Good Luck With Number Eleven

It's coming up elevens.

I have a good friend who swears by the luck of the number eleven. Using that theory as a starting base, I have to say that today is a very lucky day for in the world of alphabet blogging, today is time for number eleven.  Wait for it...

Drum roll...

It's center stage for the ravishing letter K.

And what does K have in store us besides holding one of the luckiest placements in the alaphabet?

Well, let's see:

K is for kill which is an ugly word for most people but in the world of romantic suspense, it becomes a necessary word.  It's an active word that describes the evil that gets perpetrated before the hero and heroine put a stop to it all and ride off into a ravishing (each other) type of sunset.

K is for kudos.  A strange kind of word that probably began as a slang but now has found it's place

right along every other word in Dear Old Merriam's pages.

K is for King.  Yes, I had to go there.  Stephen King, the author who made me a horror addict as a teen.  I don't read a lot of King now but I am rereading The Shining because you know there's now the new book, yes I admit I forgot the name but it's waiting on my bookshelf, you know the one - the one where Danny grows up.

Okay one more and then I have to go and pay some attention to that book that just won't finish itself.

K is an abbreviation for a few things, one of them a thousand.

So now it's off to work another hour or so before it's time to enjoy a Saturday evening.

Here's a little k - for good luck.

Ryshia

www.ryshiakennie.com

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Intent to Kill

A ruthless band of smugglers will stop at nothing to strip Cambodia of its priceless ancient artifacts, even if it means using and killing female tourists.  Journalist Claire Linton knows she's on the story of a lifetime.  But for Claire, it's personal too: long before her "Uncle Jack" came to the U.S., he was held captive in the nightmarish killing fields of Cambodia, and Claire senses there might be a connection between that long-ago bloody history and the dark crimes plaguing the country today.


Simon Trent is a burnt-out Interpol agent who disappeared after his last case turned fatal.  But with the resurgence in smuggling and all signs pointing to the man who once escaped his grasp, he comes out of hiding to finish the job that's haunted him for years.  What he doesn't see coming is Claire, the beautiful and headstrong reporter who may be a threat to his case - and to his heart.


As Claire and Simon reluctantly join forces to unravel a mystery that reaches deep into her family history and may be his only chance at redemption, they must fight to stay one step ahead of a brutal killer - and one step away from the dangerous feelings building between them.


My latest romantic suspense, Intent to Kill, was released this week and is now available at online bookstores including: 

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo


Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

A Tad Bit Pulsed or a Whole Lot Purried?

Sunday the road led outside the city and to the Qu'Appelle Valley and the nearby market gardens.  But that straight line highway soon veered into a jaunt through the countryside - not far, just a few miles off the highway to discover this church.  Old, or so its lead glass windows may attest but how
old?  There's a relatively new sign indicating that the church is still in session but the spire seems to be a haven for birds and other creatures.  And yet, peeking in the basement window revealed a broom leaning against one wall and a spotless wooden floor.

So is it a neglected but still loved and attended church in the middle of what looks like a forgotten patch of prairie or is it a heritage property with a rollicking history destined for the history books?  

I suspect that it's both.  But while a slight twist in the journey married market gardens to an old church and a little piece of prairie that really seemed to take you away from it all - it provided a few more questions than answers.

A slight curve, a little twist, either can change everything - like today's dog food recipe.  The recipe book I'm following - yes, except for dog biscuits, my original recipes have been replaced
by those from a dog nutritionist.  Yes, such a beast exists - the dog nutritionist and not the dog, although he exists too.  Anyway, the point of it is that when the recipe says to pulse, pulsing can quickly turn from the recipes recommended small kernels to mush.

Rather like the line of a story.  Sometimes the original premise  can veer from its beginnings as a result of those pesky little details - all that glorious, fantastic research can drag down a story or worse, derail it.  Like the story I just finished reading.  I loved the detail - the research that went into it until, well until the pages began to turn slower and some chapters just stopped when that hard-won research appeared just a little too much.  It reminded me, who loves the research phase of a story, that just because you did the research doesn't mean it gets in the book.   

But speaking of twists, the point of this post was swerves and veers in the path and how research and those really interesting facts can take a book away from its original trajectory.  Like going to the market garden and ending up on a side road by a church that takes you to another era or holding a dish of pureed dog food instead of...   Research is kind of like that.  It takes you on exciting and fascinating journeys to places that you only want to share.  I've learned that sometimes that extra tidbit of research is better shared with a  friend over a cup of coffee.

