I love rain.
And there is no better time for a night-time walk than when it’s raining.
The streets are sooo quiet. Even on a Friday night there’s room at the bars and restaurants, unlike a normal Friday night, so you don’t have to wait for a table or fight with other hungry people hehe.
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…And It’s a Rainy Night In Malaga
A Hike in the Rain in the Montes of Malaga
I’ve always had a lot more difficulties making friends here in southern Spain than in Barcelona or Madrid. Everyone thinks it must be easy to make friends here because southern Spaniards appear very friendly and open. But that is only superficial appearance. In fact my impression is that southern Spaniards are much more closed minded (in general and also when it comes to making friends) than people from Madrid or Barcelona. Or maybe it’s just cultural differences, but I’m from a place where you don’t make friends the same way people do here.
I made a ton of friends when I lived in Madrid, unfortunately I didn’t keep in touch with most of them when I left. Those were the days before email and Facebook, and people’s phone numbers (landlines, because those were also the days before mobile phones) change and they move. But I’m still really good friends with some friends from Barcelona. I found it easier to make friends in Barcelona than here in southern Spain.
Once someone who had lived in France, who said she’d lived in France for many years (she was American), said that in France people have 3 groups of friends: childhood friends, usually from the same elementary school they went to, high school friends and university friends. Once people got out of university, they lost interest in making friends and if you wanted to be their friend, they didn’t. I find here in southern Spain it’s very similar.
Most people here have lived here all their lives and they only hang out with people they’ve known all their lives and grown up with. They are very friendly, they’ll chat with you for a long time. But then after that they are not interested in taking the relationship any further. They don’t want to hang out with you, they want to hang out with the kids who went to grade 2 with them. They don’t want to go to the bar with you, they want to go to the bar with their circle of friends from university.
Some people are very open and not in the least bit shy, like my friend Maria*. And even she can’t make new friends. All her friends are people she’s known in elementary and high school. Which is a major problem for her, because in high school she hung out with the drug addict crowd, and most of them are still on drugs today. She is not on drugs but you know what it’s like to have a friendship with someone who is on drugs: violent behaviour, unreliability (they say they’ll meet her tomorrow at 11 and they don’t show), you can’t count on them (they say they’ll introduce her to someone who is looking for a receptionist and then they forget and the person hires someone else) and worst of all they pressure her to take drugs again.
She’s tried over and over again to get away from them, because she knows they are no good for her and she knows they only use her. As in, let’s go out tonight. But then they only wanted to go out with her to try and get her to take drugs. But when she really needs someone, for example she needs someone to pick her son up from school, all of a sudden they are not available.
She can’t live in Marbella, her hometown, because every time she is in Marbella all her old druggie friends drop by and try to turn her house into a drug den. So she keeps moving away. But then she can’t find a job anywhere else, or she has a family emergency and needs to return to her family in Marbella, and she just can’t get away. But when she does move away, she can’t make any new friends. And she’s the least shy person I know. I mean, she could sell air conditioners to an Inuit person.
In Barcelona, there are a lot of outsiders, it’s a big city, new people are constantly going there for different reasons. For work, or to go to the university or to study something else (not university). Or for personal reasons. So there are tons of people who didn’t grow up in Barcelona and don’t have a circle of childhood friends there, so there are tons of clubs there to meet people. So it’s easy to meet people and make friends in Barcelona.
But here in Malaga there are hardly any clubs. I asked someone once, let’s say you want to make a hiking club, or a sewing club, how do you do it here? And they told me, you ask your childhood friends if they know someone or if they know someone who knows someone who likes to go hiking, and you go hiking together. In Barcelona, you join a hiking club. Here, you ask your childhood friends if they want to go hiking with you. That’s just the way it works here.
Which really sucks for those of us who didn’t spend our childhood here!!!
I met a lot of people in Barcelona by going to meetings of things that I was interested in, or even just with classified ads. That’s how I met my great friend Pippi* and my friend Morche* and my former friend Enid* (we fought because she became a radical vegetarian and stopped having any contact with people who were not vegetarian).
But I just can’t seem to meet anyone this way here in Malaga. In fact I couldn’t meet anyone in Almeria either, things work there the same way as here, as Almeria is also southern Spain.
