This is one end of main street, in front of the Hyart Theater, which was only open on weekends. To drag all of main took about five minutes. If you went really slow.

Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

So, as previously mentioned, my high school reunion is this month. It’s been 40 years, so I’m not worried about what to wear or trying to repair the ravages of time. Thanks to FaceBook, most of my classmates have already had time to process time’s b*tch slapping. Gravity has not been kind either.

It happens.

I have found myself thinking back. I’m not Peggy Sue (Peggy Sue Got Married) and have NO desire to go back and redo high school. Even with the fuzziness of time, I remember it as a time of trying not to stand out, while totally hoping to catch the eye of my crush of the week (who I thought I’d love forever, btw). But I did not want to catch male eyes in an embarrassing way. Something magical, possibly mystical, but devoid of embarrassing. And don’t ask me to define “embarrassing.” That changed with the minute.

Ah, the teen years. Nothing inexplicable there.

Part of the reason it was so challenging—and so very easy to do something embarrassing—is that I grew up in a small town in Wyoming. A really small town. Though not the smallest. But it was small. I’m not dissing it. It was a great place to be a kid. A friend-rich, adventure-rife environment.

I love browsing the hubs’ Flickr page for fun “Scenic Route” photos to share for my Thursday meme. I think he has a great eye for a great shot. If you check in here at all, then you know I love romance and the romantic potential is this shot just grabbed me. It kind of reminds me of when the hubs and I were at the county fair and he maneuvered me onto the Twister.

I’m not quite sure about that odd silhouette on the  right, though. That looks like it has potential for an urban critter story. Feel free to let your imagination run wild. And while it’s running wild, I’ll tell you about the audio book giveaway for this week. Without further ado:

“A highly suspenseful, should-be-a-movie, totally entertaining tale of derring-do…”

So, it’s simple to enter my audio book, blog anniversary drawing. Just tell me why you’d be the best person to win The Last Enemy in audio. Winner will be announced next Thursday. All comments will also be considered entries in my monthly $10 AnaBanana gift card. Gift card winner is announced in the first blog post of the new month.

And now, the winner of The Spy Who Kissed Me audio book is:

Perilously yours,

For more information about me and my books, pop over to my website at www.paulinebjones.com.

New Orleans. A girl. A guy. Bullets and bad guys. A normal day in the Big UNeasy. Well, what passes for normal…

Last week, I posted one of the hubs photos of the Houston Livestock Show Skyride. Then I saw this one and fell for it, too. It draws the eye into the story, hopefully like a good book draws you into that story. The hubs forms his Flickr sets into a picture story, inviting you to an event that he enjoyed. Can you see why I love this man? Why I’m a confirmed romantic?

So before we get to the next audio book giveaway, I wanted to give you a heads up on a fun event that starts tomorrow, here and on many other blogs. The SFR Brigade is having its second Midsummer Blog Hop. This year the theme is “Out of this World,” and I’m so excited to be participating again this year. So be sure to stop back tomorrow for the out of this world fun.

So, this week, I’m giving away the first book in my Lonesome Lawmen series, because last week, I gave away the first book. It feels kind of orderly.

“A highly suspenseful, should-be-a-movie, totally entertaining tale of derring-do…”

So, the rules of the drawing are very simple. Tell me why you think you’d like to win The Last Enemy and you’ll be entered. No muss, no fuss and no purchase necessary. And all comments, all month will also be entered into my monthly drawing for a $10 AnaBanana gift card. The audio book winner will be announced right here, next Thursday and the gift card winner is announced the first blog post of the new month.

For more information about me or my books, pop over to paulinebjones.com

I return (fictionally) to New Orleans for my first romantic suspense novel in five years. Cover art by Elizabeth Vargas Greer. All rights reserved.

“Yeah, mom and dad, I did it! I actually graduated! Um, now what do I do?”

So, this month I will be attending my [deep breath here] 40th high school reunion. It’s not like I didn’t know I’m old as dirt. I know my age. But I hadn’t done the math on how long I’d been out of high school, so it was kind of a shock when the email showed up.

