Sacred Talisman...

I'm still completely stoked my vampire short made into Voracious Vamps, so I thought I'd post the blurb to whet your appetite, lol.

After roaming the earth for five hundred years, Rafe's life is about to begin.

Rafe isn't your ordinary vampire. He's an Enforcer—a vampire created for the sole purpose of guarding a sacred talisman and preventing its power from being unleashed on the world. There's only one problem. He has absolutely no idea where to find it.

The last thing Terryn expected was to have a handsome stranger come to her rescue when some creep drags her into an alley on Halloween. With blonde hair, blue eyes and a body rivalling every wet dream she's ever imagined, she can't help but wish her hero would keep her pinned to the wall. Too bad she doesn't do one-night stands. But when the guy claims her necklace is a ancient talisman, and its his job to protect it, she's launched into a world of prophecies and vampires, and discovers sex with the undead is hotter than her wildest dreams.

Now if they can just survive the night, and prevent a hoard of rogue vampires from claiming the pendant's power, life—or even death—might just get interesting.

I'll be posting an excerpt once it gets a bit closer to publication date. But if you're itching to see one, hop over to my website... I've got one up. I promise to post a different here when the time comes.

cheers,

Kris

Romancing life...one adventure at a time.

News...

Well I have some news... I just got word that Sacred Talisman has been picked to be part of the Voracious Vamps collection due out for Halloween, 2009... just a couple of months away. That means this story will now be my official first release :D

I'm so happy I could cry. I don't have a release date yet, nor do I know how many stories are part of the collection. I'm just tickled mine will be part of it. Oh, I can't wait to see what the cover art will look like.

Okay, just a quick one tonight. Just wanted to share the news. All this and I had a fantastic day with the kids at the race way go-carting... what a riot. Though it has made me rethink the upcoming teenage years... lol... driving at 16, who thought of this anyway?

Cheers,

Kris

Romancing life...one adventure at a time.

Jumping Into the Deep End

For those of you who read my previous post, you know I was trying to foster a mommy cat and her 5 kittens. After a frustrating experience with the BC SPCA I decided to throw cation to the wind and just jump right in. So I'm now the proud momma of a beautiful teenage mom and her little ones.

Here are a few examples of the lovely kittens now scampering around the house. They are too cute for words and seem to be thriving. Even mom is doing better. She was quite underweight when I first brought her home, but I think she's starting to gain a bit. Lord knows she loves to eat, lol.

I plan on keeping the mom, her name is Pepper, and we're definitely keeping the one my son is holding, named Hunter for his love of toy mice. I also have a soft spot for the sweetie Syd is holding, called Mojo. Not sure if we'll keep both, but they sure have a way of worming into your heart.

But who could resist these little faces?

There is one downside. Between caring for them, trying to get Pepper and my dog, Bandit to accept each other and building a cat tree/ condo for them, I haven't gotten any writing down. I'm afraid I'm suffering from Kitty Block. And after spending four days building this thing, I think I know why they charge you 200 dollars to buy one. This one only cost me about 40, so I think it was time well spent. And the little ones love it. Even Pepper escapes to the upper perch every once and a while.

So other than having a bunch of fur balls invading my house, I'm still waiting on news if Sacred Talisman will be part of the Voracious Vamps or not. I'm trying not to get all shaky every time I open some mail, but.... and some how knowing it'll be contracted either way isn't helping. But I'll keep hoping. Oh, and in other news, I'm heading back to school, virtually speaking. I've signed up to take courses from Ryerson University via their distance education division. I'm enrolled in the Publishing Certificate. It's a post graduate certificate catering to the publishing world. So I'll be taking courses on editing, book layout and design and a whole slew of other topics. I've got 2.5 courses this semester and if all goes well, will do the same for the next. Then I'll finish it off with 3 over the spring/summer session and hopefully have my certificate by next August. Here's hoping...

Okay, need to run. Have to actually get some work done. Hope all is well and I'll report back soon.

cheers,

Kris

Romancing life...one adventure at a time.

Good Deeds... Not so Simple...

Now I'm not the kind of person who spends endless hours figuring out ways to help out my fellow man. I'm more than willing to lend a hand, or just about anything else, to someone in need, and I donate to causes and organizations that touch my heart. I've given money to strangers on the street and thrown food into the food bank bins at the store... but I don't go looking for it. I just help when a chance arises.