I met my friend Jessica* at a secretarial course we took together once. During the course many of us hung out together but once the course ended most just simply kept making excuses for not meeting up again, and finally they just simply stopped having contact with other people from the course. Only Jessica continues to be my friend. I met a few people at a hotel entertainers’ course too, but I’ve changed a great deal since taking that course and we just drifted apart due to having very different interests.
Also people who have never worked before are hard to make friends with, which was the majority of the people at the hotel entertainers’ course. It’s just impossible to get on with people who have never worked before. My friend Lucinda*, from the course, who had never worked before, told me things like, why are you so worried about being able to pay the water/electricity/phone bill? It’s only a few cents, right? And if you can’t pay them, just go back and live with your mami and daddy like I do, or get them to pay your bills for you.
Lucinda is over 30, has never had a job and has lived with her mother all her life. Now, I’m in favour of kids living with their parents, I want my kids to live with me. But I still also want them to work. And to know what life is like and that you have to pay the bills and that mami and daddy aren’t always going to bail you out. Or at least not at age 30.
And I’m just finding it a bit hard to jive with someone who at the age of thirty-something has never paid a bill in her life or had to run to get to work on time. I dunno, somehow I just can’t.
Oh by the way Lucinda is not disabled in any way, neither physically nor mentally.
Another example: one year I subscribed to the blog of a makeup blogger, and I also joined her Facebook group. So I chatted on the group for a while, and commented on her blog for a while. But then one day she organized what was supposedly an open party at her house (she lives in Malaga) and on her Facebook she said, Hey girls come on come join the fun, come to my party! Bring some drinks and your bikini cos we’re all gonna jump into my pool. Leave a comment below if you want to come. So of course I commented too and said I’d like to go. She answered my comment (on Facebook) and said, I’m sorry Serena but this party is only for my personal friends, that is, followers of my blog who are also my personal friends, I thought it was clear and understood. I wanted to say, well if it was only for your personal friends why did you announce it on your open, public Facebook group that I’m a member of?
So you see, here people make a very clear distinction between FRIENDS (ie. people they have known all their lives and probably went to the nursery with) and friends with tiny little letters (ie. people they’ve chatted to online or maybe even met in person, but meeting someone in person and having a good time with them doesn’t make you their friend).
I dunno maybe it’s that way everywhere, I’m not like that though. For me, you are my friend if I have met you a few times and we got on great. I don’t need to have known you for 30 years to admit you into my circle of friends. You don’t have to save my life to prove your loyalty and honesty to me before I will admit you into my circle of friends. But other people don’t agree with me. And I’ll admit there aren’t too many people in my life whom I’ve known for 30 years or whose life I have saved haha.
I always think it’s so hard for me to make friends cos I’m so shy, I’m too shy to just come right out with someone I just met and just say, hey I really enjoyed chatting with you, you wanna meet up again for coffee sometime?
But Maria is the least shy person I know and she can’t make new friends either, only her old druggie ones. (Although I admit she would probably not be pleased with me referring to her old lifelong friends as “druggies”.)
And while we’re at it, not to sound like a sleazy saleslady but I’ve written a few thrillers so, if you’re into creepy, scary, suspenseful novels, I’d love it if you’d check them out, here: Thrillers by Moi.
So how about you? Got any suggestions as to how a shy, wall violet like me might make new friends? Please leave me a comment. As you know I LURRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments!
*not their real names
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How Much Do YOU Value Your Friends?
Thought I’d digress a little from this recent spate of posts on natural hair care and going no ‘poo that I’ve been on lately, and chit-chat about something else for a minute.
Here downtown there are people on the street selling huge vats of frankincense at little stands. It’s quite cheap. I bought a packet, and this is the amount it came out to:
No, it didn’t come in this plastic tub. The tub is from an ice-cream shop. It just happened to be the right size to hold our frankincense in.
Holy Week with all its processions is a major event here in southern Spain. I’ve written a few posts on that subject, and you can see them here: Holy Week in Malaga.
If you’ve ever been on a Holy Week procession, you might have noticed that they carry silver incense burners that smell—absolutely divine!
In addition, incense has the property of being able to clear negative energy from the space around it. One of the reasons why churches and other holy places have always used it to purify the temples.
Now, you can enjoy that sacred fragrance every day of the year in your own home by burning your own frankincense. This is how we do it. (But of course, this method will work for any natural incense stones or powder that you might have.)