This will be the first time I’ve been able to attend a reunion. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone. I do wonder what it will be like, feel like when all our older selves get together. And there are sure to be the ghosts of our younger selves hanging around. Yearbooks and stuff. O.O

If I haven’t changed in 40 years, than that would just be sad. I have changed. A lot. I know the family jowls have taken over where I used to have a jawline. Gravity has taken a toll on various body parts and a lot of stress calories taken up permanent residence in my tush. I now know what a muffin top is.

Inside, I’ve changed a lot, too. I know more now, mostly that I didn’t know anything in high school. Nothing. Nada. And old dogs have to learn new tricks to survive. O.O

I have  not learned as much as I’d hoped I would have by now. I really thought I’d be so wise. Possibly venerable. Peering through the mists of time, I sort of remember thinking that I’d never get old old. I knew that everyone gets old, but I’d be different. I’d manage it really well, so well that I’d be venerable, but not old.

Yeah.

Let’s see, where else was I wrong? I thought  I’d know the moment I was a grownup. It would be like graduating, only without the ceremony and the diploma. But definitely a moment. Instead, grownup-ness sort of crept up on me and it hasn’t stopped the whining (though I do try to keep it internal). Does that mean I’m grownup or that I’m not?

Cuz there are times when I don’t feel grownup at all. When one of the grand babies’ face puckered up to cry, I actually thought, “Wow, I miss doing that.” Sometimes I’d like to just throw a temper tantrum, flailing fists and kicking legs. And it would still be cute. Not disturbing and scary.

I thought I’d get taller. Now I know I quit growing at 25. Yeah, probably heading the other direction now. Shrinking does run in the family, like the jowls.

Am I grownup enough to hang with the high school peeps and our ghosts? I kind of think I am and do you know why? Because I’m not stressing about what to wear. Wow. It will probably come, though there’s not a lot can be done. I am what I am. The mold is pretty much set. Though if you know of an outfit that would make me taller and shrink the jowls…

So, if you were going to your high school reunion, what would you worry about? What did you learn, post graduation that you didn’t expect? All comments are entered into my monthly drawing for $10 AnaBanana gift card. Winner is announced in the first blog post of the new month. (And be sure to check back in on Thursday. I’m celebrating my blog birthday all summer with some audio book giveaways.)

New Orleans. A girl. A guy. Bullets and bad guys. A normal day in the Big Uneasy. Well, what passes for normal…

I’m changing things up a bit for the summer. As I previously mentioned, I’m going to dial back the blogging to twice a week as The Grandma Project takes front and center. I still want to do my “Scenic Route” posts with the hubs photos, but my “Wishing for a Wormhole” meme will be on hiatus until September.

I’m currently at work on the next installment in The Big Uneasy. We’ll call it volume 1.5, though it might grow into 1.75. We’ll see. Relatively Risky should release as an audio book in July, or possibly August and my Mystery Collection just took the next step toward being available in audio. And the print edition of Relatively Risky is close to releasing. I also have my 5 year blog-versary coming up in July. And I wanted to do something fun to celebrate.

Every Thursday, I’m going to hold a drawing for an audio book download of one of my novels. I’ve currently got 13 coupons to give away and should get some more when the other two audio books release. So the audio book fun should last all summer. The codes work at Audible.com but I honestly don’t know if they work internationally. I know the audio books are for sale everywhere I could list them. So I won’t limit entries, but I hope winners won’t be mad if the code doesn’t work for them. (I’ll try to come up with an alternate something or other if someone wins and they know they don’t have access to Audible.)

The audio book drawing will be in addition to my usual AnaBanana gift card drawing, because you know I love the soap.

So, first up is (pretend you hear a drum roll, okay?):

Isabel “Stan” Stanley’s mother has been hoping a man would fall in Stan’s lap. But when a handsome spy dives through the sunroof of her car in a hail of bullets, Stan’s sure this wasn’t what momma had in mind.

