First there came a Great Dragon …

photo by Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng

… who was soon joined by her good friend, the Emerald Phoenix …

photo by Jingyi Zhang and Wang Zheng

I came across these two creatures today in my email inbox. They were featured in this article from the wonderful people at Space.com.

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Prelude has a review, read it HERE. Many thanks to Jaye.

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And, I put my Shaman-y hat on and went visiting HERE, at Dropping Pennies. Many thanks to KT, for the invite.

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The sun is shining so bright it’s almost impossible to look out my window without squinting as the gorgeous beams dance over and bounce off of the hard packed frozen snow. A brisk northerly wind has blown every cloud from the sky and the gusts howl through my, slightly open window, because who can…

On the Come Up

By: Angie Thomas

Grade: A

On the Come Up about an aspiring rapper named Bri- her start, her friends and her family- is Angie Thomas’ follow-up to the enormously successful The Hate U Give. I read that book thought it was fantastic and deserved all the hype so I was very much interested in seeing if Thomas could pull it off again.

And she very much does.

Stellar Jays live in the pine forests in Southern California’s mountains.

Oregon Dark Eyed Juncos are local birds and are related to sparrows.

Burrowing Owls are “a species of special concern,” in Southern California, where much of their natural habitat has been destroyed by development. Petitions are being submitted to the state to change their status to endangered.

This handsome jay was hanging out on a picnic table, waiting for a handout.

So, of course, I gave him one!

Juncos are quite tiny, and rather shy, so they are hard for me to photograph. This guy was unusually cooperative!

Burrowing owls nest underground to hide from raptors and raise their young. People and organizations all over California are setting up underground Burrowing Owl boxes to help shelter and protect these adorable owls. It is a rare thrill to see them out of the boxes curious about the human who is…

In 2017, my novel Speak Its Name was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize, for the best debut by an author under the age of 35. I was the first self-published author ever shortlisted, which was pretty cool. And it was a great prize to be shortlisted for, because everybody on the shortlist won a Betty Trask Award and three thousand pounds.

So what do you do when you’ve got three thousand pounds that you’re pretty sure you’re meant to be spending on travel? Go to that place you always meant to, of course. Do that thing you always meant to do. In my case, that was loads of places. That was InterRailing.

I asked my friends for suggestions of where to go, and what to do when I’d got there. They obliged. Stockholm. Nuremberg. I knew I wanted to see Prague and Vienna. I wanted to visit…

(Part 1: can’t you hear that whistle blowing?)

14th April 2018

I walk through Saint Pancras every morning on the way to work, and often get a kick out of the signs – and, if I’m lucky, announcements – in French. It lifts the spirit to think that, if the prospect of continuing out the other side, crossing Midland Road and the piazza of the British Library, and joining the Euston Road, got too much for me, I could go to Paris or Brussels or Amsterdam instead. Assuming my credit card could cope, of course.

I never do. I head straight on through and go to work. It’s just nice to know that I’ve got the option.

This particular morning, however, I crossed Euston Road and sat down in Le Pain Quotidien with an espresso and a ham and cheese croissant. This was not a normal work day…

Hi everyone! Today I’m bringing a post I’m really excited about. The other day I was think about how diverse books often times get less publicity than other books. Wheter it is because they are indie or self published or because they get a smaller publicity budget or because they have less support from the publishers or for any of a hundred other reasons, the truth is there’s tons of diverse books out there that could use all the help they can get publicity wise.

I have written a few post in the past about underrated books with small amount of ratings on Goodreads and those lists are full of diverse books, so I would recommend you check them out!

• Underrated YA Books (less than 1000 rating on Goodreads
• Underrated LGBTQIA+ Books
• Underrated Diverse Romances (Less than 200 ratings on Goodreads)
• Underrated 2018 Releases (less than 400 ratings on…

Excerpt from “Redhead (to Denver) by Brice Maiurro

my dear
you are between a rock and a hard place
your face does not illuminate the same as the others
your lights are few and speckled
but i’ve always loved freckles
you are a grid system at first glance
i know they tell you real women have curves
but real women know better than that
sometimes you are cold and the conversation runs dry
but it’s not easy being as high as you are all the time
i love you
i never want to leave you
and i know you don’t believe me
but you are the manic pixie dream girl
who at times is slightly annoying
but i know your heart is too full of
homeless men laying out sleeping bags
on the floor of your rib cage
great tent cities on your shoulders

I’d been reading and following the author’s blog  paperfury.com and loving her posts when I heard about her debut novel. Took me ages to finally read it I have so many books. And…. I should’ve read it sooner! Look at the amazing cover:

Synopsis from GoodReads:

“An emotionally charged story of music, abuse and, ultimately, hope.

Beck hates his life. He hates his violent mother. He hates his home. Most of all, he hates the piano that his mother forces him to play hour after hour, day after day. He will never play as she did before illness ended her career and left her bitter and broken. But Beck is too scared to stand up to his mother, and tell her his true passion, which is composing his own music – because the least suggestion of rebellion on his part ends in violence.

When Beck meets August, a girl…