SUNDAY SNIPPETS WITH GINGER #sundaysnips

I'm giving you a teaser from Betrayed which is now on Amazon Countdown. Get your copy while the price is only 99 cents. The special lasts until May 1. I'm currently working on the second in the series, Deceived.



“Ring, damn it!” Cassie sat, curled up on the sofa, and stared at the phone. For the last hour she’d fought with herself about being the one to initiate the call, but her mother’s words echoed in her mind. “Nice girls don’t call boys. They wait.”

Cassie wondered what her mother would think about this whole Internet dating scene. Mom maintained old-fashioned standards, still believing that real men opened doors and threw their cloaks over mud puddles. Cassie opened her own doors and stepped over puddles, but the one thing she couldn’t do was fill the void of loneliness inside herself.

The phone’s loud ring sliced through the silence, startling her and ending her dilemma. She took a deep breath before she answered. She didn’t want to sound too eager.

“Hello.”

“Hi, purdy lady.”

Cassie’s heart warmed. She snuggled down on the couch and cuddled the phone between her head and shoulder.

 http://amzn.com/B00GXKW7OI

BLURB:

The advertisement claimed: “Find your true love; we’ll match you with the person of your dreams.” Their irritating spam clogged her computer inbox. "Free tonight? Let’s chat." Cassie Fremont thought of hitting the ‘trash’ button, but the promises were alluring. Divorced and so lonely, Cassie signs up for the on-line dating service. What she doesn’t know is the cost of the ticket for her ride on the romantic roller coaster from hell.

Now hop on over to these other blogs and view their Sunday Snippet:

http://www.jamiehill.biz/
http://triciamg.blogspot.com (Tricia McGill)

Friday Freebits with Ginger #frifreebits

Amazing how fast time goes when you get older...and this month I did.  It pains me to even utter the words...sixty-nine.  Good Lord, I'm staring 70 in the face.  *lol*  Oh well, like a good friend says, "any day on this side of the grass is a good one."  So, on with Betrayed, but only six paragraphs from Cassie's story:

****

The whirring of her old machine contrasted starkly compared to the new one she used at the office. Someday she’d buy a new home system, but for now the old one served her purposes. Until recently, she’d only used the one at home for personal banking; but last night she’d actually joined an online dating site and posted her profile. Was that the move of desperation? As pathetic as it seemed, anxiousness overcame her to see if anyone had responded.

Since her divorce five years ago she had only dated a few times. The caliber of available men seriously disappointed her. Cocktail lounges and bars were nothing but meat markets and frequenting them was like fishing in the “reject pond of life". Every man there had already been caught and thrown back, most likely for good reason. The rumor that supermarkets served as a good meeting place turned out to be nothing more than an old wives’ tale. Few men shopped at Cassie’s neighborhood store, and the only males working there were teenage baggers and an ancient butcher; all the cashiers were women.

Cassie focused on the bright side. At least if she selected a choice piece of meat, she’d enjoy it for dinner and not worry about having to sleep with it.

The truth: she was tired of being alone - sick of always attending social functions by herself and never knowing what it felt like to be part of a couple. Her ex-husband had been room like a roommate. She needed a partner in her life and was running out of places to look. If stooping to perusing Internet dating sites was what it took, then so be it.

Again, the devil dangled the another option. She immediately pushed that black thought aside. Besides, her mother needed her.

“Hurry up!” The computer wore on Cassie’s patience and she swore under her breath. “Damn! I could give myself a friggin’ manicure before the homepage even pops up on the screen.”

She wiggled the mouse back on forth thinking it might help, and soon realized the futility of the action. It was just as absurd as people who continued to push elevator buttons.

****

Will anyone respond?  I'm sure you know someone will; they always do.  Tune in next week for more.

Amazon Author's Page

Friday Freebits with Ginger #FriFreebits

Welcome to Friday Freebits.  I'm so excited to have friends join me so we can let you glimpse into our published and unpublished work.  Each week, I'll present the links here for you to follow, and you can visit, and hopefully share the information, too.  I don't know if you realize that the responsibility for promoting our work falls mainly on our shoulders, and we appreciate all the help we can get.

So, without further ado, I present this weeks six from a book I'm reworking for re-release, my humorous offer, Life is a Bowl of Toilets and I Feel Flush.

This is from the Chapter - Take This Job and Shove It.

If I were to fill out an application for work today that required listing all my previous jobs, I'm pretty sure someone would request a psychological evaluation.  My first job was working for the US Air Force as a secretary for the missile safety program.  I left that job to take one closer to home with the telephone company as a Service Representative.  That was back in the day when you actually got service from the from the telephone company and didn't have to go through an everlasting automatic attendant.

Can you actually believe that back then, they hired people just to listen in our our conversations with you to make sure we said, "thank you," and timed us to make sure we weren't off the phone for more than ninety seconds without excusing ourself again?  A board was kept in our office that charted our delays, manner discrepancies and other faux pas, pitting our office against others in the district.  Now that I think about they way things were handled, all that monitoring was a pretty sick way to get people to be nice.

