Two things I forgot to say yesterday, don’t drink/eat anything with red dye, it’s supposed to make it hard for the doctor to identify infection if they need to, and sleep with your head elevated. It makes a difference, because last night out of habit at some point I slouched down and turned over and I felt it when I woke up.

So when I left off yesterday, I was feeling great. Too great. I called my doctors office to set up an appointment, I paid bills (over the phone), I chatted with my husband, and overdid it. When I started feeling it, I decided to take a nap, but couldn’t sleep because my husband was watching TV in the other room too loudly and wasn’t getting my text messages asking him to turn it down.

So I did a truly stupid thing, I shouted for him to turn it down. To be fair, I was half-asleep and on pain meds, but ouch. That hurt. And he didn’t hear me. Then the fact that I got hurt made me mad so I went out there and physically turned it down, pointing to my phone like a madwoman. Also I was irrationally mad at him for cooking chicken-fajita stuff because it smelled SO good and I hadn’t eaten since Sunday night. AND he forgot to grab me a milk shake when he picked my daughter up from school. Not my best moment. He apologized (for the TV) and asked why I didn’t just say something, and like an idiot, I started arguing, out loud, that I had. He apologized and said he didn’t get the text, and went out and got my milkshake like the nice guy he is, but the damage to my throat was done.

Ugh, stupid, stupid me. I drank my milkshake and napped until 7, and when I woke up my throat hurt. I don’t know if it’s because of the yelling (probably) or just because of where I am in the recovery bit (swelling should start becoming an issue on day three) but I was not doing that great anymore.

But happy news, I was allowed to have drinks that were not water or gatorade. I ate some mashed potatoes (SO GOOD!) and drank copious amounts of cran-grape juice with crushed ice.

I also started using this bio-med rinse stuff on day 2 and was allowed to brush my teeth :D. So my throat kept bouncing back and forth from bruised and battered to pleasantly refreshed. I’ve noticed I get really cranky for about twenty minutes between doses of medicine as one dose wears off and the other dose kicks in, but I get really happy about an hour in.

The bio-med rinse is weird, but actually super nice. You just rinse with it for 30 seconds 3 times a day. I do it right after I take the pain killers and it cuts down on the stinging. It also makes your mouth feel less dry? It’s amazing stuff.

Last night the medicine started to hurt really bad. It always stung, but last night it got really, really bad. I eventually figured out the cran-grape was a bit too acidic and switched back to gatorade to chase the medicine down with and that helped. I’ve gone from 4 tsp’s to 3 tsp’s (instructions say 2-4) , and I’m betting that’s why I’m up thirty minutes before the four hour window ready to get my next dose.

I was in a ton of pain this morning around 6:30 AM and it was weird because it was because I swallowed the pain meds and it stung so bad. Also my ears were hurting a bit. But nothing hurt until I swallowed the pain meds, which are supposed to help. I was pretty pathetic for about twenty minutes until the pain killers really kicked in and then I was out until my next dose at 11:00, washed it down with gatorade and felt fine. It still stung, but not as agonizingly. I was allowed to take a shower today (the paperwork said not to until day 3) so it feels great to be clean and the moist shower air helped my throat a lot too. I also started a new medicine today, some kind of steroid to help with swelling and infection risk. It’s a pill, so I was a little worried taking it, but I didn’t have any problem.

I’m able to eat soft foods now but it’s kind of exhausting. My mouth hurts after a few bites so it’s really just a couple of bites of this here, wait a few hours, a couple of bites of that there. Pain wise I’ve been doing fine since about 7:00 AM. I’m more sore than yesterday but I really think that’s my own fault so I’m not talking today, drinking lots of gatorade, replacing the ice backs constantly, and hanging around the humidifier and getting a lot of sleep. Seems to be helping. So hopefully I’ll get back to where I was tomorrow.

My suggestion, don’t talk. You’ll feel like you can talk. Don’t do it. Just text. Also, cranberry grape juice, while delicious, should be drunk sparingly because it is pretty strong. Tomorrow ear pain is really common, but I’m ready. I ordered a hot/cold pack that can wrap around the ears from amazon and it should arrive today or early tomorrow.

Wish me luck…

Yesterday I did something incredibly stupid. I woke up early in the morning and drove to an outpatient surgery center and allowed someone to slice into my throat and remove my tonsils. On purpose.

I haven’t had surgeries before. Not really. I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was eighteen, but I’ve had so many teeth extracted before then that I couldn’t make make myself view that as an actual surgery. I had my daughter, but that was kind of inevitable. She was coming, hospital or not. Humans have been having babies longer than doctors were around.

