The Salt of the Earth – An Unusual Travelogue

Thank you to Delilah for hosting Rachel and I today.  I wanted to share a little travelogue with you, though this one didn’t require any travel since it takes place right here in my hometown, Chicago.  Have you ever been to a salt cave?

Many of us use salt in our food every day, but have you ever stopped to consider this humble mineral?  Considered by herbalists to be valuable in healing and stress relief for centuries, we are only now beginning to realize the health benefits of salt in ways our forebears knew implicitly.  For the first time in the United States people are able to try the healing benefits of Crimean salt, a health secret known for decades in Poland.

The Galos salt-iodine caves are located in Chicago.  We arrived at a regular-looking building that houses the Jolly Inn Restaurant.  Parking is available across the street.  It couldn’t be less like an undersea environment if it were directly downtown.  We walked up to the glass door that seemed identical to any you’d find at a neighborhood salon.

Step through the door, though, and enter another world.

The lobby is lit with salt lamps, the lighting lowered.  Comfortable benches line the right wall with cubbies for shoes.  One does not wear one’s shoes inside the cave; one wears clean white socks.  We arrived and stowed our shoes and donned our socks, then the cave door opened.

Stalactites hang down from the ceiling, offering an immediate sense of the otherworldly.  The door is heavy, not like a normal interior building door but more like that for a sauna.  You step in and immediately sink several inches into rock salt crystals.  I thought they would hurt my feet but they massaged them instead, scratching pleasantly as I walked.  The cave is about twenty feet in an oval, lined with anti-gravity lounges.  They suggest you spend the first five or ten minutes walking slowly around the cave, massaging your feet and releasing more salt into the air.

Then you sit in the lounge and move it backward, reclining it so that your feet are above your head.  The lights are lowered and soft, relaxing music plays in the background.  The walls are made from bricks of the salt, which sparkles in the lamplight.  As you begin to relax, the music swells and you float away.  This lasts for about 50 minutes.

The next time you visit Chicago, I highly recommend a trip to the Galos Caves.  If you are curious, poke around their website.  There is a gallery of photographs and more information on the health benefits of the salt as well as how they mine it and make the caves.

What unusual travelogue would you write if you could?  Of what unusual things does your hometown boast?

My links:
Blog | Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | LinkedIn | Pandora
Knoontime Knitting:  Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Ravelry
Noon and Wilder links: Blog | Website | Facebook
Evanston Writers Workshop:
Blog | Website | Meetup | Forum | Facebook | Twitter | Annual Conference | ConTweets
Team Blogs: Nightlight | The Writers Retreat Blog | Beyond the Veil | LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers
Publishers: Samhain Publishing | Torquere Press

Check out BURNING BRIGHT, available from Samhain Publishing.
Check out EMERALD FIRE, available from Torquere Publishing.

With the Olympics blowing up your television, aren’t you glad there’s a quieter way to celebrate female athletes? This is out now! Click on the pick if you’d like to read my contribution to the anthology, “Playing the Field.” Congratulations to my friend, Ily Goyanes, for her debut as a Cleis editor! I’m proud to be a part of this book!

Even though they may not get a lot of action on the field after high school and college, girl jocks always manage to see a lot of action off the field. Because female athletes have an easy confidence about them, a natural nonchalance, and usually a killer bod, that draws all kinds of women to them—straight, lesbian, bisexual, curious, questioning, you name it. Women are competitive by nature, whether they play sports or games. Women play hard and love harder. They don’t just score—they keep track. GIRLS WHO SCORE is filled with story after story of complex, intriguing women engaging in all kinds of, ahem, contact sports. Sinclair Sexsmith contributes “A Good Workout” at the gym with lots of hot action in the steam room and Gina Marie has two women boxers going at it in every way in her ever-so-sexy “Blood Lust.” Delilah Devlin’s soccer champs have a very good time in “Playing the Field,” and Elle’s “Game Over” has a cheerleader who “trains” a freshmen each year to serve her every need. Sporty dykes aren’t always playing ball, so to speak. After all, scuba divers and gym bunnies are in fact athletes and editor Ily Goyanes features lesbian jocks of every stripe in this sweet and sweaty volume.

