For the past few days, I have been doing research for my next novel.  Without giving away too much, let me just say that this included reading up on the plight Irish Travellers and the racism against them.  Wow is all that I can say and not in the good way.

To anyone looking past My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, the first thing that you will come across are stories related to the evictions last year of the Dale Farm traveller site in Crays Hill, Essex, United Kingdom.  The stories are all pretty straight forward:  Part of the Dale Farm site was legal, the other part wasn't.  It was a long and drawn out process, full of protests, that ended in the eviction of the travellers occupying the illegal portion.  What was surprising was the comments attached to these stories.  The things that people posted ranged from ignorance to out and out cruelty! 

I was shocked by the story that appeared on a UK blog The Telegraph titled:  'Irish Travellers are part of the British heritage and need to be accommodated'. Really? . Twenty-five pages of comments regarding the scams, lawlessness, and dropping property values thanks to the travellers.  It was like going back in time.  I was especially shocked with comments wanting to send them back to Ireland because they weren't really British.  It reminded me of the comments one would hear in pre-civil rights America.

So then I got the crazy idea that maybe this racism was just in the UK.  I Googled "Irish Travellers in America".  What comes up?  Stories about Madelyne Gorman Toogood, the traveller woman that was caught on tape thrashing her four year old daughter.  Even the faithful wikipedia shows an outdated 1940's photo (at left). 

I still had high hopes and kept reading only to discover that there are actual "Irish Traveller Task Forces" set up in some cities and that retailers give their employees special "Traveller Training".

Again, here I am doing all this research and reading about the racism against the Irish Travellers in the UK and in America, and all I can say is WOW, and not in the good way.

I'd love to know if any of you out there

On this #WriterWednesday, I'm highlighting the amazing Addison Moore.  She is the author of one of my favorite series, the Celestra Series, and part 7.5 was just released!

Bio from Amazon Author Page

Addison Moore writes young adult fiction and romance. She is a graduate from the University of Southern California and worked as a therapist on a locked psychiatric unit for nearly a decade. She resides on the West Coast with her husband, four wonderful children and two dogs where she eats too much chocolate and stays up way too late. When she's not writing, she's reading.

Product Description:

TOXIC Part Two

Skyla Messenger’s days are drawing to an end.

Seventeen year-old Skyla has been taken by the Counts, is under the strict punishment of her mother in a war gifted in her honor, and is the only hope of the people captive in the tunnels. Everything that can go wrong has. For Skyla, life is panning out to be more of a curse than a blessing.

Relationships change.
The war draws to an end.
Death comes to Paragon.


Skyla must decide if she is brave enough to sacrifice everything in order to save her people.


Other books by Addison Moore:

ETHEREAL (Celestra Series Book 1)
TREMBLE (Celestra Series Book 2)
BURN (Celestra Series Book 3)
WICKED (Celestra Series Book 4)
VEX (Celestra Series Book 5)
EXPEL (Celestra Series Book 6)
TOXIC Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)
TOXIC Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5)
EPHEMERAL (The Countenance)

So last night I stayed up and watched Liz & Dick.  I won't go into the details, but it didn't live up to the hype.  Then, I see on Twitter that people are butchering the movie and the performances and how bad they made Elizabeth look (adulterer, drunk, temperamental) and how Richard Burton came off looking like a rambling drunk.  Um....Am I the only one that read anything about this before hand?

Okay, first off, I am a huge Elizabeth Taylor fan and I could listen to Richard Burton talk for hours, but we are not talking about two saints.  Elizabeth married and divorced Nicky Hilton, then married Mike Wilding and cheated on him with Mike Todd, she was still married to Mike Wilding when she became pregnant with Mike Todd's baby, then married Mike Todd and they were together until his death in a plane crash, then she began an affair with Eddie Fisher who was married to Debbie Reynolds at the time (think Angelina-Brad-Jennifer on a bigger fame scale), her and Eddie get married, then she begins the affair with Richard Burton who was also married at the time. 

The pope condemned the relationship, it almost bankrupted a studio, and ruled all the tabloid pages.  Elizabeth and Richard were famous for their public fights, their drinking, and their spending.  The movie captured all of that.  How well the movie captured and portrayed it is debatable.

I won't go into the performances, but I will say that no one can act Elizabeth Taylor.  It's an impossible feat to undertake and all will fail in varying degrees.  That is one act that is just too hard to copy (at least while she is still so fresh in our memories).

What strikes me about the real Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton was that all consuming desire to be together.  Call it selfish, call it irresponsible, or whatever you want, but those two risked their families, careers, and sanity to be together.  The sad thing?  Passion that intense is destined to burn out.

Often, when people discuss Elizabeth Taylor and her many marriages, people debate on whether it was Mike Todd or Richard Burton that was the great love of her life, others might say that Elizabeth was the great love of Elizabeth's life.  I, for one, think that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were the great loves of each others life, but that the celebrity of celebrities "Liz & Dick" ruined it.