The ideal way is to possess your very own decorative incense burner, preferably with lots of artwork engraved all around. I was too impatient to try this out to run out and stalk souvenir shops, so I just grabbed an old heat-resistant glass candle holder.
I filled the candle holder with sand. Now, living right next to the sea, you would think I would have a ready-made source of sand whenever I want—and I do. But I was too impatient to go down to the beach to get some. So I just used the kitty litter.
No, not the sand from inside his litter, of course. Phew! Nope, I grabbed some clean, unused sand from the bag.
(In case you are wondering what the owner of our kitty litter looks like, here’s a mug of him.)
I’d previously bought incense charcoal from a health food store, so I took one chunk and held it with a pair of metal tweezers, of the sort you’d use for barbecues.
If you don’t have one, I imagine you could use any metal cooking utensil. But we happened to be lucky enough to possess a pair of tweezers.
I held the chunk of charcoal with the tweezers and lit a match (ie. my son lit a match) and held the match underneath the charcoal. It’s best to use natural charcoal, and not the ones with toxic chemical additives to help it ignite faster. But I couldn’t find any natural ones and I used what I was able to get.
You can tell if your charcoal has chemicals if it sizzles and crackles. Lately, I have been on a mission to reduce the chemicals we use in our natural skin and hair care routine to a minimum. But using all natural charcoal hasn’t quite made it into our litany yet.
It only took a few seconds for the charcoal to ignite. Then I took the match away (put it out, of course, so you won’t burn anything!) and just held onto the charcoal with the tweezers for a while.
The first time I tried it, I don’t know why, the charcoal smoked a lot. The next time, I laid it gently down on the sand and it didn’t smoke.
I blew on it to make it burn faster. You have to wait until the entire thing is red hot. It will be an ashy grey all around. That’s when you know it is ready.
With a small teaspoon I pushed it around in the sand a bit so it was half buried (don’t bury it completely or it will go out). Then I sprinkled the frankincense on the sand all around it. It will be hot, so use the spoon.
If you sprinkle the frankincense directly on it, it will burn too quickly and smoke a lot. Sprinkling the incense close to, but not touching, the coal makes it last longer.
And that’s it.
And of course, although it should be obvious but I ought to say it anyway, do take the utmost care to make sure the whole incense contraption (burner, spoon, tweezers, matches etc.) is out of the reach of babies, small children, pets, violent people and anyone else who shouldn’t touch it. It’s hot, after all!
And after you’ve put it out, or it’s all burnt up, do wait a long time for it to cool down before touching it and putting it away, or it can and will burn you!
Waiting till the next day, for example, is good.
And while we’re at it, not to sound like a sleazy saleslady but I’ve written a few thrillers so, if you’re into creepy, scary, suspenseful novels, I’d love it if you’d check them out, here: Thrillers by Moi.
So how about you? Have you ever tried natural incense? Or wondered how they used frankincense during the Holy Week processions? Don’t hesitate to share. As you know, I LURRVE to receive (positive, non-spammy) comments!
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A few weeks back I mentioned in a post about rain how sometimes we go for a hike in the rain. So here’s our latest rainy weather adventure.
This is a short and easy walk in the Montes of Malaga that’s accessible to anyone in good walking condition. There are practically no climbs or descents at all. And you don’t need a car to get there. The city bus can take you there.
So since we have no car, the city bus is precisely our only means to reach it. We take the number 2 bus upwards to Ciudad Jardin all the way to the end and get off at the last stop.
Right in front of us, the street veers left and heads out of town towards the countryside. We grab that street. It’s a residential street full of beautiful single family homes.
A lovely place to live, in fact, and so near the countryside—if only it weren’t so d*** far away from everything! Basically, you do need a car if you live here.
We continue walking down the street. It crosses an overpass that goes over some sort of major freeway out of Malaga. You can catch glimpses of the Botanical Garden on the other side.
We still continue walking and it’s not long before urban concrete gives way to countryside and greenery. Here’s a pic from a few years back of this part of the way.
Yes it is foggy there. Don’t ask. Sometimes it’s foggy here. This might be Malaga but sometimes we have fog too. All the same it was 30 degrees that day (Celsius). Doesn’t seem that way but it was.
Soon we reach an intersection. The left turn dives under a tunnel and leads to the door of the Botanical Garden. We don’t want to go to the Botanical Garden, so we veer right.
