Nell Donnelly Reed: More Than Just a Fashion-Starter

I learned about this woman on Mysteries at the Museum too. She invented the housedress, survived an abduction, started a very successful dress-making business, provided her employees with benefits (not common during her time), and had a long-standing love affair with a powerful senator. Why there isn't a movie about her or a historical novel *hint, hint, darling authors* is beyond me.

She married at 17, yet that didn't stop her from going to college and then selling her dress designs at a local store. What started as two women sewing 216 dresses in Nell's attic in 1916 became the Donnelly Garment Company, which by 1953 "was the largest manufacturer of women's clothing worldwide."

Her workers actually resisted becoming unionized, and that's rare. She had a scholarship fund for her workers, financially supported their evening classes, provided insurance and medical financial aid, pensions, and even an on-site cafeteria and recreation center. And being a size 16 herself, Nell was adamant that her dresses look good on bigger women as well as small.

The abduction (at gunpoint) of her and her chauffeur was all about ransom. It was her secret (hm. Perhaps not so secret, considering she'd had a baby with him and her husband at the time knowingly adopted the child...) lover, former mayor and senator James A. Reed, who came to her aid by involving the local Kansas City mafia. The big man, a John Lazia tracked her down, but at that point, the perps had gotten wind that Lazia was after them and except for two lone waters, they'd hightailed it from the scene of the crime.

A mere two years later, she divorced her first husband and married Reed, recently widowed. After her retirement in 1956, the company she had worked so hard to build could not survive without her savvy designs and went bankrupt in 1978.

Nell lived to be 102. What a fascinating woman! Way ahead of her time. A designer, a survivor, a lover, a kind-hearted employer, and a successful woman who did what she wanted. Someone, write a novel based on her!

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nell_Donnelly_Reed
http://shs.umsystem.edu/historicmissourians/name/r/reed/ *Picture can be found on their site*

Dear Authors, Please Write a Historical Novel about Frances Glessner Lee

I have another episode of Mysteries at the Museum to thank for bringing this woman to my attention. Someone could have some seriously awesome fun with this...

Photo from Glessner House Museum
website.

Who she was: a Chicago heiress who was not allowed to pursue to her dreams due to her sex. It wasn't until she was in her fifties, in the 1930s that she was finally able to pursue her interests in forensics. Until then she was the creator of finely detailed miniatures. She could recreate the entire Chicago Symphony in a box.

Because she was a fan of mysteries and crime stories, a family friend, a chief medical examiner, began taking her to visit different crime scenes and often complained to her about the lack of education in America's police force. Detectives weren't properly maintaining crime scenes and crucial evidence was getting away or being compromised or missed.

So, how in the world did this lady's love of making miniatures come into forensics? Frances began making mini dioramas of different crime scenes, detailed immaculately with lights, moving windows, and covering all kinds of different scenarios. According to the show, she spent at least a year making these.

She then went on to fund with her own money week-long conferences in which her boxes were used to educate and test detectives from all over the U.S.

The boxes were called Nutshells Studies of Unexplained Death and are still used to this day at Harvard, where she founded its department of legal medicine. There are 18 of them. You can view them for yourself here. Can you figure out who dunnit?

In 1943 she was honored with a title of caption with the New Hampshire State Police. No other women had held a position such as this until then.

Think of the potential here. A woman fascinated with death--or least finding the answers, not the least intimidated by crime scenes and gruesome murder details. There's a failed marriage that produced three children (there really was) and lots of frustration with a society that looks down on her sex and denies her dreams. Perhaps, one could even contrive a romance with a medical examiner...or at least a frustrating attraction to a doubtful detective who comes to her seminar...

Regardless, if anyone ever decides to write a novel based on her, you can be certain I'll read it.

If you live in the Chicago area, you can take a tour of her family home. It's the oldest still standing. See the first link below.

Sources:
http://www.glessnerhouse.org/Glessners.htm (photo is from and completely belongs to this site)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Glessner_Lee
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/biographies/lee.html

Dear Historical Authors, Please Write a Novel Featuring Louise Boyd, Woman Explorer

With Downton Abbey and Mr. Selfridge and Call the Midwife all done for the year, I've been left to watch American TV. *gasp* But I've become quite hooked a show called Mysteries at the Museum, and in this show, they share different stories surrounding different objects in museums all over the United States.

It's some incredibly fascinating history, complete with re-enactments. The other night, the episode I watched just briefly mentioned Louise Boyd. It was a mere sentence, but it said she was an arctic explorer. I immediately had to hit the internet and find out more. Here is what I discovered about her:

-After growing up in CA with two brothers, she inherited her father's fortune at the age of 33 in 1920. (They were claimed by heart disease, her brothers.)

-(This makes me think of the Van Buren sisters) In 1919, just three years after the VBs did their cross-country trip, Louise drove a touring car across the U.S. Remember, there were no paved roads and whatnot.

-She traveled to Europe and Egypt that year as well and worked as a nurse.

.She was hunting polar bears with chartered boats by 1926.

-She was awarded the Chevalier Cross of the Order of Saint Olav (first American woman) by the Norwegian government after traveling 10k miles across the arctic ocean in search of a missing Norwegian Explorer. She did not find him, and apparently this trip was actually a pleasure trip at first, but while on the ocean, she found out about the missing explorer and said, “How could I go on a pleasure trip when those 22 lives were at stake?” (How awesome is that?)

-She discovered an underwater mountain ridge and had a piece of land named after her. She also penned three books. (One, the U.S. gov't actually held back from publication, not wanting the data (her research about the area) to end up in enemy hands.

