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First things first.

Tomorrow, Friday the 11th, is the deadline for the contest. I’m looking forward to going through the entries. The contest is to celebrate the release of Mating Stone by Ellora’s Cave. The hero of Mating Stone, Mark Ursine is a Were-Bear as is his twin brother Luke the hero of the upcoming July release, Lovers’ Stone. The Ursines present their lady loves with stones rather than engagement rings. For Mark and Sarah it’s an amethyst. So to win the 17” freshwater pearl and amethyst necklace here’s what you need to do. Write a brief answer to the following question and send it to ElyssaWrites@aol.com with “Mating Stone Contest” in the subject line. I’ll pick the best response as the winner, and two honorable mentions to receive smaller prizes. The winning entries will appear in my blog on April 13th.

In Mating Stone, Mark falls in love with Sarah. Sarah, a young human woman who has no idea that Were’s even exist beyond novels and movies. Strictly fictional. As a human woman, how do you react when Mr. Yummy tells you he’s the one with claws and may just leave fur on the sheets? So tell me: What type of Were is Mr. Wonderful and how does he break it to you?

I don’t have the slightest idea why, but the silly song, from Sound of Music is stuck in my head. No, not the Do, Ra, Mi…I’m not suicidal. It’s the Few of My Favorite Things song.

Raindrops on roses…which I have scratches on my hands from trimming yesterday.

Whiskers on kittens…the neighbor’s cat is toying with my dog making him bark his arse off while it suns itself just on the other side of our back fence.

Bright copper kettles… damn! I need to polish my antique kitchenwares. I have several including an old time preserve sieve that you pound things like grapes, cherries, strawberry’s etc. through to squeeze out the juices.

Warm woolen mittens…wool itches. How can wool anything be your favorite? It’s sweaty, itchy and smells bad. Not to mention it’s a bitch to wash.

Anyway, the favorite things I was thinking about were my favorite books of all time. In no particular order, I thought I’d share them with you. Why? A. Because it’s my blog and I can. And B. because…well, you might have missed one of these and they are awesome.

Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon

This was the first Kenyon book I read and was hooked on her quirky, laugh out loud style of writing. Action, adventure, love, lust, gods and to die for heroes make her books amazing. Fantasy Lover is Julian’s story. Julian was an ancient Macedonian warrior who was heralded as the greatest general of his time. His act of vengeance on the god Priapus earns him an eternal curse. He is bound into the pages of a book (originally a scroll) where he can be called forth at the full moon by a woman. He will spend the next month fulfilling the woman’s every physical desire.

But when he’s called forth by Grace Alexander after a few too many glasses of wine on her birthday, he finds the first woman in all the centuries who doesn’t see him as an object of desire, but who sees him as a man. But at the end of this month he must leave her and return to the dark isolation of the book. Unless they can find a way to break the curse together.

Julian is one of the most perfect heroes ever created. Just don’t let him drive your car. Somehow the whole chariot/car thing just doesn’t translate well for him.


Lilith’s Brood (Xenogenesis) by Octavia Butler

Butler is my favorite writer of all time. Her science fiction has such a humanity to it that you can easily identify with even the most nonhuman of her characters. Her books are consistently brilliant and moving. Xenogenesis, as this collection of three novellas was originally called, was the first of her books I read. I was enthralled with the world she created and with how seamlessly she fed the reader all the information you needed to understand what was happening without going into information dump. She is one of the best at characterization.

Lilith Iyapo didn’t ask to be saved by the alien Oankali when humanity nearly destroyed itself with a nuclear war. She didn’t ask to be made the leader of the rescued and genetically altered humans who were now barely more than prisoners. But no one asked Lilith what she wanted, least of all the Oankali. Lilith’s love hate relationship with the aliens begins early as they see more in her than she ever wanted to be. They see someone who will become the mother of a new race, a genetic mixture of the Oankali and humans. For that’s what the Oankali are. They are gene traders. And their price for saving humanity is its eventual destruction.

