The Lair is Hot in June!

We Banditas enjoy vacations as much as anyone but we don’t take the summer off....too many stories in our vivid imaginations to take a break. And boy, do we kick the summer off right this month!

On June 2nd, Anna Campbell hosts debut historical romance author Maggie Robinson – or is she perhaps appearing as her alter ego Margaret Rowe? Maggie will be giving away a signed copy of MISTRESS BY MISTAKE.

And that’s just the beginning of a bountiful week.





Virna DePaul is visiting on the 3rd. Virna’s debut, CHOSEN BY BLOOD, is out with Berkley in 4/11 and she’s sharing her insights as she goes through the process of sold to debut. She’ll talk about Challenging Your Editor or Agent – when it’s really okay to speak up.










We end this first week on a high note with a return visit from Carrie Lofty on June the 4th. Our very own Christie Kelley talks with Carrie about her new release SONG OF SEDUCTION.


















On June 7th Loucinda McGary hosts Vanessa Kelly to talk about her sizzling new release SEX AND THE SINGLE EARL.













Swing by the Lair on June 12th and see how a teenager who already has social issues deals with the suddenly acquired ability to interact with ghosts. YA author Maureen Hardegree chats with Nancy about HAIN’T MISBEHAVIN, Maureen's new novel from Bell Bridge Books.













The 16th of the month yours truly hosts a return visit with RITA award winning author Kristan Higgins to talk about honesty and her most recent release “the next best thing”. I’m fairly certain we can get her to spill about her August release “all I ever wanted”. (Yes, I have started a FB campaign for my kitten Cricket to be featured on her next cover. Hey! It worked for Betty White!).





On the 21st, Kris Kennedy visits with us to talk with us about her latest THE IRISH WARRIOR.








Pamela Palmer is visits on the 27th, talking about Writing on the wild side - or Where do you come up with this stuff? And her latest release, RAPTURE UNTAMED which hits the shelves June 29.




We have one contest this month.

Anna Campbell has a mini novella called ‘Upon a Midnight Clear’ in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF REGENCY ROMANCE (released on 24th June in the U.K. and 27th July in the U.S.). To celebrate, she’s giving away two signed copies! All you have to do is email her on anna@annacampbell.info and name two authors other than Anna Campbell who have stories in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF REGENCY ROMANCE. You might find the answer in her June Latest News: http://www.annacampbell.info/latest.html or on the publisher’s website: http://www.constablerobinson.com/?section=books&book=the_mammoth_book_of_regency_romance_9781849010153_paperback The contest closes 31st July, 2010 and for more details please visit her website: http://www.annacampbell.info/contest.html

Whew! What a month! So fill up the lemonade (or margarita) glass, plop under a beach umbrella and prepare to have fun!
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Tattoo Design

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Hong Kong Egg Tarts

I love Dim Sum and would love to go 'Yum Cha' which is our term for having a meal in the Dim Sum Restaurant, in any cities i visit.  Egg Tarts are one of the favorites to order.  The Egg Tarts served in most Dim Sum Restaurants are made with flaky pastry and they are so well baked with perfection, the pastry so light and flaky, the custard is smooth and sweet..  I have tried baking them but found it very challenging.  Have not been happy with my results and am still trying.  And, until i make some good flaky pastry egg tarts,  these Hong Kong  Egg Tarts which has shortcrust pastry, were accepted with glee by Renee,  she ate these in Hong Kong and loved them.






Ingredients:

Crust:

8 ozs all-purpose flour
2 ozs powdered/confectioner's sugar
a pinch of salt
4 1/2 ozs chilled butter - cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Custard Filling:
3 large eggs
4 ozs fine granulated sugar (take away 1 tbsp for lesser sweetness)
225 ml  hot water
3 fl ozs evaporated milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 drops of yellow yolk food coloring

 
 
 
 
 

Method:
 
To Make The Crust:
 
Put all-purpose flour, powdered sugar and salt into the food processor and pulse to mix.
 
Add in chilled cubed butter and pulse until fine breadcrumb like.
 
Add vanilla extract to beaten egg and then add into flour mixture with the machine running and stop machine as soon as the dough is formed.  Do not overmixed.
 
Remove and wrap dough with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before using.
 
To Make the Filling:
 
Put sugar and water in a microwave-safe bowl and cook on high for 1 to 1/2 minutes and stir until sugar dissolves.
 
Add in evaporated milk, food coloring and vainlla, stir well.
 
Beat eggs lightly and add in to the above.
 
Pass through a very fine sieve, then fold a piece of kitchen towel into a strip and then run it over the top of the egg mixture to remove the bubbles.
 
Leave aside while you prepare the tarts.
 
To prepare the tarts:
 
Grease the tart moulds lightly.
 
