I'm not sure if I posted this link when it went up what with the mad whirl last week was so here it is :D Rie over at Author Offerings was kind enough to let me waffle on about my latest release Sunlight & Slavery...

http://authorofferings.blogspot.com/2009/06/author-offerings-from-mina-carter.html

You know, I'm having one of *those* months. You know the kind, the ones where you tread water like mad but never actually get anywhere.

At least, it seems that way. But anyway, let me catch you up on the news. Sunlight & Slavery is out and I've had some fantastic reviews on that one which brings the biggest smile to my face imaginable. On the submissions side, I wrote a story, Faery Dust, for the Last Call series which was just accepted by Changeling Press *VBG* and I also have Hawk's Warden out which I've got my fingers crossed for.

On the writing side, I'm just in the middle of the third in the Moonlight & Magic series, Deception & Desire, but took time out to go away this weekend with the family. I did mean to get some writing done but, for some reason, whenever it looked like I might get the laptop out, brat wanted to snuggle or read a story, or have a nap with Mummy. Naps with toddlers rule big time, even if you do get dribbled on and they snore in your ear. She's normally past the nap stage now but with all we were doing she was worn out and... you know? I really missed nap times with her. When she was tiny we used to snuggle down on the bed at one o'clock and have a sleep. It was nice. Probably why I always get sleepy at one now though...

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I don't often tell people but I am fascinated by where I came from. Not geographically, although that's just as interesting in some respects, but from a people point of view. Who my ancestors were and that sort of thing. Not necessarily hundreds and hundreds of years ago but relatively recently. One of my recurrent 'what if's' is the thought of meeting say my grandmother at my age and having a chat and a cup of tea with her, my great grandmother (the original Mina Carter) and so forth.

The whole idea fascinates me, I mean, I know names and dates... I know where these people fit into the family tree but I don't KNOW them. I have my memories of my grandmother, but they're a child's memories and likewise my mother's memories of my great-grandmother (who died before I was born). But I think it would be wonderful to know them as people, find out what made them tick, try and see things in them that were passed down to me.

They passed on a lot. From someone I got the ability to make ice-cream. Real, thick, creamy homemade ice-cream. It's something I didn't think anything of until someone else told me there was a knack to it, so someone gave me that. I can shoot - used to be a markswoman (which has lapsed because guns in britian after Dunblane, not so easy now) - which I get from someone else. Hard to tell that one actually since both sides of my family have immense military connections. One of my grandfathers was an explosives expert but I've never tried blowing anything up. You never know, I might be good at that too! So lots of little things that I can do, or find easy to learn and I'd love to know where that ability came from. I can pretty much make anything with my hands, so perhaps that's the skill rather than the individual abilities themselves, perhaps it's just an umbrella thing.

Anyway, messages through time.

I keep a book for my daughter. It has photos, the tags from when she was born, little momento's through her life. And I add letters everynow and then, catching her up with where we are and whatnot as though I am talking to her across the years when she is at the age I am now. Telling her all the little things she does that make me smile, recounting stories and how I feel. It sometimes something I feel silly doing, I don't know why but it's something I feel I need to do. So *touch wood* if anything ever goes wrong and she's without us then she can look back and see how much she is loved.

Well, I felt silly about it until today.

I went down to my fathers office to collect some paperwork from there and whilst I was there I picked up an old book. It's a book of fairytales that's been on the shelf in there for years. It was mine from my childhood and I wanted to get it to start reading them to my daughter. Out of habit I opened it up to look in the fly-leaf and there's a message written there I had forgotten all about. It's from my grandmother, to me. It says...

Oh my, I got the cover art for Sunlight & Slavery and... YUM!!



I'm absolutely amazed, love it to bits and will bore you to tears telling you about over the next couple of days!!

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