Dragon Eggs

by Ray C. Morand

   In Book One of the Red Knight Series, Judicator, Gwendolyn the Celebate, is kidnapped to join an “army of the dead” led by Victor. She embraces the future and her new identity as Captain Isobel. Isobel revels in her acceptance by the other warriors, and tries not to be too disturbed by some shady areas in Gwendolyn’s past. She is impressed by the Army’s domestication of dragons, and the sophisticated magical powers possessed by some of them. Though “Gwendolyn” has died and Isobel has taken her place, it soon becomes clear that someone is trying to kill her, or Victor, or both.

DRAGON EGGS

Ingredients

• Rite Aid
• 798 Sunburst Hwy
• CAMBRIDGE, MD 21613

• Walgreens
• 640 Sunburst Hwy
• CAMBRIDGE, MD 21613

• Giant Food
• 11740 Rousby Hall Rd
• LUSBY, MD 20657

• 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 8 tea bags

• Filling:
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons minced red bell pepper
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 cup salsa

Directions

Print 

• Prep
  30 m
• Cook
  45 m
• Ready In
  2 h 45 m

1. Place room temperature eggs in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and let eggs stand in hot water for 15 minutes. Drain hot water and fill saucepan with cold water; allow eggs to sit until cooled, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain water. Gently tap or roll eggs on the counter so the shell is cracked but still intact.
2. Return eggs to saucepan and pour in enough water to cover eggs; add soy sauce, molasses, salt, and tea bags. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until eggs have absorbed color, about 30 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and leave eggs in water to cool to room temperature.
3. Peel eggs and trim bottom of each egg so it will stand upright. Cut each egg lengthwise and scoop yolks into a bowl. Mix mayonnaise, red bell pepper, salt, and pepper into egg yolks until evenly combined.
4. Spoon yolk mixture back into egg whites; smooth filling to be level with egg white. Put each egg back together.
5. Pour salsa onto a plate and assemble eggs upright into the salsa.

Last chance for a freebie

by Arline Chase

   Being a college freshman at 35 isn't easy for Beth Reilly. The last thing she needs is to develop romantic illusions about her professor.

Just order as usual from our WriteWordsInc.com web site, You will not be charged.

Question from the e-mail: I got my book back from your company -- thanks for the feedback. Would you consider other titles I might submit? Also, I'm not quite sure what the readers meant by remarks about the "synopsis taking too much time" and that my book  "needs work." I thought the writing in the synopsis didn't count. Any ideas...?

Answer: We will look at a query letter from anyone about any book. All anyone has to do is e-mail it to me at arline@mail.com But we only consider solicited manuscripts for publication. We would certainly welcome inquiries from you on your other books.

The "needs work" comment usually means there were grammar or usage problems -- missing caps, mixed homonyms, missing quotation marks, words that spell check won't find, but that are not the correct spelling for the use -- "a mountain pique, a pear of scissors," etc. The time comment on the synopsis may have to do with the many years involved in the timeline of your particular story. Most novels cover a year or less. Some cover a week. A story that covers a 30 time-period needs truly compelling characters, and enough suspense and tension to carry the story arc over the whole length of time. 

I think that's what reader number one was saying. I chose her because she (a former student) had a similar problem with a story that covered 11 years -- from the beginning of the civil war, through reconstruction, where the characters moved on to another location and rebuilt built a different life. Her book was too long as well, about 250,000 words. She ended up making it a series of three books: one about the war; one about male character's return the end of the war and their move west for a new beginnimg; anf the third about their struggles to make a home in the nee land.

I may have said the writing in the synopsis doesn't count, but the story always counts. First the committee reads the synopsis to see what the story is about and how interesting it is, whether the characters are ones the reader will care about and whether the ending is satisfactory. THEN they read the three chapters to see whether the writing is up to snuff and whether it follows the synopsis closely enough that the book is telling the story as it was given.... They look at the sample in a business-like way. Writing is art, but publishing is always a business.

Synopsis writing is All Telling. It doesn't have to be good, only accurate as to what happens in the story.  It should always start with the problem: Cinderella wants to go to the ball, but has nothing to wear. Etc.

Writing a novel is a work of art, but the good ones can surface from the above filtering process. Every publisher's goal is to find and publish as many good ones as we can. As a writing teacher with 25 years of experience, I know there is a LOT of good work out there that deserves recognition, but goes largely ignored. It seems cruel to say the manuscript must be ready to go and not need editing, but the more editing we do, the more time it takes, the fewer books we are able to publish. We are a small publisher. Yet our goal is to publish four books per month. We do not have best-sellers to provide the cushion of heavy profits. Our only hope of solvency is in our product numbers...

It is grossly unfair to judge a work of art on these standards, we know. A novel takes years to write and a great deal of devotion to complete. That's why writing is my passion, but publishing is a pleasant way to pass the time. To look at any book as a mere "product" may seem unfair and unfeeling and for that we apologize.

Morning Treats

by C.M. Albrecht

    How many people does it take to write a best seller? How many of them will live to brag about it? In this dark novel of intrigue and deception the line between good guys and bad guys is blurred. Very blurred.

Ingredients

45 m12 servings421 cals

On Sale

What's on sale near you.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup raisins

• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut
• 1 apple - peeled, cored and shredded
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Add all ingredients to list

Directions

Print 

• Prep
  25 m
• Cook
  20 m
• Ready In
  45 m

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the carrot, raisins, nuts, coconut, and apple.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, oil, and vanilla. Stir egg mixture into the carrot/flour mixture, just until moistened. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Easter Monday Breakfast

by Terry L. White

Cheryl Mae has the power to stop the blood and to heal, but she can't stop the rural electrification project that will flood the Sacandaga valley, and she can't find love-to-stay.

