Adriana Kraft

When it's time to heat things up...

Blog

On My #Bookshelf: Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly #WWII #TrueStory #HistoricalNovel #Review

by

I was a very young teenager when my mother took me to see the documentary movie Mein Kampf. I’ve never been able to erase those visuals, black and white photographs of concentration camp victims. That was my mother’s point: We must never forget.

Perhaps for that reason, though I choose to read a lot of history and historical novels, I’m never thrilled to encounter Nazi horror up close on the pages I’m reading. I don’t wish to experience it again.

I picked up Lilac Girls on the recommendation of a good friend.

I made it through the early segments – the invasion of Poland, Caroline Ferriday’s work with refugees in New York City, the early violence against Jews in Germany. I set the book down when the narrative placed the German female doctor – Herta Oberheuser – in Ravensbrück. I didn’t want to go there.

When I told my friend, she said to keep reading, that it would be worth it.

And it was. Through the horror, in spite of the appalling devastation and loss, this is a story about redemption. And it is a true story, fleshed out with the author’s narrative of the main characters’ internal thoughts and reactions.

Through tracing the actions (and probable thoughts) of real characters New York socialite Caroline Ferriday and Herta Oberheuser, then weaving them with the narrative of the fictional polish teenager Kasia Kuzmerick, the author plunges us into the horror of the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women.

Fast forward the narrative to the mid-fifties, after the war is over. I was unaware this story was real until I began to read about the role of Norman Cousins, editor of The Saturday Review. My family subscribed to that magazine, and through my early adulthood, I did, as well.

At that point I set down the book again and began chasing links online – yes, true story, impacted by people I “knew,” though not personally. Caroline Ferriday enlisted the help of Norman Cousins and his platform to raise funds to bring thirty five of the Ravensbrück survivors to the US for whatever corrective surgery was possible. In so doing, she was continuing a family legacy of political and charitable activism. Since the publication of Lilac Girls, author Martha Hall Kelly has released two additional books, chronicling the role of Caroline Ferriday’s ancestors during WWI (Lost Roses) and the Civil War (Sunflower Sisters). I highly recommend all three books.

“It’s wick!” An Old Favorite #childhoodmemories #Booklover #Reader #BookAddict

by

“There’s lots o’ dead wood as ought to be cut out,” Dickon said. “An’ there’s a lot o’ old wood, but it made some new last year. This here’s a new bit,” and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray.

Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way. “That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive?”

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth. “It’s as wick as you or me.”

Okay, confession time – do you ever, when you’re pruning and unintentionally clip off a branch that’s green, say “Oh! That one’s wick!”

I was trimming back our Oleander so it wouldn’t brush against the house when we get strong monsoon winds. There were several live branches I intended to cut back, but then when I was cleaning up its final shape, I accidentally cut a branch that had a bloom on it. And there came the words, unbidden, from my childhood.

The Secret Garden. I’ve no idea how old I was when I first read it, but it’s still vivid to me. I wanted to run wild in those Yorkshire moors, I wanted to be any of those three children, and most especially, I yearned to have my own “bit of earth” to garden.

That final wish, my mother in her wisdom granted, to my younger sister and me. A plot of downhill slope, in the corner behind the shed and beside the chicken yard, maybe thirty feet by sixty. She let us fill it with seedlings from anyplace we could find them. We created a path, lined it with boxwood seedlings, planted iris when Mother broke up the corms from her flower beds in the fall, planted a mimosa seedling, and even found a paper mulberry sapling by the old corncrib that we transplanted partway down the slope. Later there were daylilies and a rose arbor.

Fast forward three or four decades, and my youngest son, aged about 11 at the time, was cast in the role of the invalid Colin in our local community theater’s production of The Secret Garden. Proud moment. Clearly the garden (no longer quite so secret) is still with me.

What childhood books have enchanted you long into adulthood? Curious minds want to know.

HookUps ~ First Swinging date for a mid-life couple! #Sale #TBT #Backlist #MFRWAuthor @extasybooks

by

…so life happens, and I missed TBT yesterday, but meanwhile, with our car in the shop so long, I got to drive a hot fire-engine red Mustang for a couple days!

