cobblestone Press
http://www.cobblestone-press.com/
Contest - win a copy at Stumbling Over Chaos
http://www.stumblingoverchaos.com/?p=5864http://
The contest runs through February 11th.
Mia Watt’s F.U. is up on that site also.
Otherwise, I am too pooped to pop! I think my kitty may be able to come home today or tomorrow but now the other two are acting a bit sick. Keeping my fingers crossed that they are tougher than Rico and can hang on without any near death experiences. With love, Julia
*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?
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