The Smashwords Sale is Live!

Now is your best chance to find several of my books available for a promotional price at @Smashwords as part of their Annual Summer Sale going on the entire month of July! It would mean the world to me if you were to purchase a book (or three!). My birthday is coming up on the 13th of July so this would be a great gift!
You can view all of my books by searching my name or use the following links below to go directly to a specific book:

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DAD-OCALYPSE NOW

Cipherbound

Ms. and Mrs. Smith

Thirteen Hours Dark

The Peach Pit Pranksters of Augusta

The Suburban Assassin

Ink and Imagination

#SWSale2025 #Smashwords

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I’ve Written Several More Books

I’ve decided to try my hand at children’s books:

The Curious Capers of Cora and Captain Clawhugs – The Case of the Buried Treasure

The Curious Capers of Cora and Captain Clawhugs – The Case of the Missing Stars

The Curious Capers of Cora and Captain Clawhugs – The Case of the Missing Weathervane

The Curious Capers of Cora and Captain Clawhugs – The Case of the Missing Toys


And my first foray into fiction with this horror/thriller book: No One Came but the Ravens

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The movie, My Fair Lady, is eff’d up…

…and I’ll tell you why. While My Fair Lady (1964) is celebrated for its music and performances, it raises deeply problematic themes that feel jarring through a modern lens. Here’s my structured critique:


Toxic Gender & Class Dynamics

Henry Higgins is the poster boy for pompous patriarchy—a dude who treats Eliza like a DIY project instead of a person. His whole shtick? “I’ll turn this trashy nobody into classy nobody!” (Congrats, sir, you gave her posh vowels and a fancy dress. Do you want a medal?) He’s obsessed with scrubbing her Cockney off like it’s mud on his boots, reducing her worth to how well she parrots his elitist accent rules. The “transformation” isn’t empowerment—it’s a personality wipe. Eliza’s identity? Shredded. Her autonomy? Buried under his smug superiority. But hey, who needs agency when you can have a man mansplain your own humanity into oblivion? Progress!


Romanticizing Abuse

Ah, Higgins—teaching us that gaslighting, insults, and clingy possessiveness aren’t red flags, just quirky romance. The film treats his emotional dumpster fire as charming banter, then caps it off with that stellar ending: Eliza trots back after he serves her the lukewarm toast of “I’ve grown accustomed to your face.” Translation: “You’ll do, I guess.” Her hard-won independence? Nah, let’s fold it like a grocery list because apparently a woman’s liberation isn’t valid until the guy who belittled her gives it a thumbs-up. The takeaway? Ladies, if you endure enough verbal shrapnel, you too might earn a man’s half-hearted shrug of approval!


Class Voyeurism Without Critique

Ah, nothing says “loverly” like turning poverty into a whimsical musical number! “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” serves up Eliza’s struggle as a charming little ditty—complete with dreamy violins and zero interrogation of why society treats her like gutter confetti. The film’s like: “Look at this quaint, dirty bird! Let’s gawk at her ‘adorable’ hardships… then fix her personally so we don’t have to fix the actual system!” Why dismantle elitism when you can just slap a posh accent on it and call it progress? Spoiler: The only thing getting dismantled is Eliza’s dignity. But hey, at least the rich folks got a fun makeover montage out of it!


Betraying Shaw’s Feminist Blueprint

Shaw’s original play? Oh, it ended perfectly—Eliza tells Higgins to shove it and walks off to own her destiny. But Hollywood said, “Nah, let’s pivot to ‘fetch me my slippers, darling!’” because nothing screams “happy ending” like a reformed feminist reduced to footservant duty! Congrats, film: you took Shaw’s middle finger to patriarchy and rewrote it as patriarchal fanfic. Why let a woman have agency when you can have her kneel for heteronormative crumbs?


Vintage Vibes, Modern Side-Eye

Sure, it’s 1964—swinging skirts, martinis, and casual misogyny! The film’s like a time capsule… if the capsule was filled with sexist sludge and everyone just loved the packaging. “But it’s period-accurate!” Cool, so’s arsenic makeup, but we don’t frame it as a skincare routine. Yet here we are, still polishing this relic’s ego in the cultural trophy case, ignoring how its “charming” gloss (looking at you, Audrey’s hats) is just glitter on a landfill of gross messaging. Modern viewers: stuck vibing to “Rain in Spain” while side-eyeing the fact that the whole plot’s a gender-studies dumpster fire. Nostalgia’s one helluva air freshener! Translation: “It was a different time!” isn’t a free pass—it’s a receipt. Enjoy the songs, cringe at the subtext (the “I’m on your street” song is more than just a little creepy, bro), and maybe question why we still stan problematic grandpas wrapped in cinematic cellophane.


TL;DR: The film serves up a toxic tango of manipulation and power imbalance, slaps a “love story” bow on it, and calls it a day. Eliza’s “empowerment arc”? More like a sentimental puppet show where the strings are still firmly in Higgins’ greasy mitts. But hey, who needs actual liberation when you can have a sparkly dress and a patriarchal pat on the head? The takeaway: oppression confetti tastes bitter, even when sprinkled over a cocktail of control. Cheers!


(Imagine if Eliza had tossed his slippers into the Thames and opened a dialect-coaching business. But no—glamour™ demands she simper in the shadows. Priorities!)


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Happy Birthiversary Coraline

14 years ago today, my favourite daughter in the whole wide world was born. This photo was taken just a few hours after she was born. What follows is her birth story.

