Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

It started with a snake. Or rather, a photo of a snake, posted by a Facebook friend—a photo of a large (6-7 foot) black rat snake that apparently found its way into her shed.   Responses to said photo ranged from “Eek!”, “Ewww!”, and “Yikes!” to the ever-popular “Why did it have to be snakes?” This is a reaction with which I completely sympathize, no doubt stemming from my early exposure to far too many National Geographic specials featuring poisonous snakes. And Rudyard Kipling’s classic story, “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” brilliantly adapted by Chuck Jones into an animated 1975 short.   The mated cobras Nag and Nagaina would give anyone nightmares. My personal interactions with snakes have been brief, harmless, and infrequent thus far, which I fervently hope will continue to be the case. However, that didn’t stop me from a near freak-out some years ago when I almost stepped on one, which was lying across a footpath and doing its best impression of a broken twig. My sandal...

I’ve been watching Doctor Who since I was a kid. It used to scare me terribly (does anyone else remember the disembodied hand that would strangle people? Or was it just me who had to take a run at my bed in case there was a hand under it?—I was about 8 at the time). As an adult I loved the reboot—that may also have had something to do with David Tennant. The reboot has made some innocent items scary. Is that an extra shadow in my bedroom? And don’t start me on the gas mask thing *shudder*. Because it’s Halloween I thought I’d share my own story of the terrifying innocuous thing. Several years ago I lived in Victoria for about six months, cold, wet and down the peninsula (which meant colder and wetter and closer to the Navy base). Lying in bed drifting off to sleep listening to the rain… Yeerk, yeerk, yeerk My eyes open wide. “Did you here that?” “What?” said Hubby who obviously hadn’t heard anything because he was asleep. “That! It sounds like someone against the gl...