Better late than never, here’s our Throw Back Thursday post for a backlist book:

Swinging Games: Hookups

Do you ever fantasize about what it might be like to be in the swing lifestyle? We think lots of couples have this fantasy without ever taking the plunge and getting involved, and that’s part of why we’ve written an entire series about it. Swinging Games, with fifteen novellas, is the story of an empty-nest couple who get curious and decide to try it out. The series is a safe way for wanna-be’s to dip their toes in and find out more. A great way to feed those fantasies, even if they never lead any further!

We’ve visited several swing clubs and talked with lots of swingers, and they tell us our series is spot-on accurate about some of the best of what the lifestyle has to offer. Hook Ups is our fictional couple’s first date in the lifestyle – the first time they have a sexual adventure with another couple. We should add that first “dates” don’t always lead to play – often couples who’ve decided to meet plan a “meet and greet” first, to figure out if they’ll really want to get up close and personal. Fortunately for our couple, the answer this time is yes.

BLURB

Friends with benefits – a brand new world opens up for Jen and Brett Andrews in the enticing but unpredictable world of swinging. Will Pam and Rick be all they’ve hoped for? Will Tom and Linda disappear after chatting them up? What about Carl and Alice? Fantasies and new hookups fuel the fire of lust and excitement, but what will happen to their marriage?

EXCERPT

Trying to keep the obvious lust from his eyes, Brett nodded and smiled at Linda, who was eyeing him boldly over her wineglass. She sipped her wine and shuddered slightly as the liquid slid over her palate. Brett’s breathing tightened when she chuckled softly and set the glass down on the table.

“We’re glad you agreed to meet us on rather short notice.” Linda’s white teeth glistened and her dark eyes snapped. “Sometimes good things can come from cancellations.”

“That was lucky for us,” Brett said. “I can’t even recall the names of the couple that bailed on us. Pictures don’t do you guys justice.” He knew that must sound like a hackneyed line, but he meant every word. Even attired modestly in a blue blouse and black slacks, Linda projected that confident sexy air that never ceased to arouse him. She glowed a mixture of eroticism and exoticism that was nearly spellbinding.

He reached down and briefly squeezed his wife’s fingers, which had been doing a tap dance on his inner thigh—their sign that this was a couple with whom she wanted to play. Stifling a chuckle, he blew a kiss at her. They hadn’t even been served yet. Sometimes Jen could be quick with her judgments, but then there’d been little doubt since their first contact on the swing site that they’d want to play with the couple from Louisville. It still wasn’t clear if the chocolate-skinned female and her tanned husband would want to play with them, but Brett sure hoped so.

BUY LINKS

On Sale at Extasy Books

$2.40 https://www.extasybooks.com/hook-ups

It’s easy to download Extasy books to your Kindle. “Send to Kindle” instructions are at the top of the page at the Extasy Facebook Reader Group, Book Carousel. While you’re there, we’d love to have you join us—theme days, author events, games, prizes, plus a chance to get to know all the wonderful Extasy authors.

Other Retail Outlets

$4.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XREY9A

$5.99 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/hookups

8,000? 10,000? How much is enough, and why? #StayFit #Motivation #JustKeepWalking #CountingSteps #MFRWAuthor

by

I know many of you – reader and author friends alike – are struggling with health issues and doing your best to stay healthy. I used to blog regularly about health-related issues and how to stay motivated. I never made a conscious decision to quit blogging about it, but life happened. New health challenges arose and I wasn’t as happy with what I was doing – or with the results, for that matter.

In 2015 I got diagnosed with blood glucose problems, leading to a makeover of our eating habits and even more pressure to keep up aerobic exercise. When that wasn’t sufficient and the threat of needing medications loomed, I took yet another class and learned about the role of strength training in managing blood glucose. Strong muscles pull the sugar out of the blood, even more effectively than an aerobic walk. I’m on it. Half an hour, two or three days a week. Most weeks. I’m not perfect…

Sometime around then I dropped back from 10,000 steps a day to 8,000, re-set my Fitbit goal, and was pretty satisfied with how that made me feel. In case you didn’t know, aerobic exercise, among other things, rewards our brains with dopamine and helps combat depression. I like how that feels.

