Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Guest Author C.L Talmadge


She can keep her legs shut, but not her lips….

Hold it! Stop right there. This is how my author, C.L. Talmadge, always describes me and it’s getting old fast.

I am Helen Andros, first-generation heroine of the Green Stone of Healing® series. To be blunt, I am a dish. Tall, big boobs, gorgeous face-great figure, long black hair. I’m brainy, too, and trained for years to become a physician. I’m pretty darn good at what I do.

(FYI: My author is convinced she lived a past life as me. She wanted to write novels since age 13 and finally sat down to do it when she was 44. The result is this speculative epic series.)

Anyway, I have a problem (beyond my big mouth). I live in an island nation called Azgard, which is sharply divided by race, rank, and income. I am an illegitimate half-breed and thus a social pariah. My mother was one of the Turanians, the subject people of Azgard. My father was a Toltec whom she refused to identity.

I wasn’t born in Azgard, but in a desert country far to the east. I was just 11 when I was packed off to Azgard without my mother to avoid a war. I never saw or heard from her after that, and it broke my heart. When parted, she gave me a strange green stone on an intricate chain and I always wear it because it makes me feel better. I have no idea what else to do with it.

By the time of the first book, The Vision, I have been a military physician for about a year. I am secretly in love with Col. Jackson Orlando, my tall, dark, and utterly handsome commanding officer, and want to jump his bones. But I don’t dare. Half-breeds are so despised that even the hint of any relationship with me jeopardizes Jackson’s career. I love him so I don’t want that to happen. Instead I mouth off at him, even on duty. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I just want him to notice me (he does, as does every other soldier in the regiment).

The action begins when the Lord Protector, Azgard’s top military officer, orders me to treat a gravely ill state hostage. I agree, but not before I am insolent to him, too. That sets off a chain of events that reveal my father as one of Azgard’s highest-ranked, most powerful Toltec lords. I am almost executed, too, but he saves me by publicly acknowledging his relationship to me.

It also brings me to the attention of the Temple of Kronos, Azgard’s state religion. The leader of the Temple plots to have me slain. Daddy dearest and I snap at each other and argue because we have been so wounded by my mother’s strange behavior that we cannot trust each other. So much for happy family reunions.

The vision of destruction and hope that prompted my mother to do what she did comes to light thanks to Maguari, a member of an otherworldly race of beings called Mist-Weavers. Maguari can appear and dissolve at will and knows the full potentials of the green stone.

In the second book, Outcast, things just get worse. My father is in deep trouble among his powerful political enemies, and even his allies and king, for acknowledging his relationship to me and my mother. Meanwhile, my mouth gets me into hot water time after time. I’m now the acknowledged daughter of a great house, and have no idea how to behave. Proud and oh-so independent, I hate it that my father is in charge of my life in the ultra patriarchal Azgard.

After I get the crap beaten out of me for yet another serious verbal flub, Maguari visits me and shows me a past life as the son of the same soul who is now my father. He encourages me to release my anger and tell my father that I love him (I do, very much).

By the third book, The Scorpions Strike, my father and I reconcile, but the shit hits the fan anyway. He goes on trial and endures torment because he refuses to bow to the Temple, which puts a death mark on me. Maguari teaches me basic energy manipulation after helping me save my father’s life. Once my father’s new wife bears his son and heir, the Temple forces him to choose between his two children. I leave the comfort of his manor under cover of night to avert a possible religious war.

In Outcast, the fourth book soon to be published, I must become accustomed to the rough life in the mountains of Southern Alta Province. There Maguari teaches me advanced energy skills for healing and self-protection. I need them, because a rift in the Temple’s leadership puts would-be kidnappers on my trail. A plot to assassinate my father reaches its tragic climax, and only the skills that I learn from my alien mentor keep me keep me from being abducted—and worse.

The series continues the story of the rest of my life, and the lives of my daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter. We all use the stone in our own ways to offer a loving, inclusive alternative to theocrats whose ambition for total control ultimately leads to the destruction of Azgard and the worldwide cataclysm foretold in my mother’s vision.


Excerpt: The Scorpions Strike

Maguari directed her to set aside her work, lean back in her rocking chair, and shut her eyes. He taught her and then put her through a series of meditation exercises similar to those Judith had shown her many years ago, except Helen could tell the effect was far more potent. She soon had the strangest impression of what she called looseness, for lack of a better way to describe the experience. It was as though she could not tell where her person left off and the rest of the room around her began.


