Showing posts with label Chef John Malik. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chef John Malik. Show all posts

Monday, November 18, 2013

Blondie's Books From Friends (BFFs)

Blondie's Books From Friends (BFFs)

Welcome to Blondie's First Author Spotlight

I wanted to introduce you to a few of my close author friends who have been supportive of my writing. I hope you will take a few minutes to check out their new books and follow their blogs and social media sites as a favor to me. You will not be disappointed. I have very good taste in friends as you will see these are quality folks, and mighty fine authors with great stories to tell. While you're doing your holiday shopping, consider adding a few of their titles to your wish list, gift list, and e-readers! I know I am!

There is something for all tastes with these 7 Books From Friends (BFFs) with very diverse subjects ranging from a science fiction tale from a NASA Astrophysicist to a Chef's love story. There is an autobiographical story from Kenya and a horror ballet frightmare to thrill you, with two short story collections with real world character driven tales. Finally a horror Christmas story sure to make you look at the holidays a little differently. 


If you purchase any of these books please take a few minutes to write a review on Amazon. This is the bread and butter for the Indie author -- reviews! I would love for you to share this post so we can get as much attention as possible for these great authors. Thank you! 

So without further adieu -- Blog readers, please meet my BFFs...


Terry Tyler

How Do I Know the Aqualicious Ms. K J Waters?

Terry Tyler, Author of 7 Books
We are but online friends, alas, but then that’s the way with so many people these days, isn’t it? I ‘met’ KJ when I first joined Twitter two years ago – I had just published my first book on Amazon and I was told I need to tweet to promote it. I joined Twitter but wasn’t at all sure what to do, so I just used to chat to people; KJ was one of the first with whom I did. She calls me ‘Glodie’ because I remind her of Goldie Hawn (all we have in common are the wrinkles, but never mind!), and I make a lot of typos, so have been known to refer to myself as ‘Glodie’….! *Terry is covering for me. I was the typo maker.*

KJ and I have since become Facebook friends, followed each others’ fledgling (now well established!) blogs, and I’m massively dying to read her debut novel Stealing Time, when it comes out. I’ve been waiting for it for two years – hurricanes and time travel? It’s so far up my street it’s practically through the door, down the hall way and in the living room!


My Latest Book
Very soon, very, very soon, I shall be publishing my seventh book, which is a collection of nine short stories called Nine Lives. It will be free on publication, for five days only, so please look out for it – I know KJ will tweet about it! *Of course I will Terry!* 

Nine Lives does not have a single theme; the stories are about such things as extra-marital affairs, jealousy, weight loss, first love, mistakes made under the influence of alcohol – much like what I write about in my novels! I’m planning publication day will be November 20, so I hope you will download!

Thank you very much for featuring me, KJ, and I am proud to be one of your BFFs!



Links
If you would like to take a look at my books, here are the links to my author pages: Terry Tyler on Amazon UK and Terry Tyler Amazon USA.

Terry's snarky and fun blog: Terry Tyler's Blog

Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook



John Malik


John Malik, Author and 
Award Winning Chef
I love salt water. I love being tossed about by the waves and I love feeling the tug and push of the tides.  I find it mesmerizing. I can’t think of a better example to describe our planet’s forces of nature. Get into the salt water on an East coast beach and you won’t need to think about how complex our planet is, you’ll feel it.

I think KJ shares that same love for salt water and that’s why I love reading her blog.  She clearly understands the attraction. There’s a sensuality to being immersed in warm salt water and there’s a wonderful attraction to being part of the ocean’s complexity. 

