REVIEW: Demons Are A Girl’s Best Friend

Linda Wisdom
Sourcebooks
April 1, 2011


A BEWITCHING WOMAN ON A MISSION…

Feisty witch Maggie enjoys her work as a parnormal law enforcement officer—that is until she’s assigned to protect a teenager with a major attitude and plenty of Mayan enemies. Maggie’s’ never going to survive this assignment without the help of a half-fire demon who makes her smolder…

A HOTTER—THAN—SIN HERO WITH AN AGENDA…

Declan is proprietor of an underground club and buys demon portal. No way he’ll allow his demon race to be blamed for the malicious acts of some crazy evil Mayans. But he’s already got his hands full when the sexy witch offers him a challenge he can’t refuse…

Amidst the rising flames of their steamy love affair, Maggie and Declan are damned if they do, and even more damned if the don’t…



My thoughts:

If you enjoy fun paranormals it’s a must read. I didn't want to see the end!

This is the third book, by Linda Wisdom, I’ve read. If I had to classify her writing I’d say she writes sexy humorous stories with sparkling characters, a hefty dash of danger, and a serious thread of kick ass heroine. Some of her stories are more kick ass than others and this was one of them. I’d say it was my favorite of the three I’ve bought and read.

Maggie is in law enforcement. Like her counterparts on today’s forces, she is a well trained in defense, the use of weapons, and working undercover. Maggie is also good at her job in both research and connecting the dots to bring down the bad guys. The tedious parts.

However that’s where the similarity between today’s law enforcement officers and Maggie end. She works for a secret branch of para law enforcement called The Hellion Guard. They police otherworldly creatures and keep humans and other creatures safe from bad guys. Instead of Kevlar she wears fabric enhanced with protective spells and a diamond encrusted Black Widow Spider with ruby eyes. Looks like a kick ass tat but is very much alive and part of her arsenal. Did I mention she was also a witch?

Maggie is a serious career girl, hasn’t had a date in way too long to remember, and feels she hasn’t a maternal bone in her body and doesn’t want one. She has very little trust for demons as most of them have an agenda and usually on the receiving end of her brand of justice.

Ms. Wisdom then throws her into the worse case scenario and fun begins. Maggie reluctantly becomes a godmother to one of her team member’s newborn—has to be there at the birth (eww and nausea). She’s assigned to be a loving guardian of a teenage girl (I can’t print her reaction here) who’s all mouth, attitude, and just so happens to be #1 on the list for a Mayan human sacrifice designed to free a major bad guy. And worse of all, her libido starts doing the hallelujah chorus when she meets Declan who is half demon and redefines hot sexy male and is her partner in protecting said teen. Yowza.

The only predictability in this story is good guys winning over the bad guys. How that happens leads the reader into a labyrinth of unexpected twists and turns and a very satisfying dénouement.


This is truly a fun, fun story told by a talented author who seamlessly blends paranormal, danger, humor, and love.

5 stars

Linda Wisdom will be my guest on, Wednesday, April 30th. Be sure to stop in and say hi.

Wednesday, April 23rd, Suspense/thriller author Stacy Netzel, author of Trust In The Law.


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FIFTY BOOKS, CO-AUTHORS, AND STILL MARRIED?

Another engrossing winner from Kathleen and Michael Gear!

I'm please to have as guests, Kathleen and Michael Gear.

I discovered them way back when I read this interesting sci-fi book called Warriors Of Spider. I'll admit, one of the things that drew me (aside from the premise) was the fact the author had the same first and last name of my brother--we use don't have an "a" in ours. Fast foward to the 90's and The People Of The Wolf came into my hands and I fell in love with these authors storytelling abilities. I've always loved history and stories which present the culture of the time period. So I was eager to get the next one, People Of The Fire. They didn't change their storytelling and in fact really loved that one and really hated Heavy Beaver and wanted to be like Tanager. While I won't tell you I've read every book the Gears have written I've read a great many of them and am particularly drawn to The People series. Excellent series with fascinating stories, lots of action, and a nice dab of romance. It's magical.

Both Michael and Kathleen (a fine Celtic lass) write individually and have been successful. As co-authors you get the best of both. What's the cost? I ask that because there are very few people I could be a writing partner with. You take two professionals, roughly in the same field, married, and write together? And both are alive and well as is their marriage? How do they manage this, you might ask?