The right-hand road climbs upwards for a while. But not to worry, it’s not a steep incline. When we get to the top of it we find a cluster of country homes. Just before these houses begin, there’s a fenced-off area. The path to the Roman aqueduct begins just beyond the fence.
But please don’t go there or if you do, and you still insist on crossing the Roman aqueduct anyways and you fall off about 10 or 12 4 or 5 storeys to the terrible ground below and break a few bones, don’t tell me I didn’t warn you! (You can see there is no railing, and plenty of vertigo-inducing places.)
Anyways. Long story short. Don’t cross the Roman aqueduct.
Nope. The proper way to get onto the trail is to just keep walking up the road, past all the lovely country homes and haciendas and ranches. (We didn’t know that the first time we went this way so we rather pigheadedly insisted on crossing the Roman aqueduct. Don’t cross the Roman aqueduct!)
(The way back, incidentally, that first time, before I learnt about the proper way to access the trail, since I was adamant that we would nevermore cross the Roman aqueduct again, in the end the only means we could find to return to civilization required us to, of all things, plunge our feet into the coldest, iciest, shiveringest water you will ever find and cross a watering canal instead. And, you know, this being Spain and not merry ole England and all that, we don’t go for country walks with wellies.
But I preferred frozen shins to broken bones.)
Well, as I was saying. Soon you’ll come to a gate which indicates that that is where the trail begins. You can follow the indications on the sign at the gate. Or you can just angle downwards towards the stream. There’s a path that’s easy to see, before you enter through the gate.
Once you reach the stream, you can have the time of your life. If you’ve got kids they can go mad jumping in the water and trying to build log bridges and whatever else it is that kiddies do in streams.
My kids look pretty tame, don’t they?
The first time I went there with the kids that is what they did. But the last time I went, I only managed to drag the eldest, “Ermenegildo”, along. The little one, “Lucrecio”, was convalescent at home.
Convalescent from what, you might be wondering? Well, from his PE teacher’s vain attempt to turn the whole class into parkour ninjas and instead of flying up a wall, Lucrecio crashed down on his ankle instead.
We just followed the stream up a ways as long as the daylight allowed. We’d left home after lunch (we’re not particularly inclined to catching the early worms nor, for that matter, the late worms either, we don’t like worms very much) so that wasn’t a long time.
Even though it was raining (okay sort of raining) it wasn’t the least bit cold. So no raincoats (not that I have any), parkas or anoraks required.
We chanced upon a pack of wild dogs so kept a prudent distance from them. Luckily they chose to grapple their way up the mountainside and disappear. Didn’t occur to me to snap a few Polaroids. Dawggonit.
In all reality, the river goes on and on and on, I have no idea how far it reaches but probably too far for anyone except a seasoned hiker (ie. not us) to walk. One day, when we have the whole day free and manage to crawl out of bed before sunset, we might actually decide to tackle it and follow it down a significant length before turning back.
And since I’ve written a few books I’m not going to deny that I’d feel real chuffed if you’d check them out. As someone I know once told me, trying to urge me to check out some books: They’re thrillers! Grab all the deets here.
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I LOOOVEEE cakes.
And I bet you do too.
But one thing I’ve noticed is it’s not as easy to get cheap cakes here in Spain as it is in Canada. I mean, cheap cakes at the supermarket. If you want a really good cake here you have to go to the bakery and bakery cakes are expensive.
In Canada you could just go to the supermarket and pick up a ready made cake for maybe $2. And there would be a whole huge variety of cakes available. But here even if a large supermarket has cheap cakes they will maybe only have a couple of varieties. The rest are bakery cakes (also available at supermarkets but in a separate section) and they’re more expensive.
Then you just can’t compare the variety that they have in Canada with here. Of course in bakeries here you can get every sort of cake that your heart could desire. But like I said before, bakery cakes are expensive. In Canada you can get every kind of cheap, ready made cake you could possibly want at the supermarket: chocolate, strawberry, Black Forest, caramel……
Now — and I’m just speculating here — I was wondering why is it so hard to get good, cheap cakes round here? And my theory is that maybe it’s just simply because Spanish people don’t seem to have a tradition of eating cakes.
Yep. Might sound weird. But think that in poorer countries cakes aren’t all that easy to come by. (Which is why only Marie Antoinette could have cake but not her poverty-stricken, lowly subjects.)