I kind of figured if I ever went under the knife it would be an emergency situation. Not something scheduled, driven to with intent, and planned for. As I was planning, I read everything I could online and came to a realization. I also have a blog. True, it’s for my books, but my readers might have had their tonsils removed and could have awesome advice to share. Or they may need it in the future. So might as well put this up here if I’m going to write about it. And I’m a writer. That’s kind of my thing.

So yesterday morning I woke up starving. I’m always super hungry in the morning, but I couldn’t eat anything after midnight so breakfast was out. I have to give my husband, the nicest guy in the world, credit. He woke up earlier than me so I wouldn’t have to watch him eat breakfast. I pretty much just rolled out of bed, got dressed, brushed my teeth and hopped in the car.

We arrived at 6:30 and I filled out some paperwork then hung around until 7:30. Then they took me back to get me prepped. I changed into a hospital gown and robe and then they stuck me a few times trying to get an IV in.

I don’t have veins, by the way. They aren’t sure where my blood comes from, but it’s never been anywhere easily accessible. But this hospital was super nice. They numbed me first before poking me with the IV, so at least I didn’t feel them digging around. I will say though, the numbing stuff they used, novacane , burned for like minutes after the IV was in, so if I had normal, easy to find veins, I don’t know that it would be worth it.

Then they brought in my husband to say good luck and ran me through a series of questions before administering an IV cocktail. They rolled me back to the operating room and knocked me out. I woke up to a nurse calling my name really, really loudly, and whoosh, I was in a recovery room asking for something to drink because my mouth was dry. They dosed me with dilaudid, which is like ten times stronger than morphine, gave me an ice collar, and I slept for a bit, chatted with my husband, and slept some more between lots of cups of orange gatorade.

Two things really surprised me right off the bat. They offered me soda, which I was not expecting. And I could talk. Normal sounding even. It didn’t hurt. Throughout my stay at the hospital, which lasted until about 2:00, the most I felt was like I had a very mild, scratchy throat.

I started feeling it on the way home though. It’s a thirty minute drive, and my husband ran a bit late coming back to get me because he had to pick up my daughter from school and the pharmacy took awhile. My advice, ask for one last dose of pain meds forty minutes before you expect to leave because they can’t give them to you within thirty minutes of leaving. But once I took my pain meds (liquid loratab, which stings a bit going down, so chase with gatorade) I was fine. I set my alarm for seven (you take the pain meds every four hours) and took a nice long nap.

Thanks to some awesome internet advice, I knew to have a big glass of gatorade (I tried water, but my mouth tasted too weird, I needed flavor, plus no mushy foods until day two, so the electrolytes are probably good for me) by the bed, a humidifier running, and an awesome husband who swapped out my ice packs every hour or so. I woke up at seven and wasn’t in a rush to get to my pain meds, but I took them right away anyway because I didn’t want that to change, stayed up until my next dose of pain meds, and went back to sleep. I set my alarm for four hours later each time I took my medicine, even at night, took big sips of gatorade anytime I was awake enough to think about it (especially before and after the pain meds) and swapped out my ice packs every time I woke up.

The humidifier makes a drastic difference. I know this because mine ran out of water at 3:00 and I was too lazy to refill it. When I woke up at 7, there was a massive difference in how dry my mouth was. The thing you really, really, really want to avoid is your mouth getting dry. Like at any cost. Drink constantly while awake. It hurts a bit to swallow but once you do it enough, it’s really no worse than a sore throat (except for that like 20 minutes between doses of pain meds, it’s a bit more painful then).

I did have two semi-major moments of pain. The ride home was not fun, and I kept having to couch just before I went to sleep that night. Coughing is not fun with two gaping holes in your throat. But weirdly, switching from drinking out of my cup straight to a straw calmed my throat down enough to fall asleep. I wouldn’t use a straw much/at all. But the way I was swallowing must have been bugging something and changing that up helped.

Today, so far so good. I’ve probably talked to much and need to knock that off (hence the blogging) because just because I feel up to talking doesn’t mean I won’t regret it when the meds wear off. Keeping near the humidifier, taking pain killers every 4 hours, and drinking lots of gatorade. I’m still starving but can’t have anything other than clear-ish liquids (they said the gatorade counted) until later this afternoon and no mushy solids until tomorrow :(.

If I’m up to it, I’ll write tomorrow. But in the meantime, you may see me online a lot, but I may not be responsive. Don’t take it personally, life is a bit fuzzy right now. Got any advice for recovery? I hear it gets worse around day 5.

