Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Ambrosia by Sarah Daltry Ambrosia (A Flowering Novella) No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Table of Contents. “Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.” This book is dedicated to Jack and Lily – and to everyone who is a part of them. To my husband, Karen, and Lisa – I love you. The end. “I look like a cake,” I mumble. I feel like shopping for a wedding dress is supposed to be memorable, but I’m not sure this is the right kind of memorable. “Do you know who designed that?” my mother asks and she follows up with a name I’ve never heard. I guess it’s impressive, though, because Kristen gasps. Abby just looks at me and shrugs, because she knows how things are. And Alana stares at everyone in the dressing room as if she took a wrong turn. Meanwhile, I look like a cake. I consider tearing off this ridiculous fiasco and heading home to beg Jack to elope somewhere in Azerbaijan. Not even Vegas, because it’s not far enough. I don’t, though. Instead, I take a deep breath and I try again. “Does this person perhaps design dresses a little more. simple?” I ask my mother. I sigh. “For starters, none of this.” I grab a handful of the absurd pile of fabric around my arms, which kind of looks like a lacy volleyball, and shake it. “It’s your wedding,” she reminds me, as if that should change everything. As if that means I enjoy looking like pastry. “Understood. My wedding. I wanted to wear yellow.” Aghast. That’s the only word for it. She is absolutely aghast. However, she does help me get out of this monstrosity and into normal clothes, and then she goes in search of anything simpler, mumbling about yellow under her breath. “I thought it was pretty,” Kristen offers. “Not necessarily your style, but it wasn’t that awful.” “It really wasn’t the worst she could have found, you know,” Abby concedes. Alana looks at me again and then grabs her purse. “I need a cigarette.” As soon as she’s gone, Kristen and Abby look sheepish. “We scared her away,” Kristen says. “I’m sorry.” “I’m telling you, Lily. We need to do a girls’ night. But like. wedding free,” Abby suggests yet again. She’s right, but we’re all in the middle of classes and it hasn’t been easy to get together even for dress shopping, never mind just to hang out. It does feel weird, though. I guess it sucks a little that Alana is so uncomfortable with everything, but I understand. This whole thing isn’t really her deal. When she and I have spoken privately about it, she’s fine, but that doesn’t mean she’ll ever be the gung ho wedding kind of girl. At first, I had thought it was about Jack, that she still regretted that it wasn’t her he was marrying. But it’s not that. What used to be there between them is completely gone now, tempered by time, moving on, and each of them realizing where they are good for one another – and where they are not. Alana is my best friend after Jack, even over Abby now. I need her to be in my wedding – our wedding – but I think the whole family togetherness just freaks her out. Also, Dave is only a month away from coming home for good, and she’s convinced that something horrible is going to happen before he can. I suppose it’s hard to care much about dresses when she’s scared of losing her boyfriend to war. “Sure,” I tell Abby, trying to enjoy this day, since it’s supposed to be a big deal. “But not right now. Maybe after graduation. God, I should be writing papers today. I have two seminars to finish this semester.” Yes, it’s entirely my own fault that I scheduled them both for the final semester, but one was on the Lost Generation and the other about Shelley, so it had to happen. However, combined with two additional lit classes and my commute, I’m surprised I’m not dead. Or at least brain damaged. As if on cue, my mother comes back with another pile of dresses. I question the state of her brain functions when I see the first three, since they are even poofier than the one I just tried on, but then she holds up the fourth. It’s perfect. In magazines and in movies, there is this whole big thing about how you just know you’ve found the right dress for you. I thought that was dumb, because I’d been through countless catalogs and I had never seen the perfect one. There were always things I liked and things I didn’t, but the dress she holds up is exactly what I pictured myself wearing on my wedding day. It’s strapless and simple and long and it’s even white. I don’t know why it’s perfect, but it is. It’s a lot like everything about love, I guess. You just know – and when you know, it’s all you know. I expect an argument but there