Remove chilled dough, knead lightly and divide into small pieces(for my tart moulds, i use 3/4 oz).
 
Form dough into a tiny disk that will fit the base of the mould, then using the thumb, press dough so that it comes up the side of the mould.  Dough can be slightly higher than the mould but not too much - higher will allow more room for more filling but if too high, it will form a lip as this dough recipe is very soft.)
 
Repeat until all the tart moulds are formed.  Formed tart moulds can be kept in the fridge well wrapped until you need to bake them.
 
Preheat oven to 450 f and put the rack to the lowest rung of the oven.(Friends at sea-level can bake @ 400f)
 
Fill the formed tart moulds with egg filling to slightly lower than the rim, do not overfill.
 
Bake @ 450f for 10 mins and then lower the lower the heat to 400 f(sea-level @ 375 f) for another 15 minutes.  Baking time differs from the size of the tart moulds, so visual monitoring is important.  The crust has to be browned and the custard should not be overcooked.  The custard will puff slightly - yes slightly, then it is a sign for doneness,  you might have to remove some of the tarts which will cook faster than the rest as there are hot spots in most oven.  If  the custard puffs up and the crust is not brown enough, the oven door can be opened and left ajar for a while to lower the temperature in the oven, then it can be closed to finish the baking) 
 
Good luck and enjoy.
 
 
Serves


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Need inspiration? Hello Europe!

So who watched the Eurovision Song Contest? A bit of history for you: this annual singing competition started back in 1956 and has launched several big careers - ABBA won in 1974 (with 'Waterloo') and Céline Dion in 1988.

This year, 39 countries participated. They use a rather loose definition of 'Europe' - included are Russia and Azerbaijan, for example - but who cares about the politics?!

I never used to watch this - tacky! embarrassing! - and never admitted to it if I did, but I thought Norway did a great job of hosting this year's contest. And the participants were um... inspiring!

Does your guy want a bold, new look? Go for a blonde fringe - Serbia shows you how!




Look to Turkey for your next party: blinding lights and Stars Wars fashion.




Want to know how to wear this summer's blue eye make-up? Look no further, Moldova has the answer!




So that's where Lara Croft from Tomb Raider has been hanging out! In Armenia and she now sings, too.




There were also serious performers. I quite like it when they sing in their own language but most of them choose English. And this bit is embarrassing: my husband voted! As in, he actually called, and not just once but three times! (for Albania)

I don't know how they organised these but they showed huge crowds in European cities doing choreographed dances together. (Think Austin Powers.) We just thought: all this fun, excitement and joy across Europe, it's so much better than killing each other in pointless wars!





The winner was Germany: sweet 19-year old Lena with the song 'Satellite'. She was a nobody before Eurovision! And now she's a star! 





Did you watch it? What was your favourite song? Did you vote?! 
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Okay, so this one time?

by Susan Sey

Today is Memorial Day. Summer is now officially open for business. Up here in the north land, Memorial Day is when the swimming pools open up. It's when public parks turn on the drinking fountains & put out the portapotties. It's when we throw caution to the wind and finally plant the darn tomatoes, late season blizzards be damned.

It's also the day our nation sets aside to pay tribute to the men and women who've died while serving in our armed forces.

This is not a surprise to me. Nor should it be at the end of my What Memorial Day Means to Me list. My dad served in a National Guard unit in the sixties. My Uncle Harry was Air Force. My grandpa served the Army in WWI. My father-in-law spent his entire career in the Air Force, and my brother-in-law flew fighter jets for the Navy. My Uncle Bill was...well, he was colorful. As I believe a lot of sailors are. But they all came through their service --thank God--healthy & whole.

And they brought stories with them when they came home. Lord, the stories these men brought home. My Uncle Bill especially. When we were kids we never got tired of hearing the one where he was standing guard on some ship & did the whole "Halt, who goes there?" routine on a superior officer named Marvel. A captain, as it happened. Captain Marvel.

Uncle Bill: "Halt! Who goes there?"

Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel."

UB: "Riiiiiiight. Really, now. Who goes there?"

CM, with strained patience: "Captain. Marvel."

UB, skeptically: "Mmm-hmm. Mmmm-hmm. Captain Marvel?"

CM: "That's right."

Thoughtful pause.

UB: "Can I be Superman?"

Apparently, they really do make you peel potatoes for mouthing off in the military. That's not just Beetle Bailey stuff. At least according to my Uncle Bill, who--admittedly--wasn't the most reliable of sources. We were never sure when we were kids where the line was between fact & fiction when it came to his stories, but it hardly mattered. That wasn't the point. It was all about the story and the picture he painted with his words and that three-pack-a-day-and-a-shot-of-whiskey voice.