Blurb: One bullet is all it took to transform eighteen-year-old New Yorker Jordan Amador into the last hope for souls of the dead. However, it also transformed her into a cantankerous asocial waitress with a drinking problem.

Jordan accidentally shot and killed a Seer: a person who can communicate with ghosts, angels, and demons. Worse still, she did so on the eve of her own awakening, making her the last Seer on Earth with no one to guide her. As penance, God gives her two years to help one hundred souls with unfinished business cross over from Earth to the afterlife or she will go to Hell. Just as she approaches the deadline, Jordan finds her hundredth soul: a smart-mouthed poltergeist named Michael whose ability to physically touch things makes him distinct from her usual encounters with the dead. However, the deeper she delves solving his sudden death, the more she realizes something sinister is on the horizon.

With time running short, Jordan stumbles across a plot that may unravel the fragile balance among Heaven, Hell, and Earth. Her life is plunged into chaos as she is hunted by demons that want to use her valuable Seer blood to bring about the end of the world and discovers that these creatures have a frightening connection to her family bloodline. Plus, the budding romance between Jordan and Michael makes it harder for them to let go of each other so he can become part of the eternal black parade.

My Review:

I really enjoyed this book. It had fantastic character development and a plot that just kept on coming at you. In fact, I really felt like I read an entire series by the time I got to the end. Not in a bad way, the book is divided into three different parts, and the author completely could have split the story into a trilogy and probably expanded and done a few short stories as well instead of selling it as all one novel, so this was actually a surprisingly good deal. Each part had fantastic build up, great world building, and characters that kept you invested. I loved Jordan and Michael and actually, now that I think of it, all the minor characters. The villains were suitably evil and scary, and the final resolution was epic.

My only complaint was something I actually liked most of the time. This book is full of pop culture references. The ones I got, I loved, but there were times when I felt like I was missing something because I didn’t understand the reference.

Otherwise, a fantastic read. It’s urban/Christian fantasy, but I at no point felt like I was being preached at. I don’t think the book went as irreverent as Supernatural did with its angels, but it’s more along those lines then say…a Peretti novel. In a bookstore it would more likely be found next to Kim Harrison (and let me tell you, it ranks right up there with the Hollows, seriously, if you enjoy Urban Fantasy, give this book a try.) And while it’s not in the YA genre, I’m pretty confident any of my readers that enjoyed Persephone would enjoy The Black Parade. Give it a try. It’s completely worth the read.

Mary Preston!

Blurb: The lofty realms of Olympus and the once-fertile land of Hellas are in chaos due to the wrath of a mother gravely affronted. The truth, however unpleasant it is, must be faced. And in the Underworld, Hades must face the repercussions of his actions. Can Persephone ever forgive him?

Persephone must find a way to make her life her own, but that is easier said than done. Caught between two worlds, she will have to make a stand for her destiny…

My Review:
Great end to a great series. The third book is just as strong as the first two. M.M Kin created well researched, detailed settings, wrote fantastic descriptions, and wonderfully complex characters. In particular, the character of Persephone developed amazingly over this series.

She was everything I’d hoped she’d become in the first two books. She became this strong, no-nonsense character that MADE every guilty party answer to every wrong they’d ever committed and possibly some they’d only considered. She grew into her powers, her body, and her confidence. I *really* enjoyed watching all the other characters in this series squirm.

I also thought the very ending, when time moved forward (phrasing carefully to avoid spoilers) was a nice touch. Very interesting take.

The only complaint I have to add, and this really is just me because I happen to like these gods, were the depictions of Ares and Aphrodite. I felt like every other character got super in depth development, but they were both pretty one-dimensional (which in itself is not a problem at all. They are minor characters, actually like sub-minor characters, it’s okay for them not to be developed, sometimes the pizza man is just the pizza man, you know? And there are a ton of books out there that *really* could have improved by letting the pizza man just be the pizza man) But they were one dimensional unfriendly characters. Aphrodite was pretty and shallow, Ares was violent and blustering. I just wanted more to them. Mythologically, they’re fascinating. Aphrodite was pretty and confident and embraced her sexuality in an era that *really* didn’t encourage women to do that. Ares was the god of war, that pretty much never won a single fight, was dumb enough to get stuck in a jar for a year, and is one of *the* only (greek version only) gods who not only didn’t rape women, but actively hunted down and destroyed rapists. But, I know there’s more in the works in this world so there’s still hope to see some major depth from these characters. I’m absolutely going to read anything that’s put out in this universe, because M.M Kin is a research queen. I’m really excited to see where this goes next.

In short, this was everything I could have hoped for ending this series. I can’t wait to see where this author goes next.