The grit of the sand, the brine of the water, the possibility of an encounter with a fish, crab, urchin or jellyfish is irresistible to me. Sure I’ve been stung, pinched, bumped and bit by all matters of sea creatures but I expect that when I jump into the ocean. I think KJ shares that sentiment.  And I’m pretty sure she’s part mermaid. *I am, John, it's true.*

If you’re looking for a love story, take a look at KJ’s novel, Stealing Time.  It features a hurricane as the central character and there’s a bit of time travel too. *He's kidding, it is a thriller. I do love severe weather, though, he's right about that!*

My Novel

And what about my novel, Doughnuts for Amy?  Well I’ve been picked up by a publisher, Winter Goose. Doughnuts for Amy isn’t currently for sale. It will return in late Spring of 2014.  I would love for you to become a follower of my writing. 


Links

You can connect with me on my Facebook fan page or on Twitter and my blog.

*I asked John to submit a few paragraphs for this Author Spotlight blog and he completely shocked and delighted me with an entire post called Blondie in the Water on his blog 'Chef John Malik -- A Writer Trapped in a Chef's Body.' See the full post here.  Thank you again, John! You are amazing!*


Wendy Potocki

Wendy Potocki, Author of 6 Novels
Ahoy Mateys and Manatees!

The meeting of K J, a.k.a. Blondie, was quite natural since we both frequent the same ocean. You see, I’m a navy seal … and I’m not talking military. I mean that I’m literally a dark blue seal. You know, the kind that claps and balances things on their nose for treats?  In fact, Blondie taught me those tricks. 

Now while some may eschew my rather elegant blue coloring, the only real problem I’ve encountered is finding suitable flippers. They’re almost always black—and navy paired with black is a big fashion faux pas. And in case you’re wondering if any of this is true, I should add that I relentlessly create fiction to spice things up. When I was young, it was called lying, but it’s now known as creative license. *Wendy, you're crazy! ;)x, but in the best way possible!*



My Latest Thriller -- Black Adagio


I put that imagination to good use in my latest thriller entitled BLACK ADAGIO. The genre is horror, but this frightmare can be read by anyone 15 and up. The description is as follows: Melissa Solange is presented the chance of a lifetime. Chosen as a member of a new dance company, she works tirelessly perfecting the one element of ballet she's never mastered—the adagio. 

As she rehearses, a dark force watches. Resurrected by the surprise addition of a classic ballet to the repertoire, the sinister work is thought to be cursed—destroying anyone who attempts to dance it. When the production's lead dancers begin to disappear, the old warning is taken more seriously. A death worshipping cult called The Innocents is blamed, but Melissa is not so sure. They may be the scapegoat for an ultimate evil living in the woods of Holybrook. Desperate for an answer, she searches for what lurks in the shadows of the old trees before she becomes the next victim of the Danse Macabre.



Links



Jeri Walker-Bickett

Jeri Walker-Bickett, Author
and Freelance Editor
I first encountered KJ in my earliest days on Twitter. She was a larger-than-life figure in 140 characters or less. In the months that followed, she’d occasionally say a hello or make a wisecrack. 

When she posted on Blondie in the Water to ask for input on choosing a cover for Stealing Time, I think that’s when we started to get to know each other better. She is very open to learning all she can, and not afraid to ask for help. I find that kind of openness very appealing.  


Once we friended each other on Facebook, I became even more aware of her awesome sense of humor. *Aw                                                                                         shucks, thanks Jeri*
My Short Story Collection 

Such is Life contains realistic short stories that feature characters down on their luck, yet stubborn enough to move on. A tryst between a carnival worker and a pretty high school student begs the question of who takes advantage of who. 

A young man’s encounter with a drug addict finds him striking out on his own in hopes of a better life. An English teacher publishes literature deemed inappropriate by a Mormon community. A mother goes on a quest to get rid of the family’s aggressive pet. Finally, New Orleans provides the backdrop for a stroll with a psychotic housewife.

JeriWB writes short stories, creative nonfiction, and psychological suspense. The rough Idaho mining town she grew up in populates her literary landscape. She also works as a freelance editor.

Links
You can buy Such is Life at Amazon Author Central
Blog JeriWB: What do I know?
Elisha Chirchir, 
Author and Software Developer

Elisha Chirchir

Once in a long while, you run into strangers online not knowing what will come out of it. Some will help you set up Facebook pages while some will keep the humor jar always full. K J Waters did both for me. Trust me, her smiles and straight talk keep me on my toes.

