Bell Bridge Books

Caro’s PAWS Good Dog Treats

by Sparkle Abbey

Today is Dog Biscuit Day and we would like to give you a recipe so that you can make delicious dog treats for your furry friends! Just follow this easy recipe and you’ll have your pooches happy for days! 🙂

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Creamy, Unsalted Peanut Butter

1 Cup Oat Flour

1 Cup Brown Rice Flour (Caro uses organic)

1 Egg

1 Tablespoon of Honey

1/2 Cup Finely Grated Carrot

(Dogbert loves carrots and so does Abbey!)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°

Once you’ve got your treats dough all stirred up, put it between pieces of parchment paper and roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Then cut the dough with a cookie cutter.

Next, put them on a regular cookie sheet and bake them between fifteen and twenty minutes or until they’re golden retriever brown.

Let them cool and then put them in an airtight container. You can store your PAWS Good Dog Treats for about a week (or you can freeze them for later use) but keep an eye on them. There are no preservatives.

Make sure you grab Sparkle Abbey’s fourth book in the

Pampered Pets Mystery Series – YIP/TUCK!

Just click the link!

We  LOVE  Mysteries with Animals

by Sparkle Abbey

We love mysteries that feature animals. Dogs, cats, parrots, ducks…okay, we’ve never actually read a mystery featuring a duck but if there’s one out there that you’ve read, please let us know. We figured there might be more people out there like us – well, not exactly like us – but people who also love mysteries featuring animals. That’s how we ended up writing the Pampered Pets mystery series for Bell Bridge Books – we wrote the kind of stories we like to read.

Our pets comfort us, entertain us, lift our spirits and ask nothing in return. Those furry, feathered, or otherwise adorned creatures make our lives fuller just by being a part of it, don’t they? They do their part and it’s important we do ours.

Alert: We’re about to climb on our soapbox.

If you’re planning to adopt a pet, please consider saving a life by adopting a pet from a local animal shelter. There are many wonderful pets who are looking for their forever homes. If you need help locating a shelter in your area try, this handy finder from Adopt-a-Pet. All you have to do is put your zip code in and it brings up a listing of shelters near you.

And if you’re able, consider a tax-free donation to organizations that help take care of abused or neglected animals like your local shelter. These organizations are always in need of funds and some may also take donations of newspapers, blankets, and other items.  Also, most local shelters are vastly under-staffed and appreciate the assistance of helpful volunteers.

Finally, many strays who end up in shelters are lost pets who did not have identification or the result of unwanted litters. Be a responsible pet owner, make sure your pet has proper ID and please, please get your pets spayed and neutered.

Our pets give us a lot of love – it’s the least we can do for them.

Okay, stepping down off the soapbox.

Now, we’ve got a fun contest for you (and your adorable pets).

Just post a funny picture of your pet on the Sparkle Abbey Facebook page and the poster of the picture that gets the most “Likes” will win a mystery t-shirt, a Petco gift certificate and the Sparkle Abbey book of their choice!

Make sure you grab all of Sparkle Abbey’s fantastic PAMPERED PETS MYSTERY SERIES available on Amazon!

Just click the links!

Today is National Cherry Pie Day! So to celebrate, we are giving you a delicious cherry pie recipe to create and share with family and friends today!

Ingredients
4 cups fresh or frozen tart cherries
1 to 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 tablespoon almond extract (optional)
Pie crust or pie dough recipe for 2 crust pie
1 1/2 tablespoons butter, to dot
1 tablespoon granulated sugar, to sprinkle

Cook cherries in medium saucepan over low heat and cover. Remove the pan after the cherries have lost much of their juice. Mix the sugar and cornstarch into a small bowl, then pour the sugar and cornstarch into the pan of heated cherries and mix. (You can also add in the almond extract now if you would like). After mixing, put the pan back onto the burner and continue cooking over low heat, stirring frequently until the mixture has thickened. Take off the burner and let the mixture cool. If your mix is too thin, you may add more cornstarch; however, if it is too thick, you should add a little water to thin it.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Now time to prepare your crust. Cut your crust in half and flatten or roll each half into a piece that will be big enough to fit into a pan that is 8 to 9 inches. After preparing your crust,  pour your (now cool) cherry mixture inside of it. Use the butter to dot and to moisten the edge of your crust bottom. Now place your crust top on top and crimp your edges. Use a knife to make a cut into the middle of the top crust to let steam escape (and also for decoration ;)).  Sprinkle the pie with sugar and bake for 50 minutes before removing and letting it cool.

