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Laurence Raphael Brothers is a writer and a technologist. He has published over 25 short stories in such magazines as Nature, the New Haven Review, PodCastle, and Galaxy’s Edge. His WWI-era historical fantasy novel Twilight Patrol was just released by Alban Lake. For more of his stories, visit https://laurencebrothers.com/bibliography, or follow him on twitter: @lbrothers.

This is the fastest and tastiest soup you’ll ever throw
together. Chicken with Rice soup and stewed tomatoes alone is tasty. For more
tomato flavor, use a can of diced tomatoes, but careful. This tends to
overbalance the tomato too much and obscures that lovely chicken rice childhood
memory taste. Everything you add after that improves the mixture, or you can
serve it just like that warmed. It is a tasty combination.  

You can, of course, make a much more complicated soup. I
give you this recipe for the day when time is of the essence, and you are
already tired.

Keep ready-made roles or biscuits in the refrigerator for just
such an occasion and grab them to bake first. 

Optional Ingredients:

Any leftover veggies like green beans or asparagus, lima
beans, cut small. Bits of leftover meat: pork, ground beef, and breakfast
sausage, chicken. Whatever is left. 

Add water to desired consistency only at the beginning. 

Now put all your ingredients together and simmer until the
onions and celery are opaque. Should be about ready when the roles are nice and
brown. Serve with hot roles, biscuits and butter, and a lettuce salad with
dressing. Garnish soup with grated cheese. Put a petite bouquet on the table
and enjoy your lunch or light dinner. Plan for a renewing nap later. 

For dessert, two scopes of ice cream over half a banana
drizzled with chocolate syrup. 

This luncheon can serve four to six medium bowls of soup for
adults or a mob of small various sized children.

Here’s a peek at my Cozy Mystery, Murder in the Neighborhood, a novel which introduces you to Detective Kevin Fowler and the intriguing murders which infect this small-town Americana. The series follows the detective, colleagues, friends, and lovers through a whirlwind of events, good and bad, over the next three novels.

A killer is attacking respectable citizens in picturesque Hubbard, NY, and leaving corpses on their front steps in the middle of the day. Detective Fowler isn’t certain who causes him to lose the most sleep, a certain sexy reporter with bouncing curls and sparkling black eyes, or the elusive psychopath creating panic in his small-town community. Together, the detective and the reporter race to find the monster in their midst and return the town to the desirable place where people come to raise their families in peace and contentment. Can they sort through their differences to find romance even as they search for a determined stalker with murder on his mind? The clock ticks down on a man in a rage with a deadly mission.

She lives in Western New York where winter is snowy, spring arrives with rave reviews, summer days are long and velvet, and fall leaves are riotous in color. At long last she enjoys the perfect bow window for her desk where she is treated to a year-round panoramic view of nature. Her computer opens up a fourth fascinating window to the world. Her patient husband is always available to help with a plot twist and encourage Emma to never quit. Her day job is working with flowers at Herbtique and Plant Nursery, the nursery she and her son own.

Look for information about writing and plants on Emma’s new website. Leave a comment or a gardening question and put a smile on Emma’s face.

Stay connected to Emma on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check out the things that make Emma smile on Pinterest.

FREE 3 DAYS ONLY!

 A Groom for
Mama

is the Romance of the Day on Kindle Daily Nation Today,
September 1, 2023

and…

Is free on Amazon
September 1-3, 2023

Here is the link 

You have three days to get your FREE

fun, hilarious, award-winning, sweet romance,

from multi-award-winning author Catherine Castle.

The 2018 Contemporary Romance Raven Award Winning Book

What readers say about this book:

Castle writes with humor. The author excels at building romantic tension and also touching the hearts of readers with family drama. The novel moved me to tears a few times.

There are many twists that kept me turning pages when I should have been doing other tasks.

Definitely recommend this novel and this author! Sandy Hart

~

I immediately fell in love with these delightful characters and had a hard time putting this book down. From the start, I rooted for Allison and Jack and hoped Mama would live long enough to attend the wedding. But romantic journeys are unpredictable, and in this case, the path is filled with humorous (and disastrous) dates, misfortune, and sentimental moments. Joanne Guidoccio

~

You just know when there’s a loving mother involved everything is going to work out … not always as planned … but the end result will be exactly what you wanted. A Groom for Mama by Catherine Castle is no exception.

I fell in love with all the characters in the book, but felt especially close to Mama. This book is filled with a lot of love and heartfelt emotion. Beautifully written, it tugged on every one of my heartstrings and tickled my funny bone at the same time. AuthorLady 8

~

A Groom for Mama is a well written, delightful romantic comedy penned by author Catherine Castle. The story takes the reader for a ride—literally halfway across the country in search of the perfect man for Allison Walters.

Jack Somerset’s selfless, loving care toward Allison’s dying mother is tender and touched my heart. Catherine’s creative word phrases such as she “mined a hole the size of Texas” pulls the reader into the narrative and holds one’s interest.

I recommend this story if you’re in the mood for a one-of-a-kind story that entertains as well as delivers a refreshing message. Virginia J Foster

Get your copy of this delightful romantic comedy read,

A Groom for Mama

before it’s too late!

Don’t miss your chance to get this

FREE for THREE DAYS ONLY!

