Guest Post: Lesotho - Expect the Unexpected!

It is my pleasure to host the first guest post by my husband, Francois Venter, who is a passionate photographer. You can see more of his photographs here. Enjoy!

In 2012 a group of us undertook a trip by road to Lesotho. We were going to stay at the Katse Village. Katze village is approximately 110km from the Caledonspoort border post outside Fouriesburg in the eastern Free State.

We should probably have realised during the trip to Fouriesburg that the trip will not be what we expected. At Frankfort we saw the temperature drop to -7°C. And when we entered Clarens we saw our first real snow. The freshly ploughed fields were covered in snow. Even the golden gate national park mountains showed mountains covered in snow. It was roughly at this time that we did start to worry about the road ahead.

But wait more was to come. Nothing prepared us for the snow and ice that we would be driving on for the next 6 hours. As we drove along it just became worse and worse, testing a number of photographers who tried a 4x4 trip for the first time. There is however one point that nobody could argue with, and that was the beauty of the surroundings. In the short periods of time when you were not trying to keep the car on the road, you could admire the beauty around you.

From deep soft snow that is untouched to grass that peaked through the snow. Photographically you asked yourself a number of time where you should start. There was so many beautiful scenes. Travelling on through the mountains, ice and snow, you eventually reach Katse dam. When you see the dam for the first time, you think: We are there !!! Well you are so wrong. At that stage you are at least 40km away from your overnight village, such is the vastness of Katse dam.

Katse dam is 42km in length and 135m deep in places. It easily measures 500 to 800m wide in most places. Around every corner there is a new view of the dam. It is here where you start to realise that this country is presenting a face that you did not expect. It is barren, it is harsh but its natural resources are well utilised. These resources have be gathered and provide a number of excellent opportunities to its people. 

We later learned how poor the rural people were. However, many of the poor households in rural areas had electricity, stone built toilets and access to water for their farming activities.

Blog Tour: My Mr Manny by Jennifer Garcia

Summary:

Mia Balducci misses her childhood days and yearns for the big, Italian family that she left behind in small town Massachusetts. At the tender age of sixteen, Mia moves with her bachelor father to Los Angeles, but no matter how many years pass, it never becomes home to her. The years spent living with her father aren’t easy, especially since she can’t stop thinking about what she once had. Her enrollment in the University of Southern California promises to bring exciting changes to her life, but Mia winds up with big problems instead. When she runs into an old friend from her old hometown of Winthrop, she gets swept up in nostalgia, and she soon loses herself in a quickly-progressing romance. When the fantasy falls apart, she is left to raise her precious little girl, Lucia, on her own. The demands of Mia’s work schedule and Lucia’s needs increase, and their lives become increasingly hectic. It is soon clear to Mia that she needs help. Luckily, her life-saving cousin saves the day and brings the mother and daughter a male nanny – their new “manny.”
After losing his high-pressure job on Wall Street, Dominic Roberts wants to follow his dreams to have a family. He’s already one fiancée down, and there are no likely prospects for another. In order to find the family he so desperately wants, he finds himself getting into the manny business. Since he is fully qualified to provide child care and is eager to leave New York City behind, his sister-in-law is able to land him a job in California working for his first client – the beautiful and intriguing Mia Balducci.
Will Lucia like the new man in her mother's life? Will Mia? And will this new trio discover the happily ever after they all so desperately seek?

Buy Link for My Mr. Manny on Amazon

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Author Bio:

Jennifer Garcia’s (aka Forbes Arnone) love of travel began when she went to the West Coast to visit her father at the age of three. Her home until she was sixteen was a small coastal town near Boston. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, two sons, and two dogs.

Her lifelong love for reading and writing was put aside for many years while she made her way in the world and nurtured her young family. Even though she is older, and life never seems to settle, she’s finding her way while attending college full-time in pursuit of a B.A. in English Literature. She also runs a business, and is still caring for her family. Believing she can do it all, with the help of her family, she worked on her first novel during the late hours of the night while balancing the rest of her life during the day. Her hard work paid off, as her first novel, My Mr. Manny, will be published August 2013.

Find Jennifer on:

Facebook Page

Twitter

About.me

Authorsdb

Independent Author Network

Amazon - Forbes Arnone

Sign-up to host the Render blog tour!

Hey, blogger friends, listen up! I've got a chance for you to receive a free eBook and to compete for over $750 in prizes, and it's so easy to participate. Read on for more...

Novel Publicity is currently recruiting for one of our gigantic whirlwind tours. YAY! Each whirlwind tour boasts hundreds of dollars in cash prizes and autographed books, sometimes even Kindle Fires. NP also provide eBook copies for all reviewers. This time, they're touring the debut YA novel by Stephanie Fleshman, Render.

Choose to be one of the first to read this awesome new book, or, instead, host an excerpt, interview, or guest post. That’s right, you don’t even have to read the books to participate–although that's definitely an option. Novel Publicity will provide your choice of a pre-formatted excerpt, interview, or guest post to make participation easy.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN-UP!

