Apr 18 2018

7th Annual Authors in Bloom Blog Hop


7th Annual Authors in Bloom Blog Hop. The hop will run for 10 days from April 18th – April 27th.

7th Annual Authors in Bloom Blog Hop

Monday April 18th — Wednesday April 27th 2018

10 Days of Giveaways, Gardening Tips, Recipes and More!

Dianne Venetta_AIB Logo_2015

 Plus a GRAND PRIZE you’ll be digging to win!

All prizes are listed at the bottom of the post.

Hello, my name is Janice Seagraves and I love to garden.

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My garden tip today is not to trim your fruit trees too late in the season. Do it no later than December. We waited too late and ended up cutting off the blooms from our trees and had no fruit that year. In our defense this is our first house and it came with fruit trees and we’ve never had our own fruit trees before.

After that year of rest, we had lots of blooms.

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And if you’re interested in flowers, and livein a dry area, I suggest pansies and sweet Alyssum. I live in the Central Valley of California and they do well here. I had to sprinkle slug killer on my pansies as you can see in the above photo since they slugs were eating up my pansies but the sweet Alyssum did fine. I suggest using a slug killer that is nontoxic to children and pets like Iron phosphate – Completely disrupts their digestive system and adds iron into the soil while it’s at it.

Now on to my next favorite subject, writing…..

When writing a series, it is all about the what ifs…
When I decided to write Matrix Crystal Hunters I planned on a science fiction romance set on another planet. It would be a desert planet.
I also had to figure out the what ifs…
What if… a team from Earth had fought a wormhole and landed on a planet and they were sick from radiation poisoning and their fuel exhausted?
What if… their team’s geologist, (I decided on Maya), heard of a crystal that would multiply energy.
What if… harnessing the energy of these crystals was the only way to go back to Earth?
What if… a native of the planet fell madly in love with our heroine (I named him Vach) and decided to creep into her tent late one night…
And she brained him with a frying pan.

Okay, I know that sounds bad, but you’ll have to read the book to see why it works out.
After I finished, I kept revising the story.
That’s what writers do, they can’t leave their stories alone and have to keep fiddling with it.
I went over my finished manuscript until I feel it is polished within an inch of its life.

After the first story was published, the characters kept talking…
And I kept writing.
Book two came out, Matrix Crystal Christmas. It’s made up of two short stories. It wasn’t originally supposed to be about Christmas, but the Christmas season was coming up and I thought I’d add some Christmas elements to the last chapter of each story.

In Crystal Flower Christmas: Vach and Maya are on a mission to undam the Laonooco River for the drought stricken region. As heartache fractures their marriage, will the gift of a crystal flower mend their relationship or break it beyond repair?

In Crystal Clear Christmas: Plague has struck the village of Zama and the citizens blame the only human left on Zenevieva, Maya. Will Vach make the ultimate sacrifice to save his wife?
I actually thought I was done with Maya and Vach, but then their son wanted his own book and I wrote Matrix Crystal River.


It was the first time I wrote a shy character. Most of the women I write about don’t have a shy bone in their bodies. The stories theme is also a bit different.
What if… the humans came back after twenty years, and their greedy Earth government wanted the matrix crystals to exploit?
What if… their geologist though talented in finding and shaping crystals was painfully shy and sensitive?
What if… River Namaste wanted her and wouldn’t let anything, or anyone get in his way?
River’s story was published late in 2016.
Aha, I thought I am done.
And then, Vach and Maya’s daughter is poking me in the shoulder and told me it was her turn.
Okay, fine. I wrote the next book, Matrix Crystal Rebels, and it was just published 12-19-2017. So just a month ago.
Again, the ‘what ifs’ are a bit different.
What if…Earth geologist Steen’s mission is to look and act like a Zeeman, so he can locate matrix crystals.
What if… Steen’s deception fails, and the only one willing to help him is Rain Namaste? (Maya and Vach’s daughter?)
What if… Steen doesn’t realize he’s fallen in love with the lovely redhead until someone tries to claim her on Hymeneal Night?
What will he do then?
Ah, am I done now? We shall see…

Matrix Crystal Rebels

Excerpt:
“Mom.” Rain waved at Maya. “Someone is here to see you.”
“Oh?” With one last swat at her clothes, Maya marched over.
“He says he’s a merchant.” Rain gestured at Steen.
Maya scanned his attire and snorted. “Tell your commander, nice try.”
His stomach dropped. “Huh? What did I do wrong?”
“Whoever coached you was misguided. For one thing, your clothes are the wrong type. Merchants don’t wear rough weave.” Maya rubbed the fabric of his sleeve between her thumb and forefinger. “That’s for peasants. Too fine a weave would be clan, so you’d have to find something in-between.” She stared at his eyes a moment. “Are those contacts?”
He rubbed his eyelids. “Implants. I can tolerate the bright sun with them.”
She gave a nod. “You’ll need it here. Nice touch with the hair, by the way.”
He fingered a braid. “At least I did something right.”
“It’s a little long for so many braids. And the skin tone… Is that a skin dye?” She stared at his face.
“DNA treatments.”
“How about the Zeeman dual belly buttons?”
Steen pulled up his shirt.
“Wow. Which is fake?”
“The top.” He handed her his tote. “I brought a gift for you.”
She cocked her head to the side and sighed. Taking the tote, she nodded toward the house. “Will you come in for some tea?”
“Yes, thank you.” He bowed low, hiding a smile.
Maya led the way up on the porch. He did what she did, removing his shoes, washing his feet in the basin then pulling on a pair of house slippers she handed him.
“Nice. You invoked guest privilege,” Rain said in his ear. “Mother is human but practices the ways of the Zeeman.”
“I know.” He smirked at her.
With a reluctant expression, Maya held the door open for him. “Tea won’t be but a moment.”
“Goddess tea.” He bowed again.
“Of course.” Maya disappeared into the kitchen.
Rain showed him the dining table. “My father and brother probably won’t be as nice as my mom.”
He sat on the richly carved black ironwood chair next to Rain. “You’re an attractive young female. Maybe I should have said I came here to woo you?”
Interest lit her gaze. “And then you’d have to answer a lot of questions from both my parents. We take wooing very seriously here in Zama.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Matrix Crystal Hunters: https://www.amazon.com/Matrix-Crystal-Hunters-Book-Crystals-ebook/dp/B00FJ10W26/
Matrix Crystal Christmas: https://www.amazon.com/Matrix-Crystal-Christmas-Crystals-Book-ebook/dp/B00GJCNBAY/
Matrix Crystal River: https://www.amazon.com/Matrix-Crystal-River-Crystals-Three-ebook/dp/B01MDOHI70/
Matrix Crystal Rebels: https://www.amazon.com/Matrix-Crystal-Rebels-Book-Four-ebook/dp/B078HL6113/
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Find Janice Seagraves’s on:
Her website: https://janice-seagraves.org/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Janice-Seagraves-Author-117551164948239/
And on Twitter: https://twitter.com/janiceseagraves
Janice’s Amazon page, where you can see all her books: https://www.amazon.com/Janice-Seagraves/e/B0056D223Y/
Janice’s Smashwords page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Ladyjanice