Have you ever heard of the Krampus? It’s a Christmas story everyone should know for their own protection. Because…

He sees you when you’re sleeping,
he knows when you’re awake,
he knows if you’ve been bad or good
so be good….

Or Else

For over a century this menace to society has been breaking into homes at night, and apparently watching you sleep. Even mice are paralyzed in fear by his presence.

No it’s not Edward Culllen, it’s Santa Claus. Nowadays we are not bought off by his gifts, and our children know better than to take candy from strange men.

What can you do to protect yourself from this holiday horror? Follow the simple instructions below and you can enjoy a silent night.

1) Write a letter pleading for your life. Explain what makes you valuable to society and why you should be passed over. Better yet, have your kid do it. Santa may have a soft spot for children. It worked on the Grinch. You can send Santa and email, call him, post to his Facebook page, or twitter.

2) Be on the look out for his misunderstood twin brother Krampus. Every year on the fifth of December this deformed creature roams the Alps ringing bells and dragging rusty chains as a harbinger of Santa’s arrival. (Go on, google it).

3) Know his whereabouts. Modern science allows us to track Santas movements. Simply type Santa into google maps or google earth to find up to the minute details on his location.

4) Deck the halls with boughs of holly: M Night Shamalan taught us that the beasts do not care for the color red. Red of course is the most proven way to deter Mr. Claus, but science has proven any bright color will do. Pay special attention to your roofs as strings of lights sometimes have the unintentional benefit of getting tangled in his sled.

5) Light the fire and hang your old socks. The heat and the smell may be enough to frighten Santa away from your abode.

6) Leave milk and cookies. If it doesn’t slow him down it may eventually lead to diabetes, protecting future generation from this night of terror.

Good luck! And have a safe and Happy Holiday Season!

Comment below with your own fun and creative way to protect yourself from the Krampus this holiday season for a chance to win an e-copy of Persephone. Winner will be chosen December 16th. 

The Unfinished Song (Book 1): Initiate by Tara Maya

DEADLY INITIATION

A DETERMINED GIRL…

Dindi can’t do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi’s clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.

 

AN EXILED WARRIOR…

Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn’t commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don’t kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father’s wars and his mother’s curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her… assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

 

 

EXCERPT

Blue-skinned rusalki grappled Dindi under the churning surface of the river. She could feel their claws dig into her arms. Their riverweed-like hair entangled her legs when she tried to kick back to the surface. She only managed to gulp a few breaths of air before they pulled her under again. 

 

She hadn’t appreciated how fast and deep the river was. On her second gasp for air, she saw that the current was already dragging her out of sight of the screaming girls on the bank. A whirlpool of froth and fae roiled between two large rocks in the middle of the river. The rusalka and her sisters tugged Dindi toward it. Other water fae joined the rusalki. Long snouted pookas, turtle-like kappas and hairy-armed gwyllions all swam around her, leading her to the whirlpool, where even more fae swirled in the whitewater. 

 

“Join our circle, Dindi!” the fae voices gurgled under the water. “Dance with us forever!” 

 

“No!” She kicked and swam and stole another gasp for air before they snagged her again. There were so many of them now, all pulling her down, all singing to the tune of the rushing river. She tried to shout, “Dispel!” but swallowed water instead. Her head hit a rock, disorienting her. She sank, this time sure she wouldn’t be coming up again. 

 

“Dispel!” It was a man’s voice. 

 

Strong arms encircled her and lifted her until her arms and head broke the surface. Her rescuer swam with her toward the shore. He overpowered the current, he shrugged aside the hands of the water faeries stroking his hair and arms. When he reached the shallows, he scooped Dindi into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to the grassy bank. He set her down gently. 

 

She coughed out some water while he supported her back. 

 

“Better?” he asked. 

 

She nodded. He was young–only a few years older than she. The aura of confidence and competence he radiated made him seem older. Without knowing quite why, she was certain he was a Tavaedi. 

 

“Good.” He had a gorgeous smile. A wisp of his dark bangs dangled over one eye. He brushed his dripping hair back over his head. 

 

Dindi’s hand touched skin–he was not wearing any shirt. Both of them were sopping wet. On him, that meant trickles of water coursed over a bedrock of muscle. As for her, the thin white wrap clung transparently to her body like a wet leaf. She blushed. 

 

“It might have been easier to swim if you had let go of that,” he teased. He touched her hand, which was closed around something. “What were you holding onto so tightly that it mattered more than drowning?”

