Regan Hastings, Author of VISIONS OF MAGIC - Giveaway!

Although VISIONS OF MAGIC is the first book by Regan Hastings, it’s far from the author’s first book. Under another name, her contemporary romance novels number in the double digits, and she has been nominated six times for the prestigious RITA award from the Romance Writers of America. Her romance novels have appeared many times on the USA TODAY bestsellers list. She’s holding a contest for readers to guess her true identity for a chance to win a Federal Bureau of Witchcraft fleece jacket. Enter at http://www.reganhastings.com/. The contest ends February 1, the release date of VISIONS OF MAGIC, so enter immediately!



Kate: I know who Regan is, but I'm not telling! I'll give you a hint, though. She's fabulous, and I love her and her books. Welcome to the lair, Regan Hastings!

Thank you for hosting me, Kate!

Modern Day Witches

Ten years before the start of my book, VISIONS OF MAGIC, the world discovered that witches are real. Reaction was volatile and violent. Women were imprisoned without trial if they were even suspected of witchcraft. Some – including the heroine’s aunt – were burned at a stake erected on a high-tech, gas-powered grid.

The truth is, I believe that magic is real, and witches do exist. But there’s no reason for paranoia because, like humans, witches can be good or bad.

I’ll give you a few examples.

Bad witch: Martha Stewart. Magical power: Making perfectly competent women feel like failures. Not only can Martha fashion the julienned strips of a butternut squash into an amazing centerpiece, she can win the public’s admiration by going to prison.

Good witch: Pink. Magical power: Levitation. Did you see this chick at the Grammy’s last year? First of all, only a witch would feel comfortable in an outfit made of masking tape. Then she rose above the crowd, belting out a song with her powerful voice, and performing Cirque d’Soleil acrobatics all the while.

Bad witch: Lindsay Lohan. Magical power: Destroying her own career (aka, wasting her talent). I keep pulling for Lindsay. Beneath all the addictions, she’s a very talented actress, and I truly want her to get clean and move us again to some emotion other than distaste.

Good witch: Ellen DeGeneres. Magical power: Opening minds, and making even the least coordinated of us get up and dance. Who can resist her joy for life? Portia is a very lucky woman.

Bad witch: Kathy Griffin. Magical power: I don’t know, but she is just plain mean. Wicked… and not in a good way.

Want to play? Name a modern day witch and her magical power. I'll give away a copy of VISIONS OF MAGIC to a random commenter.

Kate: Thanks for visiting with us today, Regan! What a fun post! Except ... Kathy Griffin makes me laugh. Does that mean I'm a bad witch, too? Or am I just under her power?

Sometimes There's Magic

by Nancy

Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote, "Some enchanted evening, you will meet a stranger . . . across a crowded room." I think that song's popularity endures because it speaks to people--to the magic of that instant of connection that didn't exist before, to the "what if" that is the hope of finding true love, sometimes where we least expect it.

There are many kinds of magic in stories. There's the magic of an idea that springs forth, fully formed, in one of those fabulous, brain-buzzing, "aha" moments. It can be one that gives birth to a book or film or one that gives the plot a new and terrific twist or one that adds new depth to the characters. There's the magic of a hero and heroine who meet, whether or not for the first time, and realize life has changed forever. We'll come back to them after we look at other kinds of magic moments.

The bigger and harder the change, the more I love the story. I also love reading along and suddenly realizing, "Oooh. That's what that little, insignificant thing back there was setting up. Wow!" That kind of twist is magical to me, whether I'm creating it or reading or seeing it on a screen.

Then there's the magic of Merlin and his ilk, paranormal power that bursts through the world's regular rules and changes something for good or evil. Sort of magical "boom." Y'all know I have a weakness for the Arthurian legends, right? A major, serious weakness. I stood on the cliffs at Tintagel and heard the concussive thunder of the sea pounding the cave mouths below and imagined the tide out, the caves damp, the waves silver with moonlight, and Merlin waiting in the gloom for Uther to descend from the fortress above. Their joint deceit, at poor Ygraine's expense, brought forth England's greatest legend, one "brief, shining moment" that still calls to people across the centuries.