This book combines the novellas Dawn, Imago and Adulthood Rites into one tale.


Magic’s Promise by Mercedes Lackey

I’ve written before about the protagonist in this story, Vanyel. He’s prickly, arrogant in the way of teenage boys who are flippin’ terrified of life and the world but by heaven don’t want you to know it. Lackey’s world of Valdemar is a brilliantly conceived one. It is one of the most original I’ve ever read.

Vanyel is the eldest son of the head man. The poor guy wants his son to toughen up, be the big brawny, bear of a fighter that he is. But Vanyel is slender, fast and given to playing his lute for hours on end while singing sweet songs. When attempts to beat the boy into submission and into his father’s image do not work, Vanyel is sent away to live with his aunt. Savil is a Herald Mage, a powerful one. But Vanyel has no talent for magic, nor is he suited to be a bard.

But when he falls in love with Savil’s prize pupil tragedy strikes and the latent magical tendencies in Vanyel are blasted open in a way that just may cost him his life. The Last Herald Mage series is Vanyel’s story and it’s told in a way that is touching and beautiful. But it called the Last Herald Mage for a reason. The reason I never finish book 3.


Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

This is actually the sequel to another book of mine that I almost put on this list, Ender’s Game. Ender’s Game is the story of a young boy who is put through psychological and physical hell as he’s molded into the saviour of all humanity. Only he doesn’t know any of it is real, it’s all supposed to be about training. Ender saves humanity by completely destroying the enemy. Completely. And in time his unintentional genocide turns him from a hero into the worst villain since Adolf Hitler.

Speaker for the Dead is a brilliantly constructed sequel to Ender’s game. It is Ender, grown up now, but having spent so many years traveling in space that he’s actually lived hundreds of years beyond his time. So no expects the Speaker for the Dead to actually be the real Ender Wiggins. But as Speaker, he is called to speak the deaths of two men. Two very different men. Pipo, loved and venerated. Killed by the indigenous life form on the planet being colonized by a small group of humans. Marcos. Cruel, violent and abusive. His body ravaged by a genetic defect. But when the speaker speaks, he speaks the truth. The pain, the pleasure, the joys, the shames. And the small world may never be the same.

Another case of impressive world building. The indigenous Piggies are fascinating and complex. Card is another one of my favorite writers, his politics aside. His stories are always rich, multi layered and captivating.

The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston

This is a story from my childhood. I found this book on the shelf in my 6th grade teacher’s classroom and devoured it. I loved it. Even now, when I re-read it, the characters are compelling and endearing. I didn’t know at the time I read it that it was part of a series of children’s books. I wish I had.

Toseland (a very unlikely name for a young man and happily he soon becomes known as Tolly) goes to live with his grandmother in her creepy old house, Green Knowe. Very strange things are afoot. He hears music and the voices of children. Only there aren’t any other children living here…are there? In animate objects seem to have lives of their own when he can’t see them and his grandmother speaks about people and things as if they are real, but they can’t be…right?

Okay, those are my favorites. What are yours?

The Most List Part 2

Okay, part two of my list. This time it deals with particular characters. From this it's easy to see who my favorite writers are. The writers of these characters are particularly good at characterization.

The Character I'd Most Like To Take Home, Coddle and Feed Warm Milk and Cookies: Tie-Arturo Llewellyn and Vanyel Ashkevron

Ya’ gotta love Anny Cook. I fell in love with Arturo Llewellyn while reading Dancer’s Delight and have adored him unceasingly since. There is something so noble and dear about him that tugs at my heart strings. The victim of a brutal rape, Arturo has a hard road ahead of him as he comes to terms with his attack, the growing separation between he and his twin and his own sexuality. Yep, wanna hug him and give him cookies.