I recommend setting on top of a windowsill like they do in movies. Haha. 🙂

Also in honor of National Cherry Pie Day, we are putting Trish Jensen’s STUCK WITH YOU on promotion for only $0.99!! Just click the link and grab it now!

And while you’re there, make sure you grab the rest of Trish Jensen’s fabulous romances! 

And coming soon….

ImaJinn-A-Romance Contest 2014

Click the flyer for details!

Brain, Be Mindful of What the Heart Knows

by: Kathleen Eagle

WHAT THE HEART KNOWS is dedicated to two men who helped me grow up.  One was my father.  The other was a fine student who represents all my students, for I have learned so much more from them than I could possibly have taught.  The book is about a man whose heart condition forced him to retire from his pro basketball career.  The story opens when his father’s mysterious death brings him home, where he runs into the woman he left behind.  Full circle.  Once we’ve grown up, full circle can be full of surprises.

How often do we find ourselves saying, “We (or I) have come full circle”?  The answer probably has a lot to do with how old we are, or maybe how introspective we’re feeling at a given moment, or how often we’re given to taking a step back from the moment in order to have a look at the big picture.  Having married into the Eagle clan, I’ve come to appreciate the Lakota view that life’s journey is not, as I once thought, linear—think time line—but rather it is circular, and at the center is the heart.

Picture a dance circle.  The step is simple—side to side—and the rhythm is the most natural beat we know.  Lub-dub, lub-dub.   I haven’t fully researched this claim, but I’m willing to bet that every culture, every human society has a traditional circle dance.  And every circle has a center.  When we speak of the center, we often say at the heart of.  Laughter, love, life—we say these things come from the heart.  When the heart stops beating, life “passes away.”  But we also say, “life goes on.”  Once again, picture the circle.  People holding hands and moving in unison.  They’re not marching in straight lines.  They’re moving side to side, bodies keeping time with the rhythm of life—lub-dub, lub-dub—and life goes on, passed parent to child, hand to hand.

My father died of a heart attack when he was 48.  He had become a teacher after he retired from the Air Force, and he was pleased with my decision to become a teacher.  Since Daddy was a stickler for good grammar and never hesitated to correct mine, I was probably destined to become an English teacher.  I have always loved basketball (Go Timberwolves!) but didn’t know until I was grown that Daddy’s high school basketball team from tiny Colonial Beach, VA won the state championship in the early 40’s.  I met the other four members of his team (they had no bench) at Daddy’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.

Robert Eaglestaff was one of my students the first year I taught at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.  I taught juniors and seniors that year, and the kids were quite patient with the new fresh-out-of-college teacher from the East. Oh! I was so young, and so naïve.  Bob was the star basketball player.  He went on to play college basketball, became a teacher, later a highly-respected principal.  He died of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy—a common cause of sudden death in young athletes—when he was in his early 40’s.  He was dancing at a powwow.

And now, here’s icing for the circular cake.  Among some pictures my cousin sent me was one of a basketball team that traveled around the country back in the 40’s playing exhibition games against high school teams.  The Sioux Travelers.  The picture was taken at Colonial Beach High School, probably by my uncle.  My brother-in-law told me that there was such a team from South Dakota that was organized by a man from Standing Rock in the 40’s and 50’s.

How’s that for full circle?

Visit Kathleen Eagle on Facebook and read an excerpt from WHAT THE HEART KNOWS and other Bell Bridge Books publications by Kathleen Eagle at www.kathleeneagle.com.

Make sure you grab WHAT THE HEART KNOWS from Amazon for only $1.99!!

Just click the link!

