Thank you for inviting me to speak to your readers about THE SECRETS OF MINDFUL BEAUTY published by Skyhorse Publishing. I’m Dr Elizabeth Reid Boyd. I’m an author and academic in the field of gender studies. My natural pen name Eliza Redgold is based upon the Gaelic meaning of my full name, Elizabeth Reid Boyd. I write contemporary and historical fiction published by Harlequin and St Martin’s Press (as Eliza Redgold) and non-fiction (as Elizabeth Reid Boyd). I also practice mindfulness and meditation, and teach these practices to my university students. In 2017, The Secrets of Mindful Beauty came out with Skyhorse Publishing, New York. I’m fascinated by how much more creative we are when we slow down and let ideas grow. Our minds are truly magical. I’ve developed some life coaching practices for creative women: mixing magic with mindfulness. These exercises based on women’s wisdom from the past will enhance your creativity. Here’s one to help you slow down and enjoy reading more. A GRACE FOR BOOKS: MINDFUL READING ‘Why have we no grace for books, those spiritual repasts – a grace before Milton – a grace before Shakespeare – a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading…

My interest in wolves was not so much in their physical details, though those are amazing (did you know wolves can smell something a mile away and hear something 6 miles away in the forest or 10 miles away in the open?) I have always been more interested in details about social structure. For example, subordinate wolves often try to bring peace to the pack after a fight between dominants. The more violent the fight, the harder the subordinates try to diffuse the situation with nose kisses and touching and licking. That’s because a Pack must work together to survive. When wolves travel, they put the weakest at the front to set the pace, then sandwich strong and weak wolves, with the Alpha at the back so that he can see everything. When writing about Silver, who is at the dead bottom of the hierarchy, I was curious to read that lower-ranking pack members are often particularly resourceful because they don’t get the pick of the kill and have to use their ingenuity to get enough to eat. I also wanted to know where some of the misconceptions about wolves came from. Like an article in the Journal of Zoology…

Have you ever had mixed feelings about a series you have read and enjoyed coming to an end? You might be relieved that the heroine gets her happily-ever-after or be thinking “No – there is so much more they can do!” That is exactly where I stand on the ending of Keri Arthur‘s Outcast Novels. This series centers on Tiger, a dechet – a super-soldier the humans manufactured to fight the species war. At the end of the war, the dechet’s were eradicated, men, women and children, by the shifters as they deemed them abominations. Tiger survived and is surrounded by ghosts of those who died in the bunker including two little ones, Bear and Cat, her constant companions. She can’t help what she is, what she was made to be but she can use her skills to help others when she has to. Unfortunately, the bombs that ended the war also tore holes between worlds and allowed the entrance of other beings that were happy to find new hunting grounds, so demons, vampires and wraiths entered the destroyed world. So now, humans and shifters alike, live in artificially lit cities as the new beings love to hunt in the…