When I learned that she was working on a book, I told her I will be the first fan to buy it - and I can’t wait! *:D *Thanks so much, E!*









My first book “My Life Sentences - A True Story” has seen some significant success especially in the United States and Europe. I attribute this to the fact that it is a true story based on my own life. It took a lot of courage to write the book, let alone publish it for the whole world to see. 

In brief, it involves my personal story which is partly based in my home country Kenya (Africa) and the second part which is based in the United States. I have been humbled by the thousands of readers who have downloaded the book to date.


Links
My book is available on Amazon: My Life in Sentences
Website: http://simpledeveloper.com/about/
Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest

David Batchelor

David Batchelor, Author,
NASA Astrophysicist
I met KJ on Twitter through our mutual friend Charles Munn. I have retweeted lots of KJ's humorous postings, so various paper.li editions published her writing, too. But she usually didn't notice that she was in all of those paper.li's until I told her! Guess she doesn't do much vanity searching.

I especially loved the Blondie post about the 3 bears in Jellystone  (oops! Yellowstone) Park. And she's a great beach photographer and tweeter. We have both lived in Maryland and she thinks I'm in Baltimore but I really live in Beltsville. *Actually, Dave I said you're a Baltimoron, like me. Beltsville is close enough to qualify! ;)* We are both science fiction lovers    and writers, so I look forward to reading Stealing Time. 


My Novel

My first novel is The Metalmark Contract. It's about an alien trader who visits Earth in the near future, offering a deal for starship technology IF we trade him the planet Mercury and moon Triton of Neptune. A drama of international adventure, politics, intrigue and hard science fiction in the Asimov/Clarke flavor. Is Metalmark an honest dealer, or is it a contract with an interstellar devil? 

Please peruse these reviews by The Wisdom Cube and authors Christine Rice, Yolanda Reid, and Charles Munn. *Tell me you aren't intrigued by a NASA scientist's science fiction novel!*

Links


You are invited to follow me on Twitter.


Ron Chapman


A while ago I made a friend on Twitter who just happens to be a blonde hair, blue eyed, water loving time traveler by the name of KJ Waters. We encouraged each other about our writing and after a few months KJ convinced me to set up my blog, The Kilted Monkey. The name came from KJ’s fetish for Scotland and men in kilts, and somewhere a monkey was thrown into the mix. It’s now a running joke that if she doesn’t keep working on her book the kilted monkey will show up and crack his whip!
A Christmas Horror Story

My first novel is a horror story called Kringle. It’s a Christmas story that includes Kris Kringle and most of the holiday legends. Kringle reveals a lot of secrets from my past that have made me into the person I am today. Along with a little bit of A Christmas Carol, Kringle is a story like no other. You can find it on Amazon here: 

You can see what has inspired me for Mrs. Kringle on my blog, kiltedmonkeyauthor.blogspot.com, Check out some of the other pictures that inspired the characters in Kringle. I have a new short story up on there called Safe Sex, if you're into Zombies, for adults only.

Links

Find out more about me and my writings at:

Twitter, Facebook and Klout


Which Titles Catch Your Eye?

Please leave a comment and let me know what books piqued your interest and if you purchased anything. I'd like to provide some feedback to my authors. As always, thank you so much for reading my blog. 

KJ Waters

I am a mom and a writer working on my first novel Stealing Time, that I'm hoping to have out this spring. It's a time travel thriller set in 2004 Florida during Hurricane Charley. Please check out my social media links below. 

I would love to hear from you! Please take a minute and leave a message for me in the comments section below. 