 

 

LINKS

Tara’s blog http://bit.ly/12dFdNy

Tara’s Twitter http://bit.ly/162sCtE

The Unfinished Song on Facebook http://on.fb.me/1400mMq

Amazon http://amzn.to/15ciwYc

Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/13yM5Dr

Kobo http://bit.ly/1aFhg1P

iTunes http://bit.ly/1baddhN

Smashwords http://bit.ly/17zK8Xn

 

Initiate is free everywhere except on Barnes and Noble (where it’s $0.99). You can download a free .epub version via Smashwords.

The blurb:

Captive in the Underworld, Persephone tries her best to resist the wonders of this mystical realm and the allure of its ruler. However, this is much easier said than done when the Underworld offers her freedoms she has never experienced, and Hades offers her pleasure the likes of which she has never known…

Meanwhile, in the land of the living, Demeter’s search for her daughter culminates in a devastating discovery that causes her to unleash her wrath on an unsuspecting world…

My review:

Again I have to praise M.M Kin for the sheer amount of research that went into writing these books. She has taken the time to make the setting as authentic as possible. I loved being introduced to all the Chthonic deities in the Underworld, including the ones that I found too ambiguous to include, like Styx who is a river and a goddess. The primordial deities are complicated, but Kin included them with so much skill I never found myself going, “Wait, but how would that work?”

I also like how, for the most part, modern speech was included in a way that felt natural. When setting a book SO deep in the past, it’s a real challenge to decide how you want the characters to talk. Especially since they shouldn’t even be speaking English, so there’s not a model for how they should sound. Thee’s and Thous would be just as inaccurate as likes and whatevers. So there’s this super delicate like between the characters language being modern enough to be accessable, yet formal enough not to take you right out of the story. For the most part, Kin handled this beautifully, and throughout the ENTIRE book, she handled it better than I could. She handled it so well that when that line slipped a bit too far to the modern side in the middle of the book, I noticed it way more than I would have had the language not been built in to the world with so much skill. There was a minute there, maybe 2-3 chapters, where every character was suddenly cussing like a sailor and the entire cadence of the dialogue shifted to completely modern speach. The situation warranted it, they were all pretty pissed at Zeus, but I found it a bit jarring. But it only lasted for a second and then we were right back in the middle of the balance.

I loved the character development. All of the characters are fully fleshed out and three dimensional, though I don’t like most of the characters. That’s not a knock on the author, she made them authentically flawed. Zeus is a professional victim who ducks responsibility at every turn. I love how he’s so confused that Demeter won’t stop with the whole famine thing until he steps up and returns Persephone. He keeps trying to explain to everyone that will listen that he didn’t have a choice and oh, but Hades is scary and he doesn’t want to upset him, and not a single deity is buying it. Demeter keeps getting told she’s being irrational, hurting the humans for something a god did, but I’m completely in line with her way of thought. Zeus had ample opportunity to fix everything. She warned him, and she’s also not actively killing the crops, she’s just withdrawing her blessing from the land…which actively kills the crops. But why would she bless the land so Zeus and team can benefit from human worship? It sucks people are dying but those deaths are on Zeus’ head as far as I’m concerned.

Other than that place, where I’m completely on her team, this book made me realize Demeter is downright abusive to Persephone. Way over controlling, manipulative, and emotionally and verbally abusive. She reminds me a bit of Gothel from Rapunzel. But that behavior seems par for the course in this world because Hades is the exact same. I have a lot of issues with Hades. At the end of the day, no matter how I try to spin his character he’s a manipulative jerk who lies, misleads, kidnaps, and doesn’t pay much attention to the word no but is so proud and smug he points to the few things he did do right as proof he’s not a bad guy. Sorry, Hades. You don’t get kudos for NOT hitting, beating, or raping someone. If I heard him point out “yeah, I kidnapped her, but I’m not mistreating her,” one more time….grr. If it wasn’t for the fact that Persephone is just as frustrated with that attitude as I am, I would have thrown the book down awhile ago. But she is, and in that you can see how talented M.M Kin is. The reader isn’t supposed to side with Hades, we’re supposed to see the flaws in his logic, HADES just can’t see the flaws in his logic. When she writes any of the gods POV she is SO deep in their POV that you see exactly how they convince themselves they are not in the wrong here and that is so realistically done. Persephone’s pov is like the normal, every day person as she looks around at the pantheon, and that perspective alone makes her a likable character, but she’s also strong and smart and likable completely on her own merits.

I’m really curious how book three is going to go, because I really want to see Persephone put everyone in their place.

Eva won the halloween blog hop and chose a copy of Persephone for her prize 🙂 Congrats Eva!