Aruturo ties with Mercedes Lackey character Vanyel Ashkevron from The Last Herald Mage series who I've loved longer but not better. A thin, lanky boy who wants nothing more than to be a bard, but who lacks the magical ability to be one, he is by birth destined to be the heir to his father’s keep. Pushed and bullied-forced by his father into combat training he is ill-suited for; nothing Vanyel does pleases anyone except his mother and only when he’s stroking her ego. Eventually he is sent away to live with his aunt, Savil an incredibly powerful Herald Mage. While there he finds love that turns tragic, reinforcing for him his own worthlessness. Only when he is finally chosen as a Herald Mage and his gifts unlocked by the tragedy does he find a Companion who will stand beside him all the days of his life.

Yep wanna pet them both, tuck them in bed and tell them everything will be alright.

Most Lickable (er...Likable) Character: Alex Navarro
Janet Davies is responsible for creating the character that could distract me beyond all reason. Strong, quiet and powerful, Alex is introduced in Davies’ book Swift of Heart and gets his own HEA in Last Man Standing. Though I could do without the nipple rings, her descriptions of the man are beyond yummy. And not just the physical. The sense of overwhelming virility and sexuality that Davies creates with her pen would make Alex the subject of any woman’s fantasy.

Heroine I’d Most Want to Be: Bride McTierney Kattalakis

Created by Sherrilyn Kenyon in Night Embrace, and later given her own story in Night Play, Bride is a plus size girl who is the subject of intense passion from one very sexy, very gentle, very loving Wolf. Vane Kattalakis is as drop dead gorgeous as they come. And he’s deadly powerful. Born from parents whose hate of each other goes deeper than the soul, Vane’s magic exceeds any that has been seen by his people in generations. After what was supposed to be a one night encounter, Bride finds herself the mate of this incredible werewolf who adores and desires her exactly as she is. A man who frowns when she orders a salad at dinner and who overrides her weight conscious protests to put a large slice of chocolate cake on her plate. A man who shows up just when she needs a hero, out shows her ex when he starts flashing his cash and then kicks the crap out of him when he insults her. He is devoted and because of his love and a nice little trick of his people, he can never mate with anyone but her. A man who can never be unfaithful, loves you and feeds you chocolate. What more could you want? Oh, if I can’t be Bride, can I at least have Vane’s brother Fury?

Most Desirable Were: Fury Kattalakis
Okay, back to Kenyon for this one. Fury is the brother of Vane and Fang Kattalakis. Since his base form was human at birth, Fury is taken by his mother along with two other littermates when she flees his father whose base form is Wolf. Fury is different than the others and his

family assumes it is because he is the one foretold who will bend the power of the two halves of Were magic into a force that has never been equaled. Only it doesn’t work out that way. He is bitter and caustic with little to no social skills. But his irreverence and his unpredictability combine with his physical attributes –tall, long blond hair with turquoise eyes- to create a Wolf you wouldn’t mind having track up your rug.

Most Intriguing Dark Wizard: Raistlin Majere

Created by Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman for DragonLance, the mage Raistlin is a character that is never boring. Often hated by those around him, the black robe mage serves the darkness, but mostly he serves himself. Born a twin, his brother the warrior received all of his physical strength and delivers him an unwitting betrayal that drives all light from the young Raistlin. His weak body often betrays him, but his impressive mind and unparalleled magic more than compensate. Even his own black robed brethren fear him. His silver hair, hourglass pupils and golden skin set him apart from others, making him immediately recognizable. But what keeps readers reading are the threads of unexpected humanity that surface from time to time. His kindness toward a young gully dwarf, shunned by others as less than sentient, who worships him. His patience toward Tass who has a habit of aquiring others belongings and causing no end of trouble with his childlike view of the world. His humor that surfaces, sometimes terrifyingly, at the most unexpected moments. In many ways, Raistlin is the ultimate bad boy in need of redemption that no woman can ever give him. And readers know it. Raistlin doesn’t want to be saved and never will be saved. But it doesn’t keep you from wondering what if.