P.J. MacLayne

This week on the Open Book Blog Hop: Songs from your past. Share your high school music loves.


Rebellion. That was the theme of music during my high school years. It was the height of the Vietnam protest era and the songs we listened to reflected the political discontent of the generation.


“Revolution” by the Beatles may have been a B side song, but it’s popularity couldn’t be denied. There were several versions, but the words expressed the feelings of many of my peers. Revolution. After all, we wanted to change the world.


If you’ve never heard it, take a listen. Or listen to it again. For some of us, it never gets old. In fact, it’s one of the songs my mother made the rule for—it could only be played once, and not over and over.

But the Beatles were tame compared to some of the other music. Woodstock introduced many groups to a wider audience. Some are still well-known, others have faded into history. Country Joe and the Fish may never have received much radio airtime as their Vietnam song didn’t meet decency standards, but their songs were made popular by word of mouth. Vietnam Song





Putting together this list reminded me of so many other great songs. There’s WAR by Edwin Starr and the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black. There’s the Eve of Destruction and Fortunate Son.




But not all the popular songs were protest songs. Top songs ranged from Tony Orlando’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” Ribbon  to John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. Rocky Mountain. Women singers had their share of popularity. Roberta Flack,Dionne Warwick, Janis Joplin, Carol King, Olivia Newton-John and Aretha Franklin all had major hits. Me and Bobby McGee was an anthem for every girl who longed to cut loose from society’s expectations and find themselves. 


Frankly, I could ramble on for a long time. So many songs, and I spent several hours reminiscing as I put this post together. So before I get off on another tangent—I haven’t even got to the country songs that crossed over to the popular lists—I’ll stop here and send you over to another of the authors. But before you leave, don’t forget to share the songs from your high school years in the comments.


PJ Fiala is the author of the Rolling Thunder Series. You can check out her books HERE  and see what music she listened to here PJ Fiala. 

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From rookie cops to special ops, this collection celebrates all that Protect and Serve.

There are certain moments that define our lives and become part of our culture. The Kennedy assassinations, Kent State, Mount Saint Helens, the Challenger exploding, and of course, the events of September 11, 2001.

I’m not going to post any pictures for this entry. We’ve all seen them, and for those of us who lived through the day, they’re burned into our brain. Each time I see them, the terror  and sorrow of the day rushes back.

I was working in a small branch of a law-enforcement related agency. It was a fairly normal, busy day, with scads of paperwork to get down for the courts. I’m not sure which on my co-workers first alerted the rest of the office to the first plane crashing, but soon the word spread.

A TV was set up in an office so we could keep track of what was going on while continuing to work. We tried to keep things going normally—we had clients in and out of the office—but it wasn’t easy. When the second plane flew into the Towers, none of us could believe it.

I think the tears started flowing when the towers collapsed. 

When the plane plowed into the Pentagon, it  get personal. I have a brother who lived and worked in the Washington DC area, and although he didn’t work for the military, I was worried about him. I was also worrying about my sister, who sometimes—but rarely—went into New York for her job.  

About the time we heard the first reports of a plane flying around Pennsylvania, the building was evacuated. No one could imagine our little office would be a target for anyone, but no one could imagine any of the day’s events. I was freaking out, because most of my family lived in Pennsylvania—my parents in particular because they lived in rural are in the western portion of the state— and suddenly we were cut off from the news. There we were, standing in the hot Florida sun, watching the skies, while I worried about about my parents and my siblings. 

I didn’t even have a cell phone to call them. Luckily, a few of my co-workers did, and one let me use hers to try to reach my parents. It took too long to get through. The lines were overloaded and it took too many tries before I was able to establish a connection. Finally, I got ringing at the other end, and my mother picked up.

At that point, most of my brothers and sisters had checked in. Everyone was safe. The only sibling that hadn’t reached  out to my parents was in a location that appeared to be safe.

Eventually, we were allowed back inside and we went back to work. Not that anything went back to normal. 

One of the weirdest things over the next couple of days was the absence of planes in the skies overhead. There were always planes in the sky, no matter one time of the day or night as we lived along several major plane routes. To look around and see no contrails, and hear nothing but traffic and birds, felt like a scene out of a sci-fi flick.