I left that stressful environment to accept work at a nearby university, acting as secretary for the English department.  I place a lot of emphasis on the "acting" since that stint lasted only about three weeks.  I discovered I was pregnant and couldn't stop throwing up.  I didn't think it was fair to get paid to lay in the employees lounge all day, so I quit before they could fire me.  I wasn't performing up to standards, and I admit it.

After my son turned two, I decided on a part-time job driving a school bus.  What the hell was I thinking?  I paid someone to watch one kid while I spent the day with 70.  Not my best idea, by far, but the position did create some lasting memories, one which you may have read in my first book, Life is a Bowl of Toilets and I Clean Them.  When I was recalling all the fun times then, I omitted the incident where I got my boob caught in the door and had to write an accident report on how it happened.  I had a had time offering an explanation, and I'm still not sure I was totally truthful.

From there, I went on to work part-time in a landscape/nursery business as a bookkeeper.  After two days, the job turned into a full-time one as the owners wife quit, left me her job and her husband...if I wanted him.  As it turned out, he was quite the lady's man and she'd had it with his shenanigans.  I didn't know much about sexual harassment at the time, but I think I might have had a case simply based on the fact that he call me "Chi-Chi" which I later learned meant "titties" in Spanish.  Somehow my boobs kept getting me into trouble.

I won't mention my ex-employer's name to keep from being sued, but I will tell you he was quite the charmer.  He was from Spain, and had killer blue eyes and a smile to match.  It didn't take me long to figure out why his wife got fed up with him.  Oh, I admit, at first I was dazzled by his accent and out pouring of attention, but when I noticed he said the same thing to every woman who came into the place, those lines he used on me somehow lost their appeal.  There's something suspicious about calling an elderly woman with a big mole on her nose, beautiful, and then using the term when you talk to me.  Okay...now I might be that elderly woman with the mole, and realize how much she appreciated his sweetness, but back then, I was rather insulted.  Besides, I started to see his ex's side of the coin. There should be some things a husband reserves for the special person in his life...and trust me, he didn't reserve anything.  What a crock!

******

More to come next Friday, but now hop on over to my friends and see what they have cooking.

Jamie Hill
Roseanne Dowell
Taryn Raye
Sydell Voeller
Rhobin Courtright

Sunday Snippets With Ginger #sundaysnippets #promotion

Welcome to Snippet Sunday

The rules are simple. 

1. Sign up in the Linky List below. The Linky List will go live 12:01AM Monday and will close at 11:59PM Saturday night every week.
2. Post 6 paragraphs (no more, no less) from either a WIP or a published work. The post must be live by 9:00AM Sunday.
3. Open to both un-published and published authors.
4. Post the link back to Sneak Peek Sunday so that others can hop along. Feel Free to copy and use the Banner on your own blog or to promote your entry.
5. HAVE FUN!!

Here is my six paragraphs from Hattie's Hero - A western historical that takes an unexpected twist and lands my heroine in modern day, confused and wondering what her connection is to the people who rescued her:

"You don't think the Indians are still around, do you?" Hattie glanced over her shoulder and cast wide eyes at Billie.

"Nah, they're probably long gone, but you can never be too careful." He draped his rifle strap over his shoulder, allowing the weapon to dangle, and walked closer. "You almost done?"

"Yes." She wrung the water from the last diaper and tossed it into the laundry basket. Standing, she massaged the small of her back. "How do you think the scouts knew Indians killed those buffalo?"

He bent and picked up the wicker container. "Besides seeing arrows amidst the remains, the way the feathers are notched usually tell which tribe left 'em. If a white man had done the killin', they would have simply skinned the animal and left the rest. The Indians take pretty much everything. The meat, they use for food, the skins for blankets.and coverings for their lodges. Bones serve as utensils for cookin' and eatin', and the some of the innards become bowstrings and thread for their sewin'. I hear tell they use the animal's bladders to tote water."

The unpleasant thought of water carried in that manner caused Hattie to make a face. She wanted to hear more, but Billy dropped the laundry basket at his feet and held a silencing finger to his lips. She cast a questioning look his way, but complied, freezing in place. He craned his ear toward the high grass to his left and pulled his rifle from his shoulder. Placing one foot steadily in front of the other, he approached the dense growth.

A cold chill ran down her spine, but her apprehensive gaze followed his movement. She strained to hear something, but Billy walked on silent feet, causing only the slightest crackle of grass as he parted the crispy strands. He disappeared from sight, leaving her quivering with fear.

*****

If you'd like to read more, please feel free to visit my Amazon page where all my books are listed.



Here's this week's list...and don't forget to sign up for next week

1. Abbye Kivacevic 2. Amber Bentley 3. Taryn Raye's Love By Design 4. Two Love Again5. rosemarymorris. blogspot. com 6. Kahleena MacCarthy 7.Kaet Wallace8. Jen Black's Blog


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