isn’t one. My mom just hands me the dress, I change, and when I come back out, everyone’s quiet. Alana returns from her cigarette break and freezes in the doorway. “You’re beautiful,” she says. “Holy shit. You and Jack are getting married .” After almost two full years of planning and nearly four years together, Jack and I are only a couple of months away from the wedding. The reality of it has been there for all this time, yet when Alana says the words, and when I see myself in the row of mirrors, wearing this dress, it is all real in a way it hasn’t been yet. I am finally going to marry the boy who has changed my life in so many ways. “H ow was shopping?” I ask. Lily tosses her stuff on the counter and collapses in the armchair. I’m in the middle of beta testing a game that helps kids learn geography through a scavenger hunt, which is basically just a remake of Carmen Sandiego . “Are you working?” “Of course.” I feel like I don’t do much else these days when I’m not helping Lily with wedding stuff, but I still love my job. It’s been almost two years, but Rich and really, everyone at the office is great. It’s nice to be contributing something to the world, feeling like there is a point in my continued existence, but I do spend a lot of time at work. Lily is insanely busy, too, though, especially this year since she’s almost done with school. We do our best, but life just moves a lot faster than I really ever anticipated it would. “I can wait,” she tells me. “Finish what you’re doing.” “It’s fine. Estonia is just being impossible for some reason. The game glitches every single time you reach Tallinn.” “Sounds like a serious problem.” She laughs and I turn off the game. I can fix it later. Estonia will still be there tomorrow. “Well, shopping was. okay,” Lily says once I focus my attention on her. “The good news is that I found my dress, and I can’t wait for you to see it. But. well, you do realize that I just spent an entire day with my mom, and perhaps the most complicated wedding party of all time?” “My wedding party is my only guy friend from high school, your brother, and Alana’s new stepdad,” I remind her. “You want dinner?” I ask, getting up as she steals my spot on the couch. “Or a nap?” “Come here,” she replies, and I squeeze back onto the couch with her, which mostly means lying on top of her. After all this time, it only takes a few seconds before I’m excited. I can’t control it. Even now, being close to her just does something to me. She raises an eyebrow and shakes her head. “You have an issue,” she tells me. “I have many issues. This is not an issue.” Our sex life is still plenty healthy, but this past year has been so busy that it has certainly been on the down swing. I try not to get too worked up right now, because I feel like we have barely talked for weeks, never mind slept together, but I can’t stop thinking about how much I miss her body under mine. “Are you sure you want a big wedding?” she asks, distracted, her mind racing. “Like, for real? This is all starting to feel silly. I mean, I’m grateful to my parents for handling it financially, but that also means letting my mother storm in and control a lot more than I would like. It’s just that. I don’t need any of this. I would be happy to get married right here, in my pajamas, and have our honeymoon in the guest room.” I push her hair away from her face and kiss her forehead. “I don’t want some little thing. Not for you. I want the biggest, most elaborate deal, because I want everyone to see how lucky I am. I want the entire world to know how much I love you.” She smiles and then sits up a little. “Mom was also on me again about picking a honeymoon destination,” she says. “I just feel weird about it, you know?” I ask. “I guess the wedding should bug me, too, but it’s tradition. I get it. But paying for a honeymoon, too. I don’t know. I feel like I should pay for it. I work. There’s no excuse.” She shrugs. “I don’t care. We don’t even need to do anything big. I’m mostly looking forward to time together without work or school or wedding plans or anything but you to keep me busy.” “Mmm.” I lean in closer and start unbuttoning her shirt. “I love keeping you busy.” I can tell she’s about to protest, so I reach down, under her skirt, and begin to touch her. Her arguments all fall away before she can speak them, and she slides back down onto the couch so I can be on top of her. I get undressed quickly before one of us suddenly thinks of ten other things that we need to be doing instead. I’m between her legs, ready to enter her, when she whispers against my chest, “Stop.” I hate that word. I swear, it is the worst