BEING UGLY

by Nicki Salcedo

We aren’t allowed to say the word ugly anymore unless we’re talking about someone’s personality. Ugly is a way of acting, but you can’t call a face or body ugly anymore. In our politically correct world, we have “beauty” and “not quite” as beautiful. No one is allowed to be ugly. Ugly is dead.

I’ve been ugly my whole life. Do not fill up the comment box with false compliments. I don’t need them. I’m better than beautiful. More often than not, I am happy. When things get better, I am confident.  With age I have learned that I am not ugly. I have 10 things I do every day to feel beautiful.

10. Beauty is humor. I laugh as much as I can. Even at sad things. Even rainy and cold days.

9. I find something very small that is beautiful. Usually it is a leaf. It could be an acorn or a blade of grass. Have you ever looked at a single piece of sand? It is a crystal.

8. I become the beholder. Remember that Twilight Zone episode where they people had pig faces? I try to remember that when the hideously disgusting aliens land on Earth, they are going to think that we are ugly. A little mascara isn’t going to change that.

7. I hardly ever wear makeup. You know how the media likes to post pictures of celebrities without makeup? That makes me mad. Why don’t they leave those women alone? Don’t click on those stories. 99% of the time we see movie stars as perfect, but the paparazzi wait for the 1% of the time they aren’t. Not cool.

6. I do wear makeup once in a while, and you all act like I’m a movie star! You say that I’m pretty. The heroine in my novel ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS has been brutally attacked and wanders the streets at night. She is scarred. She feels ugly. What’s one of her biggest fears? Mascara. I rarely wear mascara, but when I do I’m a rock star.

5. I confront stereotypes. I confront racism. Daily. Do you read books with characters from different backgrounds? A part of racism is alienating yourself from other races. The next time you walk into a waiting room, notice who you choose to sit next to and who you avoid. I’ve had security follow me around a store. I’ve watched women at the doctor’s office specifically not take the seat next to me. I get it. I am ugly to others, but here’s how I feel beautiful. I don’t just ignore it. I’m the queen of the friendly “hello!” when someone tries to make me feel invisible.

4. I love my ugly. I see myself as I am. I do have scars. I have a few extra pounds around my middle.  Warts, scars, stretch marks, and all. I accept my body without excuses. When I’m 80 years old, I’m going to wish I had this body and this face.

3. I look for beautiful things in other people. And I tell them. I see beautiful hands, legs, and smiles. That person may not think that they are beautiful. They might appreciate hearing it.

2. I let beauty grow.  When I’m not wearing makeup, I can rub my face against my kid’s face. That is beautiful. I hope I feel more beautiful tomorrow than I do today. I hope when I’m 80 years old I’ll think I look great in a swimsuit. Hope is another one of those beautiful things.

1. Instead of looking for beauty, I listen for it. I know lots of people, but I couldn’t tell you what they all look like. I couldn’t give you a police sketch of their faces. They might be gorgeous or plain by society standards. I don’t know. I’ve allowed myself to be blind. I know about them through their words and stories. We close our eyes, and our senses blossom. That kind of beauty lasts forever.

Nicki Salcedo is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in English and Creative Writing. She was born in Jamaica and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a member of Romance Writers of America© and a Past President of Georgia Romance Writers. Nicki is a two-time recipient of the Maggie Award of Excellence and a Golden Heart© Finalist. Her debut novel, ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS, is a reversal on the beauty and the beast story with a touch of Southern Gothic and romantic suspense. ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS is available now. You can find Nicki on Twitter @NickiSalcedo, Facebook, and at http://www.nickisalcedo.com.

 Make sure you grab ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS from Amazon!

Just click the link!

Living the Dreamy Dreamland of a (cray-cray) Writer

Kathryn Magendie

Oh, the joys of being a writer! Why, we see the world in ways unlike mere mortals. Yeah. We do. Of course we do. We walk about with our heads in the clouds, or huddle inside our little spaces with far away dreamy dreamland eyes that rarely blink. I think I once didn’t blink for a week—no! Really! When one of my eyeballs fell out, I thought, “Dang, woman! For gawd’s sake blink!” So I did, and believe you me, I make sure I blink every once and a while. It’s much better that way; take it from me, the voice of experience.

