Sapphire Phelan visits with us today. Please give her a warm welcome.
What is this obsession about age? I mean, my 57th birthday just hit me September 11th and do you see me all in a titter about it? Well, okay, maybe a little.
Look at Hollywood, for example. They take an actor like Sean Connery who's close to retirement age and pair him up with this 20-30-something for a romantic age. I see that many times in movies. I rarely see an older actress and a younger man as romantic leads, or even a man and woman the same age. Excuse me?
With Baby Boomers at or close to Social Security age, they don't call themselves old but middle-aged. I even saw a new report on CBS Early Show where senior citizens are getting face lifts through plastic surgery. And don't get me started on Botox!
With creams for anti-aging of all kinds fighting for space with the original, Olay, on shelves at stores, and every day on some talk show there's an expert on aging talking about how to fight age like a valiant knight battling a terrible dragon, no wonder age is on our minds all the time. We're searching for the "magic bullet" to delay wrinkles from spiraling out of control on our faces and hands. Put an anti-aging label on a bottle, stick it on the shelf at the store, and off it flies.
I admit I use Olay. I listen to those "experts" and try to do it ala natural, buying and eating vegetables, fruits, green tea, and other foods jammed packed full of antioxidants and other things that are suppose to save me from becoming Granny from Beverly Hillbillies. Besides the fact, I am not just fighting off wrinkles, but memory loss, osteoporosis, heart disease, and cancer. There's so much to worry and think about getting old, it's no wonder I might welcome memory loss.
I dye my hair. But my husband doesn't. When I tell him we can get him Just for Men, an over-the-counter hair dye for the guys, he just looks at me like I am crazy or something. He tells me he's happy with the gray. Maybe we should be like him and say, "So what? Who cares?" Then again, what does he know? This is the man who freaks out if I put his age on his birthday cake.
Yes, I think that everybody today is obsessed about age. But I plan to try and not be so much. In fact, I pledged to . . . excuse me, but I got to go, as another expert on aging is on right now on Live With Regis and Kelly.
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My newest title is A Familiar Tangle With Hell, the sequel to Being Familiar With a Witch. Find it at Phaze Books. Tina isn't obsessed with age--she's immortal--but she is worried about Lucifer, demons, prophesy, and even a demon bunny. Check out the blurb and a short excerpt from the erotic urban fantasy.
Blurb:
Tina and Charun thought it was all over and that their life would be normal--well, as normal as it could be for an immortal Witch and her demon Familiar. Except there was another prophesy, one that laid claim that if Lucifer snatches Tina and mates with her before the last chime before midnight of the new year and gets her pregnant with his son, that the real Armageddon would begin, spelling the end of life as they knew it.
When Tina is stolen away, Charun, along with Jacokb the archangel, must race against time into the bowels of Hell to rescue her. But with demons, Lucifer, and a cute demon bunny with fangs out of a Monty Python nightmare, out to stop them and Heaven not lending a hand, will Tina become the mother of the Antichrist and the start of a new Hell on Earth?
Excerpt:
She leaned back against the rocky wall in the cave and heaved a sigh of relief.
"Who are you?" asked a sweet little voice.
Wary, for in Hell, a child could be deadly, Tina muttered another spell and lit up the cave to see who the voice belonged to. Startled, she saw a cute little white bunny, wiggling its fluffy tail.
What the--
"I am Fluffy. Who are you?" it asked, hopping closer.
Tina dropped into a crouch, putting out a hand. "I'm Tina."
Fluffy stopped. "I am hungry. So very hungry. May I munch on you?" It opened its mouth incredibly wide and revealed sharp, bloody fangs, with what looked like a couple of pieces of flesh caught between in the back.
Tina leaped to her feet. "No, you may not eat me."
The bunny from Hell cocked its head, puzzled. "Why not? Lucifer has never stopped me from doing it to other unlucky living mortals who ended up here." Its eyes darkened, going to a hell spawn gleam. "My master has even let me nibble on souls, too, though those do not taste as good as real flesh."
"Well, there it is! Your master would not like it if I ended up on your dinner plate a pile of bones."
"Why?"
"Because specifically, he had me brought to Hell to become the mother of his child."
The tiny fiend looked downcast. "Master would give me to demons to roast over a fire if I do a stupid thing and eat you." It looked up at her and Tina grew chilled as a parody of a cunning grin flitted across its mouth. Back on Earth real rabbits did not grin. "But once you give Master his child, then maybe he will be grateful to Fluffy because I take you to him." Fluffy stared up at her with big, round eyes. "I do not think he would want you roaming around Hell. Other demons may not be as smart as me and would go ahead and swallow you."
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