word in the English language, but I do stop. I close my eyes, count to five, and then look down at her. She has a huge grin on her face. “You’re killing me,” I groan. “I just thought we should move somewhere else.” “Where?” I don’t know if I can even walk. She crawls over the back of the couch after I sit up, undressing as she goes, and jumps up on the kitchen counter once she’s naked. She bites her lip and meets my stare. “Hurry, Jack. It’s been way too long.” I’m not counting, but it’s been nine days, six hours, 43 minutes, and probably around 11 seconds. However, it doesn’t matter at all, because once I make it to the kitchen, she opens herself up to me and I am back where I belong. A fter driving for two hours, followed by a three-hour seminar session, I am exhausted. I take out my cell to text Jack to ask if he wants to order dinner tonight. There is no way I even have the energy to go through a drive-thru. I notice, as I look at my phone, that I have twenty-six texts. That’s right – twenty-six. All sent between nine this morning and noon. All from my mother. They grow increasingly frantic, as if texts just shoot directly into my brain and notify me that she has something “very important” to ask me. I wish I had never given her my number. More, I wish I had never taught her how to text, because she seems to think it’s the same thing as actually speaking, and then she gets agitated when I don’t reply. Ambrosia. Los Angeles quartet Ambrosia, whose founding members included guitarist/vocalist David Pack, bassist/vocalist Joe Puerta, keyboardist Christopher North, and drummer Burleigh Drummond, fused symphonic art rock with a slickly produced pop sound. The group was discovered in 1971 by Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Zubin Mehta, who featured Ambrosia as part of a so-called All-American Dream Concert. However, it took them four more years to get a record contract; Ambrosia was released in 1975 and spawned the chart singles "Holdin' on to Yesterday" and "Nice, Nice, Very Nice." (The latter was based on Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.) Ambrosia scored another hit in 1977 with a cover of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" from the film All This and World War II, which they also appeared in. North left the group just before their biggest pop breakthrough in 1978 with the number three hit "How Much I Feel." Ambrosia followed this success in 1980 with another number three hit, "Biggest Part of Me," and the number 13 follow-up "You're the Only Woman." Their next album failed, ending their run of chart success, and the group broke up; individual members are still active as session musicians and vocalists, as well as producers. David Pack's 1985 solo album Anywhere You Go actually featured both Puerta and Drummond (alongside Kerry Livgren, Michael McDonald, Stanley Clarke, and Toto's Michael Porcaro), and the band reunited several years later. Several tours followed during the '90s, along with new recordings featured on the band's 1997 Anthology release. Pack left after 2001 for additional solo projects, and the band released the concert album Live a year later without him. The A P Book Club. Hello! Today, we're really happy to be hosting Kat Ross, author of Some Fine Day! Her book is out July 1, 2014 from Strange Chemistry, and she's here to tell us her Top Ten Hybrid Creatures (in a fun way!). We also have a giveaway for you - the lovely people at Strange Chemistry have given us one copy of Some Fine Day to give to you, and the winner gets to choose between an ebook and a paperback copy! It's open internationally, so enter away! Before we get to Kat's Top Ten and the giveaway, here's some information about the book and Kat! Ambrosia by Sarah Daltry. If you dig into the deepest parts of your soul, what would you find? Happiness, pain, love, regret, peace, sorrow? Now imagine experiencing all those feelings at once and then nothing at all. These were the average days in the life of Lennox. An unhealthy and unstable mind is further challenged when fate intervenes. One tragic moment will test her wavering strength and leave a permanent scar on her conscience. Follow her journey of rediscovery, falling in love, and searching for her own fairy-tale ending. Join the event and hang out with Dani!! We have tons of amazing prizes and games for you all!! Where can you find Dani. Hope to see you all there!! Brought to you by the Release Day Diva. Tuesday, March 11, 2014. Orange Blossom by Sarah Daltry. Title: Orange Blossom. Author: Sarah Daltry. Cover Design: Shoutlines Design. 