I’m more the reclusive kind of writer. There’s only rumor that I really actually do exist at all. No! Really! There’s no one actually to prove it—okay, there are some who have seen me, waiflike and ethereal, meandering in an otherworldly way with clouds hovering over my wittle head. I’m so incredibly cute!—um, in very very weirdly dangerous to myself way—but I promise I am absolutely not dangerous to others. No sirree. I don’t even see others most of the time to be of any danger to them. Yeah. I just think of really strange things because my characters are doing all this cool stuff and I want to do it along with them. I do! I want to have all that excitement, and mysterious happenings, and!, all that good hot sex. Woooowheee.

Yeah, while writing The Lightning Charmer, I was so in to that book, I actually considered running outside nekkid while calling out to the lightning to “Take me! Take me, lover! I want you! Oh yes yes yes YES!” And without one shameful bone in my little body. Yeah. I surely am telling you the truth. I mean, Laura, that’s the main character, bless her heart, got to have sex with a lightning bolt!—how hot is that, my friends? How dagum hot is that? And Ayron? He’s the love interest, and so much more (I have a crush on him to beat the band so I won’t gush on and on about his awesomeness while I sigh with breathy sighs *cue rising music that fills the chest with longing.*); well, Laura has Ayron, that big hot sexy man who calls down the lightning for her. Oh, to have me an Ayron calling me down some lightning, mm hmmm—why can’t I go find a secret place in the woods and a big hot sexy mysterious man who charms the lightning comes take me in his big ole arms . . . *Kat will return in a moment—she’s having a quick fantasy daydream . . . nothing to see here, move along.*

Welp, luckily I have good sense god gave a goose and won’t go outside nekkid calling to the lighting to give me some hot sex. Huhn. And if I go up in my woods looking for a man, well, I just may find one, but what if I find a Flem and he takes me off to his nasty old shack like he did Laura? Ewww. He was some nasty. Dang it.

Sometimes I think of chunking this writing life. I do! You don’t believe me? Well, buh-leeve me I do. Sometimes I think I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s such a strange business. One that sometimes is unforgiving, and lonely—*sobs quietly for a moment*—and as for money? Good lawd! Let’s don’t go down that sad road.

But then, if I didn’t do this, who would I be? What would my world be like? How would I think of all kinds of cool things I’d love to do, even if I really can’t do them. Even if I can’t sex it up with a lightning bolt or a sexy lightning charming man, my character can, and I can live vicariously through her, and the others I create (or are they creating me?—stop the existentialism, Kat!). And it’s fun. And exciting. While I’m writing it, I am living it, y’allses! I am!

And when I’m not writing it, I’m thinking about it. And when I’m not writing and thinking about writing, on the seventh day, I rest. Dang, that might sound blasphemous, and in the south and mountain south you just don’t DO that kind of thing. Even if you might not believe in God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t matter—you by gawd better respect it! So, let me rephrase that: I never rest. At all! Yeah, even a god will get to rest, but my brain is on electro-dynamic-zippity-do-dah-day seven days a week, even when I’m sleeping—you don’t EVEN want a peek inside my brain, or my dreams. No. No, you do not *shivers.*

Now. If you are a writer, then you might be nodding your head, or you just might be going, “This woman is cray-cray! Good lawd!” And if you are not a writer, you might be going, “This woman is cray-cray! Good Lawd!”

Later y’all! Oh! Before I go: thank you all. Thank you all for supporting us writers by reading our work and encouraging us and staying ten feet back from us when we stare up at lightning with a gleam in our eyes. Teehee. But I adore you all. I do!

(A big P.S. The Lightning Charmer is on promo for one day only! For $1.99—wooowheee! That’s pretty danged cheap, y’all!)

Make  sure you head over to Amazon today in order to get this great deal on THE LIGHTNING CHARMER!! Just click the link!

“I don’t listen to music when I write. I like silence. My mind fills with whispered words from other writers. Sometimes the words are from books, sometimes music, sometimes poetry. I remembered my favorite poems as I wrote ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS. This is my poetry soundtrack.”

