Tag: dragons

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About Toi

All About Me Monday No. 01 #thetoiboxofwords #geek

I’m making some changes around here. I’m combining four posts into one- one day all about me and, hopefully, you too if you care to join in and comment. I’d like to start the day off by counting my blessings. Here’s number 24.

blessings

Plastic (synthetic fibers)

While nothing will ever be able to compare to the smooth, delicate warmth of genuine silk or the shiny luster of precious gold, there’s something to be said about plastics and other synthetic fibers. This is one advancement in technology that I have no trouble standing behind, except for when it comes to debating the use of all natural products (which I am for), but sometimes it’s good to go against nature. If we left everything up to nature, when a soldier loses a limb in battle or a construction worker gets maimed, we wouldn’t bother trying to give him/her new limbs because that’s not how nature works.

I like plastics because they do make our fast moving world safer. They protect us from ourselves. I also like that most, not all, but most plastics are recyclable and naturally reusable. I’m blessed to live in a world where a childrens’ playroom can be filled with soft round plastics instead of hard pointed wood, glass, and metal.

Now it’s time for some inspiration with My Geekdom 24: Dragons

geekdom2
Pins from Pinterest that inspire me and indulge my geekness.
Click image to visit my boards

Pinterest board
Dragons

I am going to write a story about a dragon as soon as I come up with a storyline worth sharing with the world.
Dragons are magical, powerful, mystical, spiritual, mythical, and so much more. They can be good, bad, or somewhere in between. Tales of dragons go back to the beginning of time. There isn’t much more I can say about them. Just thinking of dragons makes me want to read or write something filled with magic and wonder of the great unknown.

 

Now it’s time to get a little personal with my Top 5 – Movie Genres (23).

sample This is a list of my top five something. Most of the time my lists are pretty static, but sometimes I do change my mind. While I do try to apply some logic to my choices, sometimes I pick things that make no sense and for no good reason other than “I like it.”

Wikipedia

Movie Genres

1. Action/Adventure

2. Sci-fi/Fantasy

3. Comedy

4. Quirky/Independent

5. Animation

-Honorable Mention- Foreign

Thanks to Hulu and Netflix I have discovered the creativity of foreign storytelling through film. I like to be entertained and in doing so, I don’t always need to be shocked, intellectually stimulated, or challenged morally or emotionally. Sometimes a good movie is just brain and or eye candy.

So now, it’s time to end things on a more biographical note with my Listography of: Past Boyfriends or Close Encounters (23).

listography

These are the lists that tell my life story. They are in no particular order and some of them are very personal. Please be nice, and if you want to share, I’d be glad to take a look at what you have.

Past Boyfriends or Close Encounters
-Some kid when I was two – four. I remember there was a little boy I absolutely adored, but I can’t even imagine his face or think of his name now. The feeling is still clear though. I really liked that kid, as if he was one of my stuffed animals.

-Josh. A kid I knew in the third grade. He was awkward, but I like him.

-DeJuan. I boy from fifth grade who became a great friend before his family moved to another state.

-Richard. Another boy from fifth grade who followed me to sixth grade. He was good looking, but trouble. Way too mature for his age and I wasn’t willing to participate.

-Gentrey. Richard’s friend who I thought was different, but not so much.

-John. A high schooler in love with a middle schooler and very sweet. Also a little obsessive. 7th and 9th grades are not the time and place to be thinking about marriage.

-My Stalker in 9th grade was never my boyfriend, but he made me weary about dating all together.

-Derrick. Handsome and funny. My mom liked him and I liked his family. In the end, we were meant to be friends.

-Random first dates with serval guys who weren’t interested in dating a pretty girl who never “puts out.”

-The guy I thought was pretty nice until he joined the military and then went AWOL.

-The first date who died tragically a week later.

-The drop dead gorgeous guy with little to no personality and baby momma drama. It lasted three dates.

-My husband who almost ended up dating my roommate, but that was a misunderstanding on my part. Apparently we had been dating the whole time, but I thought he was hanging out with me to learn more about her. 😉

Listography are books and a website dedicated to helping you write or consider your autobiography through the process of making lists.

Go ahead, add your two cents. I’d love to know about you.

Visit my topics/categories to see previous installments of these posts.

Also, check out the new blog hog I’m trying to put together. BooktagsBlogHop

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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Excerpts Virtual Book Tours

Dragon Love by @marcauthor Book Blast & Giveaway by @MasqTours #DLBlast #fantasy

For love that is tested
in the crucible of fate must burn, or die…
 
Publication Date: August 15, 2015
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Series: Dragonfriend #2

When a woman loves a Dragon, that love will change the world.

Six years have passed since Hualiama and Grandion defied the Island-World’s most sacred law. They burned the heavens together as Rider and Dragon. For his crime, Grandion the Tourmaline Dragon suffered exile and imprisonment. The Dragons forced Hualiama to forget her past.

Now, the suns must set upon the age of the Ancient Dragons. Amaryllion Fireborn, last of his kind, bequeaths Hualiama an astonishing legacy. She is the Dragonfriend. Raised by Dragons. Burned by Dragon fire. Oath-bound to a Dragon. Crossing the Island-World in search of her Dragonlove, she will forge an indelible mark upon history.

As war between Dragons and Humans engulfs the Islands, Hualiama must unravel the secrets of her tragic past in order to confront an evil that threatens the very existence of the Dragonkind. For love that is tested in the crucible of fate must burn, or die.