Probably the question we’re most often asked is: “How can two authors manage to live together, and write together, arguing plot, creating characters, sifting through thousands of archaeological and historical facts, and not wind up at the end of the day with your hands around the other’s throat?” While there are days when it’s tempting, generally the answer is simple: trust, love, and respect. If one of us writes something and the other says it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t. That’s the trust part. We believe in each other’s talent and judgment. Our goal with every novel is to create a fluid mix of prose—the perfect blending of our styles--that allows readers to seamlessly drop into the story, and not want to come out. If readers are still emotionally connected to the story days after they’ve finished the book, then we’ve done our jobs.


Do we ever disagree? Absolutely. Michael claims he has written passages so profound, obtuse, and remarkably clever, he knew he was a shoe-in for the Pulitzer. Then Kathleen read it, and said, “This is so clever you have to live on another planet to understand it. Get rid of it.” After stomping around for a while, it succumbs to the backspace key.


Co-authoring when you’re married is an interesting experience—more than just all the backspacing. When we are deep in a story, we’re rewriting each other’s writing every day. We discuss plot and characterization every morning over breakfast and read what the other has written every evening after dinner. The process of creation is so powerful and intimate that it binds us together in that fictional world in a way that’s hard to explain. We literally live inside each other’s heads, and watch the story move in the other’s eyes. There’s such a sensual quality to our creative relationship that we wonder how people ever write alone?


On occasion, we also disagree about the interpretation of centuries old archaeological information. Since we are both professional archaeologists—we’ve owned our own archaeological research firm for over thirty years--it’s important to us to recreate the past as faithfully as we can. But that isn’t always easy.


For example, THE DAWN COUNTRY is book two in the People of the Longhouse quartet. The books are set between the years of A.D. 1400-1460, and chronicle the development of the League of the Iroquois. Obviously, there are no written records of this time period, so we have to rely on other things to reconstruct what might have happened. To accomplish this, we use three things: the archaeological record, Iroquoian oral history, and early historical records. This was a time of war, a time when the Iroquois say they almost destroyed themselves, and the archaeological record certainly supports their stories. The brutalized bodies that date to this period show ax wounds, arrow points embedded in bones, cranial depression fractures--caused by being struck in the head by blunt objects, probably war clubs--and the dismembered remains of children.


The warfare was extreme. But from the flames of the violence, a Peacemaker was born. His name was Dekanawida. There are three great heroes in the Peacemaker story, Dekanawida, his best friend Hiyawento, and a powerful clan matron named Jigonsaseh. The dilemma we argued about for two weeks was which versions of the oral history to use as the basis of the novels? The Five Nations who would join together to form the League, the Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, and Cayuga, each have different stories. In fact, there are hundreds of versions, often contradictory, that chronicle the lives of the three main figures, and very few of those discuss the childhoods of the heroes. For a time, we were locked in combat trying to decide if we should start the quartet with Dekanawida and Hiyawento as children, or only cover the better-documented lives of the adults? We finally opted to begin at the beginning—with the lives of the children. Why? Sometimes we make story decisions based upon the scientific information, and sometimes we make decisions for literary reasons. In this case, it was the latter. Seeing war through the eyes of children brings the horror home in a way that seeing it through the eyes of adults never can. And rising above that experience to create a democratic alliance that would literally serve as the political framework for what modern peoples call The Free World…well, that’s the stuff great heroes are made of.


We truly believe that our disagreements, scientific or literary, are the creative dissonance that leads to better storytelling. In the end, we are more together than the sum of our separate talents. It’s the twining of our two minds, souls, and dreams that we hope adds magic to our writing.


The Dawn Country

Young Wrass is being held captive, along with several other children, in Gannajero’s camp. Wrass knows he can’t wait to be rescued. He has to organize the children for an assault on Gannajero’s warriors. Even if he dies, someone has to escape, to carry the story back to their Peoples. It’s the only way to stop the evil old woman.



But Koracoo and Gonda have not abandoned their search. They’re coming for the children, and they have allies: a battle-weary Mohawk war chief and a Healer from the People of the Dawnland. Together, they will find the children and destroy Gannajero. But not before many of the children have been sold and carried off to distant villages—and lost to their families and homes forever...Excerpt

Buy: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders

Bestselling authors and award-winning archaeologists Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear are renowned for their novels on North American prehistory, a series that melds the latest archaeological findings with sweeping dramatic narratives and strong Native American tradition. The “North America’s Forgotten Past” series educates readers about our continent’s more than 15,000 years of prehistory and brings to life its natural and cultural heritage.

Kathleen is a former state historian and archaeologist for Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska for the U.S. Department of the Interior. She has twice received the federal government’s Special Achievement Award for “outstanding management” of our nation’s cultural heritage.

Michael hold a master’s degree in archaeology, has worked as a professiona’ archaeologist since 1978. He is currently the principal investigator for Wind River Archaeological Consultants.

