And now please welcome the talented Judith Gilbert, author of Blood Hunt, newly released at TWRP

WHO SAID LIFE HAD TO BE FAIR?

If there’s one thing life has taught me, it is that life is anything but fair, but then whoever told us it has to be fair?

The last four months have been tough. One of the sweetest men I’ve ever known, my younger brother, had a massive heart attack. During surgery, the heart surgeon accidentally nicked a vein in my brother’s neck and he almost bleed to death. They had to call in a cardio-vascular surgeon to repair the vein. In the meantime, my brother used every pint of blood the hospital had that matched his blood type. Thank, God, my brother survived. He’s still in rehab, back working part time, but I had no idea that if a blood donor contracted AIDS ten days before they gave blood, it will not show up in the tests, so he had to undergo AIDS testing, another scary ordeal.

My brother is two years younger than me. This scare reminded me of the times we were left alone as kids and I was told by my parents to look after my brother. I made sure nothing happened to him as we were growing up. But when this entire thing happened, all I could do was call and send e-mails to ask friends to add my baby brother to their prayer lists. Deep within my heart I know there’s very little we actually do control in our lives. As Martha Stewart would say, “That’s a good thing.” I know that when I kneel and pray each night that God will do what I can’t, keep my baby brother in the palm of His hand and protect him, just as God did during that terrible heart surgery.

My brother, who served in Vietnam, was one of the research sources for my bestselling vampire/witch paranormal, BLOOD HUNT: THE LEGEND under J Gilbert. I had spent a lot of time on the Internet researching the Army—uniforms, ranks, vehicles, weapons. You name it—I studied it because I had scenes where the Army Special Forces go up against a vampire. I wanted to make sure how the scenes unfolded and played out were accurate. Who did I call? My brother, of course.

When I called my brother and told him I needed help with some battle scenes involving the Army Special Forces, which is right up his alley, he asked, “Who are we fighting?”

“Vampires,” I answered.

He laughed for several minutes. “Give me a second. I need to put on my imaginary hat.”

He helped me with everything from how many men would go on the mission, how they would divide up, how to search a building, surprise the enemy and answered my question about what weapons to use on the vampire. When I wrote those scenes I had confidence that they were accurate because my baby brother had helped me with them.

I would like to invite you to visit both my websites, www.authorjudithgilbert.com OR
www.authorjgilbert.com. Both websites have $15.00 Gift Certificates from The Wild Rose Press that I’ll be drawing lucky winners from on October 31. Go to either website, double click on the Judith Gilbert button or J Gilbert button and fill out the Contest. Once you complete that contest, double click on GATEWAY button to get back to the double doors, enter the other one and complete that contest. Good luck in the drawing.

Thank you so much for reading my blog. For those of you who leave a response, I’ll draw one name for the following prize: Vanilla Cream 8 Pack Scented Tea Light Candles.

Judith Gilbert, J Gilbert, the dark side of Judith
A PERFECT AFFAIR by Judith Gilbert Buy paperback at http://tinyurl.com/4qal75
BLOOD HUNT: THE LEGEND by J Gilbert
E-book at The Wild Rose Press
Paperback coming January 09, 2009