Now when most people die, their friends and relatives tell stories about them at the funeral. When my Uncle Bill died, we told stories about his stories. It was a powerful reminder to me of how important stories are. They're an honor and a tribute, a temporary recreation of something fleeting and human. They're a kind of magic, really. And I can't think of a better way to recognize the service and sacrifice of our soldiers than by performing that particular magic in their honor.

It's war story day in the Lair! Pull up a log, sit around our virtual campfire, have a beer or a soda or a s'more and tell us about your favorite soldier. I'll bet I'm not the only one with an Uncle Bill hanging out in the family tree. Come on--share! Source URL: http://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/2010/05/
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Girl Tattoo For Back Body

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"...Star differs from star in glory..."

(Vincent Van Gogh, "Starry Night over the Rhone," 1888)

I Corinthians 15:40-44:

"There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body."

I had a magnificent set of evenings over Memorial Day weekend sitting out among the moon and the stars--even sleeping out all night in my yard one night, it was so glorious--and seeing the lightning bugs begin their summer debut for the season. It was simply a magnificent weekend to be a speck in God's Universe. The sheer size and awesome timelessness of the "big" things in nature--the sky, the stars, the ocean, just to name a few--have always been the major spiritual grounding rods for me, my entire life. People just don't do it for me the way nature does.

I looked at the stars these last few nights and pondered the paradoxical dance that "people" seem to occupy in my existence, thinking how each star, in its own way, is its own "person." How like the stars in the sky, we are called to community, and how each of us in our own way feels called to individuals in that community. Yet for me, the paradox has always been nothing gets my goat like people sometimes. I can only handle people for so long, and then that secular monastic in me takes over and I retreat to my safe hermitage of my country life. There is my daily retreat from work, as well as "add on" forms like my occasional "silent Saturday morning," and my "stay-cation retreats where I never leave home." Yet I never feel "un-called" to be a part of a community. When I am home alone, after a certain amount of time enjoying my alone-ness, I think of what it is I am supposed to "do next" when I enter back into community. When I am in that community, after a while I start daydreaming of what I want to do next in my "alone time." Each needs the other, and truthfully, each feeds the other.

On one of those nights, I sat out and thought about different people with each star--what they were experiencing in their lives, and how it is that I am supposed to combine with them to light up the sky, yet maintain my own individual "star-ness." Each one of us with the incarnational light of God within us, but manifested in so many unique ways.

There seem to be at least three kinds of stars in my life experience. Most valued are the "stars I can always see"--for instance, in the winter, I can always find the constellation Orion, and in the summer I can always fix my gaze on Scorpio. They are like the people in my life who have now been my friends for three decades or more. How we relate to each other has changed drastically over the years--sometimes not even close to the roles in which our relationships started out--but we somehow can always adjust. Sometimes their light is very intense and intimate in my life, and vice versa; other times, the light is dimmer. But they are constants. They are appreciated for both their longevity and their versatility.

Then there are the stars that once were a major focus, but I now no longer pay much attention to. I really don't pay much attention to the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, or the North Star itself, per se. But there was a time I always looked for them. They are like the people who were once very involved and intimate in my life--old lovers, intense best friends, etc.--and somehow no longer figure much into the tapestry other than to be a thread once cherished, but no longer. Some of these fizzled out in a supernova of conflict, whereas others just sort of atrophied and slowly burned to extinction. Sometimes their light returns--but it is almost never of the same intensity that it once was, nor does my need to tend to that light return with the same intensity. I appreciate those stars for the history they have given me, even if it includes hard lessons.

Finally, there are the stars I just got around to noticing, like the time I first recognized all of Ursa Major, rather than just its "dipper." The first time I realized the dipper could be converted to a bear, it was an exciting time. It made the sky seem a little bigger than it used to be. I think about the gifts and talents in people I just now got around to appreciating in people who have been around me all along, or about the new people that come into my life over the years, and something about them challenge me to tend their light and let them tend mine. I appreciate those stars because they represent hope and promise.

Even the stars are perishable--which enhances my knowledge that people are perishable. It makes me understand the urgency of the Gospel of Mark, and in Paul's letters. If even stars are perishable, then people definitely are. Yet timelessness and infinity rides within all of them. What a beautiful, but messy, dance it all is!Source URL: http://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/2010/05/
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A Special Library Visit

posted by hackey hudjson

The DH and I just returned from a little jaunt to Utah and Colorado for our anniversary, and a fun time was had by all, especially when I discovered both The Wild Sight and The Treasures of Venice in the Pikes Peak Library District collection!

We had visited Arches National Park and then Canyonlands both in Utah before we decided to drive up Pikes Peak in Colorado. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the ranger station, we were told that the summit was closed due to 90 mph winds! ACK! We definitely didn't want to go up there even if they would have permitted us!