Table of Contents

Chairs by Sommer Marsden
Blood Lust by Gina Marie
A Good Workout by Sinclair Sexsmith
Lucky Number Three by Beth Wylde
Give and Go by Anna Watson
Playing the Field by Delilah Devlin
No, Tell Me How You Really Feel by Ily Goyanes
Run, Jo, Run by Cheyenne Blue
Boot Camp by JT Langdon
Facing the Music by Kiki DeLovely
Out and a Bout by Allison Wonderland
The Outside Edge by Sacchi Green
Hail Mary by Shanna Germain
Goddess in a Red and Blue Speedo by D.L. King
Cymone’s Dominatrix by Paisley Smith
Game Over by Elle

When characters attack

Okay, so he’d spoken two sentences there. “Okay…so what’s with you?”

His hand shot out and I found myself plastered against him two seconds later. “You stayed.”

“Damn it,” I snapped, shoving against his chest. Hard and hot, my hands slid against the smoothness of his flesh without budging him an inch. “What did you think I was going to do? I barely even know where I am.”

“You’re a little fool,” he muttered.

Then he buried his face against my neck and I shuddered.

“I never know when you’re going to show sense or do something that will end up with you dead…or worse.”

I could feel the heated puff of his breath against my skin and damn it, that shouldn’t feel so good. It shouldn’t feel so good at all.

Asshole. Territory. He was asshole. Territory.

I couldn’t…

My breath hitched in my chest as he lifted his head, staring down at me with eyes that burned. Storm clouds shouldn’t burn so hot. But his eyes did.

Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe—

Meet Kit and Damon, from my first full-length urban fantasy project, BLADE SONG…it was just released by my alter ego, J.C. Daniels.  I loved Kit.  She’s mouthy, she bites off my than she could chew and she knows she does it, but she’s driven by demons from her past so she has a hard time saying no in certain situations.

Damon was a different story.

This book sat on my laptop for a long, long time, unfinished.  Actually, it was barely started because the other character wasn’t who I needed him to be.  He was just a…well, a shadow character, basically.  He was like a sketch of the person I needed for the book and the book wouldn’t move forward.

Then back in January, the real Damon, so to speak, stepped up and the shadow character fell by the wayside and the book took off like whoa.  I’d never written anybody like Damon before.  He’s…well.  He’s hard to describe, but between him and Kit, they dominated my brain until I had the book finished.

They let me have a few weeks of peace…then they did it all over it again…if they keep attacking my brain like this, I won’t have a brain left.

If you’re into urban fantasy, BLADE SONG is now available on ebook (Amazon | BN | iBookstore | and other outlets) and print is coming.  You can read more at my website…

Shiloh Walker/J.C. Daniels

Quick note! Two Wild for Teacher is up for July’s Book of the Month at Long and Short Reviews! I’d really appreciate your votes!
The contest ends tonight!

Today, I’m headin’ due south—before the rooster crows! The Red-Headed Hellion (daughter), my sister Myla Jackson and I are driving to south Louisiana, following Highway 1 ’til we reach the end on Grand Isle. We’ll only spend a night in a dive, er, modest motel then start making our way northeast toward New Orleans. We have to be there by Wednesday for the start of the Authors After Dark conference.

Have good thoughts for our journey. I hope to soak up atmosphere, listen to the cadence of the language, and take tons of pics—all in the name of research. Let’s just hope my journey isn’t like one I’d write. Good thoughts, remember—nice and easy. No stress.

I have guests lined up for the week. Be sure to drop in and say hello.

I’ll leave you with a question…

If, for the rest of your life, you had to wake up every morning to one song
playing in your head, which song would you choose?

Question courtesy of The Question Guys

Hey there! Two quick notes!
1) Two Wild for Teacher is up for July’s Book of the Month at Long and Short Reviews! I’d really appreciate your votes! The contest ends tomorrow!
2) There’s a very short interview with a prize involved at What Daydrmzz Are Made Of. Drop by and post for a chance to win!