“Excellent,” the Mist-Weaver said. “You have relaxed the boundaries of your energy field to some extent.”


Helen breathed in sharply, then wondered why she was surprised that Maguari knew what she was going through.


He continued the lesson. “Gently direct your energy toward any physical object in the room. Use your energy like a finger and explore all parts of that object, even with your eyes closed. Go to those places you could not see even with your eyes open.”


Helen stretched out her energy to the armchair close to the fireplace. To her astonishment, she could readily tell the difference between the smooth surface of the chair’s short wooden leg, and the plush texture of the fabric that covered the cushion. Excited and intrigued, she rolled her energy over more of the chair. Although she was not certain, it seemed that the padding in the seat was packed more densely than the padding in the back. It was harder to move through. Perhaps that was merely a logical deduction, a part of her argued. She slipped her energy-digit beneath the chair and explored the covering on the underside of the frame. It felt very different from the brocade. It was a coarser weave with no variations in the depth of its surface.


Helen opened her eyes. “There is a tear in the fabric underneath the seat of that armchair. I felt it.”


The Mist-Weaver’s cowl bobbed up and down. “Why not check to make sure? Perhaps that way you will stop second-guessing yourself.”


She took the light-stick from the table and set it on the rug near the armchair, which she turned on its side. Sure enough, she found a small rip in one corner of the covering. She set the chair upright once more and returned to her rocking chair.


“I never looked under that chair before,” she said, as though trying to convince herself more than anyone else. “How did I know about that hole?”


“You used your own energy field to bring you new information,” Maguari said. “The ability to attain new information is one of the gifts of the spirit. We were never meant to stumble blindly through our material existence, completely ignorant of that which awaits us.”

Buy the Books

The Vision
ISBN: 978-0-9800537-3-9
First published: March 2005 by Quiet Storm Publishing.
Republished: June 2008 by HealingStone Books
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3538.html

Fallout
ISBN: 978-0-9800537-4-6
Published: June 2008 by HealingStone Books
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3539.html

The Scorpions Strike
ISBN: 978-0-9800537-5-3
Published: June 2008 by HealingStone Books
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3540.html

Want to win an autographed set of the three books?

Here are contest details:

The prize is a set of autographed copies of the first three books (paperbacks) in the series.

Those interested must go to this link http://www.greenstoneofhealing.com/ and find the link at the top right to sign up for the newsletter, and get a free ebook on energy and healing.

Then come back and post a comment to the blog to let us know that you have signed up for the newsletter.

On Wednesday, May 27 a winner will be chosen.

13 comments:

tetewa said...

I'm always looking for new authors and series to read! I signed up.

The Scarf Princess said...

This sounds like a very interesting series of books. Please throw my name in the hat since I signed up for the newsletter.

Estella said...

This series sounds interesting.
I signed up for the newsletter.

Unknown said...

loved the site and signed up for the newsletter. Thanks for the free book too!

MOUNDSBAR said...

Signd up for C.L Talmadge newslwtter today and would like to be entered into contest.
Fabulous site!!!

Judy said...

Series sounds very interesting. I went and signed up for newsletter!

LORETTA CANTON said...

I signed up for the newsletter, The series of book sounded very different and good.

robinky42 said...

I signed up for the newsletter. This sounds like an intersting series, I have never read anything like it and would like to try it. Thank you.

Heidi V said...

Signed up for the newsletter!

Thanks

heidivargas [at] live dot com

Chris J. said...

:) Great blog, I really enjoyed it and have now found a new series! Yeah!
I went to the website and I signed up!
Thanks for a Great contest and the books and character, totally suck you in to read them!
Have a Great Wednesday!

Unknown said...

hoping it still time to sign up. though i never know how to pick a versiono f the newsletter to get

Unknown said...

well thought i had

Unable to process the request




Sign up below for the Green Stone of Healing (tm) series newsletter

Name:
* E-Mail:
* Format: HTML or Text HTML Only Text Only

* = Required Field

Unknown said...

I joined the newsletter!

 
BLOG DESIGN FOR FANG-TASTIC BOOKS BY BARBARA.
RED CORSET © HALAQUINN ARCADIAS. GOTHIC NIGHT © ASHEN SHARROW.