Thursday 13 – Favorite Foods

I had a chance to have a wonderful business-related dinner last night at an upscale New York City eatery – the Gotham Bar and Grill – which got me going on the theme for today’s Thursday 13, namely, my favorite foods. So here goes!

1. Foie gras. Yes, I know it’s outlawed in California and Oregon, but it’s tasty.

2. Lobster.

3. Hot Dogs.

4. Hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

5. Ice cream. Most any flavor except mint. Yech. I hate mint.

6. Ropa vieja. A tasty Cuban dish of shredded beef in tomato sauce.

7. Cuban roast pork. Love it! I gave out the recipe the other day if you want to try it for yourself. Just click here.

8. Tacos.

9. Cheese and bread.

10. Spaghetti and meatballs (my husband makes the best meatballs!)

11. My sister’s Thanksgiving Meal. (Corn casserole, turkey, pecan pie so many amazing foods!)

12. Eggs. Any way shape or form.

13. Tomato soup with either a tuna or peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the side.

Hope you enjoyed today’s Thursday Thirteen. I welcome you to add any of your foods and even give us some recipes if you can.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun!

Wicked Wednesday – Visiting the Banditas and AZTEC GOLD

Today’s Wicked Wednesday is a busy one! I’m prepping to visit my Bandita friends over at Romance Bandits tomorrow and have some giveaways for you there. I want to thank all of you who have been busy following me all along the blogosphere and leaving your many comments and support for me and for STRONGER THAN SIN!

Many of you have asked along the way about the fate of THE CALLING. Well, there are two more which will come out in January and February 2012. But well before those, I’ll have another vampire treat for you: AZTEC GOLD, a novella from Carina Press. AZTEC GOLD is the story of a woman searching for her missing lover and fighting an unusual enemy: an Aztec vampire demi-goddess.

Warning, it’s a cliff hanger at the end of this little excerpt! I want to whet your appetite for more.

***Excerpt***

Chapter One

The feel of old papers called to Cynthia Guerrera the way a lover’s skin might.

Even with the gloves she wore to protect the fragile documents from the oils on her fingers, she sensed the raspy texture of the heavy parchment beneath her fingertips. Smelled the mustiness that hinted at the fact that it had been some time since these papers had seen the light of day.

At first she had been skeptical about the provenance of the documents. Missouri cornfields were not the place one expected to find a trunk filled with nearly five-hundred-year-old Spanish artifacts. But a Missouri cornfield was just where the trunk containing the papers, journal and maps had been discovered when a developer had begun excavations for a new strip mall.

Setting aside the missive—a letter from Coronado himself to one of his seconds in command—she turned her attention to the leather bound journal of Juan Domingo Cordero, one of the conquistadors who had accompanied Coronado on his adventures. Gingerly opening the cover, she traced her fingers over the sprawling script. The first entries in the journal had provided her with the identity of the author and the date of the documents thanks to Cordero’s meticulous notations.

With that information, she had been able to check a number of other sources to confirm that Cordero had indeed been one of Coronado’s lieutenants. When Coronado had left Mexico City in 1540 in search of the fabled Cities of Gold, Cordero had been at his side for the first leg of the journey. Coronado had eventually separated from Cordero and his contingent, ordering them to search in one direction while he went in another.

Cordero’s entries in the journal carefully detailed their travels throughout the south central portion of Mexico, before his band had turned northward until they crossed the Rio Grande. Eventually the group had drifted eastward and reached the Mississippi, hugging the fertile banks of the river until it landed them in the area that would become known as Missouri.

Tired of their journeys and with their group decimated by a number of incidents, the Spanish conquistadors had built a small settlement a short distance from the sluggish and fruitful waters of the Mississippi.

The notations in Cordero’s journal gradually diminished after the establishment of that settlement, with the conquistador’s adventures giving way to the routine of farming and family life. It seemed that Cordero had finally stopped writing at all.

Cynthia supposed that was when the conquistador had tucked the journals detailing his explorations into the small wood and leather trunk together with his other papers. The trunk in turn had been put in a cellar, and over time, the floods that often occurred in the area had covered Cordero’s home and the surrounding settlement with mud. Further flooding and natural events had added to the layers over the former community, hiding its existence from sight until the developer’s bulldozers had dug up the first hints of the earlier colonization and the trunk.