At around 9 a.m. on May 27 I started having contractions that felt different than the contractions I’d been having for the better part of a week. Even though they felt different, they weren’t all that painful and they weren’t regular nor did they last for longer than 45 seconds or so. I took the children to school like I do every morning and made Derek go to work because I figured this was just another false alarm and after several trips to labour and delivery (including the trip due to my car accident), I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going back until my water broke or my induction scheduled for May 31st. 

I ran errands that morning and continued having contractions but by around 1 p.m. they hadn’t gotten longer or stronger so I chalked it up to being false labour. Even still, Derek decided to leave work early just in case. At around 3, the contractions seemed to intensify a little and had gotten to be a little more regular, still only 6-8 minutes apart though but on a scale of 0-10, they were still only a 5/5.5 so I figured there was still plenty of time to wait if this was the real deal.

I attempted to take a nap but I just couldn’t get comfortable. At around 4 I decided to take a bath and even though the contractions were still 6-8 minutes apart, the bath took the intensity down to between a 3-4. After being in the bath for about an hour I figured it was time to get out so that we could start getting things together because something felt very different and I figured with it being rush hour on a Friday that it would take a while to get to the hospital.

After dropping the children off with a friend, we got to labour and delivery at around 6:30. TheThe contractions were definitely stronger (consistently being between a 6-7) and were a little closer together, coming every 4-6 minutes. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, but I figured it was worth it to go ahead and get checked, if only to see if I had made any progress from Wednesday morning, when during my routine weekly OBGYN appointment my doctor found that I was still around 3-3.5 cm dilated but not effaced at all. It took a little while to get checked in so it wasn’t until around 7 p.m. that I was finally assigned a bed and a nurse in labour and delivery.

She told me that she was going to check me but her checking only lasted a few seconds (which was a marked difference than all of the other times that it took upwards of 20 seconds of intense agony). She was silent and immediately grabbed the phone out of her pocket. By her behaviour, I was heartbroken. I told her that if I wasn’t dilated more than 3.5 cm that I didn’t want to know anything and she didn’t respond other than to hush me nicely. I asked her who she was calling and she sort of winked at me and said, “Hold on. You’ll see.”  I laid there for a second or two, completely puzzled until the person on the other end of the line picked up and the nurse started talking.

“I’ve got a patient in Bed 8 who is 7 centimeters dilated and completely effaced. I need the doctor paged because she needs to be admitted immediately.”

It took me about 30 seconds to realize she was talking about me. I started crying tears of joy because that was the absolute LAST thing I had imagined her saying.

It didn’t take long to be admitted and by the time I was settled, with an IV in place, I was already 8 centimeters. I had been adamant about not getting an epidural throughout the entire pregnancy and when it was offered to me again after admission I refused. The contractions were considerably stronger (between an 8-9) but weren’t lasting for any longer than a minute to a minute and a half so I tried to remain as focused as possible on staying relaxed and breathing. My water still hadn’t broken so I was free to get up and move around as much as I wanted to ease the contractions.

They did give me a couple of injections of Nubain through my IV every hour or so to take the edge off of the contractions but after the 3rd injection at around 10:30 p.m. it was like they were pushing saline instead of any kind of narcotic pain relief and the contractions were painful enough that I started losing focus and was no longer able to stay relaxed. At close to 11 p.m. my water still hadn’t broken but it felt like I needed to push. My wonderful nurse checked me and I was finally at 10 centimeters so she guided me through pushing gently a little to see if it helped take the edge off of the contractions and it did a little but by that point the contractions were coming every minute or so and exhaustion was beginning to set in. Our nurse explained that she could have the doctor come in to break my water and that it would definitely speed things up but it would make the contractions a lot more painful. I thought about it for about 10 minutes and finally decided to go ahead and have that done.

At 11:21 the doctor broke my water. During the next contraction my nurse had me push and immediately I could feel the baby coming out. I started to panic a little telling her what I was feeling and that I needed to push. She quickly checked me and told me that I needed to wait just a second so she could call the doctor back in because the baby was about an inch from making her entrance.

The doctor appeared almost immediately and I gave one strong push which brought the baby almost to crowning. Then, a flurry of activity began because the doctor was trying to suit up as fast as she could because the baby was coming right then. They kept telling me to wait but my body took over and I couldn’t hold her back any longer. After only 4 or 5 solid pushes, our daughter, Coraline Grayson Dukes was born on May 27, 2011, at 11:33 p.m. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 inches long. Because it was only 12 minutes from the time the doctor broke my water until she was born, she has an absolutely perfectly shaped head which showcases her mess of dark brown hair beautifully.

Our birth experience was perfect in so many ways and went better than I could have ever anticipated, thanks to our wonderful nurse Bonnie. I’m forever grateful for her giving me the best experience possible.

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Things I Found While Eff’ing Around – Volume 3

I got this idea after reading a couple of my favourite blogs. It’s really just a list of a handful of websites that I’ve visited on my travel through the internets that I thought you might like. So, without further ado, I present to you…

Things I Found While Eff’ing Around
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Laura Venditti animates all kinds of creatures, but my favourite is this: a cute little mouse.

If you like football, you’ll *love* Tom Grossi.

Learn how to make a paper birdhouse.

This plant blows bubbles.

Makerbot lets you design all kinds of things, including these incredible tea light fixtures.

If you travel often, get yourself a hidden camera detector.

Tom Brown creates all kinds of tiny edible things, including miniature eggs benedict.

This is really neat. Behold, a projection keyboard.

TIL that aggressive goats have to wear pool noodles on their horns.

Disclosure: I may earn a small commission from affiliate links on this site. Purchases made through these links support us at no additional cost to you, and I only recommend products that I genuinely believe in. Thank you for trusting my recommendations!

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