Which brings me to my dilemma. For the past few weeks, we've been considering adopting a kitten, or even a pair of them. Now if you know me you're aware that while I might be spontaneous about some decisions, adding a family member requires a great deal of thought and investigation. So for weeks I've scoured the internet, learning all I can about the different breeds and which one might fit best with my family. With kids and a dog, the choice is important. Having decided on a breed like the Maine Coon, I've been searching for available kittens. I don't care about pedigree so much as the personality of the cat. We found a darling kitten at the SPCA close to us, but unfortunately by the time we got home from Toronto, it was already adopted. Then a great friend of mine told me a friend had 2 cats, each of which had given birth to 5 kittens. So last night we ventured over to the house to look at these darlings.

My first opinion... OH MY GOD. They are gorgeous and completely irresistible. And to top it off, it looks like the mom (who is a kitten herself at only 9 months) is a Maine Coon. So we sit with the little tykes and know we have a hard choice ahead of us.

Well, today I find out the man who owns all these cats and kittens, is thinking of surrendering the mom and the kittens to the SPCA so he can "START FRESH" with two new kittens, most likely males he won't think about. With these tiny babes only 5 weeks old, they are too small to go to homes and I couldn't bear thinking they'd spend the foreseeable future in a cage.

(ok, here's the point I'm getting to.)

I call said SPCA (which I donate to monthly) and ask if I come in with this man if I could foster the litter for however long is necessary on the premise I'd love to keep the mom and one of her kittens. This is me thinking I'm doing them a favour. I'm not asking for money or supplies, offer my loving home to these darling animals, with the only catch being, if I can't find homes for them they can be put up for adoption through the SPCA. I'm even willing to keep them long past the usual age just because I know the shelter is bogged down.

So what do you think they say....

We'd love you to foster some kittens, but we won't guarantee you get those kittens and quite frankly, we prefer to give them to a stranger so the previous owner won't bother you!!!!

Who knew trying to do a good deed would be so complicated.

Frustration hardly tells you how I'm feeling. So now I'm forced to downshift to another plan... here's hoping it turns out ok.

Kris Norris

Romancing life...one adventure at a time.

Wonders of the World

I'm not sure if it's just me, but it seems as I get older, I forget what it's like to see the world through the eyes of my children. We've been making yearly pilgrimages to Toronto to visit the grand-parents for over a decade, and have done our share of the tourist stuff. Though I realized it's been mostly 'adventure' type attractions. We've gone to Canada's Wonderland (more times than I can count) we've done the Toronto Zoo and Chuck E Cheese. They've walked around the parks by my parent's house and seen Lake Ontario. But until yesterday, they'd never gone downtown.

Now for those of you not familiar with downtown Toronto, it's not the most fun place to drive around. Like any big city, the streets are packed, full of one-way roads and drivers who should be nominated for Canada's Worst Driver. (Here's hoping I'm not one of them, lol) You can never turn left and there's always someone illegally parked. But it's also full of history. The sky dome... where the Blue Jays play major league baseball, the Air Canada centre... where the Toronto Maple Leafs play hockey... there's the convention centre the hockey hall of fame, and of course... the all mighty CN Tower.

I've been up the Tower once... when I was quite young and it was Canada's Prime attraction. But over the years, I suppose I've just got used to seeing the World Renown monument gracing the skyline. I didn't think that the kids would be interested in something as uneventful as a tower... I was wrong.

After a full-fledged bout of begging, I agreed to take them downtown... and we had the best time. Who knew being 147 stories up could be so much fun... And if you only could have seen their faces. Dear eyed they stared out at the city, seeing it from a whole new perspective. They read all the facts plastered around the site and watched the documentary on how it was made. We even got to go on a thrill ride in the basement that had us laughing. It was truly one of the best days I've spent with them since we arrived... and it was all in the name of history.

After three decades, the CN Tower is still the world's tallest building standing 1518 feet high and over 150 stories. We got a 3-D puzzle to take home and build together and another puzzle of the Toronto Skyline... Who knew history could be so much fun.

It's times like these I remember why having children is such a gift. They help me see the world in a way I thought I'd forgotten. Thanks Kyle, Jared and Sydney. You guys rock and I'm the luckiest mom to have been blessed with three awesome kids... now if I can only get you to stop jumping on the furniture...

Have a great week, and I'll post again once we're back in the land of west... Courtenay here we come....

Kris

Romancing life...one adventure at a time.