September 1-3, 2023

Connect with Inspirational and Sweet Romance Author Catherine Castle on these social media outlets:

Catherine’s website: blog: Amazon author page: Goodreads page: Twitter  @AuthorCCastle:  Facebook

Many books require research, and The Mercenary and the Shifters was no exception. We had to research a bunch of things for this book, but our favorite was the Hebrides Islands in Scotland. It’s a lot of fun when your book requires you to visit other countries. In The Mercenary and the Shifters-Book Four of The Turning Stone Chronicles, our hero goes to the Hebrides in Scotland.

We have never been to Scotland, but it’s somewhere Catherine has always wanted to go, so we set off to discover these remote islands with our hero, Mike Corritore, who lands in Benbecula airport in the Hebrides in the early dawn.

From the airport we headed south for South Uist, crossing a causeway lined on both sides with white boulders. Back on land, the road periodically narrowed into a lane and a half, the bulged-out lanes barely big enough to hold a vehicle. Houses dotted the landscape, surrounded by fields of low, green grass. Squat, wire fences penned in white sheep, grazing contentedly. Along the edge of the road, bushes leaned into the pavement, the tips of the branches sporting white blossoms.

En route for Loch Baghasdail, we crossed a second causeway. Just past the end of the causeway, a series of small, deep blue lakes dotted the countryside. As the road moved inland the landscaped changed. Fewer houses appeared along the roadside. Bleached, white boulders jutted from the ground like cemetery markers. The flat, slightly curvy road became straight, with low, rolling rises. Gray mountains, their tops ringed in matching gray haze, lay against the horizon on the left. The scenery was beautiful, bucolic, and stark at the same time.

Do you want to know the best part about this trip? It didn’t cost us a dime.

We went via Google Maps to the Scottish countryside. Ain’t the internet wonderful?

Maybe someday we’ll get to see the Hebrides in person. In the meantime, we hope you’ll enjoy our hero’s trip to Scotland, the exciting action-packed story, and the results from the fun research we did for this story.

If this piques your interest, then settle into a comfy chair and check out our books on our website’s book page, or on our Amazon Author Page 

The incredible edible egg makes a perfect salad to spread across your favorite bread for a delicious sandwich served with sliced avocado, chips, dill pickles, and your favorite soft drink. Now if you want to fancy things up for a summer lunch or dinner, egg salad works great for Stuffed Tomatoes. Serve with croissants, seedless green grapes, a small wedge of sharp cheddar cheese, and crisp white wine.

While Ohio is mostly opened up from Pandemic status, I hear lots of newscasters asking, “When will we get back to normal again?”

This question now is mostly related to the economy, workers going back to work, restaurants having their normal hours and normal menus back, schools and businesses being fully opened again, hospitals, airlines and nursing homes going maskless, and whether a new wave from a variant virus will set us back to 2020 shutdown status again.

There is, however, one thing that has come back to normal in record speed—Scamming and Phishing!

I’ve talked about phone scamming and phishing in the past, but I received a couple of calls that I think bear repeating. This past week or so our phone has gone nuts with scam calls. I received a call from a local hospital where my sister had been admitted a while ago. Not thinking about scamming, but wondering instead if she was in the hospital, I answered the call. It was a Medicare scammer. I bawled him out and hung up with a threat to report him to the FCC.

I had another interesting and doozy of a call the other day from Beverly Hill, California. I didn’t answer, but they left a voice-mail message. Our voice-mail system forces us to listen to the messages in order to clear them. Most of the time they are truncated messages that don’t give us much of a clue as to what the caller wants. As I punched the replay button that day, a computer-generated voice said. “Sorry. You did not reveal yourself to be human.”

If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black, I’ll eat my garden hat! It’s too bad all the other scam phone calls don’t recognize my computer-generated message isn’t worth their time as well. That would solve my constant ringing phone issue.

I’d love to hear your craziest scam phone call message.

Catherine

There are no scam phone calls in Catherine Castle’s award-winning comedy with a touch of drama, A Groom for Mama, but there are plenty of scammy dates.  Follow the antics of Alison Walters and her mother Beverly as the pair works at cross purposes while gallivanting across the country—one wants a wedding, and one doesn’t. 

Beverly Walters is dying, and before she goes, she has one wish—to find a groom for her daughter. To get the deed done, Mama enlists the dating service of Jack Somerset, Allison’s former boyfriend.

The last thing corporate-climbing Allison wants is a husband. Furious with Mama’s meddling, and a bit more interested in Jack than she wants to admit, Allison agrees to the scheme as long as Mama promises to search for a cure for her terminal illness.

A cross-country trip from Nevada to Ohio ensues, with a string of disastrous dates along the way, as the trio hunts for treatment and A Groom For Mama.

AMAZON BUY LINK

Multi-award-winning author Catherine Castle loves writing. Before beginning her career as a romance writer, she worked part-time as a freelance writer. She has over 600 articles and photographs to her credit, under her real name, in the Christian and secular market. She also lays claim to over 300 internet articles written on a variety of subjects and several hundred poems. In addition to writing, she loves reading, traveling, singing, theatre, quilting and gardening. She’s a passionate gardener whose garden won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. She writes sweet and inspirational romances. 

You can find her award-winning Soul Mate books The Nun and the Narc and A Groom for Mama, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Follow her on Twitter, FB or her blog.