So, did you see the movie?  You don't have to be as impartial as I tried to be.  What did you think?

With Breaking Dawn Part 2 now out in theaters, in only seems fitting that I should take a moment on #WriterWednesday to honor Stephenie Meyer.

It was almost a year ago that I wrote a post explaining Why We Should All Love Stephenie Meyer and I have to say that I haven't changed my opinion.  It doesn't matter if you love her books or hate them, we should all be grateful that she got an entire generation into reading.  Thanks to her, teens are even branching out to Pride and Prejudiced and Romeo and Juliet.

As far as Twilight, I admit it, I still love it.  At my house, we are split down the middle between Team Edward and Team Jacob.  My daughter (who hates to read thanks to school) loves to read entire passages of the Twilight books.

So, before we judge the literary merit of her novels, at least give her credit for getting a few more people to realize the beauty of books and the simple joy of spending an afternoon reading.

I just got back from another whirlwind trip with my daughter.  This time it wasn't dance related, but instead it was her birthday present.  Every year, my daughter forgoes the traditional birthday party and gifts in exchange for a trip to Pigeon Forge.

So, we left last Thursday (yep, Bad Mommy) and started our crazy, fast paced mini-vacation. 

I am glad we went, and she had so much fun, but now I need a rest!  I'm too old to keep up with a nine year old!

I am so happy to be able to announce that The Spiritus Series Collection is now available!  At $4.99 it's a steal for someone wanting to buy the complete series!

Available at:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

I did a very bad thing as an author.  I fell in love with my hero.  I can't help it.  As one reviewer said, "that ghost is hot".

I guess for that reason, I am always surprised when people tell me that they hate him.  How can they not love him as much as I do?

Actually, I do understand it.  Many of my readers are turned off by his chauvinistic and controlling ways.  If I was meeting him in a bar, I'd have to agree, but Alastor was born before the Civil War.  He was raised in a world where women were prized possessions, but far from equals.  So is he really controlling or just a product of his time?

That also makes me wonder, would he have been convincing as a Civil War era ghost if he treated Becca as an equal partner?  To me, it would have taken away from the authenticity of his character, but I'm curious what my readers think.

Is Alastor a controlling jerk or simply a product of his generation?

I've added yet another book to my TBR pile.  This one is Collide by Shelly Crane.  She also wrote another fav of mine Significance.

Bio from Amazon Author Page:
Shelly is a YA author from a small town in Georgia and loves everything about the south. She is wife to a wonderful husband and stay at home mom to two boisterous and mischievous boys who keep her on her toes. They currently reside in everywhere USA as they happily travel all over with her husband's job. She loves to spend time with her family and friends, go out to eat at new restaurants and site see in the new areas they travel to, listen to music and also LOVES to read.
Her own books happen by accident and she revels in the writing and imagination process. She doesn't go anywhere without her notepad for fear of an idea creeping up and not being able to write it down immediately, even in the middle of the night, where her best ideas are born.

I'm looking forward to reading another book by this talented author.  What's your favorite Sh

The other day my daughter uttered the most foul words to ever escape her nine year old mouth.  While organizing her homework, she suddenly pushed her books away, and crossed her arms.

“I hate reading,” she huffed.

At that moment I backed away, sure that the literary gods would strike her with a bolt of lightning.  How could she, the daughter of a writer, even think such a thing let alone announce it to the world?  Even more pressing: What do I do about this problem?  Do I wash her mouth out with Shakespeare?  Do I give her a healthy dose of Harry Potter and hope that cures her?

Once I had calmed down, I got to thinking about her comment.  It just didn’t make sense. How could this child hate reading?  Over the summer, she read all of the Bella Sara books.  She then moved on to the Magic Puppy, Magic Kitten, and Magic Pony series.  She also took her sweet time and got about half way through my copy of Twilight.  Just before school started, she was beginning the Little House Books.  If something sparked her interest on television, she’d ask me to Google it so she could read more about it.

Then it hit me.  School.  When school started, she had to put away her “fun reads” and go back to reading the “approved” (under twenty pages) books each night.  Suddenly reading was a chore.  She was forced to read books that held no interest to her whatsoever and were far below her reading level.  The school system’s plan to improve reading “levels” is destroying my daughter’s love of books and that is a crime worse than not teaching her at all.

While I am all for kids reading more, this, at least for my child, is not the way to do it.  Somehow, the school system got sidetracked with “test scores” and forgot to show kids that reading could be fun.

So, tomorrow I go in for my parent/teacher conference and again, she will quote test scores and levels.  When I again mention this change in my daughter, she’ll tell me that her test scores are all “on level”.  Whatever.  I’m not drinking your kool-aid.  This newfound hate of reading is a major problem.

I would love any suggestions or comments.  How would you improve the school system?  How would you repair the literary damage they have done?

I am so honored to be part of the Indie Love Giveaway over at Shawn Kirsten Maravel's blog.  Check out the post below and enter the giveaway!