To enter, just tell me why you’d like the audio book of The Spy Who Kissed Me. Since this was my first published novel, it seems appropriate. And this was my first review of the book:

“. . . . a remarkable new talent . . Pauline Baird Jones and her hilarious novel [The Spy Who Kissed Me] make their debut. Written in first person, this adventurous romp is a 14 karat gem, and I for one would love to see more from this vastly amusing author.”  Romantic Times

And, if you comment for the audio book, you’ll automatically be entered into my monthly drawing for the $10 AnaBanana gift card. I’ll announce the winner in my next, Thursday blog post. And reveal the next audio book giveaway. The AnaBanana gift card winner is announced the first blog post of the new month.

So that’s the scoop! I hope you’ll stick around and party with me all summer.

Perilously yours,

I return (fictionally) to New Orleans for my first romantic suspense novel in five years. Cover art by Elizabeth Vargas Greer. All rights reserved.

I was browsing through Amazon seeing if I could find a copy of Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh for less than $250—hey, don’t judge, he’s really cute when he’s not sporting the scarecrow getup—when I ran across another blast-from-the-past-movie called Moon Pilot. I couldn’t afford Dr. Syn, so I went for Moon Pilot, wondering if I’d like it or wish I’d passed.

There’s a book, too. Crazy!

So the movie arrived and I watched it. I actually enjoyed it, but wow, do you ever grab an old movie and realize how much you’d forgotten about how things were? Is it that we’re not far enough from the 60’s to find them cute and quirky? I know I found Bewitched (the TV show—okay the movie was painful, too, but for different reasons) hard to revisit. Darren was such a male chauvinist, and yet I really enjoyed it back in the day. Because back then it was normal behavior.

Ouch.

Yes, that is a tape. O.O

Only Star Trek seemed to foresee a future where women’s roles were seriously changed. In stark contrast, there is The Jetsons where Jane is a space age homemaker. I suppose it would have been considered subversive to update our roles in a cartoon, but it would have gone better with the space needle housing.

While I don’t miss The Good Wife’s Guide type of thinking at all, I do miss the sense of wonder, the feeling that there was a the whole of space for us to explore. I miss looking up and wondering when—not if—we’ll send people beyond the boundaries of our galaxy. I miss wondering what was on the dark side of the moon.

What about you? What do you miss? What don’t you miss from the past? All comments are entered into my monthly drawing for $10 AnaBanana gift card. Winner is announced in the first blog post of the new month.

And guess what? This is the first blog post of the month, so I get to award another gift card! And the winner is:

Robin aka kodasmama

Send me an email if you don’t hear from me in the next few days. I’m deep into The Grandma Project these days.

Perilously yours,

Pauline did not realize how much she liked looking up until she wrote The Key, her first science fiction romance novel. To find out more about her adventures in space and here on earth, fly on over to her website at paulinebjones.com.

New Orleans. A girl. A guy. Bullets and bad guys. A normal day in the Big Uneasy. Well, what passes for normal…

Relatively Risky is available at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and iTunes. It will release in print this month and will release in audio this summer. You can also find it at Smashwords and there are samples on Wattpad.

I love walking along a pier, probably because we didn’t have a lot of them in Wyoming.

Copyright by WyoJones. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Now that the hubs’ computer is back up and running, and he is posting his awesome photos again, I popped over to browse his Flickr page and found this shot. I don’t know why, but I love walking along a pier. When we first moved to New Orleans, I just couldn’t get over all the water. There was the Mississippi River. There was the Gulf of Mexico. And when we couldn’t see that, there was the tremendous rain storms. I had no idea it could rain that hard.

I grew up in Wyoming. It’s pretty sparing with its water. And a lot of other things (it does score big with mountains, however!). Our kids grew up with the levees as the high spots, so the first time we took the son home, when he was old enough to really notice the mountains, he looks up. And up. And up some more. His eyes got really big and he said, “Wow, dad, big levee!”

I can’t imagine the river he imagined was on the other side. LOL

So, does water fascinate you? Annoy you? Intrigue you? Do you love walking a pier or are you meh on the idea? Do share! I love comments so much I enter all of them into my monthly drawing for a $10 AnaBanana gift card of yummy awesomeness. (Can you tell I’m a fan?) Winner is announced the first blog post of the new month, which just happens to be the next blog post. Cause this is the last day of May.