The Fiord Region of East Greenland (1935)
Polish Countrysides (1937)
The Coast of Northeast Greenland (1948)

-Did work for the government, studying the effects of polar magnetic fields on radio communications before she finally retired to a scholarly life in California. During WWII, she did some secret assignments as well. Naturally, I can't find more details on that. LOL

-In 1955, she was the first woman for fly over the North Pole in a chartered aircraft.

I found no mention of a romance or marriage. It was very unusual for women to remain unattached back then. I feel there must be a story there! No woman goes an entire lifetime without some romance. I'm sure you historical romance writers could have some fun with this. Hint, hint.

Even without romance, there's a lifetime of wonders and stories here. And just how many novels are there about women explorers? We've got cowgirls, vikings, seamstresses, mill workers, whores, actresses, and queens, but what about arctic explorers, or just explorers?

I hope you all have found her as interesting as I do.

Resources: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/b/boyd.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Boyd
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Louise_Arner_Boyd.aspx

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Amanda Katt

Book: Dead Links
Author: Nigel Mitchell
Heroine: Amanda Katt

Amanda Katt is an African American freelance journalist who pursues a deadly conspiracy on the Internet. She's strong because as an African American woman, she's overcome racism to become one of the best investigative journalists in the business. She also has survived attacks and threats in the course of her work, and remained on top. She's also strong in surviving the murder of her father, which causes her to pursue justice in all forms. Katt is sexy because she's beautiful, but also kind and warm with a tenderness beneath her tough exterior.

Blurb:
Investigative journalist Amanda Katt's engagement takes a strange turn when her fiancee becomes obsessed with Araknee, one of the most popular websites ever made. As she investigates, Katt discovers others have fallen under the spell of the website, and the owners of rival websites are dying under mysterious circumstances. When Amanda tries to uncover the secret of Araknee, she finds herself drawn into a conspiracy that could threaten the world.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Élan Duchamps

Book: Soul Cutter
Author: Lexa Cain
Heroine: Élan Duchamps

In the beginning of the novel, Soul Cutter, Élan Duchamps has everything in her life under control, and that’s just the way she likes it. With a group of high school friends, she secretly records fake mediums and psychics who trick their customers and steal their money. There’s nothing Élan hates more than people who take advantage of the weak and gullible. 

Tough beyond her years, Élan’s upbringing featured an absent father, a mother who abandoned her for Hollywood dreams, and a doting but addled grandma, all shaded by a tragic secret Élan hides from everyone:

Once, she trusted someone, and he almost killed her.

Now, no one can pass the walls she’s built around herself.

Life rarely goes as planned, and Élan finds herself in Egypt, facing something she never believed existed—a real supernatural killer. Although she’s terrified, she’s determined to save people from this deadly threat no matter what. But in order to do it, she’ll have to join forces with a guy who’s as used to being in control as she is.  Worse, she’ll have to learn to trust him, which for her is even harder than fighting a seven-foot, saber-wielding killer.

Élan is strong, sexy heroine because she never backs down from a challenge and because under her prickly exterior, she’s kind, protective, and brave. To discover how she outwits not just one killer but hundreds of them, and to see if she can pry her scarred heart open to let in a man who’d give his life for her, read Soul Cutter.

Blurb: 

The Soul Cutter is hunting again.

Seventeen-year-old Élan spends her free time videoing psychic scams and outing them online. Skepticism makes life safe—all the ghosts Élan encounters are fakes. When her estranged mother disappears from a film shoot in Egypt, Élan puts her medium-busting activities on hold and joins the search.

In Egypt, the superstitious film crew sucks at finding her mom. When a hotel guest is killed, whispers start—the locals think their legendary Soul Cutter has come back from the dead. Élan's only ally is Ramsey, a film-crew intern, but he’s arrogant, stubborn—and hiding dangerous secrets.

When Élan discovers the Soul Cutter is no scam, she finds herself locked in a deadly battle against a supernatural killer with more than her mother’s life at stake.

Élan's fighting for her very soul.

  

BUY LINKS:

BARNES & NOBLE: http://ibty.in/e060b50

KOBO: http://ibty.in/f193d27

SMASHWORDS: http://ibty.in/f7f1cba

MUSEITUP PUBLISHING: http://ibty.in/7f5945f

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Bluebell Kildare

Book: The Light Who Shines
Author: Lilo Abernathy
Heroine: Bluebell Kildare (a.k.a. Blue)

Bluebell Kildare lives in a society where prejudice and hate runs rampant between three different breeds of humans (Norms, Gifted, and Vampires). Orphaned by the death of her parents at the hands of Dark Vampires, rejected by her grandparents because of her magical heritage, Blue is accustomed to going it alone. After all, she survived bullying, hate, fear, and ostracism in the orphanage, yet still managed to maintain her moral compass.

As an Inspector in the Homicide Unit of the Paranormal Investigation Bureau, Blue fights for interbreed peace every day. She believes in this job with all her lonely soul. She both chases down those who perpetrate hate crimes against the supernatural breeds and stops those who use their powers to hurt innocents. Blue fights for what is right regardless of who is in the wrong!

Sometimes a deceptively soft nature can cover a spine of steel, and make no mistake, Blue has such a spine. She faces down a hate mob to apprehend a perpetrator who left an innocent bleeding and fighting for his life. She enters the fray with full knowledge of the danger to herself, and even when the hostile mob turns against her, she refuses to allow the deed to go unpunished. Later, she willingly sacrifices everything, even at the price of unbearable pain and on the point of death, to keep a dangerous power out of the clutches of a madman, for fear of the destruction it would cause in his hands. Blue has courage in spades!

