For Mom Mom by Antonia Tiranth

Today we have author, Antonia Tiranth, and her touching tribute to her recently departed grandmother. May Mom Mom's love of spring--and her love of our Antonia--live on forever. Namaste, Cindy
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Spring has arrived! The robins are hoping about in the front yard, flowers are starting to poke their heads up in the gardens, trees are getting little green buds on them, and Rita’s gave away a free Italian ice to every customer. For me though, spring is more than a little bit gloomy. Not because of all the spring rains we’ve been having but because one of the most influential people in my life is gone. Mary “Sis” Edmond, my grandmother, ended her years long battle with illness on St. Patrick’s day.

What exactly does this have to do with spring? Well, for me, spring always meant that my Mom-mom and I would be going to take the dog for a walk or go up to The Avenue, a stretch of Eastern Avenue that several years ago had a department store and an old five & dime. Of course, in recent years, we didn’t do any of that but the memory remains. In addition to my mother and my writing buddy, Mom-mom was the person I was most excited to tell when I heard about the acceptance of my first book. At this point in her life, it was very difficult for her to read so I had plans to read it to her but as with many things, we never found the time. When I found out my books were going audio and told her, the look of pride and excitement on her face was enough to make my heart swell. Unfortunately I won’t get to know what Mom-mom thought of my books but I know she was proud of me. She was even accepting of my erotic novels, something the rest of my family is a bit uneasy about.

Spring will always hold mixed feelings for me now. On one hand, the excitement of the world coming back to life after a long winter and on the other, the memory of our loss. My grandmother, however, loved spring and I will always remember that too, celebrating it in honor of her.

I’m giving away a copy of my second book, The Gathering, to one lucky commenter!
Stop by my website and facebook for a visit! http://www.antoniatiranth.com/ www.facebook.com/tiranth

A Scaly Love Affair

My guest today is author-on-fire, Antonia Tiranth! Her book The Gathering was nominated for LASR and CAPA awards. Congrats, Antonia :) Now, let's see what she has in store for us...

When Cindy asked me to write a blog about love, I thought “Sure! Easy peasy. I'll have that done by the end of the week.” The end of the week came and nothing. Another week...nothing!

Tonight, just a few days from my scheduled date and I still had nothing. So I wrote a blog about dragon superstitions for Romance in the Backseat and I had the bingo moment. Dragons. I LOVE dragons. Small ones, big ones, skinny ones, fat ones, mean ones, nice ones. You name it, I'll probably love it. I've always been fascinated by dragons. When I was sixteen, a friend of mine showed me a dragon tarot deck and I said I wanted the king of swords as a tattoo. I turned eighteen and went to get said tattoo but chickened out of the dragon. I thought there was no way I'd like dragons in ten years. Fourteen years later, I love them more than I did then. I just got my king of swords tattoo over the summer last year. My favorite deck to use for readings, The Celtic Dragon Tarot, blends my love of dragons with my love of Celtic mythos. Whenever I ran a D&D campaign I just had to sneak dragons in there somewhere. In one campaign, it was a religion based around dragons, in another one NPC had a slightly mental green dragon named Slimy as a friend, and in yet another the PCs mission was to transport a dragon egg. I have dragon statues decorating my room, a dragon desk calendar, a pair of dragon speakers, and I really want the dragon stapler.

So what does this mean for me as a writer? My very first published work, The Quickening, is about the return of dragons to the world after almost a century and the central characters are part of a race of dragon shape shifters. This quickly evolved into a series, The Tales of the Rikashi with two other books currently in publication with Lyrical Press, Inc (The Gathering and Black Velvet) and four more planned for the future. After writing, the first three Rikashi books, I branched out into the erotic world with my Tarot Kings series. Each book's hero will represent one of the kings. Currently I have King of Swords out with Red Rose Publishing and King of Cups submitted, waiting to hear back on that. I bet you're thinking that I can't possibly have dragons in that, right? Wrong! The heroine of the first book, who will tie in the tarot card in each book, reads from a dragon tarot deck. My current WIP is centered on dragons. Its a wonder my fiance hasn't accused me of cheating on him with a dragon :)

For more information on my releases, please visit website
For The Tales of the Rikashi, visit Lyrical Press, Inc
For King of Swords – A Dom for Christmas, visit Red Rose Publishing
You can find me on Facebook and Twitter, drop me a line, I'd love to hear from you.

Thank you Cindy for letting me visit!

Antonia Tiranths New Year's Blog Bash!

Peeking in to urge everyone to drop by Antonia Tiranth's blog for her month long New Year's Bash! She has a plethora (yes, I just used the word 'plethora,' lol) of talented authors, including yours truly on Jan. 20th. Join the fun today! http://antoniatiranth.blogspot.com/