L.A. Kelley's Blog

November 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

This isn’t atypical Yuletide tale.

Murder,mystical artifacts, an invisible demon with anger management issues, and anoverbearing cupid—not what Rosalie Thatcher put on her Christmas list.

The holidayshad always been a magical time for Rosalie, but not this year. Her new managerat Penrose’s Department Store is determined to make this season the mostprofitable in the store’s history. Introducing arbitrary rules was bad enough,but forcing Rosalie into the stupid elf hat was the worst. The worst, that is,until she meets a real E.L.F. (Elemental Life Form) named David and getslassoed into a desperate hunt for the stolen Naughty and Nice List. Now Rosalieand David must dodge a murderous invisible demon and recover the missingartifact before hellhounds track them down. The couple race against time forwithout the influence of the Naughty and Nice List the world will tumble intoeternal chaos.

AMAZON LINK

WARNING: No good comesfrom a book with magic, mayhem, theft, murder, sass talk, demons, animalscommitting felonies, gleeful revenge, and bad things happening to good peoplefor no particular reason. This story won’t encourage good habits and probablyfine tune bad ones. The only lesson learned is don’t lie until you know therules.

Life in New Jerseyis tough in the Great Depression, but teenager Peter Whistler has anexceptional ability to lie. He hones his talent, convinced it’s the ticket to easyfortune. He certainly doesn’t foresee the arrival of a murderous conjuror withmysterious designs on a little blind girl named Esther. Drawn into a nefariousplot to unleash a demon, Peter leads Esther and an enchanted terrier on a desperateescape to New Orleans and meets Amelie Marchand. Like all well-bred Louisianagals she’s trained in deadly martial arts, but with a murderous stepmother,Amelie has troubles of her own. Peter and Amelie’s one chance for survival is tohead deep into the bayou and seek help from a mad shaman known as the Frog King.

Welcome to analternate 1930s where both jazz and magic fill New Orleans’ air. Can a littleluck, mystical lies, and a dash of Cajun crazy help Peter harness the power tokill an immortal demon? If not, the Depression will be a picnic by comparisonwhen Hell arrives on Earth.

AMAZON BUY LINK

July 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

A real space pirate fights like a girl.

Teenager JaneBenedict is wakened by her father and ordered to memorize a mysterious code.Within hours Mathias Benedict is dead and Jane and her brother, Will, are wardsof United Earth Corporation (UEC). To escape the company’s clutches and uncoverthe meaning of her father’s last message, Jane leads her brother on a desperateflight from Earth to the galactic rim.

Aboard theFreetrader smuggler ship, Solar Vortex, Jane and Will become tangled in thecrew’s fight for liberty, and drawn to their cause, swear allegiance to thecrew. During a contraband run, Jane saves the life of young smuggler Mac Sawyerand learns her father’s code identifies a UEC cargo shipment. On route to adeep space station, the Solar Vortex answers a desperate SOS from a Freetradership under attack. Jane, Mac, and Will survive an ambush on the damaged vesseland unearth a deadly threat to the Freetraders and a clue to the location ofthe shipment. The trail leads to Rimrock and the massive prison complex ofGolgotha. Undercover as a spy, Jane stumbles into a conspiracy that can spelldoom for the entire Freetrader cause and the extinction of an alien race. Canshe escape the prison confines and deliver a warning before it’s too late?

Piracy, intrigue,romance, space battles, and a daring rebellion from Earth wait on the galacticrim. Will Jane answer the call to adventure or is death for high treason herfate?

AMAZON LINK

April 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

Enchanted clothing has a mind of its own.

Restlessness plagued Charlotte Becker. Unable to settledown, she moved from place to place searching for an elusive something. Asudden invitation from her sister sends her across country to Sentinel Landing,North Carolina. Anchors abound by the sea, but surely nothing would keep herrooted in place in a pokey resort town during the off-season.

Drawn into a consignment shop named One Enchanted Evening,Charlotte is confronted by a mysterious article of clothing requesting her helpto stop a killer in a wolf mask. To protect the citizens of Sentinel Landing,she must find the hunter before an innocent is slain.

Luke Maddox’s hunting days are over. Wounded in action, heleft the Marines to return to Sentinel Landing and start a new life. Then hemeets a singular young woman wearing an unusual cloak. She tells an incrediblestory of a wolf that walks on two legs.

And the hunt begins…

AMAZON BUY LINK

This isn’t atypical Yuletide tale.