Contact Me



 Please forgive any formatting problems with this post. It was a complete mess after I carefully created the post, Blogger went mad!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013


Blondie's Liebster Blog Award


It happened. It did. I was nominated for the Liebster Blog Award. I've been seeing this badge on other blogs for awhile now and wondered how, if, when, maybe, someday... Now thanks to a wonderful supporter of my blog, Judy from Rhode Island (but pronounced Rhoa Deye Lind) I'm now part of the prestigious Liebster club!! Thank you Judi! You are amazing! Be sure to check out her great blog 50 and Fabulous. 

The rules of this award are listed below and I hope you check out my answers to Judi's questions, my random facts, 11 questions for my nominees, and who I've chosen to pass the award on to next. 


I promise my next post will be a water adventure. I've got two written and will share them shortly.

The rules of the Liebster Award are as follows:

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog and link back to the blogger who presented this award to you;

2.  Answer the 11 questions from the nominator, list 11 random facts about yourself and create 11 questions for your nominees;

3. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 11 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been chosen. (No tag backs)  

4. Copy and Paste the blog award on your blog.


Questions From Judi


1.  What is the one food you can't do without?

Probably salad if we're talking about healthy food. Yes, I realize salad is not 'one food' but I have a 'bigger than yer head' salad almost every night. If we're talking about desserts it would have to be ice cream -- coffee ice cream with Oreo's and caramel sauce. (Wipes the drool from my lips.) 

Nightly evening snack mixed green salad with cherry 
tomatoes, baby carrots, avocado, and mixed nuts.


2.  One thing you want to do before you die? 

Scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef. No doubt would be an amazing experience made even better if I saw a shark and still had all bits accounted for afterwards.

Great Barrier Reef, yes please. Add sharks and stir.

3.  What is your favorite hobby and why? 

Is swimming a hobby? Ah heck it's my blog I can chose swimming if I want to. So yes, swimming in rivers, lakes, lazy rivers, pools, oceans, streams, creeks. Yeah, definitely swimming. But only if it's warm.

Swimming would have to be my favorite hobby. No doubt. Why? See Blondie in the Pool. 

4.  If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? 

Gerry, you wanna go to Bermuda? 
Bermuda and Scotland would be my top two travel destinations. I've been to both and fell deeply in love. Maybe just take a few Scottish people to Bermuda. Then I can be warm and enjoy their fab personalities and swim in that gorgeous ocean. 

5.  What book are you reading now? 

I'm reading several books now...but mostly my own book. See #6.




6.  What are you looking forward to most in the New Year? 

My upcoming novel cover design.
Hopefully it will be out this spring.
Finishing my novel and getting it out in the world will be a great joy in 2013. I've already written about two-thirds of the second book in the Stealing Time trilogy and I can't wait to get back to it. Did I mention both books have Scottish people in them? I haven't managed to get Bermuda in them yet but I do have an ocean scene with a buff dude in Puerto Rico. I need to find a way to put the Scottish people in the sea. Book three maybe? 

7.  Favorite meal when eating out?

Seafood, no doubt, is my favorite meal. As one of my twitter friends say, it's mermaid food. If I had to pick one I'd say scallops in white wine and a huge salad with 
goat cheese, walnuts and cranberries. 

Mermaid food is my fave.
8.  If you have one 'do-over', what would it be? 

Do over? Not sure about that. I'm very happy with my decisions. Maybe to travel more before I had kids. Although I did make it to Ireland, Scotland, England, Bermuda and Switzerland before kids. Oh, and Canada if you can really count that.

9.  What is your favorite movie and why?

That's a tough question. I'm not sure I have a favorite movie. I really liked Timeline but mostly because I studied it for the genre and timing of the plot. I'm not sure I'd call it my favorite movie. Enjoyed Beowulf and Grendel and the documentary War of the Gods about the filming of Beowulf during a hurricane and the other disasters they endured. A coincidence that the hurricanes that are in my novel are the same ones that hit Iceland during the filming of this movie and a Scottish dude stars in it? I think not. 

Not my favorite movie, but a good one...

