Release day is Friday, May 17 – be sure to stop by that day. I’m going to give away a copy of Wraith’s Heart to one of you for commenting!  My thanks to all of you!!

Available now for preorder!

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-wraith039sheart-1185384-140.html

Please welcome Michelle this morning! I definitely believe in magic, so please join us.  And for even more fun, Michelle is hosting me over at her site today – http://michellegflye.com/2013/04/26/special-guest-donna-steele-talks-about-inspiration/  so double your pleasure!

Do I Believe in Magic?
By Michelle Garren Flye

My most recent novel, Close Up Magic, is very much about magic, but not in a mystical, fantastical sense. I’m writing about performance magic, a craft I respect wholeheartedly. Performance magic is a combination of illusion and misdirection intended to amaze and delight an audience, and I’m usually the first to ooh and ahh at a good show.

Obviously, magicians are mysterious, but are they magic? Even David Copperfield says the secret to magic is in the performance.

Real magic is far more everyday for me. I’ve seen it in my children, in the flight of a bumblebee (how do they do that?), in azaleas (how are they all the same?) and in a gentle summer rain. If you can see magic the way I do, all you really have to do is walk outside—hell, just open your eyes—to be astounded.

So what’s the draw of performance magic? I love the artistry of it. Magicians, like all artists, really, are men reaching for divinity. They seek the ability to amaze us the same way a beautiful flower or a lightning strike does. No artist can ever achieve that, but with magicians, the fun (for the audience, anyway) is in the journey.

Here’s the blurb for Close Up Magic:

Reporter Stacey Matthewson has made a living writing sensational stories that knock celebrities off their pedestals. Now she’s got a hot lead on an even hotter magician who’s mystifying Las Vegas with his new show–the problem is, she’s had a crush on him for years. How can she write a story that might ruin him, especially when he proves himself to be so much more than she’d ever dreamed?

Magician Andre Hawke has a knack for making things disappear, but when it comes to his brother’s drinking and gambling, he’s got a problem. Hiring the sexy reporter who threatens to blow away his carefully wrought illusion might be the answer to his problems…or she might bring on a whole new set of them.

Stacey’s never believed in magic, and Andre doesn’t know who to trust anymore. Can passion overcome their inhibitions, or will betrayal stem the tide of love?

So now for the fun part.

I’ve been posting a lot of the tidbits I’ve learned on a Facebook page for Close Up Magic (https://www.facebook.com/CloseUpMagicFlye), and the great thing about it is, if you like that page, you’re automatically entered to win a Kindle Paperwhite I’ll be giving away on my blog (http://michellegflye.com). Also, I’ll enter anyone who comments on this page in the contest, but please leave me a way to contact you! If you want even more ways to enter to win, check out the rules here: http://michellegflye.com/2013/04/13/having-fun-with-magic-wanna-join-me-contest/.

Now, you tell me what you think about magic and magicians. Do you believe?

Okay, that was kind of cheating because I don’t write about vampires (yet) but right now, since it’s still the Earth Day Celebration, I’m talking about vampire energy. 

If you haven’t heard the term before, vampire energy is energy being drawn when not in use — the cell phone charger plugged in even when the phone has finished charging, the computer left on overnight, the lights left on in bathrooms when not needed, the clock of the microwave or the VCR scheduled to record something. These sources of low-wattage energy usage account for 5-8 percent of a home’s total electricity usage per year, according to the Department of Energy, which is equal to about one month’s electricity bill-for every household in the United States.

In some homes it could be as high as 20-30 percent.

How many things use vampire energy in your home? In my home, too many. I have a laptop that I used to leave plugged in and charging all night, a VCR/DVD player with a LED clock, the TV has an instant on, the microwave has a clock, Hubby’s razor charges at night along with our phones and iTouches. So what do you have?

Electrical devices plugged in 24 hours a day typically draw between two and 20 watts—even when the device is fully charged or powered-off. For example, When your TV is “off,” its power supply is still drawing power so that when you flick the on button on your remote it instantly turns on. This is convenient, but if you feel the power supply of a plugged-in device  it will be warm. Generating that heat consumes energy. Standby power is estimated to account for roughly 10 percent of US residential electricity consumption, valued at more than US$6 billion annually.

Some examples (typical values):

• Desktop computer – 73.97 W when on and idle (21.13 W when asleep and 2.84 when “off”)

• Laptop – 44.28 W when on and charging (4.42 W with just the power supply plugged in)

• DVR and digital cable box – 44.63 W when not recording with the TV off, but astonishingly still 43.46 W even when “turned off” by remote

• Cell phone charger – with phone plugged in but fully charged, around 2.24 W (the charger alone stuck in the outlet just 0.14 W)

Just something to think about – I unplug my laptop and then turn off the power strip. I can charge my phone in the car on the way to work.  What do you do?

Thanks to Charles W. Moore for some of these facts.

Remember to go back to http://www.steelestories.com/2013/earth-day.html to enter the contest for the Paperwhite again!