FREE Reading September Sundays

HAPPY FREE READING SUNDAY!

 

As a Back-to-School promotion, September Sundays are free reading days.  To help promote the importance of reading, I have five free Ebooks to give away. So the first five people to email me can have whichever book they would like.  Email:  AuthorSRClaridge(at)Gmail(dot)com 

Here are the choices:

Tetterbaum's Truth
Angel finds herself hanging in a twisted balance of mafia deception and revenge and the only way out is to expose the truth.



Petals of Blood
She knew of his tainted past, but it was too late to turn back. She loved him.

House of Lies
Skylar Wilson fights to save her sister from a deadly cult that stretches far beyond its pseudo-evangelical veil, penetrating the upper echelon of the United States government and pushing a lethal international agenda.

No Easy Way
Racing to piece together a family secret before anyone else dies, private investigator, Stephen Braznovich, finds himself trapped between white lies and dark lusts in a twisted tale where all roads point to one simple truth...there is No Easy Way.



Traitors Among Us   A kidnapping and an FBI bust sends Angel racing down a path to save her loved ones and she comes face-to-face with the scariest truth yet. There are Traitors Among Us.



Russian Uprising
Walking a fine line between compassion and rage, Angel discovers that the only way to stop the Russian uprising is to turn against her own blood.

Death Trap   Tempers flare and bullets fly as the lines of family loyalty blur into a melting pot of Mafia destruction, where Angel must face the suffocating reality that her only hope of staying alive is in playing dead.

Loose Ends
Unraveling the truth means tying up loose ends...the only problem is that some loose ends aren’t fit to be tied.



 

Spouse in my House
A unique and poetic look at sex and marriage, a la the styling of Dr. Seuss. Spouse in my House is a tale of sexual enlightenment as one couple strives for marital bliss.

 

 For a more detailed description of each book, please visit Smashwords   -    Amazon   -   or   -   Barnes & Noble.

Say NO to Bad-Ass B.O.

Walking through the grocery store this morning, I was suddenly overcome by an odor that was so strong it was palatable.  This stinky stench filled the store in a matter of moments.  The best way I can describe it is to say it smelled like a layer of body odor, covered with curry, layered in dry urine, swirled with something musky and sweet and then topped with more body odor.  It was the most bad-ass B.O. I’ve ever smelled!

People in the store grimaced and I, wearing a cotton wide-necked sweater, buried my nose in the neck of my shirt.  My eyes watered from the potency of the stench and, though I haven’t checked, I am certain my nose hairs were burned clean off. 

My first inclination was to think a homeless person may have wandered into the store for warmth or to use the restroom; and compassion tugged at me.  But then, I caught a glimpse of the odorous wonder and compassion left me.

It was a young woman, maybe in her early twenties.  I let my eyes run the course of her body from her feet to her head.  She was dressed in clothing that looked clean and pressed.  Her hands were manicured and her nails painted.  There was no dirt on her skin and she wore shiny lip gloss and gold earrings.  There was nothing that indicated that she might be homeless.  In fact, she appeared well groomed, as if she had showered this morning; though the stench spoke otherwise.  My eyes stopped on her hair, which hung in thick dreadlocks; thick, dried, clumpy dreadlocks. These weren't the nice looking, fashionable kind of dreadlocks.  These were muddy and mangy looking.   I shivered internally, imagining the amount of bacteria in each pasty lock and wondering when was the last time her whole head had been given a good, solid scrubbing.

 

As I passed by her, the odor triggered my gag reflex.  How could someone with such a pretty, clean face smell so horrible?  Upon returning from the store I could still smell it.  I was having a Seinfeld moment…the B.O. was like an entity that had latched onto me.  I threw my clothes into the washer and jumped into a hot shower. 

I’m now free of the stench but still curious as to how someone can smell that bad and not know it?  An even bigger question is why aren't her friends telling her that she stinks?!    Maybe we need a sign that says, "Just Say NO to Bad-Ass B.O."  So, when someone smells that bad you don't have to say anything, you just hand them the sign.  ~

 

Be Real

I have a pet peeve, actually I have many, but I’m only going to talk about one today.  It is sugary sweet, dripping with honey, fake people.  You know the ones…. their smile is plastered on, and every other word is “wonderful” or “wonderfully” as they go out of their way to tell you about how perfect every element of their life is.  They unnerve me.  It takes all of my strength to restrain myself from slapping them.  Don’t get me wrong, I like happy people and I like positive people.  I am certainly grateful for those moments in my life when I have been down in the dumps and a friend has pointed out the silver lining to my crisis.  I like smiling and love laughing and there is no better feeling of elation than sharing the excitement of life with others.  BUT… there is a big difference between genuine happiness and the overly sugary façade of fake fulfillment.  When people are over-the-top it makes me think they are merely using words to compensate for the unhappiness and un-fulfillment from which they are suffering.  It’s the same principal as the ever-popular joke about the man with the small penis who drives the fancy sports car. 

Overly compensating for something is often obvious to outsiders.  I wish these people would realize that happiness shines from the inside out and can be seen and felt without a word.  I wish they could see that fulfillment illumes the face and can be transmitted without an utterance.  Most of all, I wish these people would learn that it’s okay not to be the perfect, perky Pollyanna all the time.  It’s okay to have down days, sour hours and moments when you feel like you’re barely hanging on.  It’s okay to fail, fall down and make a few faux pas.  It’s life and it’s real and you can be too.  ~