10.  Who is your favorite TV character?

Dexter is my favorite character at the moment. I've cut out most of 'my shows' to make time for writing. TV is the bane of a writer's existence, as you know, because it sucks away your productive time. I've weeded out all other favorite shows and left Dexter as my Sunday night guilty pleasure. 

Why Dexter? If you're not familiar with the show, he's a serial killer. I know what you're thinking, he's my kind of guy with all that bloody knife action. But, the writing is excellent. They're masters at suspense and building the scene to maximize the viewer's angst. I have to wait an hour afterwards to get to sleep after watching an episode. Michael C. Hall plays the role as Dexter beautifully with brains, brawn, and excellent deadpan snark in voice over. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out on Showtime.

Favorite TV Character -- Dexter. Dark and twisty. Snarky and intelligent. 
Plus he rids the world of bad people. What's not to love?

11.  If you had a day to do anything you wanted to do, what would you do?

That's easy. See my blog Blondie in Bermuda. That would be #1 on my list. Snorkeling in the aqua waters of Bermuda with a well muscled man. It'd have to be summer though. Water is too cold this time of year, but since it's a fantasy type question I'm gonna go with a fantasy type answer and make it July.

 This Blondie Loves Bermuda


Random Me Facts  

1. I am allergic to onions and garlic. And no, I'm not a vampire! You did hear the part about me liking the beach right? Sunny warm beaches? Nope, not a vampire.

2. My favorite chocolate is Caramello, or any good chocolate with oooey gooey caramel. 

3. I used to play underwater hockey.  No, I'm not kidding, this is a real sport. My team mates told me I played like a guy and I won the MVP award.

4.  Both my father and step father were Episcopalian ministers. Mom, you have some s'plainin' to do.


5.  My favorite actor is Gerard Butler. Also my favorite flavor of human... Scottish.


6.  I love the Black Eyed Peas, especially Will.i.am.


7.  I broke my hand and foot on the same boyfriend's body. Different times in the same year. Very glad to be rid of him when I moved on to college.


8.  I love water, and I don't mean just to drink.


9.  I drink sweet tea with Splenda in large quantities.

10.  I'd rather play with my children than clean the house. 


11.  To prove #6, I shake my thang to The Black Eyed Peas Experience Kinect game. 




Questions for my Nominees


Even if you're not a nominee feel free to answer these questions in the comments section. Like all bloggers I love comments. It's like crack to a crack ho. So get me high...

1. What is your favorite movie and why?

2. Who is your favorite author and why?

3. What is the concept behind your blog? Simply to promote your book/skills/product or a bigger purpose, like mine as therapy to deal with my current location?

4. What is your favorite meal?

5. What would you describe as your biggest personal accomplishment?

6. Why are you so awesome? I ask this because I chose you...apparently I think you're pretty fab.

7. What is your favorite household appliance and why? Ha! How's that for a quirky question.

8. For the ladies: Thongs, granny panties, or something in between. For the gents boxers or briefs (or just give me a cheeky answer if you prefer.)

9. What is your favorite holiday and why?

10. What is your favorite restaurant? Why? 

11. Which question above was the hardest to answer? Why?

Nominees

1. Chef John Malik A Writer Trapped in a Cook's Body

2.  Shaunda Wegner Slow Stir Dribblings from a Writer's Life

3.  Charles Gonzo The Gonzo Lecture

4.  Scott Phillips Rattle and Blast

5.  Jonny A. Mypixel.se

6. Marla Madison Reading and Writing are Fattening

7. J.J. Collins Author

8. Stuart Haddon

9. Kenny C Dontthinkjustwrite

10. Valentine de Francis tossing logic out the window 

11. Chuck Barrett 


I really appreciate you stopping by my blog! Made my day in fact! Please take a few minutes to check out these amazing blogs.  If they're anything like me, a comment will make them very happy. 

Connect With Me

When I'm not working on Stealing Time you can find me on my social media at the links below. I hope to have my novel completed by spring 2013 with book two close behind.