• Ordinary people. Extraordinary romance.

    Ordinary people. Extraordinary romance.

The secret the tourist industry isn’t telling you about traveling to Hawai’iDengue fever is a viral illness spread by the bite of the Aedes mosquito. Symptoms typically start 5-6 days after being bitten but the onset can range from 2-15 days. Symptoms include fever, rash, severe headaches, joint and muscle pains

As the rest of the world (and media attention) focuses on the zika virus, we in Hawaii are living day-to-day with Dengue fever (pronounced Den-gee).  As a resident of Hawaii Island (Big Island), I’m sitting in the cross hairs of the most rapidly spreading mosquito-borne viral disease in the world.  I know some of its victims.  It’s a debilitating disease, called the “Bonecrushing” disease in the past because of severe muscle pains.

What is dengue fever?

Let’s back up a moment and explain the threat.  Dengue fever is a viral illness spread by the bite of the Aedes mosquito.  Symptoms typically start 5-6 days after the initial bite, but the onset ranges from 2-15 days.  Symptoms include fever, rash, severe headaches, joint and muscle pains and possible blood clotting issues.  It usually goes away after 1-2 weeks.  Four types of dengue make finding a cure or an effective vaccine difficult. Producing a vaccine to treat all four challenges scientists.
259 case are confirmed as of 2-19-2016.

Continue reading Dengue Fever—The Secret the Tourist Industry Isn’t Telling You About Your Trip to Hawai’i

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Hook Your Readers with These Tips

Hook Your Readers with These Tips

Start Your Book the Right Way-How to Hook Your Readers

Even if you’re new to writing, you know the importance of writing a hook for your novel. It grabs your reader’s attention and convinces him to buy. A good hook raises questions, piques curiosity, and draws the reader deeper into your story.
Without a compelling, question—producing opening, your reader isn’t going to buy. You only have a few sentences to make an impression. Nowadays, no one has the luxury of time. You have to hit them fast and hard.
Your reader wants to be drawn into a believable world from word one. He expects to be entertained. Don’t disappoint him. Continue reading Start Your Book The Right Way

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Tall, Dark and Slayer is now available for purchase

A purchasing agent for vampires and a slayer who takes out rogue vamps must set aside their differences to fight a common enemy in Tall, Dark and Slayer.After months of writing and editing, my paranormal romance, Tall, Dark and Slayer is now available for purchase.

Betty Banks has made a living as a purchasing agent for New York City’s vampires. Artificial blood. Sunscreen. Chocolate? Yes, because all of the vamps in Betty’s world are women, fighting a bloodlust that hits them in their childbearing years. They’re not immortal yet, but Dee Villa, a powerful vampire, hopes to soon make that legend a reality. Under her influence, Betty’s clients are taking to the streets, looking for fresh victims. Helping Dee is Betty’s grifter father, who sees the Back-to-Nature movement as the perfect con.

Gabe Mercer, a childhood victim of the bloodlust, is a cold, calculating slayer. He’s in town to take out Dee, a threat to the peace the government likes to keep. When he crosses paths with Betty, fireworks erupt. Soon, he’s embroiled in a fight to save her business, but to do so, he must first confront his past.

How playing “What If?” lead to a new story

Tall, Dark and Slayer started when I wondered if I could write a vampire book could be without vampire main characters. Could the hero NOT be a seven-hundred year old, jaded vampire, positive he’ll always outlive any woman he’s attracted to? Can the heroine NOT be a freshly-minted vampire with a shoe fetish? What if (my favorite game, playing “What If?) the vampires aren’t really vampires, but have a rare disease that makes them crave blood? And what if the heroine was their purchasing agent for artificial blood, working for a secret government agency keeping them quiet and satisfied? What if the hero worked for the same agency, taking out rogue “vamps”? And what if one of the “vamps” thought she’d found a way to convert to a traditional, immortal kind of vampirism?

With all these “What if?” questions, a book was born. The rest was easy (not).

Check out Tall, Dark and Slayer at the following sites:

Amazon:http://amzn.to/1mziRkk

Ibooks http://apple.co/1PRBrMB

Kobo http://bit.ly/23siU3g

24symbols http://bit.ly/1PiQKl5

Thanks again to the supreme Kris Norris for the cover!

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