This heroine also has a secret. She harbors a love for frilly lingerie, and she has plenty of it. Nevertheless, she covers it up with her standard work uniform and keeps it hidden by her discerning tastes. While she dearly wants to be loved, she is only willing to share this part of herself with the right person. Does the right person come along? Perhaps he has been here all the while. Regardless of what the different factions of humans believe about her, Blue knows her own self-worth and this makes her strong and sexy!

Excerpt

Jack’s eyes flick to Varg and then back to my face. He says in a grim tone, “You may not have been hurt, but another minute or two and you could have been dead.”

I lift up my chin and respond steadily, “All in the line of duty, Jack. I did what was right, and if you know me at all you should never expect less.”

I holster my gun and walk, head held high, back to my car with Varg trailing behind me and Jack watching my back.

 When Paranormal Investigation Bureau agent Bluebell Kildare (a.k.a. Blue) arrives at the scene of the crime it's obvious the grotesquely damaged body of the deceased teenage boy was caused by far more than a simple hit and run. Using her innate sixth sense, she uncovers a powerful magical artifact nearby. She soon discovers it acts as a key to an ancient Grimiore that was instrumental in the creation of the Vampire breed and still holds the power to unravel the boundaries between Earth and the Plan of Fire.

Blue and her clever wolf Varg follow a trail that starts at the Cock and Bull Tap and leads all through the town of Crimson Hollow. Between being sidelined by a stalker who sticks to the shadows, and chasing a suspect who vanishes in thin air, the case is getting complicated. If that isn't enough, Dark Vampire activity hits a record high and hate crimes are increasing. However, it's her growing feelings for Jack Tanner, her magnetic Daylight Vampire boss, that just might undo her.

While Blue searches for clues to nail the perpetrator, it seems someone else is conducting a search of their own. Who will find whom first?

Danger lurks in every corner and Blue needs all her focus in this increasingly dangerous game or she risks ending up the next victim.

Buy it on Barnes & Noble or Smashwords or Amazon.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Elsa Schluss

Book: Blue Damask
Author: Annmarie Banks
Heroine: Elsa Schluss

The best heroines are the strong ones.  Scarlet O’Hara uses everything she has to overcome the disruption of her pampered life and bring order and comfort back to her beloved plantation.  Jane Eyre is a lively prepubescent girl who pushes back against her bullying cousin, John, and years later pushes back against a bullying employer to win his love.  Sexy?  Rhett Butler and Edward Rochester think so.

A weak heroine is a boring heroine, so while my characters have flaws to overcome, none of them could be considered weak.  We readers want to see some action and adventure, and there is no action from a wilting wallflower, no adventure from a sniveling waif.  Bring on the feisty fist-fighters and willful manipulators!

In my latest novel, Blue Damask, I tell the story of an Austrian woman who finds the strength and power to overcome uncontrollable events by using her wits, and sometimes her wiles, but always she outsmarts her adversaries by using their own weaknesses against them.

Elsa Schluss is beautiful, but her beauty is a curse, for she cannot break through the barrier of sexism in her chosen profession.  Her colleagues smile and nod at her, then turn away as though she were a silly child. 

Yet Elsa spent the war years, 1914-1918, in a field hospital as a surgical nurse, sewing together the mangled bodies of soldiers.  She sat at their bedsides with a pencil and paper in hand to write their last words to their mothers and then held their hands and watched them die.   She worked thirty-six hour shifts, covered in mud and blood, and yet doctors considered her a menial worker, not a professional woman with valuable skills.

After the war, Elsa enters the University of Vienna to study psychology.  She intends to become a therapist in this new field despite the obstacles set before her by the old men who rule the halls of academia.  She is determined to continue to help the wounded, for she has learned that many wounded soldiers fell apart when the stitches were removed.  Their minds needed to be tended even after their wounds had healed.

An opportunity presents itself in her advisor’s office as an Englishman in a straightjacket is dumped to the floor of the clinic. There is not much time, and the British government is so eager to have this man lucid and functioning that they have sent Field Agent Marshall to get it done any way he can.  Elsa must bring the patient back from the brink of insanity while traveling by train and ship and car and horse from Vienna to Damascus.

Marshall hires Elsa to take on this challenge, and what at first seems like an excellent case study for her thesis, turns into a wild adventure in the wastelands of Syria during the violent Arab Revolt of 1921.  More is at stake than a student’s paper, a man’s sanity, and a field agent’s career.  Elsa finds that working in a field hospital in the Great War is a walk in the park compared to what she must face now in the wastelands of Mesopotamia.

I like how one of my reviewers described her: “the reader is treated to watching Elsa's transformation from a prim, exquisite psychologist to a ready-for-anything heroine covered with dirt and blood and packing a semi-automatic pistol and willing to use it.”

Blurb:
A madman and his therapist traverse the wilds of Syria during the Arab Revolt of 1921.

Three years after the end of a bloody world war, an Englishman in a straightjacket is dumped on the clinic floor of an Austrian psychologist, whose protégé, Elsa Schluss, is reluctantly engaged to treat the traumatized war veteran en route to Damascus where he is to perform one last service for his country. Elsa plans to use him as a case study, but the mysterious mission becomes deadly when they are attacked on the Orient Express. Elsa finds her Jungian training is needed not only to treat her patient, but to outwit the powerful men who threaten their lives and endanger the mind of the man for whom she is responsible. She discovers there is more at stake with this mission than one man’s sanity and a young woman’s doctoral thesis.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Allie Taylor

Book: Rook: Allie's War, Book One
Author: J.C. Andrijeski
Heroine: Allie Taylor

Allie Taylor is strong in a way I don't see a lot of female heroines in media these days. Meaning, she doesn't carry a sword, or defeat fifteen opponents with preternatural kung-fu moves, or curse people out, or make a lot of sarcastic comments or belittle the men she's secretly attracted to, or kick and scream when she should probably be listening to the people who actually know what's going on in whatever dangerous situation she happens to find herself in...instead, Allie's smart, which means she knows when to argue and also when she should probably be silent and figure out what's going on, first, or even just run like hell if she's outmatched.