Standing on the crest of South Cadbury hill, looking through afternoon haze to Glastonbury Tor, I could almost see the landscape under moonlight, the hillside below me parting, and the Knights of the Round Table riding forth on midsummer night. To me, Camelot abounds with possibility, and therein lies both its magic and its power. The landscape evokes it, but the idea comes from books like The Once and Future King. Or the Lerner & Loewe musical Camelot.

Music has its own uniquely evocative power. I can't hear a Star Trek theme (original TV show or films) without feeling tingly, especially if I'm sitting in a theater and the lights are down. I get genuine goosebumps, as though the music, alone, were a call to adventure. When I hear "When the Saints Go Marching In," I'm back in the bleachers on a Friday night, tasting a clarinet reed and plastic mouthpiece as I play, sweating a bit in my wool uniform in the humid warmth of a Carolina August night. I can see the bugs rising from the football field illuminated by floodlights, can almost smell the chalk from the freshly lined field. The memory lasts only a moment, but a moment that's real and compelling. That's magic, too.

The summer I went to England, I traveled a lot with a particular group. This was before cars had CD players, but this one had a cassette player. Someone in the group had Janis Joplin's greatest hits and one of Linda Ronstadt's albums. We played them a lot. I can't hear "Bobby McGee" or "Love is a Rose" without flashing on that summer and those people, sitting for an instant of memory in a Ford Fiesta straight-drive on a narrow British road. It's sort of time travel, however fleeting.

When the boy was little, he loved Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee" and the water-skiing video that accompanied it on the old Nashville Network. I'll never again hear that song without thinking of the boy standing in the living room at age two, rocking his knees--the toddler equivalent of dancing--to that song or lying in my arms as a baby, almost, almost asleep, so close to dropping off after a bout of colic, only to have his eyes pop open as though the lids were spring-loaded when that video came on TV. That song lyric is a collection of memories, not really a narrative, but it feels like one.

Magic moments come along in life, in music, and in fiction. The meetings of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, of Frederica Merriville and the Marquis of Alverstoke, of Richard Castle and Kate Beckett, of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. The reunion of Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca.

Other moments than meetings can hold that magic, moments like turning points or payoffs. In Australia, Nicole Kidman looks up and sees Hugh Jackman standing in the doorway at the ball and knows she doesn't have to sell her land. In Music & Lyrics, Drew Barrymore is walking out of the concert but realizes Hugh Grant's song is directed at her, begging for her forgiveness from the stage. In Beauty & the Beast, Belle decides she'll stay with Beast. In Romancing the Stone, Kathleen Turner walks down the street to find Michael Douglas on his boat waiting for her. In The Mask of Zorro, Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones duel in the barn and exchange their hearts with their ripostes.

The horns of Rohan echo off Mt. Mindolluin's sides just when the inhabitants of Minas Tirith think all is lost. Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and sets his feet on the path of "might for right." Luke Skywalker risks everything on his untried use of the Force and blows up the Death Star, saving the rebellion.

All these moments are magic to me. What's magic to you? What romance fiction or movie couple do you think has the most powerful magical moment, and why? What other moments in books or films or life are magic to you? Is there music involved? Does a particular place evoke something for you?

Fireflies

by Cassondra Murray

Steve and I went to Sonic tonight. Yes, we were desperate for quick, easy food. It's been a hard, fast, three-weeks-of-hell beginning to the summer (you'll hear more about that in later blogs from me almost certainly).

I don't have to work tomorrow for the first time in about 15 days straight, AND I'm sort of back online after a computer meltdown. Slow connection, but it's there. So the last thing I was gonna do tonight was cook. Okay, so there are stacks of boxes and books and the leftovers of a major garage cleanout piled in my kitchen and dining room, but the fact that I can't get to my cookware may or may not be a factor in the Sonic decision.

For you unfortunate souls who don't have Sonic near you, it's a double-sided drive-in with a big patio in the center. You can order right from your car, or you can get out and sit at the tables on the patio. We'd dug our way, with those stupid flimsy plastic forks, at least three bites into our foot-long chili-cheese dogs when we noticed the little girl at a table in the center.

She was probably seven or eight years old, and had on a purple outfit with a big glittery butterfly on the shirt, and long blonde hair. She was with her dad. He was eating a hot dog (not foot-long) and she was eating something that looked like popcorn chicken bites. But she was not eating many. She was too busy chasing fireflies.

