June 26, 2015 – Suddenly they all died. The end.

Yesterday was Cricket’s fifth birthday. I can’t believe he’s five years old already! I swear he was just born a week ago.

I posted a picture of him with his last-minute gift (he gets the real ones at his party on Sunday) on Facebook last night, but he wouldn’t hold still, so it came out kind of blurry. I took a couple of the two of us snuggled up on the couch after that, but he wouldn’t sit still for those, either.

Happy Thumper is happy. 🙂

Thumper, on the other hand, sat still and smiled for his. It was an odd reversal of personalities.

Still, it’s nice to have a picture of Thumper that isn’t blurry. Usually I can’t get him to sit still for anything without holding him in place, and even that doesn’t usually work. Maybe tonight, though, he’ll sit still long enough to catch some candy at the Corn Carnival parade, assuming it stops raining long enough for the parade to go on…

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I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s posts as much as I have (don’t forget to check out the deets for the Rafflecopter giveaway at the end of the post). I’ve been a fan of A.F.E.’s since our Authonomy days, and I am beyond thrilled to see Darkhaven in print. It’s a wonderful book, full of all the things that make a story great: fencing, fighting, chases, escapes, true love, steampunky goodness…The list goes on.

And the writing! The writing is so beautiful. For example:

“…the scents of a summer night caressed her with their familiarity…”

“She hesitated, her skin crawling with tiny spiders of unease.” -If that’s not evocative, I don’t know what is!

“As the sun rose higher in the sky, prying into the shade of her hood with bright inquisitive fingers, she had slipped into the narrow gap between a dueling room and a weaponry.”

“The books were mainly vast tomes with leather bindings, bearing such enticing titles as Upon the Principles and Ordinance of Government and An Assessment of Trade Relationships Between Mirrorvale and its Neighbors.”

That last line actually made me…