She also knows when she doesn't know something...which happens to her a lot in the first book of the Allie's War series, Rook: Allie's War, Book One, where she first meets Dehgoies Revik, and finds out she may not be human after all.

Allie lives in a version of modern-day Earth where a second race of seers was discovered during the early 1900s in Asia, and since then have been mostly enslaved by human beings. That second race, called Sarhaciennes, "Sarks," or seers, can read minds, push people to think or do things they wouldn't otherwise do, and spy on people from great distances. They operate in a nonphysical plane they call "The Barrier," and are kept under control by humans with sight-restraint collars, a very small population relative to humans, and a lot of laws limiting their movement and associations.

Allie gets thrust into this world, and the shadow world of seers that exists just behind the human world, with little or nothing to help her find her way. Yet she manages to not only adjust, but to take charge of her new role in this world, and to match her so-called teacher and guardian, Revik, almost from day one. He finds her sexy for that very reason, as well as the fact that she sees through who he pretends to be from the beginning...which simultaneously turns him on, intrigues him and scares the crap out of him as soon as they enter one another's lives.

Blurb:

Like most humans, Allie’s spent her life distancing herself from Seers, a race of human-like beings discovered on Earth in the early 1900s. After catching her boyfriend in the arms of a hot band groupie, however, that changes, and Allie goes from San Francisco artist slacker to the girl wearing the GPS anklet overnight. But that’s nothing compared to the shock of discovering who—and what—she really is.

Yanked out of her life by the mysterious Revik, Allie finds out that her blood may not be as indisputably human as she always thought. Through Revik she learns the truth: that Seers are nothing like she thought, that the world is nothing like it appears to be... and that she has far more in common with Seers than she ever wanted to believe.

Now on the run from a group of anti-human, terrorist Seers called Rooks, and her own human government, Allie must learn to navigate a secret shadow world behind her own, a world filled with superhuman Seers with their own battles, and their own agendas around the fate of humanity. When Allie’s family and friends get dragged into that war, things suddenly get a lot more personal, and Allie finds she may be the only one who can stop it.

Excerpt:

Revik sprinted down the sidewalk, holding me against his chest. Unerringly rhythmic, his feet impacted the sidewalk as if he counted steps alongside well-regulated breaths. He held me close, and that felt calculated too, as if he’d practiced with potato sacks approximating my weight. When he reached the gravel-strewn hillside, he barely paused before vaulting up the steep bank, sliding in its shale folds at each step.

I felt sick, dazed, unsure on which side I lived. It becomes clearer as images around me flash in negative...then the Pyramid is everywhere; its silver threads shine like bright wires in rose-lit clouds. Tarnished silver entangles people on the sleepy Washington street. Red eyes surround me, bodies made of wire...

Laughter brings my eyes higher.

A face hovers below the Pyramid, and I recognize it as a ghostly version of the man from Golden Gate Park. His face morphs in Barrier wind; there is symmetry to the flickers of light, like film stuttering in a projector.

The Pyramid’s shifting cells split and reconfigure, moving on gliding rails like a carnival fun house.

I see you! Pretty bird! Do you know who carries you on such swift wings?

I feel my chest clench.

My mother calls me her bird.

I feel Revik again, his arms around me, the steady beating in his chest. No one has ever felt so much like me.

Terian’s laugh rises. I could tell you such stories about your new friend! Do you know what he used to like to do for fun?

Images start to coalesce, movies that start once I focus directly on them. They draw me in, until I want to see. I feel Revik there...a part of my fascination comes from him. He and Terian stand before a young girl with blond hair and a beautiful face and Revik’s eyes are hard, calculating. The predator is there, but he lives in silver light—

A jarring contact met my head and back. I gasped.

Pain brought the physical world into focus. Staring down at me is Revik’s sweaty face. His eyes are still glass shards, but the silver light is gone. Fear lives in them, faint but visible. He’d laid me roughly on the hood of the GTX. My back hit the protruding air vent on top, hard enough that I wondered if he’d done it on purpose.

Either way, the impact snapped me away from Terian’s mind.

I struggled to sit up as he walked to the rear of the car, opening the trunk with the keys and pulling out a black gym bag filled with something heavy. He reached inside the driver’s side window to unlock the door.

“Allie!” he said, jerking it open. “Now!”

I rolled over the hood to the passenger side while he leaned over and opened my door from the inside. By the time I got in, he was already ripping open the black nylon bag, and it struck me that the line of cars behind us had resumed honking. I watched Revik jam the key into the ignition, holding a gun against the steering wheel.

“Put on your seat belt!” he said.

I fumbled with the strap as the GTX’s engine rumbled to life. He put the car in gear. Then a voice emerged above the sound of the car’s motor. It took me a second to realize it was real...that it wasn’t his.

“What in the name of Mary’s tits...”

I crouched down, looking past Revik through the driver’s side window. Two cops stood there. Behind them, a black and white slanted down the bank beside the fisherman’s truck. The one who’d spoken stared at the gun in Revik’s hand.

“You got balls, buddy,” the second cop said, unholstering his sidearm. He raised the gun, aiming at Revik’s face. “Now toss it out the window. Real slow...”