Cynthia picked up the report that had arrived that morning. The assorted laboratory tests she had requested absolutely confirmed the age of the documents.

With that endorsement came proof of one thing, while serious doubt remained about a series of entries in the journals—unusual and unbelievable tales.

She rose and walked over to the climate-controlled locker in her office and then removed a hand-wrought wood and metal tube from within. Returning to her worktable, she untied the laces holding the metal cap in place at one end of the cylinder and slipped out a pliant sheet of leather that bore a crudely drawn map identifying the sometimes circuitous route Cordero and his men had taken from Mexico City.

In the middle of the map, more carefully detailed than anything else, were the geographical features and path to what Cordero had believed to be one of the fabled Cities of Gold. A city supposedly inhabited by a demon goddess who had taken away and killed nearly half a dozen of his men. Cordero had decided after the incident that no amount of lucre was worth their lives and had chosen to leave the area in search of a safer existence.

Shortly thereafter, he and his men had traveled northward, reached the Rio Grande, and eventually built the small farming settlement near the banks of the Mississippi.

Cynthia could well understand the motivation for adopting a quieter life after such hardships. Her childhood had been a series of travails thanks to her anthropologist parents and their thirst for knowledge.

But unlike the entries detailing Cordero’s travels, the tale of a demon goddess was hard to believe. Yet everything else about the documents was genuine.

Worse, something about the map had troubled her from the moment she first unrolled it onto her workstation—its similarity to one she had seen a little over six months earlier. As she had compared the various features on the drawing to a copy of one given to her by her lover, Dr. Rafael Santiago, she realized there was too much coincidence to ignore.

So many months ago, Rafe had detailed to her the plans for his latest archaeological expedition—a trip to a previously unknown and unexplored Aztec temple located in south central Mexico. While on that trip, Rafe, his younger brother and a team of five other men had disappeared into the Mexican jungle.

For weeks rescuers had searched for them, but without luck. The guides assisting them had refused to enter the Devil’s Jungle and without their advice, finding Rafe’s exact trail toward the temple had been virtually impossible.

For months Cynthia had been reaching out to various contacts in the area, hoping for word of Rafe and his group and keeping faith in the belief that they were still alive. But with each month that passed and every clue that evaporated into nothingness, that hope was fading along with the prospect of discovering anything about her lover’s disappearance…until now.

Fun Friday – Jersey Shore, Baseball and The Hills are Alive!

Still celebrating the release of STRONGER THAN SIN which means you can visit with me over at my friend Lois Winston’s wonderful blog where I’ll be talking about how to select locations for your novels and why I chose the Jersey Shore. Anyone who leaves a comment will have a chance to win an autographed copy of SINS OF THE FLESH. If you win and already have that one, just let me know and I can substitute another release for you!

Another fun thing for you! With the World Series underway (and me struggling to watch it on MLB.TV which is so much harder to follow than a Fox feed!), we’re going to have some baseball fun here next Friday. My friend and fellow author Ronnie Norpel will be here to talk about her latest release, BASEBALL KARMA AND THE CONSTITUTION BLUES from Three Rooms Press.

Finally, one of my all time favorite movies is THE SOUND OF MUSIC for so many reasons. My family and I went to see it when I was a kid. We did a special trip to New York City in our Easter finery, hats and all for the Easter parade. Then we went to Radio City Music Hall. I cried at the end (and still do) because I could connect with those children who were forced to leave their homes because of a crazy man.

But on a brighter note, the cast reunited recently and here’s a clip for you to enjoy on this Fun Friday!

Fun Friday – Fashion Night Out

It’s not often I get to play tourist in New York City, but tonight is one of those nights! Tonight is Fashion’s Night Out in NYC and I’m hoping we’ll be able to take in some of the sights since we also scored some discount tickets to THE ADDAMS FAMILY. (If you’re in the city on Sunday, you can catch the cast performing “Just Around The Corner” @ 11:30AM @ Broadway on Broadway In Times Square!)

It’s a treat since we’ve all been hard at work and need a little break. I also find these little mini-vacations quite creatively stimulating so I’m hoping they’ll help with the various revisions I’m doing as well as the assorted last minute details for the upcoming release of STRONGER THAN SIN.

If you’re in the area it’s not too late to do Fashion’s Night Out. Events start at 6 pm. and you can map out an itinerary by clicking here.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Thoughtful Thursday – Summer is Here!