Forced to leave her home at last, Cheryl Mae is dogged by a stalker as she enters nursing school and fights to find a new life in a strange world.

Easter Country Breakfast

• 1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup whipped topping
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1-1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
• 3/4 cup maple syrup, warmed
• Additional blueberries, optional

DIRECTIONS

• For topping, in a small bowl, beat cream cheese and whipped topping until smooth. Chill until serving. 
• In a large bowl, combine the flour, cracker crumbs, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Combine the eggs, buttermilk and butter; add to dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in blueberries. 
• Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a greased hot griddle; turn when bubbles form on top. Cook until the second side is golden brown. Spread topping over pancakes. Top with warm syrup; sprinkle with additional blueberries if desired.
  
  Yield: 12 pancakes (3/4 cup topping).
  
  Editor’s Note: If using frozen blueberries, do not thaw them before adding to the pancake batter. But be sure to thaw any berries used in the optional garnish.

Catching UP!

Books that went to press, or Back to Press this week:

GUIDING SPIRIT: A Ghostly Love Story, by Robert Kanehl  

   Love does not end with death or at the gravesite. It lingers in this world, as powerful after death as before. Ashley Dunlap and David Paine discover this first hand, as a benevolent spirit guides their lives toward its desires. Will the two follow this spirit’s pathway or rebel against its power to follow their own free will?

WENDELL & TYLER: ON THE ROAD! Open Road Series, Vol 2, by James R. Kincaid.

    This all originated with my mom, who had this idea that I should launch a voyage of discovery (my cool way of putting it) and spend the entire summer exploring the world outside me and the world within (whatever that means) by driving a luxury camper from Los Angeles to my Uncle Marshall’s in Atlanta. I am supposed to “court the unpredictable,” she says, “travel into the uncharted, the mysterious, even the frightening.” 

THE SINS OF THE FATHERS, by A.A. MANN.  A Dora the D.R.E. Mystery, Vol. 1, by A.A. Mann

    As a Director of Religious Education at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in the border town of San Pequeno, Texas,  Dora meets many interesting and unusual people.     This time 

    she meets Death.

Galleys thtat went out, or went out again, this week:

DECRYPTING THE CACHE, by Jennifer Kirsch

   Treading through a shadowy woods didn’t rank high on my fun list. Yet I found myself surrounded by tangled tree limbs and hairy vines one Sunday evening. My new friend Dev crept along with me as we navigated angry roots, sprawling branches, and knotty trunks that resembled our knobby-nosed history teacher.

   We hoped to find a geocache. “You know,” I’d explained to Dev, “a hidden container you find using a navigation app.” But he’d wanted to see it for himself

IRIS Fate: Iris Series, Vol.2, by Daniel Carr

   Colin Craft, “The Newspaper Myth,” spends his days in hiding. After Aaron Brink reveals his identity to the public, Colin is sent on the run and orphaned. Keeping the Myth in hiding was his life-long friend, Justin Mears, continuing to run Genetic Alliance missions. It barely felt like two years had passed since Allen and Anderson

Updated Cover

Work began or continued on the following:
A SCATTERED BRAIN by K. A. Wyant

 Trying to find your place in high school can be a challenging time in a young girl’s life, even more if you have a brain disorder. Being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, Chloe deals with the difficulties of trying to fit in with the right friends. Wanting to please them she gets into some situations leading to many disappointments. Chloe doesn’t see the destructive path she has made for herself or care about the consequences. With the end of the school year coming to a close can Chloe change things in time to graduate high school with her classmates or has she destroyed any chance of getting her diploma on time?

THE MURDER OF SECRETARY JUDD CANE: Adventures on Capitol Hill Series, Vol. 2 

by Celine Rose Mariotti.

     If you liked The Kidnapping of Senator Andy Thompson, you’ll be excited to read The Murder of Secretary Judd Cane. This time Murder stalks the House of Representatives as Congressman Michael Rhodes is accused of murdering Secretary Cane.

MINISTER'S ESCAPADES, Vol. 2 by Celine Rose Mariotti

  
   Rev. Castle is back in another cozy mystery.  

CEMETERY WALK: A Hannah Griswold Mystery, Vol. 3, by Robert Kanehl

   Walking in a cemetery can be peaceful and reflective, as long as you don’t hear voices. Hannah Griswold, however, does hear voices. Why are they calling to her? Why can’t she have a normal teenage life? 

Cover Subject to Change 

BLEEDING HEARTS: Killian Kendall Mystery Series, Vol. 1

   Winner of the Stonewall Society's 2002 Pride in the Arts Literary Award in the Whodunit Category! 

REAP THE WHIRLWIND: Killian Kendall Mystery Series, Vol. 2,  by Josh Aterovis. 
   Suicide, or murder? That's the question in the second Killian Kendall mystery. Will Smith suspects murder when an old childhood pal drowns, and asks his friend Killian for help in solving the mystery.

TRUTH OF YESTERDAY,  by Josh Aterovis

ALL LOST THINGS, by Josh Aterovis

CHANGE  OF WORLDS, by Josh Aterovis

Jack's News!

  by your Official Bookstore Cat, 
and Gossip Columnist!

The Good News this week is we heard from Josh Aterovis.  He's ready to get started on the "New Revised Editions" of his Killian Kendall Series. That's Right! All five books.  Boy, are we glad. 

And, hey! It's Spring! Roger cut the grass and Arline opened all the windows!

I could almost smell those birds!

Please, please send me some news for next time.

Just send an e-mail to arline@mail.com with 

 "News for Jack" 

in the subject line, and

I'll make sure it shows up right here!