And I can hear groans now from all those friends brave enough to venture here from time to time. Maybe it's better to save all those extra intriguing facts for another book or two or even three. 

Now that church in the middle of no where, maybe there's a story there.  But the dog food?  I think in that instance, more practice just might make perfect.


Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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I'm Drowning - And I Won't Put My Feet Down!

2013 started with a bang, the wrong kind of bang.  You know those years when if it could go wrong it did, when worst case scenario became the common denominator?  The first few months of 2013 knocked me on my butt and sent me skidding across the floor.  It was kind of like when my niece was small she wanted to paddle around in our pool but as soon as she got in the water she clung to my neck and refused to let go.  I kept assuring her that the water wasn't over her head, she only needed to put her feet down.  Took a while but she finally put her feet down and after that it was an afternoon love affair with the pool.  Now I know how she felt.  For a while the floor looked safe, after all, once you've landed you can't fall again.

But I got up.  And the first thing I turned to was books.  I've turned into a reading machine but worse, I'm reading books at a time.  Not, that this is abnormal for me - I tend to read three books at once.  But when I sheepishly added book four on my Goodreads list of currently reading and the system really only shows three, well I knew I was heading into the "bad reader" corner.  And then when I made the mistake of going to the library to make copies of the last remnants of what is "owed Caesar' I found myself drawn to the aisles of books where I found not one but two more.  And they were the short-loan books too.

April in Saskatchewan

So I have more to add to the list of four on the go.  That's a little over the top even for me.  So when the librarian also alerted me to the fact that there's a hold on my facebook marketing book, I knew it was all over.  I'd put that book to the side and already double renewed.  Now, I had to either invest in a pair of reading glasses, okay not ready for that, but I needed to get my nose in some books and quickly. 

Hmmm - maybe all this reading is just a way to get out of the winter blahs and into the excitement of spring.  Or maybe, like my mother threatened to do just this afternoon, I should follow her example and just go out and buy a new outfit, preferably something in lime green, brilliant yellow or laughing red.

Seriously, reading is critical to writers and maybe I'm just playing catchup after a few months of drought.

And on other fronts, Monday I'll be over at You Gotta Read Reviews with Fatal Intent.  Stop by leave a comment and if you haven't started already, follow the remainder of the tour or pop by and leave a comment.  There's prizes for comments throughout ending in a grand prize at the end. 

And you, what book has your attention.  Is it fact or is it fiction?

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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Escape It All

Well, last night we were hit with a winter storm.  Highways were closed after a spate of vehicles hitting the ditch.  This morning I woke to a world whose blanket of snow just settled a few inches deeper.  Winter isn't ready to give up its stranglehold on the prairies just yet.  So, I was kind of anxious to leave the snow world behind to go visiting.  I'm on tour today with Fatal Intent.  So if you're in the mood to escape the weather, or anything else in your life - or maybe you just want to talk books, come on over to Lisa Haselton's blog where I'm spending the day.  Visit, hang out and get entered to win a prize or two. 

In the meantime let's head somewhere warm and without snow, deep in the pages of Fatal Intent. 
 

Somewhere in the Borneo jungle:

Aidan moved vines back, exposing his face.  They only had to look in his direction.

He was so close he could have reached out and touched her.  She was delicate, out of place here in the midst of this wilderness.  Her skin, even beneath the sweat and exertion-stained flush, was fair.  She wasn't built to be here, she was too slight to survive, too weak, too...

She glanced up.  A frown immediately seared her face.

"Who the hell are you?" she snarled.

He bit back a smile.  She should have screamed.  She hadn't.  All tiny limbs and fragile beauty, and yet she attacked first.

He let his gaze rove over the group, refusing to be corralled by her attack.  

One of the men looked panicked, the others seriously stressed.  He shifted his spear to his other hand and waited, taking the warrior advantage of time and observation.  The silent often learned much about the enemy.

"Put that down."  She gestured to his spear.

His fingers loosened for a millisecond before gripping the spear tighter.  Was she out of her mind?  Green, innocent, and totally forest-illiterate, but she was feisty.

Feisty?  She was seething, hot, absolutely pissed--about what, he wasn't sure.  Her anger didn't make much sense.  Nothing about this afternoon made much sense.

Hope you enjoyed that little diversion from the real world.

Now I'm off to dig a path in a snowbank or two.   

And you - any snowbanks standing in your way?

Ryshia

www.ryshiakennie.com