Mr. Kraft is always on the lookout for news articles I might miss that could be helpful. Last week he sent me one whose headline I would probably never chase – it starts out PEOPLE WHO DO THIS ONE THING EVERY DAY… Those lead-ins always annoy me. But because he’d sent it, I kept reading. The rest of the headline reads, pretty much, HAVE HALF THE DEMENTIA RISK OF THE REST OF US.

He definitely had my attention. Both my mother and her father spent their last years lost to us in full blown dementia. If there’s anything I can reasonably do to prevent that future, I will. Major motivation.

The article actually reports scientific research that shows how the risk for dementia decreases with the increase in step count. Here’s the LINK, for those who’d like more detail. Benefits start to show up at about 3800 daily steps, reducing risk by 25%. Getting to 9800 steps daily reduces the risk by 50%. People who walk 30 minutes of those 10K daily steps at a brisk pace (about 110-112 steps a minute) reduce their risk even further, to 62%. So I timed myself for four minutes, and I’m a tad over that. Well and good. Lets do this!

Today is my father’s birthday. He lived to be 101, and he walked extra steps and climbed extra stairs whenever he could, until he became wheelchair bound toward the end. I think he’d be pleased with what I’m doing, and I’m pleased to be posting this and remembering him on his birthday.

Stolen Painting Returned: Life Imitates Art #RomanticSuspense #ArtHeist #IARTG #MFRWauthor

by

Don’t you love when life imitates art? Today’s headline in Southern Arizona tells about the return – after significant restoration work at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles – of a de Kooning painting worth over $100 Million. The delivery was kept secret due to the value of the painting, and it was accompanied by uniformed police and Homeland Security officials.

Did we write this? Well, not quite. Our little heist from a fictional small town Nebraska museum was on a far smaller scale. We never created an actual value for the (again fictional) trio of “priceless” Impressionist paintings involved; we did, however, develop so much detail in describing them that they feel real to me. Unlike the de Kooning painting, ours were never defaced and needed no restoration. I suppose I’m giving away the happy ending of finding them, but it’s a romance, so you knew that anyway!

You can read more about how the De Kooning painting was stolen and recovered at this link: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/16/woman-ochre-de-koonings-painting-from-theft-to-its-return-home.html. I was fascinated to know how close we came in our story to creating the variables that make such a heist possible—but then Mr. Kraft is a criminologist, so we had a leg up. If you’d like to read more about how we stumbled onto our story, check out our release announcement from 2014: https://adrianakraft.com/?p=6076

A heist? A murder? It’s villain’s choice.

BLURB

A special-order art theft? Tedious, but seamless – until small town museum director Kara Daniels calls in the experts. Furious her favorite trio of priceless impressionist paintings has been stolen from its traveling exhibit on her watch, Kara is determined to save not only the paintings, but her future in the art world. She’ll stop at nothing to entrap the thief.

Ted Springs knows the underbelly of the criminal world a little closer than he might like—but he’s turned it to good advantage, first as a police officer, and now as detective for the Upper Midwest Arts Council. His job? To guarantee the security of the valuable paintings in the Council’s traveling exhibits.

Heat sizzles when Ted and Kara collide—can they work together, before it’s too late?

BUY LINK    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LNE7366

REVIEWS

Five stars at Goodreads: “The sex is hot and I loved the phone sex scenes. Never did I expect the ending. It was brilliant. The Heist is a winner!” Sheila G.

Five stars at Amazon: “From the start, the perspective of Kara, the museum’s director and the thieves are cleverly interwoven…  rich in detail…   held my interest and kept me reading forward.” Gaele  “Very hot…engaging, entertaining, funny and serious, well written and extremely enjoyable to read.” Donna H.

EXCERPT

“I and my staff have already done fairly thorough background checks on all the museum employees,” Ted said.

“Oh.” Kara scowled. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“But you expected it?”

“Of course. At some point.”

“I believe in being efficient. Even before certain added incentives.”

“I can always change my mind. I don’t know a thing about you.”

“You know enough. I have large hands.” Ted chuckled when she winced. “I’ve worked for the Upper Midwest Arts Council for five years.”

“And before that?”

“I was a Chicago cop.”

“Oh.”