Murder,mystical artifacts, an invisible demon with anger management issues, and anoverbearing cupid—not what Rosalie Thatcher put on her Christmas list.

The holidayshad always been a magical time for Rosalie, but not this year. Her new managerat Penrose’s Department Store is determined to make this season the mostprofitable in the store’s history. Introducing arbitrary rules was bad enough,but forcing Rosalie into the stupid elf hat was the worst. The worst, that is,until she meets a real E.L.F. (Elemental Life Form) named David and getslassoed into a desperate hunt for the stolen Naughty and Nice List. Now Rosalieand David must dodge a murderous invisible demon and recover the missingartifact before hellhounds track them down. The couple race against time forwithout the influence of the Naughty and Nice List the world will tumble intoeternal chaos.

AMAZON LINK

Teenager JaneBenedict is wakened by her father and ordered to memorize a mysterious code.Within hours Mathias Benedict is dead and Jane and her brother, Will, are wardsof United Earth Corporation (UEC). To escape the company’s clutches and uncoverthe meaning of her father’s last message, Jane leads her brother on a desperateflight from Earth to the galactic rim.

Aboard theFreetrader smuggler ship, Solar Vortex, Jane and Will become tangled in thecrew’s fight for liberty, and drawn to their cause, swear allegiance to thecrew. During a contraband run, Jane saves the life of young smuggler Mac Sawyerand learns her father’s code identifies a UEC cargo shipment. On route to adeep space station, the Solar Vortex answers a desperate SOS from a Freetradership under attack. Jane, Mac, and Will survive an ambush on the damaged vesseland unearth a deadly threat to the Freetraders and a clue to the location ofthe shipment. The trail leads to Rimrock and the massive prison complex ofGolgotha. Undercover as a spy, Jane stumbles into a conspiracy that can spelldoom for the entire Freetrader cause and the extinction of an alien race. Canshe escape the prison confines and deliver a warning before it’s too late?

Piracy, intrigue,romance, space battles, and a daring rebellion from Earth wait on the galacticrim. Will Jane answer the call to adventure or is death for high treason herfate?

AMAZON LINK

by L. A. Kelley

Free on Amazon

March 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

Enchanted clothing has a mind of its own.

Restlessness plagued Charlotte Becker. Unable to settle down, she moved from place to place searching for an elusive something. A sudden invitation from her sister sends her across country to Sentinel Landing, North Carolina. Anchors abound by the sea, but surely nothing would keep her rooted in place in a pokey resort town during the off-season.

Drawn into a consignment shop named One Enchanted Evening, Charlotte is confronted by a mysterious article of clothing requesting her help to stop a killer in a wolf mask. To protect the citizens of Sentinel Landing, she must find the hunter before an innocent is slain.

Luke Maddox’s hunting days are over. Wounded in action, he left the Marines to return to Sentinel Landing and start a new life. Then he meets a singular young woman wearing an unusual cloak. She tells an incredible story of a wolf that walks on two legs.

And the hunt begins…

AMAZON LINK

Book 4 in the The Naughty List Series

Now on Amazon

As Rosalie and David’s big day approaches old enemies unite and plot revenge, and danger materializes in another form—an ancient evil lurking in reflections. Here and then gone, watching and waiting, ready to emerge and wreak havoc on the world of humans and Integrals when the time is right. Only Rosalie, David, their friends, and unexpected allies stand in the way. Can chaos can be averted before the wedding guests arrive?

AMAZON LINK

Weird Stuff Sent into Space

January is traditionally a month for out with the old and in with the new. Clean the closets, toss that old Tupperware container in the back of the refrigerator that appears to have a science experiment growing inside. You’re not alone. Even government agencies have to deal with an overload of junk, some harder to get rid of than that Tupperware container. One agency with a big problem is NASA.

Space is vast and at the same time crowded with garbage. Humans have been sending items into orbit for half a century and some of it stays there. Currently there are nearly 7,700 satellites within a few hundred miles of the Earth. That number could grow to several hundred thousand by 2027. A lot of trash is already on the Moon right, including nearly 100 bags of human waste. Junk in orbit includes spent spacecraft, rocket boosters, and stuff lost by astronauts including a glove, a wrench, and a toothbrush.

But that’s not the weirdest stuff shot into space.

Light saber

The force was with them. In 2007, the lightsaber prop belonging to Luke Skywalker was taken on a mission to the International Space Station. Star Wars fans gave it a solemn escort to an airport in California, and from there, it went to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The lightsaber spent two weeks in orbit, and was later returned to Industrial Light and Magic.