“Sleep,” Revik said. “Now.”

Both cops collapsed on the onramp without emitting a sound.

I sucked in a breath, shocked at the clean indifference of the act. The one holding the gun wasn’t much older than me. In the rearview mirror, I saw movement in the space by the fisherman’s truck. I turned my head as another policeman emerged.

My voice burst out of me.

“Revik!” I yelled.

The third cop pulled his sidearm. I saw the brown eyes flash silver as he raised the gun.

“Seer!” I yelled.

“I know,” Revik growled.

His hand clamped the back of my neck, forcing me down past the bottom of the seat. He took his foot off the brake and the car lurched forward as the cop squeezed off his first round.

The sound of the shot seemed to come late, after the soft plink as the bullet went through the rear driver’s side window. I turned my head, staring at the hole in the upholstery until Revik shoved me down further on the seat.

I crouched on the mat when I heard the GTX’s engine roar back to life. I slid out from under the seat belt as he threw the car into reverse, slamming into the truck behind us. By then he had aimed the handgun and fired at Cop #3. He hit him in the chest on the second shot, knocking him backwards into the police car so that the man’s arm and shoulder broke the passenger side window.

The cop’s partner emerged, firing wildly.

Screams erupted on the street. I watched people run and duck in fear, eyes wide, and for a moment, I see them through Revik’s eyes, a flock of birds scattering...then Revik swiveled the gun towards the fourth cop, narrowly missing the man’s head.

He stepped on the gas...

But his foot slipped. The engine’s rev faded. I looked up, saw Revik slumped in the seat as the car continued to roll. I froze, seeing his eyes glaze as the car veered towards the edge of the road. I threw myself up and into his lap, hauling the wheel to the left with my cuffed hands, trying to get my foot down to his, to keep the car from stalling...

...when just as suddenly, he was back. I felt it just before he raised his head, jerking into life. The gun rested on his lap, pointed at his feet from where he’d slumped in the cloth seat. He stared at my handcuffs as if he didn’t know what they were. His eyes narrowed on mine.

“Revik!” I screamed. “Snap out of it!”

His eyes clicked abruptly into focus.

Amazon - Smashwords - iBooks - Omnilit - Drive-Thru Fiction - Barnes and Noble

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Jet Tetsuo

Book: The Culling (Slave Girl Chronicles #1)
Author: JC Andrijeski
Heroine: Jet Tetsuo

Jet Tetsuo, the 19-year-old heroine of The Slave Girl Chronicles novels, grew up in a post-apocalyptic version of earth that's now being run by an alien species known as the Nirreth. Jet grew up protecting her mother and brother with her Japanese-style sword, Black, which she learned how to use after being trained by her ex-rebel uncle and his ex-rebel wife. She's spent the vast majority of her life hiding out underground from the Nirreth, in the skag pits outside of Vancouver, BC, which exist in the dead zone well away from the furthest edges of Nirreth society. From there, she and her friends and family hunt for food, grow what they can in the changed atmosphere, and fight off animals and human bandits, as well as the Nirreth themselves.

Jet's tough and sexy because she's totally her own person, self-reliant and unafraid to make her own way in the world, despite all of the obstacles in front of her. While she's a survivor and will cut corners when she has to, to protect the ones she loves, she never loses her sense of who she is...even after she gets picked up by one of the infamous "culling" ships of their Nirreth overlords. The Nirreth bring Jet to one of the Nirreth Green Zones to fight in the Rings, their version of the Colosseum, only populated mainly by human slaves, and while they try to wear her down and make her "obedient," they never truly succeed, even when she has to compromise with them to stay alive.

Blurb:
Jet is a 19-year-old skag, one of the humans still living free on Earth following an invasion of creatures called the Nirreth. Squatting in the ruins of Vancouver, Canada, Jet and her family eke out an existence underground, hiding from the culler ships. No one knows where the ships take the people they grab, but they never return. When a culler finds Jet, she may discover the truth the hard way.

Excerpt:

Jet landed hard on a metal deck. It felt as if she’d been thrown there bodily by two large men, each holding one half of her arms and her legs.

For a long-seeming second, she sat on the ridged metal floor, panting, gripping the wall with one hand. She gripped the hilt of her sword in the other.

The instant she could focus her eyes, blinking back the tears from the wind and her screaming as she rose in the air, Jet lurched drunkenly to her feet, holding the sword in front of her. Both of her hands gripped the hilt as soon as Jet pushed off from the wall.

She could barely see the creature in front of her, but she heard a hiss as it backed off. She stepped towards the lit hatch door, moving sideways so that her eyes never left the tall, midnight blue-skinned shape in front of her. When she finally chanced a glance down, her heart sank. The hovercraft stood at around the fifth story of the nearest building.

If she jumped, she’d die. And she didn’t see a ladder, or even the vine-like rope they’d used to haul her up.

“Let me down!” she shouted, taking a step towards the creature with the sword.

He slid gracefully back, moving with an incredible lightness for such a tall creature.

“Let me down!” she insisted, louder. “I’ve broken no laws!

Which wasn’t true of course. Just living underground, squatting in caves and growing their own food was technically against the law. Much less the poaching they did, or the bartering with others, including black marketeers. Really, the only way to live outside the Nirreth cities and not break the law was to work for the Nirreth directly and live in their assigned settlements, what humans called the ‘Hamster Cage.’ Even those people starved unless they cut corners.

Jet knew that because her settlement traded with them for some of the staples they had no other way to get locally. Like rice. Flour. Even sugar on occasion.

But the laws were just an excuse. The Nirreth must know just like we did that everyone broke them, pretty much every day. They picked up skags because they could.

