Birthday Wishings

For some strange reason I’ve been having a difficult time with the idea that I’m now a year older. Never before have had I felt anxiety around my birthday. This year has sent me thinking about the reasons.

I’m not going to say how old I am, but suffice it to say, I’m older than most of all my friends, and some of them by more than a decade. It is said that by hanging around with a younger crowd it will keep one young. This is true, but it can also make one feel older. It’s amazing how life experience can age you, especially when you’re more in line with some of your friend’s parents, by age, than your friends.
I think another aspect to my birthday anxiety is that a part of me wishes I have accomplished more by this age. Maybe I’m I’m going through a mid-life crisis. Who knows? I do know that, rationally, I’ve done very well for myself as an author, mother, wife and friend. I guess it’s normal to refect on what could be better and find ways to achieve that.

One major reason, I’ve come to realize, and respect, is that I am at the age my mother was when she started having serious heart problems that resulted in her having a quad-bypass when I was fourteen. Yes, she was young. I know that I’m concerned that history will repeat itself with me despite the fact that I try and live healthily. I guess it’s a matter of wait and see.

I haven’t asked my friends and family for gifts this year, and nor do I expect them. I have enough stuff in my house, though one can never have enough books, ebook or dead tree.:)

There’s only one thing more that I would like for my birthday: To touch more folks with my writing, whether that be through my blog, twitter, facebook and/or my novels, and for those whom I have touched to let me know by emailing me and/or posting reviews of my novels.

If these things were to happen, along with all the great things that have already occurred so far, then I know that this year’s birthday will be the best!

Cheers!

Karen Dales
Award Winning Author

"The Chosen Chronicles" are now $.99 for each eBook.
(also available in Trade Paperback)
Amazon/Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Karen-Dales/e/B004TG6U1Y/
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Order of The Chosen Chronicles:
Changeling: Prelude to The Chosen Chronicles
Angel of Death: Book One of The Chosen Chronicles
Shadow of Death: Book Two of The Chosen Chronicles
(Soon To Be Released - Thanatos: Book Three of The Chosen Chronicles)

Keep up to date with me and my writing on:
Website – http://karendales.com/
Blog - http://karendalesauthor.blogspot.com/
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Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/karendales
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Amazon - http://amazon.com/author/karendales

Kelley Armstrong, #1 New York Times Best Selling Author says of Shadow of Death, "... dark...compelling ...that will keep readers turning the pages well past bedtime."

Review for Jean Auel's "Land of Painted Caves"

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I fell in love with Jean Auel's Earth's Children series when Clan of the Cave Bear was first released. I loved that book. I loved the second one and even the third. As the four and then the fifth book came out, my love affair was being strained.

It took 30 years for Ms. Auel to produce the 6 books of the series, but frankly, she would have been better to stop at the third, if not the fourth.

I had high hopes for The Land of Painted Caves. They were crashed to the dark abyss of those caves.

Ms. Auel would have been better writing a travel guide to these painted caves she so obviously visited. Her research, etc, was excellent. Unfortunately, in the span of her research for her books she forgot something very important - how to tell a story.

The CONSTANT repetition, the lack of any plot until the very last of the book, the need to skim over pages and pages just to get to a possible point, were only a few of the issues I had with this book.

As an author myself, I feel that a lot of the onus of this book's miserable failings has to land on Ms. Auel's editors. In my opinion, they did not do their job. I do believe that this book could have been better written, in both plot and structure.

I hate to say it, but if you love Earth's Children, then don't read past the Mammoth Hunters, you'll only become more and more dissappointed, especially when you reach the Land of Painted Caves.



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