Hello, my friend!
I hope you’re having a great week! Today marks 16 years since my beloved daddy was called home to heaven. Hard to believe it’s been that long. I sincerely miss him every single day and often imagine how he’d be interacting with and teaching his three grandchildren if he were here with us. I know he’d be my eldest son’s number one bug-hunting buddy, and my daughter’s favorite storyteller/read-alouder. Thank God for the hope of heaven and the promise of glorious reunion!
I’m so excited to kick off this week’s Top 4 with the cover reveal for my soon-to-be-released Greek-mythology-inspired fantasy novel, RING OF WISHES! I’ll be emailing you soon with the release date.
JUST DO(NATE) IT
“Take not if you find yourself wondering, ‘Where is my good knife?’ or ‘Where is my good pen?’ That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those.” – Kevin Kelly
WHAT NOT TO READ
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones. For life is short.” – Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
Welp, awkwardly enough, here’s an excerpt from my upcoming fantasy novel…for you to read, and hopefully enjoy!
RING OF WISHES EXCERPT
San Antonio, Texas, 1963
Chess hadn’t wanted to attend Ralph Wheeler’s Christmas party. Not because Chess was a Scrooge—he loved Christmas as much as the next guy—but because he knew there’d be gaggles of pretty girls out hunting for a husband.
Normally he wouldn’t have felt so sure that he, a lowly ranch hand with crooked teeth and a big nose, would be the selected prey of the evening, but things had changed in the last few months. He wasn’t so lowly anymore. In fact, he was moving up in the world rather rapidly, ever since he’d struck oil while drilling a water well behind the two-room shack he called home.
They’d started drilling right away. Already he’d received two handsome royalty payments he’d had no idea what to do with. He decided, eventually, that he’d better open a bank account. After that, he bought himself a decent pair of boots for special occasions, like this dadgum Christmas party.
Standing on the back porch, watching the peach sun bob lazily on the horizon, he remembered her words. I urge you to take your time, Chester. You’ve only got two more wishes and I’d hate for you to use them hastily.
To be rich. That had been his first wish. And while having money provided a sense of security he’d never felt before, it didn’t make him happier. He’d been decently happy before she’d waltzed—or rather materialized—into his life. A little lonely at times, but he wanted for nothing.
Except, evidently, money.
Why had he wished for wealth? He knew the reason. Because wishing for wealth was like wishing for an infinite number of wishes: cars, land, livestock, all the steak dinners and bottles of wine he could ever want, fancy vacations in fancy airplanes…
Was he really that shallow? He guessed he knew the answer now. If he’d been a deep-thinking, philosophical man who put more stock in his inner life than his outer one, he would’ve wished for wisdom, like King Solomon in the Bible. Hadn’t he paid any attention during those church sermons he’d been made to endure as a child?
But it was too late to go back now. Reversing the clock and canceling wishes were both against the rules. He’d already tried wishing for a change to the rules, but she’d pointed out that if she granted him the wish to change them, and then undone his first wish, he’d have no more wishes left.
“Do you really want that?” she’d said that fateful day. “You can do a lot of good for yourself with two more wishes.”
“Oh yeah, like what?” He had run the grooming brush over Old Hickory’s sorrel back. The horse’s ears were turned backward, his tail swishing, both signs that he was uncomfortable with the divine presence before him.
“Don’t you know your history?” Though her face had been hidden behind a veil of mist, Chess’s eyes were drawn to its beauty. He knew that if he was allowed to look at her, he’d never have eyes for a human woman ever again.
“About you?” he scratched his head. “You’re the goddess of love, ain’t ya?”
Aphrodite nodded, then gently stroked his cheek. She smelled like lavender, and something else. Something sweeter and purer and not of this world.
“Love is my specialty,” she replied sultrily, “and also lust.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew he better tread lightly lest he make the same mistake of so many men in history who had let their genitals speak for them.
“I’d like love,” he answered, careful to enunciate clearly so she didn’t misunderstand.
“Of course you would.”