Nikki of Obsessive Chihuahua Disorder, my favorite Chihuahua-oriented blog, gave my free Christmas story a really nice plug:
I downloaded it and uploaded it to my Kindle to read last night. It was such a delightful read. It was nice because it was like getting to laugh along with old friends since I loved these characters in the first novel.
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It’s a great short story and I recommend it for people who enjoy reading mysteries, laughing and of course who have a love for dogs (especially Chihuahuas).
You can read the full review here. And you can find Nikki’s very active Facebook page here. I’m on there all the time, to get my fix of cute dog pictures. Bebe is my favorite on most days, but the others give her a run for her money, especially Monte.
And if you’d like to read ‘Twas the Chihuahua Before Christmas, just click the cover.
Finished the lyrics for The Twelve Chis of Christmas, also figured out the guitar chords. Now I gotta get good enough playing it to record a vid and mp3. (So you can have me warbling a highly derivative carol on your phone!)
Also need to finish up and polish ‘Twas the Chihuahua Before Christmas short story and make it available (for FREE!) and then I’ll go back to doing…well, much less fun things, frankly.
Fawn Frazer is author of the delightful children’s book, Tiny and His Big Adventure, which teaches kids that they need to be gentle with small animals, such as Chihuahuas. [Sciencey note: Apparently kids under three don’t actually realize that animals are living things rather than toys. My personal apologies to childhood pet Mousie.]
Fawn has read Chihuahua of the Baskervilles and is a fan, resulting in these pictures of one of her Chis, Merlin.
I can’t get enough of these pix, so please, Chihuahua owners, send me more. Buy Fawn’s book, while you’re at it.
It’s here, the day you had no idea you were waiting for — Tuesday! Ah, but a Tuesday different from all others, because you can finally get Chihuahua of the Baskervilles in either hardback or ebook. (Yes, ebook! You could be reading it right now, instead of this parenthetical comment!) Links to your favorite sellers are in the sidebar, top right.
I had some extra excitement this morning in the form of a short radio interview with Tron Simpson of the popular morning radio show, “Tron in the Morning.” Super nice guy. I requested anything by Aretha Franklin.
Also today, if you’d like an extra-special (aka “tiny”) bonus scene from the lives of Angus, Suki and Michael, come over to the Killer Characters blog, where I am answering any and all questions, many with the same answer. (“I don’t know.”)
Hope you all had a great holiday weekend. We watched the Folsom Field fireworks from our super-secret parking lot, which was enlivened by a guy who had smoked a great deal of pot (“This is just like when I was sucked up into the cosmos as an enormous ball of light! I was pure love!”).
CriminalElement.com has made the first three chapters of Chihuahua of the Baskervilles available to members. It’s free to register, and the site has a ton of great features/content for people who love mystery books.
Ada Nieves just sent me an email that she’s going to appear on David Letterman’s show tonight, and I am so excited for her, I CAN HARDLY STAND IT! Ada is a wonderful woman in the Chihuahua community (yes, there is a Chihuahua community). She designs small-dog fashion, just like the gal in my first mystery book (only she’s much younger, more attractive, and Puerto Rican).
Update: She was showing her little clothes for rats! But they still showed photos of her Oscar dresses for dogs, which are fantastic.
This is exciting! I just got on Amazon.com and saw that Chihuahua of the Baskervilles will be released simultaneously in hardback and ebook versions (Kindle and Nook)! The price for both platforms is $10.99. If you’ve pre-ordered the hardback and would prefer the ebook version, I think you can log onto your online bookstore account and cancel the hardback order. The ebook version has a pre-order option as well. Don’t hesitate to buy the the lower-priced ebook on my account. I get a bigger percentage of those sales. 🙂
[NOTE: Clicking on the pictures in this post will take you to their source articles. Have fun!]
If it weren't for the plaque, I think this would fool anyone.
Welcome to the world of permanently preserved pets. First of all, I have a confession to make. When our beloved rabbit, Glory Roberta, died, I took her to a taxidermist and had him remove the pelt and cure it for me. Her fur was beautiful, and I wanted something to remember her by. Once the grief wore off, I stuck it in a drawer and mostly forgot about it, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. Now I wonder how much more it would have cost to go the whole way and have her mounted in a lifelike pose — rolling in her litterbox, perhaps, or chewing a baseboard.
Taxidermists are interesting people. They love animals, and they love a challenge. When a heavily tattooed and heartbroken guy brought in his dead Chi puppy, this taxidermist embraced the difficulties of mounting a seven-inch long animal, and the results are both poignant and adorable.
Preserving pets has a long history, possibly starting with the Egyptians, and certainly achieving heights of weirdness with those wacky Victorians, who made entire tableaus of dressed-up cats, dogs, mice and monkeys. Their motto seemed to be, if it moves, make a pet of it. When it stops moving, turn it into decoration.
And of course, some people preserve pets somewhat less sensitively than others.
If this is a subject that interests you, you’re in luck. Animal Planet has an upcoming reality show which is described thusly.
The show, set in Romance, Ark., follows taxidermist Daniel Ross as he runs family business X-treme Taxidermy with his wife LaDawn and three sons. Together, the family and employees specialize in reassembling family pets, including a chihuahua, a goat and a poodle.
Because of the location, the working title is, “Romance is Dead.” <cue reluctantly admiring groan>
Nikki of Obsessive Chihuahua Disorder, my favorite Chihuahua-oriented blog, gave my free Christmas story a really nice plug:
CriminalElement.com
Esri Allbritten 