So traditionally, here in Spain, cakes and pastries were reserved only for special occasions. Reason why all the festivities of the year have their own special pastries, like Roscón de Reyes for The Three Kings holiday or pestiños for All Saints Day.
Then as people got richer ordinary people could have cakes more often. But even so they still tend to reserve cake eating for things like birthdays or family get-togethers. I still have delicious memories of how, when I was still married, my ex (then hubby) would buy pastries every Sunday and we’d have pastries and tea with his family on Sundays.
But maybe in other cultures, like England or Canada, it was more common to eat cake every day. For example, as part of the daily tea.
Well not exactly a transcendental subject and I’m sure these aren’t exactly earth-shattering theories haha. Just one of the many small details where I notice the difference between Spanish and English cultures.
And now that I’ve got your attention, check out my previous post, Walking in the Rain. It’s got more about everyday life here in Spain, and lots of pics (wink, wink).
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I LOOVEEE to walk in the rain.
If you’re British you probably think I’ve gone off my rockers and I’m totally bonkers and I need to see my psychiatrist PRONTO!
But do understand, I’ve gone from a land that is buried in 3 feet of snow during 8 months of the year to an absolute desert. So where in this formula does rain factor in at some point?
The saddest life is one that is lived from cradle to grave without any rain, methinks.
(Tweet that, as someone I Follow likes to say.)
I talk to my friends in Canada right now and ask them about the rain and they say: What do you expect? Snow snow and more snow! Snow up to our eyebrows. When was the last time we saw rain?
And here in Malaga it’s two thirds of the same. Except here we’re not up to our eyebrows in snow, of course, but rather in endless blue skies.
When I first arrived in Spain I thought: oh wow, sun! It’s hot and sunny every single day!
A few weeks later I started to wonder: oh, so when does it rain here?
Well to the land’s credit, we do have 3 months of drought every summer. And we’d arrived just before summer. So it was fairly normal that we didn’t see rain for a while.
But at the time we arrived here, I didn’t know that.
Normally the storm clouds finally, thankfully, roll in come September and we finally get some relief from the endless scorching and searing and sunburning.
Now, for those of you who hate rain, I must ask you: If there were no rain, what would we drink? How would plants be able to live?
THIS is what the world would look like if there were never any rain. Day after day after day after day the whole year round:
Okay okay, I realize that’s not quite fair. I realize that’s a beach, not a desert. But that’s still what the world would look like if there were no rain. It’s great for a week. For a month. For 3 months. But for a whole year, year after year after year?
And it is the desert: that’s Almeria, which is almost a desert. Do you happen to notice any greenery in there?
So, *ahem*, as I was saying, that, friends, is why we need rain.
Which takes me back to the (almost forgotten) original subject of this post: walking in the rain.
As I just mentioned, I love to walk in the rain. And I also love to take photos.
So when I walk in the rain I take photos.
So this is a collection of photos that I’ve taken, on different days, at different occasions, as I walked in the rain.
I love the beach in the rain because it’s completely deserted.
In fact, for that matter, the beach when it’s raining is absolutely, scrumptiously INCREDIBLE! There’s no one there. When else on the entire Costa del Sol could you ever expect to find the beach so empty?
I often go to the beach when it’s raining, so I have quite a few photos to fill up quite a few galleries. Here’s just a short selection of them (because it takes me so &$/*^# long to edit them, d*** blast it!).
There’s nothing I love more than to leave work and be greeted by a sudden rain shower or rather, a torrential downpour that lasts for about 4 hours. Because that’s how it rains here: no rain for 30 days, then suddenly we get half a year’s worth of rain in one evening.
But that’s what I love.
Walking in a drizzle (which I also do) is a bit boring, actually.
No. I much prefer wild, out-of-control, inundating tropical madness. The kind that makes your eyes sting and fills your mouth with sweet water.
The kind where the rain hits you so hard you feel like you’re drowning.
The kind where you can walk around and no one knows you’re crying hehe.
Sometimes we go out hiking or for woody walks in the rain as well. I love hiking in the rain, there’s no one else about and we get the whole countryside all to ourselves.
This aqueduct is AMAZING. I have no idea how it got there, when it dates from and most of all, why it’s so abandoned all alone out there!! What a way to treat ancient Roman monuments (if indeed it is Roman).