And that’s my personal remembrance of 9/11. If you’d like to share yours, you can do it in the comments.

To read about the experiences of others in our hop, check out the links below. One of them is Kelly Williams. Here’s a direct link to her blog. Blue Honor

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Welcome to another week of Meet The Author Open Book Blog Hop. This week’s theme is: What your secret passion/guilty pleasure?


When I wrote my first book, I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, including my dearly beloved. I thought that I’d write one and get it out of my system. It didn’t work out that way and I have more ideas for books than I have time to write.  I was nearly done with my second book before I shared what I was up to with him. He thought I was reading or playing games on the computer.


And I didn’t share it with my coworkers until I worked up the courage to indie-release my fourth book. (Yes, there are three books I might go back to someday, see if I can whip them into shape and put them out there.) I took quite a bit of teasing about my writing because they couldn’t quite wrap their heads around the fact that this old lady wrote a paranormal romance. Now that I’ve released three the teasing has mostly died down.


But writing books was not my first venture into writing. My true passion for many years was poetry. In fact, I’ve been published internationally. I don’t claim to be great, but I think some of my poems are pretty darned good.


I’ll share just one with you, my favorite. P.J. Fiala, you might recognize the inspiration.

                     Beartooth Mountain Pass


I stand at the edge of eternity


Where the mountains and sky mingle
In a curious cacophony of watercolors
Where granite boulders,
With a furious freedom, defy gravity,
Hang in precarious unbalalnce
And do not fall
Where winter snows linger
Alongside short lived summer flowers

Where the world falls away from my feet
I teach myself to breathe again
12000 feet high

And that’s my not so secret passion. What’s yours? Tell us in the comments. And as always, if there’s anything you want to find out about us, let us know.


Before you leave, Have you checked out Lela Markham’s books yet? You can find her author page on Amazon HERE  

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Welcome to this week’s version of the Open Book Blog Hop, where you can find out more about our merry gang of authors. This week, we’re talking about our bucket lists. If there’s anything in particular you’d like us share, please let us know in the comments.

I’m a live-each-day-as-it-comes kind of person, so I’ve never had a bucket list.The way my life has played out, I’ve had the opportunity to do things that I’m guessing other people would envy.


I’ve played on Florida’s beaches from Jacksonville and all the way  along the coast to Panama Beach.  Not all in one trip, but over the years too-many I lived in that state. Some were impressive, others not so much. I certainly didn’t see all of them, but I walked on quite a few.

I’ve lived on both the East and West Coasts. I’ve traveled across the continental United States for work, and have been in almost every state. But I was working, so I didn’t have the chance to do much exploring. Still, I can claim I was there.


I’ve changed careers several times. I say I didn’t find what I wanted to do with my life until I was over 40 years old. And although I love what I do, I make no promises I won’t change jobs again.


But there are still a few things I’d like to do.


I’d like to make a mini-tour in tribute to John Denver. There will be only a couple of stops on that trip—Red Rocks near Denver where the John Denver tribute statue is located, the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, and of course Aspen, Colorado. 

I’d like to write a best seller. Maybe that’s more of a pipe dream than a bucket list item, but hey, I can dream, can’t I? I’m working in it, anyway. Maybe my next book. I can imagine walking into a book store and seeing a whole shelf of my books. And If I had Photoshop, I could make it happen!

Someday, I’d like to travel to Ireland, where my mother’s ancestors originated. The land has always held a certain attraction for me. Probably because I believe in magic and Ireland holds a mystical charm.

So do you have a bucket list? Tell us about it in the comments.


Before you click on another link and head over to another blog, don’t forget to check out Lela Markham’s books. You can find them on Amazon HERE. I wonder if Ireland is on her bucket list too. 

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Welcome everyone, no matter where you came from! 

This week’s topic: Tell us three things about you. What makes you unique? How would people describe you? Tell us something we don’t know about you.