We seem to have shot straight from winter to summer in New York City, going from nights in the thirties to days in the eighties overnight.

But I’m not complaining because I am so not a winter girl. I live for the spring and summer months because I love being outdoors. Whether it’s working in the garden or taking long walks along the beach, there is something about being closer to nature that energizes me.

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago during one of those walks. It’s of a huge kite that was flying in Belmar, New Jersey during a weekend kite festival.

That’s another thing I love about being down the shore. There is always something going on and its usually within walking distance! What could be better?

How about you? What is your favorite season and why do you like it?

Boats entering Shark River Inlet
This is a photo of boats entering the Shark River Inlet located between Avon-by-the-Sea and Belmar

Also, if you’d like some thoughts on how to deal with a day job and a writing career, take a moment to visit with me at the Savvy Authors blog!

Thoughtful Thursday – New York Minutes

I love New York City and I guess by New York City I mean the island of Manhattan. It’s one of the big reasons I decided to set THE CALLING vampire series in Manhattan — I wanted to give you a flavor for the different parts of the city. If you’ve been reading the books, you know that the stories move from Tribeca to SoHo to Spanish Harlem. In future books in the series (ARDOR CALLS and VENGEANCE CALLS – dates of release to be known shortly), you’ll see shots of Midtown and Times Square.

I thought I’d share on these Thursdays some little known facts about Manhattan and also about some of the Jersey Shore locations in the SINS series.

Today’s New York Minute is about Sixth Avenue also known as Avenue of the Americas. Much like hearing someone say Houston St. (like the city in Texas) instead of like “Howston”, it’s a dead giveaway that you’re a tourist if you say Avenue of the Americas. It’s also very confusing since most New Yorkers call it Sixth Avenue.

The problem began in 1945 when Fiorella LaGuardia, one of the city’s most beloved mayors, renamed Sixth Avenue. In the years since then, the lamp posts bore plaques donated by the OAS – Organization of American States to symbolize each of the countries in the Americas. I remember seeing them as a kid whenever we came into “the city” for some event. Unfortunately, the plaques were lost when the city put in new lamp posts in the early 1990s.

Forgotten NY has wonderful shots of these plaques. You can click here to see the Sixth Avenue country plaques.

There are also a number of statues all along Sixth Avenue to honor famous people from the Americas. From the western most edge of Bryant Park (also along Sixth) to where Sixth runs into Central Park, there are gorgeous bronzes to be admired. This is a statue of Jose Marti, a leader for Cuban Independence from Spain. The statue sits at the entrance to Central Park on Sixth Avenue.

Above Central Park, Sixth Avenue once again changes names, this time to Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard, also creating confusion with the use of two names!

Beneath Sixth Avenue run a number of things –The IND Sixth Avenue subway lines (B D F V trains) as well as the PATH Trains to New Jersey. As for how long Sixth Avenue is — it’s one of the longest in the city running from as far south as Canal Street at the southernmost part of Manhattan up through Harlem.

Want to know more? You can read more about Sixth Avenue by clicking here and visiting Forgotten NY!

Wicked Wednesday – FURY CALLS

First of all, congrats to PC Cast for winning the RT Best Nocturne of 2009! It was an honor to have FURY CALLS nominated with her novel and those of my other Nocturne buddies.

FURY CALLS is a book of my heart and on its way to being out-of-print. I wanted to share this excerpt with you from the novel, which was selected by CATAROMANCE as the Best Nocturne of 2009.

In this scene we meet the villain of the piece, a wicked vampire by the name of Sun-Tze Lee. For over a century he has been controlling Foley, the apparent owner of The Blood Bank, that dark and dangerous hangout in The Calling Vampire novels. I loved crafting such an awful villain and I mean truly truly awful. I know the violence was a little too much for some, but I thought it essential for the story since I wanted to show to readers how both Blake and Foley survive situations that would break lesser men (or should I say vamps?)

I hope you enjoy this excerpt from FURY CALLS! If you cannot see the excerpt below, you can also click on this link to read the excerpt and/or download the excerpt to your computer and/or Iphone, PDA, smartphone, etc.

You can also cut and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.scribd.com/full/30928222?access_key=key-1ktd0stobpao5e9dslde

FURY CALLS Excerpt by Caridad Pineiro