We’ve crossed on it a couple of times but I wouldn’t recommend it and most especially not with kids. It’s very high up and there are no railings or any sort of security at all. In fact, now it’s fenced off. But since we discovered it before it got fenced off, we knew how to wind our way through the woods to find it again. (Pic below taken on a different day hence why it’s so sunny.)
We don’t know what this is and speculation runs wild between my son and me. “Maybe it’s to hide from the rain,” suggests “Ermenegildo” as he glares balefully at the chubby raindrops pelting against him.
“Try hiding in it,” was my response. A bit too small for him I do believe. “For hunters,” Ermenegildo concluded.
Who’s right? Well, we’ll leave it up to you to decide.
Just a tiny pic of Ermenegildo. He hates me putting up his pics. So here you can’t see him very well.
People ask me if I don’t get frozen in the rain. I never wear a raincoat — in fact, don’t even own one for that matter. So since I’m also quite anti-umbrella (for my use, not for my kids’ use haha!) I suppose it would stand to reason that I could get rather cold and miserable.
But then again, this is southern Spain! Not northern Scotland. It’s warm all year round.
So the rain is usually warm and toasty too. And who doesn’t enjoy a toasty warm sprinkling?
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…And It’s a Rainy Night In Malaga
I was sooo excited and chuffed to see my latest thriller novel, HARROWING, featured on a couple of book review blogs!!
The first review is by the lovely Theresa Hetherington of Kindle Bargains UK Book Review Blog.
Annasuya Rose is a temp office worker, she has a son Romeo, her new boyfriend is called Calvin. Things are good, theyre happy and everything is well.
This isn’t necessarily an easy book to read. The rape is obviously hard to read. Written well and not dragged out. The topic is a heavy one, but tackled head on and in a way I wanted to keep going, I needed to know they were ok, what was happening next! This book put me in mind of a good old horror & the escapes, with the challenges of Annasuya, how she & others tackled and dealt with everything thrown at them.
You can read the original blog post here:
http://reviewskbuk.blogspot.com.es/2016/07/harrowing-by-se-amadis.html
The next blog review got my friend all excited, because the gorgeous Gemma of Gemma’s Book Reviews compared HARROWING to SAW (the movie)! She told me she’d be uber ecstatic if someone ever likened a book of hers to SAW!
Of course, in my humble opinion, SAW is a masterpiece whereas my book is…… well…… just another thriller. But see for yourself:
Thanks to the author for letting me review her story and TBC. I must be honest and say that at first I wasn’t enjoying it due to personal reasons, but as I continued it got better and I was hooked after the first part which I found hard to read. This is a VERY dark story something close to SAW (the film). It is easy to read and I found after the start I raced through it. The main character is a very unlucky woman and faces the worst fate I could ever imagine. Brilliantly written with a great horror plot throughout. This story will hold your attention throughout. I must also mention with the young boy involved it made the whole situation worse throughout the book, I kept thinking poor little boy but he’s a strong, determined boy. I would recommend this book to you all but with the warning it is a dark story and contains rape, which some readers may find hard to read or cannot read.
This is the ideal story for readers who enjoy a brilliant horror, suspense, thriller and mystery rolled into one spooky plot. Be thankful its not you in this story and that its fiction. Now breathe. I need a lighter read after this one. Enjoy.
Read the original blog post here:
Anyways, I couldn’t just stop with blog reviews. I’ve been absolutely BLESSED to receive tons and tons of positive reviews on Amazon as well. Anyways, it’s not my intention to bombard you, so I won’t reproduce them all here. But I’d love to feature two of my fave reviews.
Wow! Can’t recommend this book enough, Superb!!
Wow!!! I absolutely loved this book. The pace was breakneck speed, the characters were well rounded – some likeable, others most despicable.
I’ve been trying to grow my nails recently, well this book put a fast stop to that! They were bitten right down so I need to read something now that will give them a chance to grow again!
Just as I got to a few chapters from the end I started to feel calm and at ease – then BAM! Another toe curling, lip chewing few chapters.
I absolutely LOVED Harrowing and I cannot wait to read its sequel.
Many, many Thanks to the author Serena and Helen Boyce at THE Book Club on Facebook for gifting me a copy of this Awesome book in exchange for a fair and honest review. highly recommend this book.
This book lives up to its title!