“I went into the army right out of high school and completed my BA degree at U.I.C. while on the force. Funny, isn’t it? While you were working on your MA at the University of Chicago, I was patrolling the streets of Hyde Park and South Chicago.”

“Really?”

“That’s right.”

“Maybe we bumped into each other.”

“I highly doubt that. I wouldn’t forget bumping into you. Remember?”

“Oh, right.” Kara’s flush returned.

Colors of the Night ~ Northern Lights, a love goddess, and an unhappy couple #Sale #TBT #Backlist #MFRWAuthor @extasybooks #paranormal #timetravel

by

It’s Throwback Thursday, and we thought we’d show a little love for one of our favorite stories – in fact, the first book of ours that was released by Extasy Books. We poured so much of what we love into this book. Camping on the Minnesota Boundary Waters, and yes, frequent viewings of the Northern Lights, often out our north-facing patio doors, a cozy place to watch when it was below zero. Our hero and heroine live in the Twin Cities, one of our favorite haunts. But since there’s an immortal goddess involved, that’s not the only setting in the book. Sometimes they time-travel (and sometimes we write something we haven’t seen or done).

All backlist books are currently on sale 40% off at the Extasy Books website.

BLURB

The dazzling and timeless love goddess Aria pays a visit to struggling thirty-something Jamie and Ryan Hazleton, who are on the brink of divorce.  When the hot sex that results from her first lesson cools to icy glares, Aria decides to move in with them and provide more experiential learning.  Can Ryan overcome his jealousy of Jamie’s uninhibited response to the delectable goddess? What if he succumbs to his own desires?  Only time will tell whether this love triangle with an immortal will ignite or extinguish the dying embers of Jamie and Ryan’s love.

EXCERPT

Jamie heard the tent zipper open and felt the rush of cool night air all in the same instant. Where was Ryan going in the middle of the night? Startled, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. A tiny sliver of night sky was visible through the open tent flap—and it was pulsating with light.

“Jamie. Wake up. You’ve got to see this.” Ryan’s voice was a whisper.

Did he really want her to join him? She hugged herself against the chill, grabbed her sweatshirt, and crawled out of the tent.

Ryan’s hands were reaching for her, so she took them and let him pull her to a stand. Tall columns of color—multiple hues of greens, blues, reds, yellows, and occasional whites—fell in a shimmering waterfall connecting sky and lake. The colors danced across the entire dome of the sky. She’d never seen anything like it.

They stood hand in hand for a long minute, then wordlessly walked down to the lakeshore and sat side by side on a low rock. Shrouded in rising mist, the lake seemed to be hovering between earth and sky with no boundary. Jamie lost herself in the throbbing rhythms of the dancing light.

“This is what I’ve been missing,” she heard herself say. “It feels like magic, like time is suspended. I wish we could catch and hold this moment forever.”

“I know,” Ryan replied. “It’s been difficult to remember such moments. I sometimes wonder what else we’ve forgotten.”

“You have each forgotten how to love.”

Jamie gasped and squeezed Ryan’s hand. “Who said that?”

Ryan shook his head.

“I said that.” 

Jamie watched in awe as the mist swirled and collected itself into the shape of a stunning female. The image pirouetted as if to prove she was much more than a vision. Jamie tried not to stare. The woman’s copper skin was barely concealed in a gauzy white gown; Jamie could make out her darkened nipples as the image floated closer to them.

“You two need help.” The phantom shook her head, sending her long dark hair flying.  “Your marriage is crumbling. You care for each other, but you’ve forgotten how to love—if you ever truly knew how.”

BUY LINKS

Extasy Books

$3.00 at Extasy Books https://www.extasybooks.com/colors-of-the-night

It’s easy to download Extasy books to your Kindle. “Send to Kindle” instructions are at the top of the page at the Extasy Facebook Reader Group, Book Carousel. While you’re there, we’d love to have you join us—theme days, author events, games, prizes, plus a chance to get to know all the wonderful Extasy authors.

Other Retail Outlets

$3.99 at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XREZ1W

$4.99 at Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1021002949

$4.99 at Apple https://books.apple.com/us/book/colors-of-the-night/id950075962

$5.99 at Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/colors-of-the-night