–Nicki Salcedo

1. “We wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.” Paul Laurence Dunbar, Poem: “We Wear the Mask”
2. “And then last night I tiptoed up to my daughter’s room and heard her talking to someone, and when I opened the door, there was no one there…Only she on her knees, peeking into her own clasped hands” Amiri Baraka, Poem: “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”
3. “We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head, and bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears, and we gave her all our money but our subway fares.” Edna St. Vincent Millay, Poem: “Recuerdo”
4. “How you must have wondered to see me taking chances, dancing on the edge of words, pointing out the bad guys, dreaming your x-ray vision could see the beauty in me.” Lucille Clifton, Poem: “note passed to superman”
5. “Her terrified hands will lie still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. The tigers in the panel that she made will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.” Adrienne Rich, Poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”
6. “And now the moon, earth’s friend, that cared so much for us, and cared so little, comes again—always a stranger!” Robert Lowell, Poem: “Public Garden”
7. “In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me. Not of woods only and the shade of trees.” Robert Frost, Poem: “Mending Wall”
8. “Don’t look now. I’m fading away into the gray of my mornings or the blues of every night.” Nikki Giovanni, Poem: “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day”
9. “I lay waiting on the gravel bottom, my brain darkening, a jar of spawn fermenting underground dreams of Baltic amber.” Seamus Heaney, Poem: “Bog Queen”
10.  “In the mirror, the angles of the room are calm, it is the hour when you can see that the angle itself is blessed, and the dark globes of the chandelier, suspended in the mirror, are motionless” Sharon Olds, Poem: “After Making Love in the Winter”
11. “I have slept with you all night long while the dark earth spins with the living and the dead, and on waking suddenly in the midst of the shadow my arm encircled your waist. Neither night nor sleep could separate us.” Pablo Neruda, Poem: “Night on the Island”
12. “Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.” Sylvia Plath, Poem: “Lady Lazarus”
13. “They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs.” James Wright, Poem: “A Blessing” 

Don’t forget to go grab ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS from Amazon TODAY! 

Just click the link!

Today is National Weatherman Day and to celebrate, why not pick up a couple books written by an actual weatherman? 

After all, without them, we would never be prepared for all of this crazy weather we always have!

So show your appreciation for once upon a time weatherman – Buzz Bernard – today! 

In early 2009, after 13 years with The Weather Channel, Buzz Bernard retired from the network as a senior meteorologist. Prior to joining The Weather Channel, he served as a weather officer in the U.S. Air Force for 33 years, retiring with the rank of colonel and having received, among other awards, the Legion of Merit.

Prior to becoming a novelist, Buzz published five nonfiction books about weather and climate. He’s had first-hand experience with hurricanes, having penetrated the eyewall of such a storm with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters. That mission wasn’t nearly as exciting–or as terrifying–as the one described in Eyewall, but he did get an up close and personal look at how the job is done.

Besides his trip with the Hurricane Hunters, Buzz has flown air drops over the Arctic Ocean and Turkey, and was a weather officer aboard a Tactical Air Command (now Air Combat Command) airborne command post (C-135). Additionally, he provided field support to forest fire fighting operations in the Pacific Northwest, spent a summer working on Alaska’s arctic slope and served two tours in Vietnam. Various other jobs, both civilian and military, have taken him to Germany, Saudi Arabia and Panama.

A native Oregonian, Buzz attended the University of Washington in Seattle where he earned a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric science while also studying creative writing. After leaving active duty with the Air Force, he and his wife Christina lived in New England and suffered through its winters for two decades before heading for the warmer climate of Roswell, Georgia, near Atlanta. It’s much warmer there!

Make sure you go grab Buzz’s weather based novels – EYEWALL and SUPERCELL – off of Amazon TODAY! 

Just click the links!

We are RE-VAMPING the entire Vampires in America series! 

 RAPHAEL, SOPHIA, ADEN, JABRIL, and RAJMUND have all been given new covers…..

And now DUNCAN – Book 5 in the Vampires in America series is being revealed!

   Just click the links and you’ll be taken to Amazon where you can get this entire series with the new covers! Don’t wait! 

This series by D.B. Reynolds is just too good to miss out on!