This book is awesome. Not only is the story well written, it also keeps your interest from chapter one to the ending page. The attention to detail is amazing! I have read a lot of thrillers and the horror genre and I can honestly say that this book has them beat. The characters are another reason for reading this book. They are not just going through the motions, they portray a lot of emotions which you feel throughout the book. The characters are another reason this book is so wonderful. They are not one dimensional, just going through the motions. You feel what they go through. This book does deal with sensitive subjects so I would recommend it for anyone 18 and above. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
As I’m sure you can imagine, this post isn’t just going to abruptly end here. Of course not. I have to include the links so you can get the book for yourself, and see what everyone is talking about. Right? So here are the links:
For Amazon.com
And Amazon.co.uk
Happy reading!
HARROWING. For a limited time at only 99c.
A fast-paced, haunting, action-filled tale of persecution and murder… and what the love of a mother can do.
When Annasuya Rose is raped by her boss, she thinks it’s the most terrible thing that could possibly happen to her.
She has no idea that her nightmare is only just beginning.
When nobody but her boyfriend, Calvin, believes her version of events against the suave and sophisticated businessman, she turns to social media to prevent the same thing happening to somebody else.
But now someone is stalking her in the dark, menacing her with threatening messages and creepy phone calls, breaking into her house late at night. A sadistic killer who exults in killing and mutilating… or worse.
A sadistic killer who will stop at nothing to get her.
When Annasuya’s ten-year-old son disappears, she realizes she must follow the killer down a terrifying and evil path to save her beloved son. A path which leads to danger. Torture. Agony. Even death.
And the most terrible, heart-wrenching a choice a mother could face.
Now available on Amazon, at:
Well, as I’d said in the previous post, I haven’t got much time for thumping away on the blog. So I’ll just leave you with a few photos.
Is there a better way to celebrate Leap Day than with Mexican Flame Vines?
Can’t believe I actually got in 5 photos of these lovely Mexican Flame Vines. These colourful flowers brighten up the cold, dark and dreary winter months here. Not that winters are ever unusually cold or dark around here haha. But still…… they are a real splash of colour on the streets in January and February.
They can only grow in frost-free areas, which means you won’t see them in too many places in Europe or North America. Are we ever lucky!
Well since I haven’t got time to go about giving long explanations for every photo, I’ll just plunk all the photos down here.
Other post(s) in this series:
More posts to come in this series! So stay tuned! In the meantime have a browse through the rest of this blog……
I’d been wanting to do a post for a long while now about Malaga in winter. But I realize I will never ever ever get around to it. I just have too much work to do!
So I thought I’d just go about putting up a photo here or there whenever I only have a minute. This is the first one. It’s not a real spazzy or professional quality photo. These are just going to be photos I take with the phone as I go about town, and the phone doesn’t take really good quality pics. (Ie. it’s not a Samsung haha.)
This is the new Malaga Eye. It’s down at the port. We haven’t been on it yet. Just as well though. With those stormy clouds I doubt we’d see much haha.
Anyways the reason I’m so busy is because, on the one hand, I’m running a professional website, which takes up a bit of time. And on the other hand, I’m writing thriller novels. Which I love to do more than anything!
You can read more about my thrillers here: www.SEAmadis.com/books/
Hope you check them out and let me know what you think! (Wink wink.)
Spain Relocation Consultants & Family Travel Guide
Reflecting my life, adventures and dreams
It's fun out there!
outdoor adventures and family life
Natalie. Writer. Photographer. Etc.
Sharing the Beauty, Mystery & Adventure of Travel
A guide for the unique, the intelligent, and the creative to be even more so
Adventures and Musings of a Single Expat Mama in Spain
I enjoy ridding the world of nasty people, one sweet murder at a time.
Actually, it's the other way round.
Using Law of Attraction to Help People Make More Money and Abundance
Exploring the Stories of the Islands and the Freedoms of Third Age
Senderismo y fotografía
Spain Relocation Consultants & Family Travel Guide
Reflecting my life, adventures and dreams
It's fun out there!
outdoor adventures and family life
Natalie. Writer. Photographer. Etc.
Sharing the Beauty, Mystery & Adventure of Travel
A guide for the unique, the intelligent, and the creative to be even more so
Adventures and Musings of a Single Expat Mama in Spain
I enjoy ridding the world of nasty people, one sweet murder at a time.
Actually, it's the other way round.
Using Law of Attraction to Help People Make More Money and Abundance
Exploring the Stories of the Islands and the Freedoms of Third Age
Senderismo y fotografía
The Seas of Mintaka 