You’d think for a writer answering these questions would be easy. After all, we spend hours building characters and trying to make them believable to for our readers.  But I’m an introvert (Aha! Number 1!) and I don’t like to talk about myself. Plus I’m a private person and am very selective I’ve what I share about myself. So these questions are actually tough for me to answer.

I like to think of myself as a bundle of contradictions. You’ll see what I mean.

Let’s start with something easy. I didn’t touch my first computer until I was over 30 years old. Now I earn my living sitting in front of a computer screen as a systems analyst. But I also did a stint as a computer tech, repairing computers and supporting users. (Yes, I was Help Desk. That’s a double contradiction—an older woman doing a job normally held by young guys.) And when I’m home, I’m sitting in front of a computer, writing!

To make it it even more complicated, I’m an old hippie chick. No, I didn’t make it to Woodstock or San Francisco. But I did make skirts out of my old blue jeans, I grew my own food and canned or froze the harvest. I’ve sewn shirts completely by hand, and decorated them with colorful embroidery. I’ve even been known to wear tie-die shirts and headbands.I tried to teach myself to play guitar, but I never learned more than a couple of songs.

Whew, that’s three things,right? What, the introvert thing doesn’t count? Sigh. All right, one more. This one related to my writing.

I never imagined myself writing a paranormal romance. Heck, I wrote poetry, not books. But when the stories started coming, there was no way to put a stop to them. So I wrote Wolves’ Pawn, figured I got the paranormal thing out of my system and started writing mysteries. But no, Tasha, one of the minor characters in Wolves’ Pawn, DEMANDED I write her story. So I am. My next book will be Wolves’ Knight, Tasha’s Tale. I’m hoping for an October release date. Then maybe I’ll be able to get back to Harmony Duprie and her adventures. (Want to see my books? Check out the My Books link.)

If there’s anything you’d like to our authors to answer, leave a comment. We’re always looking for fresh topics.

And before you take off to read what another author has to say about this week’s topic, don’t forget to check out Christine Ardigo’s books. You can find them HERE

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THEME THIS WEEK: Let’s talk fun. What do you consider fun? Drinks with friends, camping, music, shooting pool, picnics, watching television. Show us your fun times.

Those of you who have reading my blog entries probably think you know where I’m headed this week. Chances are you’re right. But I’m going to make a quick stop before we get there.

I love to read. Always have, even as a kid. I used to take a book out of the elementary school library each afternoon before hopping on the bus to head home, and return it the next morning. Yes, I’d read a book a night.

When I got into high school, the demands of school work slowed my reading down—somewhat. I probably only read three of four books a week. Of course, they were also thicker and more complex. As an adult, I’d “binge read.” I’d got through periods where I read constantly, and other times when I didn’t have time to read at all. Now that I’ve started writing myself, my time to read has shrunk even more. Which reminds me, I need to make a trip to the library.

You can go pack top my post about crafty stuff to read about my love of needlecraft. I’ll  give you one picture to entice you if you haven’t already read it.

And now to where you knew where I was going. Every chance I get, I head to the mountains. Sometimes it’s a day trip, and when time allows, it’s more. I’ve always loved camping. I grew up in the country, and many summer nights we’d drag a few blankets out to the front porch and sleep outside. When I was in the Girl Scouts, I looked forward to our camping trips. When I got a bit older, I volunteered to help with the summer camps. One summer, I worked as a camp counselor and lived in a tent for the whole summer.

Luckily, I married a guy who likes to camp almost as much as I do, and we’ve lived in places where the camping was plentiful and the people weren’t. Nothing better then being in the wilderness with no one else around, sitting by a campfire on a clear night and watching the stars. It’s amazing how many more stars you can see in the night sky when you’re somewhere high in the mountains. Throw in a little background music courtesy of John Denver (or at least a recording of him) and you’ve got the makings of a perfect night. And that’s my idea of fun!

And now it’s time to pimp another of our authors. Because remember, reading is first on my list of ways to have fun!  So if you haven’t checked out Stevie Turner’s books teey, now’s your chance. You can find them at Stevie Turner

To find out what other authors are saying, head over to PJ Fiala’s blog http://pjfiala.com/blog

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