I don’t write separations much. In most of my stories, once the hero(es) and heroine are introduced, they’re pretty much together for the rest of the book working out their problems. Maybe that’s because that was always my own personal experience. *cough* In Ravished by a Viking, I gave Dagr and Honora a separation. He sacrifices himself, surrendering himself, his crew, and the ship he took as part of a larger plan. In the excerpt below, Honora knows he’s been tortured, likely already dead. But she’s made her own sacrifice, entering the Viking’s keep, without his protection, to tell them an army is coming. This scene preceeds my favorite scene in the entire book…where Vikings battle dragons…

2011 CAPA winner for Best Sci-Fi Romance!

What a Viking wants, a Viking takes.

When his younger brother goes missing, Dagr, Viking warrior and Lord of the Wolfskin Clan, will do whatever it takes to get him back. But nothing could have prepared him for Honora—a feisty, intelligent woman who is nothing like the women of his world—women who are content to serve their men in all things. Drawn to her despite her recalcitrant nature, Dagr is determined to show her who’s boss both in bed and out.

When the two enemies-turned-lovers join forces to find Dagr’s brother they are thrown into a rousing adventure full of danger, intrigue and erotic abandon. Can their passion truly unite them or will their different worlds lead to destruction for them both?

“They’ve come! They’ve come!” came the whispers up and down the wallwalk.

Honora ran to a guard who leaned over the parapet, his hand pointing.

Vikings scrambled from below, climbing the stairs and ladders to get to the top.

“Are they daft?” Odvarr exclaimed loudly.

And next to her ear. Honora shook her head to clear the ringing and aimed a glare his way. “Shhh! The wind will only carry away so much of our sounds.”

“Why bother being quiet? They’ve already proven themselves fools.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Heat is On

Wow! I live down south, and we’re expecting the temperature today to reach at least 98 degrees, with a heat index of 108-110. And no, this is not “dry heat” like one would find out west or even in Texas. This is sultry, stifling, breath-sucking, Deep South heat. The kind that makes you want to get nekkid, turn up the AC, and drink lemonade. Seriously.

My solution? Stay inside. My cats agree. Usually by 5:30 a.m., they’re clamoring to go out, and they might for just a little while. Then they return to the door, ready to come back in and sleep for most of the day, and scratch until I get up and bow to their feline pleasure. Cats that actually want to stay inside when they can chase varmint outside? You know it’s got to be hot.

I feel for everyone who has to work out in this heat. My sons both do. One is an electrician and has to go into attics on a frequent basis. I worry about him. The other one works for a freight company on the docks. At least he works mostly in the evening and not in the heat of the day. Still, I hope he drinks enough water.

Last Sunday, I went to a swimming party. The heat nearly melted me even though the pool water was relatively cool. The water in the pool where I take water aerobics in the early a.m. two days a week isn’t that refreshing during a heat wave like this. It’s more like bath water. Hot bath water. Jumping in takes my breath away, and not in a good way. Swimming, even that early, just makes me hotter.

I’m stuck inside writing when the weather’s like this. I usually love to write out on my deck in the late afternoon once shade covers it, but not right now. I’d die, even with my fan blowing right in my face. Staying inside makes for more distractions, but I just put in my headphones and plow on. Then I get to a steamy scene, and the heat builds again… Ack! Heat, heat, and more heat.

What do you do to keep cool when the outside furnace cranks up? Do you go swimming? Wallow in the AC like I do? Make cool drinks? Take off your clothes? Sit on an ice block? Okay, I’m laughing at that visual.

Reading—inside, of course—is always a good outlet. And speaking of reading… I have a new novella out this week! (How do you like that segue? Pretty cool, huh? lol) Hope you’ll check out this stand alone story… and just for the record, you might want to have some tissues handy; not to mop sweat, but to dry your tears. Just sayin’… it’s an emotional story.

EMILY’S NIGHTMARE is now available at Desert Breeze Publishing: https://bit.ly/MLaT31
**And at many other online outlets, including Amazon, B&N, the iTunes store, Sony, etc.

Detective Emily Rawson doesn’t want children; she’s too focused on her career to give a family the time required. That is, until she falls in love with fellow detective John Cutter, forgets to take precautions, and winds up pregnant. She fights the idea tooth and nail before finally deciding that having a baby is exactly what she wants—as long as the child is Cutter’s. Then tragedy strikes. Will it bring them together or tear them apart?