The Gears, whose First North American series hit the international as well as USA Today bestseller lists, live in Thermopolis, Wyoming. To learn more about Michael and Kathleen, be sure to visit their website http://www.gear-gear.com/
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Monday Musings: Spring Is Springing



Apple blossoms from one of my trees

 Ah, spring is springing here in Missouri.

Snow is gone. Thank you God. But as the flowers and long days increase so do ranch responsibilities.

Spring is renewal for me. The long winter and being confined to my house unless there is a four wheeled vehicle or a horse and sled, has been bleck and then being sick enough to have to go to the hospital, has made the longing for spring that much more intense.

Spring brings all sorts of things beside my daffodils opening and bird song. It also brings chores out the ying-yang, since all the snow and ice wrecked havoc with several things here on the ranch. Seeing as I now can move without coughing up a lung and few toenails, there are chores to be done.

On Friday, we had in a huge dump truck with a load of gravel for our mud bog, otherwise known as our driveway. Now normally, these guys can spread gravel two inches thick without any trouble. But wait, this my house. So I do have gravel and I also have places where it’s eight inches thick and not two. So now we’re talking spreading by hand and using buckets to even a dump load where it needs to be. I’m not quite well enough to haul five gallon buckets hither and yon but I can fill them while watching my guys do the hauling and sweating in almost seventy-degree weather. By the end of Friday afternoon the driveway looked much better and will have to do until the neighbor can come down with his tractor and blade to thin and smooth it more.

I have no idea what happened to the gravel that had been dropped here three years ago. I think it’s a case of paranormal activity. See, my theory is most of it was swallowed by an underground monster so it can produce what Missouri is good at growing—chunks of rocks. Lots of them, which makes projects such as putting in a new tree, shrubs, roses, or a flower garden is a major thing. Not to mention having enough rocks to use as a rock border around whatever you’re putting in when you’re finished.

 

Back of my house from the pasture and the whole fence line needs replacing.



Did I mention the need to redo two hundred feet of fencing that separates the back yard from the pasture? And a hundred feet (that’s the short side) of one the Great Danes running pens. Sigh. Then there is the drive through gate (which you can't see in the above picture) that has been wired shut and I think there is a bit bubble gum and lots of prayer holding part of the fence up right there. One of my horses decided to rub her big old rear against the pole the gate closed against and snapped it two and took down part of the fence. Since the ground was frozen, we had lots of fun driving in a T poles to hold the fence in place until spring. There are times having a strong teen son are a blessing. At least from MY point of view—I think his is a bit different. Lol!

New fencing material will be delivered next week. I’m going to have a cookout and invite my nephew in law up to help my son and I put in the fence. They can do the pole pounding while his wife and I clear the garden areas and set in a few new flowering shrubs so I don’t have to worry about annuals being planted in those areas. The knees just don’t do well when I have to pull weeds and the cats refuse to do it and while my house Dane loves to dig, she also tends to remove the flowers, and the horses? *Snort, they just eat them. What’s a girl to do? I’m all for simple and pretty this year.

My front yard oak-2 years ago.

I also have a huge oak tree in the front yard that has to be at least a hundred years old and is about four-five feet round at the base. I have a raised rock garden surrounding it filled with tulips and daffodils for the spring and Hostas and shade loving perennials when it’s full of leaves in the summer. Due to surgery, I haven’t done anything with that area for two years. We need to add another layer of large rocks to return it to its two-foot high glory and add more soil before the Hostas and shade flowers start growing. So the kid and I are going rock hunting. They’re usually found on the side of the gravel county road we live on. Trust me, within two miles of the house we will be able to collect all the large rocks we need.

We’re putting in new water tanks for the horses and Danes, a new water line to fill them easier in the winter along with deicers so I don’t have to carry water by buckets and break the ice. I’m so over that winter chore, lol! And there will be new feeders. So this coming winter should be much easier on me. I like that.

That’s just part of the list of outside chores needing to be done around here as spring unfolds here in Missouri. Don’t get me started on the list for the inside or writing projects in need of completion, lol!



Right now, I'm dealing with lots of rain and my pond is
overflowing

 But it’s all-good. At least we will be having lots of sunny days and mild temps between the spring rainstorms.

• What kind of projects do you have earmarked for the spring? Writing or otherwise. 

Be sure to check back Wednesday when I’ll be having the Gears—Michael and Kathleen O’Neal visiting with their new Dawn People series. Some other upcoming guests:  I have a couple of different thriller/suspense writers, Stacy Netzel, Joel Goldman, then there is para romance author Linda Wisdom and erotic romance author Olivia Cunning and a few more.