 
Tour Dates: September 9 to 13, 2013
Genre: Paranormal YA
Page Count: 399

The Prizes:

* $100 Best/ most creative entry
* $100 Random commenter prize
* $50 Rafflecopter (2 prizes)
* $50 Random blogger award
* $50 GoodReads party prize
* $50 Facebook sharing contest
* $100 in the special author contest
* Kindle Fire in the special author contest

CLICK HERE TO SIGN-UP!

About Render

A betrayal born of blood

A curse for a gift

A love worth saving

Blog Tour: Everything Bared by Kristine Cayne

Two polar opposites—she’s kinky, he’s uptight—discover they share a taboo desire that may destroy both their futures. 
 
Firefighter Dani Harris has always wanted a family, but doesn’t think it’s possible because of her demanding, high-stakes career. Her sex life is as high-adrenaline as her job, and that’s just one more thing that makes her unsuitable to be a wife and mother. Her secret kink—exhibitionism—has gotten in the way of more than one relationship. Will she ever find a man who not only shares her wild fantasies, but loves her for them?

Burdened with ensuring the success of the struggling family business, William Caldwell IV needs a wife suited for a CEO—one with money and connections, who can manage his busy social life and raise their 2.5 children. He’s got everything all mapped out, but when he meets Dani, a woman who’s every kind of wrong, she taps into desires he’s only half-recognized and long-suppressed. Suddenly his carefully crafted five-year plan feels as confining as a straightjacket. 

As Dani and Will’s sexual experimentation escalates, they test the limits of polite society by baring all and risking exposure—an exposure that could cost them their reputations and careers. 

Buy Link:
Amazon 

 
Author Bio

Award-winning author Kristine Cayne is fascinated by the mysteries of human psychology

—twisted secrets, deep-seated beliefs, out-of-control desires. Add in high-stakes scenarios and real-world villains, and you have a story worth writing, and reading.

Kristine’s heroes and heroines are pitted against each other by their radically opposing life experiences. By overcoming their differences and finding common ground, they triumph over their enemies and find true happiness in each other’s arms.

Today she lives in the Pacific Northwest, thriving on the mix of cultures, languages, religions and ideologies. When she’s not writing, she’s people-watching, imagining entire life stories, and inventing all sorts of danger for the unsuspecting heroes and heroines who cross her path.

To learn more about Kristine and her stories, visit her website: www.kristinecayne.com

INVITATION: Guest Posts to Celebrate Spring

In the southern hemisphere we look forward to the advent of spring with all the fresh air, and cleansing Highveld thunderstorms and the blooming flowers and greenery that result.
Our summers are hot and as soon as the weather starts to warm up, people are planning and looking forward to their holidays over Christmas.
To help me celebrate this time of year, I am looking for 6 guest posts in September for this blog from my fellow authors, or aspiring authors.
Consider your life and writing and tell me and my readers about your time management, social media management. marketing your book, choosing editors, proofreaders, cover designers, ie all the activities that are involved when you write, publish or market your book, except the writing itself. What works for you and what doesn't.
Leave a comment, tweet me (no DMs please) or PM me on Facebook to pitch your idea. Remember our summer holiday is coming, so your bio and the details of one book should accompany your post.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Remember to sign up for my newsletter for notification on any future events.

Happy Birthday Mom!

This week my Mother is celebrating her 72nd birthday! She is one amazing lady, having survived cancer last year, it is my absolute pleasure to have her on my blog today.

In honour of her, I am offering my scifi romance short story, PERFECT, for free this week.

You can use the coupon code, NA54E, from 19 to 24 August 2013. The free ebook download is only available here on Smashwords.

I hope you will enjoy the story and give your Mom a hug too!

Follow Me @ Mabula Private Game Reserve

For the past few days I had been to Mabula, just a couple of hours north of Pretoria, with the absolute intention of writing and finishing my current work-in-progress, Michael's Mystery (excerpt here).
What I did do was take a few photographs of birds and animals that visited me at the  bungalow where I was staying.
While my word count was a pathetic 2600 words in four days (head hanging in shame), I have come to the realisation how hypocritical humans have become.
 
The photographs you see here are of animals that approached me!
What?
Exactly.
They should have been running or flying their little legs off to get away from the highest predator in the food chain!
Instead they approached me, because people who come to the reserve (that focuses on conservation I have to stress here) feed the animals because they are cute.
I beg to differ.

While a small antelope might not be a predator, it is still dangerous. I had a run in with a male impala when I was younger and almost got run through by it horns.
The birds and animals are fed things that could potentially be poisonous to them. Or their babies. But no, we feed them because they are cute!

Tell that to the next woman whose child is bitten by a baboon, or gored by a sharp horn. And it is always the animals that get put down because people never think about the consequences of their actions.

The warnings are there for a reason, don't ignore them.