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***Prize Alert***

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Grand Prize

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here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

Only those visitors who visit EACH and EVERY stop are eligible
for the grand prize ereader and gift card.

Eligibility will be verified by hop’s end.

Winners will be posted on both the first (Dianne Venetta) and last
(BloominThyme) websites.

Janice’s Prize is a sighed paperback book, science fiction romance, Matrix Crystal River. The winner will be be chosen on where you live. Because of the high cost of shipping, the winner will have to live in the USA or Canada for me to be able to ship a book to them. Please leave a comment about where you live, your email, why you love to garden, and what is your favorite genre.

32 comments on “7th Annual Authors in Bloom Blog Hop”

  1. I live in Northern Ontario, Canada and because of our sometimes harsh winters, it’s a bit of a gamble trying to grow fruit trees! lol We had 2 apple trees that did good the first couple of years and then we had an extremely cold winter and the trees never recovered. I have a huge veggie garden, as well as a fairy garden which I enjoy taking care of, it just feels good to have my hands in the dirt and be one with nature:) I love the sound of your Matrix Crystal series, will definitely have to check them out!! My favourite genre of books to read is Historical romance but I’ve been known to read other genres as well:) Carole Burant (carole_57@hotmail.com)

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hi Carole,

      Thank you for leaving a comment. I imagine it is hard to garden in a cold climate. Good for you for doing it. I live in a hot climate and my problem is keeping my garden watered enough. I’m glad you are willing to read more than one genre of romance. 🙂

      Janice~

      Liked by 1 person

  3. I wish we had fruit trees on our property here in WI. Maybe we will get some apple trees! I like all genres, and really enjoyed your excerpts.

    Mary McCoy
    emmasmom69 AT gmail DOT com

    Like

  4. Really liked your excerpts Janet. I live in NJ. I have always wanted to garden but never had the chance. But I’m definitely going to go for a Herb garden and see how it goes.
    Carol Luciano
    Lucky4750 at aol dot com

    Like

  5. I live in Portland, OR! I love to garden and was outside weeding today!! I always use slug bait for slugs and snails for Oregon has a lot of them!! The rain!! I am planting a lot of dahlia’s this year! They will bloom until frost which is nice! Rita Spratlen

    Like

    • Hi Rita,

      Oh, I imagine you would have a lot of slugs. Rain seems to breed them.
      We have snails here, but slugs at the old house. I was at the west side of town and now I’m at the east, that is the only difference. I hope your Dahlias are beautiful this year.

      Janice~

      Like

  10. I love in SE VA and depending on how Mother Nature behaves we can have blooms during Christmas and snow in May ~ LOL. I planted a kiwi bush but I have a sneaky suspicion that it wasn’t a mix sex bush as it hasn’t produced any flowers at all. Though we’ve only had it for 3 years this spring. I was REALLY hoping last spring that I would see buds but I think it was just leaves. It’s super “bushy” so who knows. No other fruit trees in our yard. We do have gorgeous roses and lilacs (that on,y last for like 2weeks) my roses last all summer and fall.

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  12. Hi Janice, I live outside Atlanta, Georgia and we have a lot of fruit trees around, especially though in middle Georgia. They grow wonderful peaches there and a lot of other great fruits. I have never planted one but have always wanted to do that. My favorite genre is historical romance but I do go outside of that on occasion!! lfdykes@comcast.net

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    • Hi Lori,

      Of course, they grow the Georgia peach there. I live in a neighborhood that each street is named after fruit and the street next to mine is called Georgia.

      Historical is a tough genre to write, but lovely to read. I glad you are willing to give different genre a chance. 🙂

      Janice~

      Like

  13. I’m in southern California and I appreciate your tip about the slug control, I will definitely have to look for that. I love all of the romance genres, particularly science fiction romance!

    elewkf1 at yahoo dot com

    Like

  14. I live in NJ and rent, so I don’t have much of a garden, even though I’d love to have some plants and veggies. My favorite genre. Romance. specifically, Regency and PNR. Also, science fiction and fantasy. mystery and suspense. I think it’s easier for me to say that I don’t like than what I like!

    thank you for the chance! vipersweb (at) gmail (dot) com

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  15. I live in Arizona and I don’t have a garden but we are replanting some bushes in our front yard. My tip is to make sure your irrigation is working. I love historical romance books. jeanna_massman(at)hotmail.com

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