Instead, we drove back into town to the historic section called Colorado City. As soon as I spotted the beautiful old Carnegie library building, I urged my DH to stop. The library I'd loved so much as a child was a Carnegie building too!

My DH dropped me off and I went inside to check my email. Since I didn't have a reservation, I could only use the internet for 15 minutes, but that was enough time to get my daily fix! So when I was done, just for the heck of it, I decided to put my name in the library 'author search.' To my complete surprise and delight, both The Wild Sight and The Treasures of Venice popped up!

Matter of fact, The Treasures of Venice was in the very library branch where I was standing! With my heart a-flutter, I logged off the computer and went in search of 'the paperback collection.' After a few minutes of walking around, I discovered that all of 'the paperback collection' was contained on two sets of bookshelves (this was a small library after all).

And there was MY book, on the top of the second set of shelves! How lucky to have my name start with "M" because A through L occupied the first shelf and M through Z the second. With such a small collection of paperbacks, I felt even more special to have The Treasures of Venice included! Best of all, as my DH pointed out when he came in a few minutes later and I dragged him over to see, the pages looked ruffled.

Someone had definitely checked the book out and read it!

I spent many happy hours in the library as a child and even more as an adult, so finding my book in a small library in another state was a very big thrill for me! Plus this was my first time seeing any of my books actually on the shelf in any library. As a child, I used to read all those author names on the spines of all those books and imagine how wonderful it must feel to have a book you wrote sitting there for people to read. Well, now I know, and IT FEELS GREAT!

What about you? Do you have any special memories of libraries? Please share them with us here in the Lair. I know I missed the recent late night reading session, but we can certainly have another one. Please share what you are reading for this lovely weekend. SHHHH! Just don't tell Sven, the gladiators, and the new guy, Paolo!Source URL: http://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/2010/05/
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Sarah Jessica Parker Sex and the City 2 London Premiere

Last year, we loved Sarah Jessica Parker‘s iconic pale green Alexander McQueen dress and butterfly-covered Philip Treacy hat that she wore during the the Sex and the City world premiere way back in London in 2008.

This 2009, for the London premiere of Sex and the City 2, Sarah Jessica Parker went for a black silk and lace bustier archive gown from Alexander McQueen’s spring/summer 2008 line with a clutch from McQueen’s pre-fall 2010 collection and pre-fall 2008 lace shoes. To complete her stunning look, she had a black tulle cloud by Philip Treacy to compliment her sleek blonde locks.

Source: People.com
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Miranda Kerr Elle US June 2010

Victoria's Secret Angel, Miranda Kerr, posed for the upcoming June 2010 issue of Elle US magazine. For the said issue, Miranda sported some of the season's hottest body-hugging fashion. Let's take a look at her fashion styles for the magazine spreads!


Left: Silk crepe leather sleeve dress from Calvin Klein Collection
Leather corset belt and leather and elastic boots from Michael Kors
Right:Cotton poplin shirt and satin shorts from Prada
Brass belt from Maison Martin Margiela


Suede top and leather belt from Ralph Lauren Collection
Sheer stockings from Falke


Washed ottoman cape and lambskin shorts from Chloe
Leather elastic boots from Michael Kors





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On This Day in History

On this day 40 years ago, in a small town in Kentucky, I was born. No matter how many times I do the math, I can't believe I'm 40. I don't feel 40.

Curious about what else might have happened on all the May 29th dates in history, I did a little research and here's what I found:

In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks, who renamed it Istanbul.

In 1660, Charles II was restored to the English throne after 11 years of commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. It happened to be Charles' 30th birthday. (Interesting, since I just started watching the first season of The Tudors.)

In 1765, U.S. patriot Patrick Henry presented the Virginia Resolutions and said, "If this be treason, make the most of it." It was his 29th birthday.

In 1790, Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 colonies to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state.

In 1903, Bob Hope was born.

In 1917, John F. Kennedy was born.

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first mountain climbers to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.

In 1958, Annette Bening was born in Topeka, Kansas.

In 1959, actor Adrian Paul (of TV's Highlander) was born.

Okay, everyone, play along. What historic things happened on your date of birth? With whom do you share a birthday?

And for everyone in the U.S., have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy those cookouts! I know I will.Source URL: http://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/2010/05/
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Reckless Launch Winners!

Oh, my aching head! Thanks so much to everyone for a wonderful launch day on the Bandits yesterday! I had real trouble picking three winners, but after much ado, they are:

Chelley (who deserves a book after dealing with the chook!)

Danielle Ferries

S7anna

Congratulations, girls! Please email me on anna@annacampbell.info with your snail mail details and I'll sort out your books for you!Source URL: http://violeta-diario.blogspot.com/2010/05/
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Tattoos Pictures

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