Realms of the Raven - Erotic Romance Author Maura Anderson

Managing a Family by J.J. Massa
Book 4 of The Montgomery Family
Venus Press eBooks - March 2006

Yancey Livingston thought his finding his mate and marking her was a dream born of the exhaustion and partying following the end of a concert series. When he woke in the morning, his memories of the night were confused and incomplete but he could smell her on his sheets. Now if only he knew if she was human or Were and how to find her….

Philomena Crossland has been a backup singer and friend of the Montgomery family for years, ever since they had taken her in when she was expelled from her own family as an unwanted hybrid. For years she’s known her mate and been in love with him, but he’d never given her the time of day.

Now Yancey has marked his mate but how does he convince her that he’s not the unfeeling jerk and unworthy mate he first appeared? Can he redeem himself?

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I started reading the Montgomery Family series with the very first book - Acting Like Family. Since then, I’ve waited (and pestered) for each new book and bought them as soon as they were released.

This is another great book in the series. I’d wanted to know what would happen to Yancey for a while but I hadn’t anticipated this :)

The strong personalities and individual natures of each of the characters in JJ’s books is superb. They are all distinctly individual and human yet … not. It’s a difficult thing to pull off in a shapeshifter series. They never lose their humanity and flaws but never are purely human.

One of the most interesting things to me in JJ’s series is the hybrids - be they Were + wolf or Were + canine, it’s interesting to see the prejudices that exist and how they play out into the plots and werewolf society. I am particularly fond of Mik and this is interesting in counterpoint to Mik’s nature, morals and impact.

The only disappointment I really had was that now I’m worried about Miles and Ashley and can’t find out what happens NOW.

You can read these stories independently of each other but I highly recommend the whole series. These are the stories that put JJ on my auto-buy list and I still reread all of them periodically.

A little background … I sent out an informal essay that I’d scrawled out for a non-fiction anthology (it was rejected - no huge surprise or heartbreak) to a loop I’m on. I stated to start with that it’s unedited and uncorrected but I thought people would be amused.

Most people got what I had intended - a little laugh.

But I got back one piece of private mail from a loop member that was, in my opinion, absolutely scathing. I won’t post the mail here but it boiled down to it was crap, no wonder it was rejected and I shouldn’t put it on my site because it’s not worth it.

I’m in shock a little, I think. I’ve gone between outraged, hurt, pissed off and am not debating killfiling this particular person (it’s not the first time I think this person has been a jackass).

Anybody got advice? I’m trying to not let it affect me but I can tell I’m now a little leary of picking up my WIP and working on it. How do you cope if/when this happens? What would you do - and creating a flame war on the alias is out, I won’t be a party to that.

So, I’ll preface this post by saying that I’ve had this happen before and I’m am honestly not sure just what sparks it. I wish I knew because then I’d have some clue it was going on before I had to deal with it. Instead it just lands on me suddenly.

I’ll also mention that logic and rationality seem to have little to do with it. And yes, I’ve been tested for bi-polar, etc. but short of some Seasonal Affective Disorder, I’m fine.

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Ever have one of those days when you really feel like you’re either wearing someone else’s skin or maybe you just don’t fit in the way you thought you did?

Today (and yesterday) are days like that. I just don’t feel … connected. I feel like I’m watching the world from about 10 paces away and I’m not really involved. I’m unnoticed and unnoticable.

It’s very weird. I’m not normally a very needy person. I am actually considered rather anti-social by many people, especially in person, and tend to be extremely comfortable with myself and silence.

My psych minor tends to rear it’s ugly head at times like this and cause me to try to psychoanalyze myself. Not exactly a recommended practice but oh well.

When I get this sensation, my instinctive urge is to retreat. To crawl fully into my hole and drag the cover down after me. When I really start to try to figure out why, I *think* it is boiling down to emotional investment in the people I chat with and the projects I am working on. It’s now become important to me that they like me and continue to like me. Despite my comfort with self, I like THEM a lot and I don’t want to feel disposable. I think the neediness comes from some inane need for reassurance.

I have no idea why and certainly no one needs to feed my whiny little subconscious. The feeling passes in a day or two but it’s such an ODD sensation. A little eerie, a little whiney, a little bratty.

Does anyone else get this same weird feeling? Same reason? Different reason? Or am I just as weird as people claim?

Gemma K, who designed my lovely blog, is back! She was running “Design-A-Blog” but has gone through a business revamp and is now

GemmaK Designs!

I love her design for my blog and she was so easy to work with that I bought a blog redesign for a friend of mine as a gift!

I highly recommend her to anyone who wants a blog redesign without having to get down-n-dirty with the code themselves (I can work with but LOATH Cascading Style Sheets)…

Check her out — check out her designs!

Welcome back, Gemma!!!

I finally got email from HR today, I now have (and have accepted) my official job offer! Yee hah. It will probably be a little over a week to get the rest of my junk done and then I’ll need to pack up my office and stuff. Then I plan to take a few days off before I start the new job. I’d guess about 3 weeks before I actually start!

YIIPEEEEE