Fear pummeled Emily. She gripped the Glock and ducked into the enclosed stairwell. The faint odors of oil and gasoline rode the stale air. Time stood still. A bead of moisture rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away and peeked out the door.

Her assailant fired.

White-hot pain speared Emily’s shoulder. She screamed, the sound echoing as she lost her footing and tumbled backward down the cold concrete steps. She landed hard on her back, sticky, ruby red blood coating her thighs. Her head pounded. Fear took her breath.

Inky darkness spilled over her like rising water.

Emily bolted up in bed, cold sweat streaming down her back. The same awful dream. So painful and so real. Every night for the past six months. Ever since John Cutter, her former partner, best friend, and lover, had ridiculed her choices and turned his back on her.

That wasn’t the worst of it, however. Their breakup had come first.

I want a houseful of kids, he’d said. A big family.

His hopeful words had gouged a hole in Emily’s heart, because she didn’t want kids—despite the incident tonight with the rescued baby. Her own childhood had been a living hell, thanks to her father’s bitterness and her great-uncle’s roaming hands, and even though her mother had tried, Emily didn’t want to follow in her footsteps. The very idea scared her to death. Better to just forget having a family and focus on catching criminals. She was a damned good cop and well-deserving of her spot in her division.

During their last fight before she’d left burglary, Cutter had mocked her for making the change and had even bashed poor Mike Jamison, the high school history teacher she had dated for a time the year before while she and Cutter were on the outs. His animosity had made absolutely no sense—and neither did this recurring dream.

“What’s wrong with me?” Emily murmured, shuddering at the thought that she might not ever get a handle on her nightmares.

She raked the ends of her short hair off her neck to dry the perspiration coating her fevered skin. Tonight—she glanced at the clock and groaned; five in the morning, so make that last night—she’d gone to Bullets and spotted Cutter sitting at the bar, and she’d ducked out without him seeing her. No need to stir the hornet’s next. The last time she’d bumped into him there, he’d been way too abrasive. Not mean, exactly. Just belligerent.

She drew the covers up to her chin. She and Cutter had been partners in the burglary division for three long years. She’d thought he was her best buddy and more. And now—

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Something thrilling! I’m the Guest Author for the whole month of August on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association website! They’ve posted my bio and three FREE stories of mine! So be sure to head over there to check those out! Look at the panel on the left side where it says “Guest Author.”

I’ve been so busy with the Cleis Press books, I haven’t had a chance to talk about the book Paisley Smith and I put together. First, don’t you love the cover? Especially that big fat tongue? Mm-mmm.

I write a lot of short stories. Usually too short to publish on their own. While most are picked up for collections, I don’t like the thought that some of my readers can’t enjoy them if they don’t want to read an anthology of random authors. Last winter I put together a collection of hetero tales, called Strokes.  Readers seemed to enjoy that.

I still had all these lesbian shorts doing nothing on my computer. Not enough to fill out a collection all my myself, but then I have friends. One in particular—Paisley Smith—is a fantastic lesbian fiction author. I asked her if she’d like to join me. She was all over it, and in fact wrote never-before-published stories just for this book!

And if you think LGBT fiction isn’t your cup of tea, well take a look…

From Paisley’s “Riding Bitch”:

After my third call went to voicemail, I flipped closed my cell phone and peered down the dark street. No sign of my boyfriend, Garrett. I couldn’t imagine why he’d forgotten to pick me up from my job at the Giggling Grouper.

Thunder rumbled and I turned toward the gulf. Soft lightning illuminated the sky in the distance. But beach storms rolled in fast. Apprehension gnawed at my stomach.

I’d sensed Garrett pulling away, but since my job was seasonal, and I’d probably be moving back to my hometown in Georgia after Labor Day, I really hadn’t bothered to end things with him.

Tonight, it seemed, he’d beaten me to the punch.

I glanced at my watch. Half past two. He was thirty minutes late and everybody I knew was either in bed or lived an hour away in Foley. No sense calling a cab. The fee to make the hour-and-a-half drive from Orange Beach to my place in Bay Minette would cost every dollar I’d earned for the night.

The parking lot was desolate except for one empty car and a motorcycle.

Lindsey’s motorcycle. Read the rest of this entry »