“Let me down!” Jet yelled again. “You have no right to keep me!”

She tensed when the creature met her gaze with its large, black eyes. It gestured towards her, in one of the few Nirreth signs she knew.

It was a peace gesture, an offering to parlay.

“No,” she said. “No parley! Let me down...right now!”

Purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Omnilit, Drivethru

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Kammy Marlowe

Book: The Other Marlowe Girl
Author: Beth Fred
Heroine: Kammy Marlowe

Kammy Marlowe stands almost six feet tall and she works as a model or a ballerina when the mood takes. But what she’s really working at is moving on from her sordid past and growing up. As for what makes her strong? Well I thought it was best to show you in this excerpt:

                “Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you but your husband is a loser. Squeezing him ain’t gonna get me my money. Squeezing you might. And you wrote the check. After that diamond stunt, I should kill you. I want cash now.”

            He reached into his pocket. Gun. That’s the only thing guys like Daniel pull out of their pocket. I had to do something and quick. I curled my foot around his leg and bit my bottom lip. “Maybe, we could work out some other arrangement?” I said as I moved the denim of his pant leg gently up and down with the tip of my sandal.

            His laugh sounded more like a grunt. “After those chunks of plastic? Not if you were the last woman on Earth.”

            Being cute was not going to get me out of this, and there was not much else to me. God, I wish I was smart like Tiffany. Then it hit me. I had one other asset. My eyes flashed down to where our legs were for a millisecond. I pushed my lower body forward a bit, so I’d be in a better position, sure the dumbass would just think I was still flirting with him. “Are you sure?” I asked.

            I had no idea if he would consider it or not, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was distracting him for that fraction of a second gave me time to bring my knee up and pound it into the crotch of his jeans. Daniel folded at the waist, grabbing his crotch with both hands. I slid one foot and then the other slightly to the left to give myself more room. Time to practice my high kick for the first time in years. My stiletto heel caught Daniel’s jaw with enough force to knock him off balance. Daniel slapped the parking lot as a bike pulled up less than a foot from me.

Blurb:
When twenty-four-year-old dance school drop out Kammy Marlowe is evicted by her mother, she goes to her favorite bar. She finds an unlikely friend in the blunt eye candy, Enrique. But Kammy knows there is no way she and Enrique have a shot because he's her brother-in-law’s brother and has been privy to her wild past.

Enrique swears he’s only interested in the person she is today, but their relationship is tested when her ex-husband's drug dealer attacks her, looking for money. With no options and a money hungry drug dealer on her back, Kammy accepts a position as a dancer at a strip club. But when Enrique shows up at the club, their relationship is over. With no reason to stay in Texas anymore, Kammy auditions for the Bolshevik Ballet and gets the opportunity to go to Russia. Only Enrique is determined to stop her.

Will she give up the chance of a lifetime to stay with the man she still loves?

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Natalia

Book: Natalia
Author: Kenneth Rosenberg
Heroine: Natalia

Human beings have an amazing ability for survival. I’m reminded of this every time I see one of those shows on TV with real-life stories of people being stranded in the desert for days without water, or buried by avalanches, yet somehow pulling through against all odds. Often, we don’t know our own strength until it is put to the test. This is certainly the case with Natalia, the heroine of my suspense novel by the same name. As the novel begins, Natalia lives a sheltered life on a farm in the middle of Eastern Europe. She is beautiful yet shy, with a quiet reserve. It is only when faced with extraordinary hardship that her true strength will emerge.

I wrote this novel after spending time in Eastern Europe myself and hearing stories of women being kidnapped and sold into prostitution in the West. This is an epidemic that mostly goes unnoticed in the world today. People tend to think that prostitutes take up that line of work by choice. Sometimes this is true, but often it is not.

With this novel, I wanted to highlight the brutal realities that many of these women face, while at the same time creating a character that could take on these criminal gangs and make them pay for their sins. Natalia is that character. In the beginning of the novel she is timid and unsure of her place in the world, yet as the story progresses, Natalia finds that in order to survive she must channel a strength she never knew she had.


And I suppose that is the crux of it. Not all of us have this strength. Put a group of ten people in a life-or-death situation and some will make it out while others will not. Some have the will to survive while others will roll over and give up. Natalia is the story of a girl with the will and determination to do whatever it takes not only to survive but to protect her family and her loved ones, and to make sure that whoever would hurt them pays the ultimate price.

Blurb: Born into poverty in the heart of Eastern Europe, Natalia Nicolaeva dreams of a better life. When she is offered a job abroad, however, the promise of the outside world is as terrifying as it is thrilling. After gathering the courage to leave her tiny village, it doesn’t take long before Natalia’s worst fears are confirmed. Suddenly she is fighting, first for her honor and then for her life. This is a novel about the pain in the hearts of those made to suffer, the power of family to heal, and ultimately the grit of one girl determined to survive.

What Makes a Woman Strong? What Makes Her Sexy? A Rant About Misconceptions.

Yes, she's strong...Image courtesy of Marin/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm perturbed. Yes, I guess I'm having a rant. It's been a while, eh? And it being International Women's Day, today seems a good time as any to have this rant. 

But I'm seriously troubled. Over a year and a half ago, I started Strong is Sexy. I featured women of the past and heroines of the week--which you've seen a lot more of.

I edited an anthology called HerStory, featuring brief looks at women, brief moments in different women's lives from all walks of life and eras of our history. Yes, they were SHORT stories; yes, they felt like excerpts, because that's how I wanted them! BRIEF LOOKS INTO THEIR LIVES.

I digress. The point is, when I made the call-out for this anthology, I said, STRENGTH COMES IN MANY FORMS.