Moon tree seeds

What’s that growing in my backyard? During the Apollo 14 NASA mission to the moon in 1971, astronauts packed hundreds of tree seeds in their personal kits. Upon returning to Earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service and planted throughout the U.S. in 1976 to celebrate the country’s bicentennial. Unfortunately, the location of the trees was lost and, except for a few, no one knows for sure where they were planted.

Man hole cover

Duck. Between May 28 and Oct. 7, 1957, the U.S. military carried out Operation Plumbbob, a series of nuclear tests in the Nevada desert. Two of the nuclear detonations, were carried out underground, to test if nuclear fallout could be contained. The first was on July 26, 1957. An atomic bomb detonated at the bottom of a 500-foot-deep hole, covered by a 4-inch-thick iron cover, launching it into space. Scientist expected that the cover would land back on Earth, but it didn’t.

I'll bet that got your attention. The artist Andy Warhol doodled a sketch of a penis that may or may not have ended up on the moon. It was one of six on a tiny ceramic tile dubbed the Moon Museum. Sculptor Forrest Myers petitioned NASA to place the tile on the Moon. His request was denied, but he supposedly contacted scientists from Bell Laboratories, who secretly attached the tile to the Apollo 12 lunar lander. Since the lander sits on the Moon, this story can’t be confirmed, but the first astronauts who return may be getting an unexpected eyeful.

Sperm

Speaking of penises…One NASA mission included a sample of bull sperm. The result was the tiny cells moved faster than usual. Phosphorylation, the process of regulating cellular cycles and growth stopped in sea urchin sperm. Rat’s testes shrank along with their sperm count. Cockroaches, on the other hand, were unaffected by spaceflight or exposure to radiation.

Klingon Night at the Opera

Revenge is a dish best served along a side of aria. In 2010 the producers of “u” (the opera's title) sent a message by radio telescope to the Klingon home star, Arcturus, to invite them to attend the opening night performance in the Netherlands. In the Klingon tongue, “u” means universe and it was the first opera performed entirely in Klingon. The 90-minute production tells the story of Kahless the Unforgettable. After betrayal by his brother and witnessing his father’s murder, Kahless fights to regain his honor by traveling into the underworld. He wages epic battles, reunites with his true love, Lukar, and eventually faces his bitter enemy, the tyrant Molor.

P. S. The Klingons did not RSVP.

An Ad for Doritos

Would aliens like junk food? The makers of Doritos thought so. In 2008, for six hours the EISCAT European space station on the Norwegian island of Svalbard sent an advertisement for Doritos with a radar array, normally used to study the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The ad went to Ursa Major which contains a possible habitable zone. EISCAT received an undisclosed donation for the use of their facilities. There’s no report on whether aliens preferred Nacho Cheese, Cool Ranch, or Flaming Hot.

Even as a child I never saw the point of staying up to midnight to see some dumb disco ball drop and then watch drunken revelers shouting “Happy New Year!” I’m mean, seriously. What’s the big deal? It isn’t even a candy holiday like Halloween, Christmas or Easter. Those were, at least, associated with special once-a-year treats. New Years had bupkis except if you lived in the South and were supposed to eat Hopping John which has absolutely no candy in it. Or drugs, which the name implies.

If you insist on being a reveler on New Years Eve, here are several oddball hangover cures to try on New Years Day. I’m not a drinker, so can’t confirm they work, but they’ll give the sober ones among us a belly laugh at your misery.

Drink pickle juice

It’s supposed to have lots of electrolytes or some junk like that to make the pounding headache go away. Yeah, right.

Rub slices of lemon under your armpits

A Puerto Rican cure, it’s touted to relieve dehydration, but honestly when was the last time you drank anything through your armpits?

Chug a Bull’s-eye

A Bull’s-eye is a concoction made from a raw egg broken into a glass of orange juice. Yum. After a night of heavy drinking I can imagine what your stomach will say to that one. It isn’t pretty. Speaking of not pretty, try a Prairie Oyster.

Prairie Oyster

If you’ve ever lived out West you’ll know a Prairie Oyster isn’t an oyster. Let’s just say, it’s the part of the bull that, well, makes it clear you ain’t gonna be milking this one. This Prairie Oyster is a cocktail and contains one raw egg (What is it with raw eggs?), Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and Tabasco. You probably won’t be sober after drinking this. You’ll probably just wish you were dead.

Activated Charcoal

It’s recommended you take it in pill form or you could stick your head in the fireplace and lick up the ashes. After the night you had, no one will try to stop you.