I'm running a blog contest today with this post, to enter please comment below and one winner will recieve a pdf download of As Timeless As Stone.
I write my Celtic/Romances under the name of Cornelia Amiri but my Steampunk/Romance As Timeless As Stone is under the pen name of Maeve Alpin and the heroine, Seshat, is from the Middle Kingdom period of ancient Egypt. I love history and Egyptian history can be so much fun. I thought I’d share some of the more interesting trivia I came across while researching that era. I love candy and believe it or not, so did the ancient Egyptian they invented and indulged in two all time favorites: licorice and marshmallows.
Here are two great youtube videos, the first one shows you how to decorate Halloween rotten cupcakes and spider rotten cupcakes with licorice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbUsgmFIuwM
And this youtube video shows how to use marshmellows to make a ghost on a cupcake and how to use licorice for the eyes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTtZQuHQABQ
For more Halloween Egyptian themed fun, here are Mummy hot dogs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUSYe1q61xU
and here are Mummy cookies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHaVJDYcPaA
For further Egyptian Halloween fun on youtube, here is a video on how to make up your face like King Tut’s gold face on his surcofagous. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGv589PiFuw&feature=related
For the steampunk side of my story, here’s a great youtube video on how to make a mini hallowen top hat for a steampunk Halloween costume from a styrafoam cup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSVrHiqNs-o&p=1ACDBA473E8D044B&playnext=1&index=51
A steampunk cake would be great for Halloween as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_0ckuNS8aM
And here is an excerpt from my Egyptian Steampunk/Romance As Timeless As Stone:
A plump woman walked in and curtsied mechanically. “Bonsoir.” Tilting her head to one
side she stole a slanted look at Seshat.
“Hello,” Seshat answered in Old Egyptian as she stepped up to the roaring blaze in the brick fireplace.
The middle-aged cook turned her head toward Ricard. “Monsieur Dubois, the woman is not dressed.”
“It is Egyptian attire, Charlotte. In her time...I mean in her land, it is appropriate.” He stared with longing at Seshat and at what he thought of as very fitting apparel. “It suits her well.”
His cook cleared her throat loudly and admonished him with her scowl.
He added, “But of course she will be fitted for proper clothes befitting a lady of her station in the morning.”
“As you say, Monsieur.” Charlotte’s brow furrowed as she scrutinized their guest.
Seshat examined the red wallpaper and the paintings in all shapes and sizes encased in gilded frames.
“She will be staying with us for a few weeks,” Ricard paused and mumbled under his breath,“or forever, if I have anything to say about it.”
“Will the lady be dining with us this evening?” Charlotte tugged on her white bib top apron, tied over a full, floor-length solid blue work dress.
“Indeed she will.” His thoughts weren’t on food, he hungered for Seshat. He inhaled the evocative blend of her musky, soft floral scent. As he imagined the taste of her sweet lips and the salty flavor of her skin, his sex grew hard and throbbed. Ricard’s face was hot with embarrassment, he had invited this fine lady, a priestess of ancient Egypt, into his home as a guest and he must restrain these lecherous thoughts.
“Very well, I shall have one of those creatures set another place at the table.” The plump cook returned to the kitchen.
Two small brass men with iron faces and steam pistons rotating on their sides, a large rotating flywheel in each of their shiny chests, and steam spraying from the open stove-pipe top-hats on their heads, sluggishly marched into the room. Each held trays of food.
Seshat screamed and ran to the far corner of the dining room. With her back pressed against the wall, she yelled at them, “If you evil beast harm me I shall put a curse on you. May a donkey violate you, a hippopotamus crush you into little pieces, and a crocodile devour what’s left of you.”
“Not beast.” Ricard had to yell over the roar of the steam servants. “They serve a wonderful purpose. You see, as an educated man in the age of enlightenment, I know servants work long hours at dangerous labor and it is wrong for men of any station to be condemned to a life of drudgery. I built these mechanical men to do all distasteful and dangerous tasks, from cleaning, washing, waxing, chimney sweeping and lighting fires, to hauling and lifting. I have only one human servant, Charlotte, and all she does is cook, everything else is handled by my steam servants, even chopping onions and peeling garlic cloves.”
Seshat stepped out of the corner. Her eyes no longer glittered with fear and her body lost the stiffness, the tension, she’d had but a moment before, yet she still held her hands over her ears.
“Oui, they are quite loud.” Ricard smiled and managed to coax her into a chair at the dining table, or it might have been the aroma of Charlotte’s broiled partridges with hot sauce that impelled her to take a seat.
http://MaeveAlpin.com
As Timeless As Stone is available in ebook form at Amazon kindle, Barnes & Nobles onlinge, Borders online, Fictionwise, All Romance ebooks as well as most online book stores.