Being a woman requires strength and a woman's strength comes in many forms.

There were women who immigrated, faced the unknown, striving to give their children a better life. There were women who picketed the White House and were thrown in prison, merely for wanting to have a say in government. There were women who stood by king and country to help wage wars, fighting for either their religion or their people. There were women who quietly refused to move from buses to break the "color barrier." There were women who wrote poems, inciting revolutions that would be an inspiration for generations to come.

Without these women, you wouldn't be here. Each one, whether she fought with words or with swords helped make this world possible for you. She faced down adversity for YOU. She earned rights and made waves and got that vote for YOU.

But I failed in my mission. I failed to convey this. Terribly. A year and a half later, I get emails from authors that say, "I don't think you'll like my book. It's not a strong heroine."

"Um, why not? What's wrong with her?" I ask.

"Well, she isn't wielding a sword. She's not kick-ass."

First of all, I appreciate a sword-fighting heroine very much, but as I said above, STRENGTH COMES IN MANY FORMS. When my mother fought breast cancer and won, she was strong. When my grandmother left an abusive home and made her own family, she was strong. When my aunt went to work every day and faced discrimination against women, she was strong. When I went fought for the right to wear my hearing aid at work, win or lose, that took a lot of strength from me. 

None of them or myself had a sword.

And so is this woman...
Image courtesy of Praisaeng/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I see many strong women in books. I say, it takes a lot gumption to write a forbidden poem that cites a revolution and gets you exiled from your country. It takes courage to face each day in a society that beats women, to attend school when you know you'll be pummeled with rocks and ridicule for your trouble. It takes guts to call of a wedding to a man your family expects you to marry. It takes a ton of strength to sit by a sick child and show them you love and support them. How many women every day hold in their own emotions just to be strong for their loved ones?

Do I love kick-ass heroines? You bet I do, but I also see strength in all kinds of novels. I see strength in women every day.

And while I'm on the subject, what makes a woman sexy? I failed in this too. Too many authors still think by sexy I mean tits and ass. "My heroine has a great body..."

That's not what I mean by sexy at all.

Your heroine could have an ass the size of a brick house and be sexy. (I have no problem with asses the sizes of brick houses. I just didn't know how else to convey what I'm trying to say here.)

Why? It's what is INSIDE that really makes a woman sexy. Is she confident? Does she love who she is? Does she have compassion?

Show me a movie-starlet lookalike half naked, sticking out her tongue, strutting in a tight dress--whatever. I don't care. That's not sexy.

Show me a "normal" woman with tired but kind eyes offering a rare smile or showing her teeth in a laugh in some random moment in which for just a second, her troubles melt away...that's sexy.

And because I've failed in my endeavor, April will be the last of Strong is Sexy. I'm beyond tired of people not "getting it" and I don't feel I'm advancing my agenda here, or the cause of women, period.

Happy International Women's Day, ladies. Not many of you are wielding swords and even fewer of you look like Jennifer Aniston, but you're strong and sexy. Remember that. Remember what strong and sexy really is and quit letting television and yes, even books, dictate otherwise.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Rose the Iron Flower

Book: Legend of the Iron Flower Series
Author: Billy Wong
Heroine: Rose the Iron Flower

Rose the Iron Flower, star of the Legend of the Iron Flower heroic fantasy series, is strong in a more obvious and literal sense than most fantasy heroines. As an adult she's a 6 foot, 240-plus pound monstrous powerhouse of a woman, who doesn't need magic to be a physical match for the strongest men, and thanks to her freakish natural fortitude can survive injuries that would kill anyone else. She's an epic warrior in the spirit of Achilles or Beowulf - a wrecker of armies and terrible monsters, who bears countless scars from the deeds that make her a legend.

For all her fearsome appearance and might in battle, Rose is a gentle soul at heart, who feels guilt for the thousands who have fallen beneath her giant sword. She's caring and considerate, often puts others before herself, and later on in life becomes a loving wife and mother to her children. And if that's not enough to make her sexy, well, she also has ample (huge) curves in all the right places - there's a reason some have given her the title of "Beauty Brute."

The first book featuring Rose, Iron Bloom which chronicles Rose becoming a warrior in her teens, is available for FREE at all ebook retailers including Amazon and Smashwords.

Blurb:
Action-packed fantasy adventure with a powerhouse female epic warrior in the spirit of Achilles or Beowulf.

The tale of a mighty warrior torn between the power of the sword and her longing for a peaceful life.

A young woman with a kind heart and amazing resilience, Rose becomes a warrior thinking she can better the world. Despite the wealth and fame she wins as one of the greatest champions of her time, the bloody reality of her new life is nothing like her ideal dream. She yearns for a chance to escape the violence.

She finds that chance in Ethan, the leader of an altruistic pacifist group. But when a barbarian horde invades their kingdom, Rose knows that she could make a big difference by taking up her sword again. Will her need to protect her homeland cost her the man she loves?

A full length novel intended for both adults and older teens. First in the Iron Flower series.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Kate, Sarah, Patrice

Book: Women's Work
Author: Kari Aguila
Heroine: Kate, Sarah, Patrice

About 50 years in the future, there is a revival of 'traditional' gender roles. Men in power decide things would be better if women revert to subservient roles -- women are removed from political positions, new laws are passed that limit the health care women can get, clothes women can wear, jobs women can do, etc. At first glance, this feels far fetched, but one need only look at the millions of girls and women in other parts of our real world to see that it is not.