There weren't many visible. There's way too much light around a Sonic to see them well. But she was completely entranced, jumping into the air and ducking under bushes trying to capture them. I got so caught up in watching her that I stopped eating less than six inches into my foot-long coney.

What is it about fireflies?

To this day, I think they're magic. Do all the research you want, tell me how and why they do what they do, and it won't dim their magic one bit for me.

I think it's because of the memories. Some of my best memories are of fireflies, or "lightning bugs" as we called them.

About this time of year in Southern Kentucky, the fireflies come out. Oh, nowadays there are a few rebels flickering their lonely little lights in early spring, but right about now...mid-June...that's firefly season here. It's also the time of year when it gets too hot in un-air-conditioned houses to enjoy sitting inside in the evenings. I did not grow up with air conditioning.

When I was little, in late May and early June, as the afternoons grew hot and humid, and the evenings grew warm, my dad would go outside after supper, in search of a cool evening breeze and the sound of the tree frogs and crickets, and since I went everywhere with my dad, I went outside too. He'd set up a lawn chair in the middle of the lawn. One of those cheap aluminum-frame chairs with the nylon webbing that lasted a couple of seasons if you were lucky.

Honestly though, the seating quality didn't matter much. We were there for the view. I grew up on a small farm about eight miles south of nowhere. No artificial light except the faint glow from the kitchen window around the side of the house. Quiet.

When my dad got his chair off the porch and headed for the front yard, I'd run into the kitchen and dig under the sink for my jar.

Mine was a Mason jar with a mayonaise lid. Daddy had taken a nail and hammered a few holes in the top for air flow.

Once I had my jar and he had his chair, we were ready for what, to this day, I consider some of the best evenings of my life.

First we'd sit until the last glow of day had faded in the West and the sky had grown dark. The stars flickered on just for us. If we put the chairs right in the middle of the lawn, we had a great view of the Big Dipper almost straight overhead.

Then came the contest--who could spot the first lightning bug in the tall, uncut fescue hay across the road. As the little bugs crawled up the grass from where they'd spent the day hidden, they'd start to flash, one by one. Just a flicker here, and a flicker there.

"There's one!" My dad would say in a loud whisper, then he'd lean forward and point, adding drama to the hunt. He always saw them first. Inborn talent I guess.

Soon though, there would be hundreds, all around, high and low, blinking and streaking across the yard like tiny shooting stars. My dad would hold my jar and keep the lid on real loose for expedient transfer of fireflies from my little-girl hands to the jar. To us, injuring a firefly was a sin almost as grave as the killing of a unicorn is today, in the world of Harry Potter. I'd chase the bugs and catch them ever-so-gently, then I'd run across the dewy grass and my dad would open the lid just a crack. Into the jar they'd crawl. Soon enough I'd have my own lantern.

This lantern was good, of course, only until the first mosquito bit my dad. Then it was time to go in, and the last ritual of the evening was to let the fireflies go.

Tonight I sat at Sonic and ignored my foot-long hot dog as I watched that little girl, and I realized that some magic is timeless. I'm not the only one enchanted by "lightning bugs." Apparantly it's nearly universal. When I googled pictures of fireflies, I found essays, research, pages and pages of photos of the bugs themselves, and even "faux fireflies in jars" with little electric firefly lights, just for effect I guess. Lots of people seem to want to hold onto a bit of the magic.

Catching a jarfull, just to let them go again is one of those things that goes away with make-believe and childhood I suppose. Sometimes I wonder why, as an adult, it's no longer fun to do simple stuff like that.

Nowadays I sit by my firepit with my very adult glass of cabernet, a long way from that dew-covered yard. I know the Latin names of the trees and plants around me, and I have the stresses and worries of an adult in a fast-paced world.

But I can still watch that same Big Dipper sail overhead, and listen to the frogs on the pond behind my house.

And I still go out there early, just so I can try to spot the first firefly.

So tell me, did you ever catch fireflies as a kid?

If you grew up in the city, were there fireflies there?

If you have kids or grandchildren, do they still like to chase the flickering lights?

Apparantly, in some parts of the world, the fireflies all light up at the same time, synchronized, like this picture on the right. Have you ever seen that happen?

What time of year do the fireflies come out where you live?

Do you pay attention, and watch for the first firefly each season? Or am I the only one who still does that?