It’s almost beyond me to imagine a life without the pleasure of books - fiction, non-fiction, whatever. But there’s someone who is very dear to me who doesn’t read - AT ALL!  Never has and doesn’t intend to start.

Yeah, I know - the mind absolutely boggles.

I swear black and blue, I’m going to get her reading, make her One of Us. Imagine me burning with missionary zeal.

Every year at Christmas, I buy the young people in my life books. So what will I get for Ms Twenty-One, who doesn’t read? So far, I’ve ordered a copy of the first Stephanie Plum. I reckon that will  help.

But what else? What do you all think?

It has to have “instant grab” or she’ll put it down. It also has to appeal to her age group. What do you all think of manga? An anthology? An audio book? Even Twilight? *shudder*

Do you have one book in particular that turned you on to reading? Puhleeese, your recommendations?

I squibbed on the blog upgrade. What can I say? I took one look at all those truly hideous geeky instructions and I just…well, I just felt tired, all right? I can do it another day.

In the meantime, I thought we might discuss hair lice.

OMG!, I hear you scream, why hair lice? Here’s what got me thinking of them again -

Isn’t it a hoot? I laughed out loud when I saw it - which is my general gauge of blog-worthiness. It’s from  Longmire does Romance Novels. Go  have a look and a giggle.

But it took me right back too, to the - shudder - days of head lice. DD has the most beautiful hair, really thick. She’s also one of the most determined people I know and nothing would do but for her to grow it long. When she was seven, the head lice adored it so much, they set up Louse Town on her scalp. I hit the little buggers with natural remedies first. Nope. So I held our noses and tried something that smelled like undiluted DDT. Nope.

In desperation, I took her out to the back verandah with a ruler and my big sewing scissors and I cut it. Unfortunately, as a hairdresser I make a great romance writer and the back came out at the strangest angle. Gave me vertigo. So I evened it out. *snip, snip, snip*  From being halfway down her back, she ended up with a pageboy around her ears.

Poor little darling. She went into her room, took one look in the mirror and came over all weak and strange. She had to go to bed and lie down for a while to get over the shock. I felt like Delilah - and not in a good way either.

OTOH, with her hair shorter, I was able to get rid of the damn things. I guess it was poetic justice that a few of the little horrors transferred themselves to me. *shudder* I had absolutely no problem bathing in the DDT stuff. It was orange from memory. Probably accounts for a few things now.

Please don’t tell me I’m the only one….

Okay, I’m baaack! I’ve been promo-ho-ing my socks off for Thief of Light. *bwg* It was released on 3rd November - as if you didn’t know. heh heh 

Read the first chapter at: http://www.deniserossetti.com/thief.html
Buy from Amazon http://tinyurl.com/mw3bdb

I just wanted to warn you I’m about to upgrade the software for this blog. I’ve been putting it off for absolutely ages. This stuff isn’t exactly my best thang, you know? Hopefully, it will work, but just in case - you’ll know what’s happened if Under and Over suddenly evaporates.

Goddess help me… *gulp*

 It’s newsletter time, which means…

Rackety Kate and the Pirates

Chapter 24

Beginnings and Endings

The story so far:
Duka and the Duchess appear to have formed some sort of pact. Meanwhile, Harley and Chan are moving things right along to their inevitable conclusion – until the clock chimes. Oh, no! They’ve run out of time!

You can read all of Kate here – http://www.deniserossetti.com/kate.html

Duka turned his head, his cheek brushing against the soft, white skin of the Duchess’s belly. Imperiously, he snarled, “Don’t stop, ye bastards. You started this, are ye men enough to finish it?”

Out in the garden, Kate held her breath, Jack equally motionless beneath her. The playful little breeze had dropped, the night air balmy and still. Thank God, the crazy Rossetti woman had shut up, not even the faintest tappity, tap of her fingers on the keyboard.

“Oh aye,” growled Harley. “I’m man enough to make ye scream.”

The First Mate was shuddering now, full body tremors, head to toe. Gritting his teeth, he grunted a negative. The Duchess pressed even closer, whispering in his ear.

Harley leaned forward to sling a muscled arm around Duka’s neck. “You’ll never last,” he hissed. “Give it up for me, man.”

***

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