Then a global war breaks out which devastates the planet, destroys the infrastructure, and kills hundreds of millions of people. Because women were not allowed in the military, most of the dead are men. Four years into the Last War, women decide it is up to them to stop it, and take control by both force and persuasion. They design new laws and new governments with women in charge. Under the banner of peace and equality,women keep the men in their neighborhoods close to home and under tight supervision, and are terrified of the small groups of men that roam the country, viciously indicating that the pendulum may have swung too far.

Women's Work is full of strong women, with a range of characters that will remind readers of mothers, sisters and friends they have respected and loved. The main character, Kate, is a widowed mother of three struggling to survive in a post-war landscape. She has learned to hunt for, grow, and preserve the food upon which her family and her neighborhood depend. Through clever engineering and persistence, she has designed and built simple machines to make her work easier. She is devoted to her children, and loves them courageously. And most importantly, she is beginning to see that the rules of their new society might not be as perfect as they had hoped. When a strange man shows up on her porch one night, gaunt and filthy, Kate is forced to begin a journey that will change her life forever.

Kate's neighbors and friends include Sarah, the teacher, who shows her strength through thoughtful insights into what it means to love a man and be loved in return; Iris, the leader, whose intelligence, kindness and courage saved the whole neighborhood during the darkest times; and even Patrice, who has struggled with her demons for years and, though we cannot agree with her decisions at times, we can understand the fear and anger behind them.

Blurb:
“So, when most of the men were dead, women saw their chance to take over?” 

Kate searches her son’s eyes as he asks this. “Not take over,” she says. “Fix things.”

It wasn’t hard to justify what the women had done since the end of the Last War. They rebuilt their bombed-out neighborhoods as best they could and worked to established peace and gender equality. But small groups of men roam the country, viciously indicating that the pendulum may have swung too far. When a bedraggled man shows up on Kate’s doorstep one night, will she risk everything to help him? Does he deserve her help? 

Women’s Work is set in a dystopic world in the Pacific Northwest, where women struggle to survive through sustenance farming, clever engineering, and a deeply rooted sisterhood. In this suspenseful thriller, Kate and her family are asked to let go of their anger and fear on a journey to forgiveness and understanding. It is a compelling story that challenges all of us to question traditional gender roles and to confront the fragility of love.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Ana

Book: Calculated, Avenged
Author: R.S. Novelle
Heroine: Ana

Though Ana is described in the book as being very beautiful - a Victoria Secret model lookalike - it's her constant desire to go against the stereotype that makes her so unique. This is shown in her professional choices, as well as her love interests. As a pansexual, Ana displays strength by remaining true to herself, despite the little jabs occasionally thrown her way for her unconventional choices.

She also portrays strength through her feisty persona. While it's hinted that she survived an abusive adolescence, she chose to not to let it define her as a victim and grew into a woman who doesn't back down to anyone. Smart and witty, she can win any verbal altercation, and she demands respect from everyone - even those who aren't eager to serve it to her. Her inner drive for justice, a repercussion of her childhood experiences, has lead her to a career as an investigative journalist, where she often finds herself uncovering uncomfortable truths about conventionally respected people. And to do this, she has to go up against many powerful men in key positions. But for Ana, the story is more important than the social suicide this could cause her, and she's resourceful in her instrumentation.

In Calculated especially, we see her strength and compassion as she regularly puts her own physical safety on the line - despite the warnings of those close to her - in order to seek the truth about a master criminal plan, expose those who are participating, and bring justice to the victims who are being harmed. As events speed up, she realizes things are hitting very close to home for her, and bringing back memories and feelings about her past that she'd successfully suppressed over the years. She battles with her own emotions, but ultimately puts them to the side so that she can pursue this story and put a stop to the underground sex club that has lead to the murder of dozens of individuals.

By the end of the book, we see Ana as a mentally and emotionally strong woman who is filled with compassion for others and makes decisions for the greater good instead of just her own interests. 

Blurb:
An investigative journalist gets an unlikely tip from a mysterious informant. Dismissing it as impossible, she disregards the information and drops the story. Until the informant turns up dead, as predicted.

Plunged into the murky waters of a seedy underground prostitution ring, this psychological thriller provides twist upon dark twist in a story that would ultimately pin the church and several government officials in the largest murder cover-up the city has ever witnessed.

But is it true, or has the journalist merely been used as a pawn in a greater scheme? And how many people is she willing to sacrifice trying to figure it out?

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Francesca Taymon

Book: Mangled Hearts
Author: Felicia Tatum
Heroine: Francesca Taymon

Francesca Taymon of Mangled Hearts is a twenty five year old independent lawyer who has had her heart broken in many ways, but continues to live, hope, dream, and fulfill her wishes. Losing someone very important to her at a very young age made her rethink her life, her decisions, and question the only boy she ever loved.

She trusts her heart enough to learn the truth and finally let go of the past that haunts her. Being strong isn't burying it deep inside, it's facing your demons head on and fighting them. Her intelligence and ambition make Francesca incredibly sexy, though her large brown eyes and curvaceous body help. Francesca faces her problems head on, finding the answers she seeks and accomplishes more than she thought possible. 

Blurb:

Can two loves find their way back to each other despite an addiction and a hardened heart? Will their love overcome it all?

Francesca Taymon is young, successful, and broken. A tragic accident years ago haunts her to this day, and she blames only one person--the one that holds her heart. When she finally gets her first case, will she be able to handle seeing him again? Can she do her job and keep her heart intact?

Cade Kelling doesn’t take life seriously. He’s reckless and irresponsible, drinking all his problems away. When his parents bail him out for the last time, will he be able to handle seeing Francesca after all of these years? Will he be able to tell her what really happened that night five years ago or will he lose her forever?

And the most important question….
Can these mangled hearts be mended?

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