Excerpt

DRAGON-THUNDER SHOOK the palace.

Hualiama kicked off her soft slippers. Picking up her formal lace skirts, she began to run, but the long train snagged immediately on the curved claws of a stylised jade Dragon. Dagger in hand, she hacked wildly at the priceless fabric restricting her stride. Bleeding–Dragon fire take it! She stumbled up endless stairs designed by an architect enamoured with galleries sized to house ridiculous mountains of royal artefacts. Entering a long corridor, her woefully short legs stretched into a sprint. Ranks of larger-than-life paintings of tall, pointy-eared ancestors blurred to either side. All of her attention was focussed on the altercation on the Receiving Balcony, atop Fra’anior’s Royal Palace.

A Dragon’s voice boomed, “This means war, King Chalcion!”

She had to stop them. Now.

Slewing around a corner, Lia deliberately cannoned off a man-high ornamental vase. She caught her balance, agile as any dragonet, and picked up her knees. Head down, she pumped her arms, accelerating to the speed of a warrior and dancer who trained for five hours daily. Twisting between two thickset marble columns to shortcut her route, Lia used a stone pot-plant as a springboard to leap upward at full stretch, flying briefly over a yawning drop to the palace gardens below. Snagging the crenulations atop the wall with her fingertips, she wriggled upward with the facility of a lizard scaling a wall and vaulted smoothly onto the balcony beyond. One more level.

She heard querulous voices, and the swish of Dragons’ wings. They were leaving.

Her heart could not sink, because it was thrashing about in her throat. But it should. This was just the incident to ignite the simmering relations between Dragons and Humans. She should know. That very morning, Lia had witnessed a Dragonwing immolating a Human village.

Bounding up the final staircase, she raced out onto the balcony, screaming, “Stop!”

Lia caught her foot in the wreck of her dress, slipped, and skidded across the rough flagstones all the way to the edge of her father’s robes.

“Stop them!”

Stooping, the King seized her arm. “This is an outrage, Hualiama! How dare you barge–”

She tore herself free, hurled herself to the balcony’s edge, and screamed again, “Stop! By the Spirits of the Ancient Dragons, please!”

Hualiama gazed out over her beloved Island. Sweet, haunting harmonies of birdsong and dragonet-song saluted the gathering evening, the ever-song, some called it, the unique melody of Fra’anior, which was an Island-Cluster of twenty-seven Islands precariously perched on the rim-wall of the greatest volcano in the Island-World. The late afternoon light streamed in so thick and golden, she feared the King might pass a law to store it in the royal treasury. But she had eyes only for the Dragons.

Four Dragons winged over the vast bowl of Fra’anior’s volcanic caldera, their scales gleaming like glorious jewels in the resplendent light. Two were hundred-foot Reds, as perfect as matched rubies, called Zulior and Qualiana, and the third a vast emerald-green named Andarraz. Sapphurion, the Dragon Elder himself, led their Dragonwing. His scales evoked the turquoise hue of a clear lake. All were breathtaking, but Sapphurion was the greatest of all, the leader of the Island-World’s Dragons.

The four Dragons banked with supreme grace, angling back toward the Receiving Balcony. Hualiama’s heart stood still.

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Marc is a South African-born author who lives and works in Ethiopia with his wife and 4 children, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a variable number of marabou storks that roost on the acacia trees out back. On a good night there are also hyenas patrolling the back fence.


When he’s not writing about Africa Marc can be found travelling to remote locations. He thinks there’s nothing better than standing on a mountaintop wondering what lies over the next horizon.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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Books

Review: Seraphina

Seraphina (Seraphina #1) by Rachel Hartman

I give this book a 4, almost a 4 and 1/2.

At the very core of this tale of fantasy are the ideas of warfare and the use of espionage, but before you get to all that, you meet Seraphina Dombegh. In this world of Goredd, humans and dragons (in human forms) live side by side, but not necessarily amicably and Seraphina is caught in the middle of these two peoples, just trying to keep the peace.

There is so much I could say about this story to hype it up, but I’ll keep it short and simple.

1. I really enjoy the world building of this book and the background story. This new take and twist on the dragons’ tale is refreshing, but I do wish there had been more time spent with the dragons overall.

2. The way this book handles issues of politics and social etiquette is very matter of fact. There is a sense of realism that takes you out of the fantasy and lets you see the underline meanings and how these things can relate to your life.

3. Seraphina is a wonderful and relatable character. She can be whiny at times, but that only makes her seem more real, especially in times when she’s not whining, but fighting and taking charge. Seraphina represents the insecurities of humanity (or should I say, of sentient beings). We never see ourselves as others do and we tend to be more critical of ourselves than is necessary, and that’s what Seraphina does. However, she does actually have a very good reason for being self-conscious, but through it all, she continues to fight.

4. There are many sub plots to this story that sometimes outshine the happenings of the overall plot, but it all works together in the end. The subtle sense of romance is down played quite a bit, in a realistic manner since the characters are on the verge of war. There are stories of loss, revenge, honor, and discovery within the pages of this book and they all mesh quite well together.

The only other thing that slightly soured my reading experience was the flashback technique of sharing someone else’s experiences and memories. That was a little hard to read, but since everything was ultimately explained, it didn’t take too much away from the story.

If you like dragons and have an open mind, you should enjoy this story.

This review has been posted to GoodReads. If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book, try this link.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords