I picked up The Penguin Guide to Superstitions of Britain and Ireland at my local library and the section on tea grabbed me because I’ve written a romance with a tea-leaf reader heroine. I hadn’t realized tea came with so many superstitions. Here are a few of them:...
“Hello, darling.” “Stop right there, sweetheart.” “Lookin’ good, babe!” “Sugar-pie, honey bunch, you know that I love you.” “Aw, snookums.” Endearments and pet names have always been part of our vocabularies. They appear in movies, on television, we see them in books...
At the very top of the North Island of New Zealand is a point called Cape Reinga. This is a special site in Maori mythology. According to the tales, an old pohutukawa tree grows on the cliff, and it is said that the roots of this tree provide a ladder for spirits to...
Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. It is an easy meal for a vegetarian, yet there is plenty for the meat lover too. During our recent trip to Sydney, we checked Trip Adviser while flying over (Air New Zealand has a cool in-flight app) and came across a cafe...
Happy New Year! Best wishes to all of you for a happy, prosperous and safe 2016. I don’t make resolutions for a new year, but in 2016 (on the very first day), I intend to make a list of the things I want to achieve in my writing life for 2016. On 1st January, I...
Merry Christmas! I hope you have a lovely day full of friends, family and laughter. Fingers crossed that Santa hides a book or two in your Christmas stocking.
Christmas falls during summer where I live in New Zealand. While I was growing up I always heard about New Zealanders who spend Christmas day at the beach. Not true in our family! Christmas to me means: 1. Warm days, sometimes with rain since we live in a subtropical...
What do you think when you see a black cat? Do you mutter about superstitions and run screaming in the opposite direction or do you rub your hands together and watch approvingly while the black cat prowls past? Is a black cat good luck or bad luck? I decided to...
The subject of clothes has been on my mind recently, since I often think of clothing during the polishing stage of a manuscript. I’m working on Seized & Seduced (Jannike’s story) and Jannike has spent most of the story wearing the same blue tunic and black trews with...