18+ New Adult Contemporary Romance. Release Date: April 4, 2014. "I’ve never understood a year. A year was always a measurement of something bad for me. A year in my father’s prison sentence, a year since my mom’s death, a year left of school before I could get far, far away from here. Now, as I look down the end of my college career, with only a little more than a semester to go, a year seems like something magical. It has been a year since Lily chose me, since she sat with me on the old swing set and made a decision that I was worthy of her. And every minute of the entire year has been better than the last." You already know their stories: Lily, the perfect princess, always living someone else's life. And Jack, the broken boy, who had stopped believing in hope. Somehow, though, they found each other and what was one night blossomed into a love story. Now, a year later, Jack and Lily are dreaming of the future. Despite all of his promises to himself that he would never be indebted to anyone, Jack makes a new promise - this time to Lily - that he will be there for her forever. But when life unravels for them, he starts to pull away, and Lily worries he's out of reach for good. When Jack does the unthinkable, Lily is left destroyed. Is it possible to have a happily ever after? Does love ever really save anyone? Listen to the Playlist or watch the Trailer! Series Reading Order: Forget Me Not, Lily of the Valley , and Blue Rose can be read in any order. There is some crossover in scenes between the titles, but each stands alone as one character's story. Star of Bethlehem is a direct continuation from Forget Me Not and Lily of the Valley . Orange Blossom and Ambrosia (releasing June 6, 2014) assume readers have read the other four titles and read as sequels. In essence, the first three are #1, Star of Bethlehem is #1.5, Orange Blossom is #2, and Ambrosia is #3. Tit le: Forget Me Not (Lily’s Story) Author: Sarah Daltry. Cover: Shoutlines Design. 18+ New Adult contemporary romance. This is a coming of age story, but it isn't always sweet and innocent. If dirty talk, bedroom toys, and threesomes offend you. this is not your book. "No one tells you when you start school just how homesick you will be, or how hard it will be to start life over with no direction and no friends or family. No one says that becoming your own person is terrifying." I never wanted anything but Derek, my brother's best friend. When I chose a college, it didn't seem to matter that he would be an hour away. We could survive it. After all, we were in love. But almost immediately, things change between us. I blame myself. Maybe I'm just not sure how to be a girlfriend and independent. Life seems to be getting away from me - and then there's Jack, the guy down the hall. He's rude and vulgar and my parents would be shocked by him, yet every single time I see him, I feel like I'm being pulled toward him. It's physical, sure, but there's something in Jack's eyes - and I want to know him. I know I don't always make the right choices, and I'm the only person at fault when everything falls apart. How do I tell Derek, the guy who was supposed to be everything, that I don't feel like fighting for him anymore? And do I run to Jack, when I know his past is way too much for me to handle when I've just turned 19? Finally, where do I end up in all of this? Can I be more than just someone else's idea of what I should be? Buy it Now! Listen to the Playlist or watch the Trailer! Title: Lily of the Valley (Jack’s story) Author: Sarah Daltry. Cover: Shoutlines Design. 18+ New Adult contemporary romance. Jack's story isn't pretty. He's suicidal, depressed, and he uses meaningless sex and alcohol to survive. However, the story is about finding light in the darkness, but sometimes the road there isn't always easy to walk. "No one tells you about pain. They tell you that it hurts, that sometimes it's consuming. What they don't tell you is that it's not the pain that can kill you. It's the uncomfortable numbness that follows, the weakness in your body when you realize your lungs may stop taking in air and you just can't exert enough energy to care. It's the way taste and color and smell fade from the world and all you're left with is a sepia print of misery. That's when the shift starts - the movement from passive to active. I fall asleep, hoping that the morning will bring back the pain. At least the pain is a thing." I'm a plague, a cancer. My mom is dead - and my father is in prison for it. I survived high school because college was my way out. I needed to escape, to get away from my family and the people who tortured me, but it hasn't grown any easier. I don't pretend that I'm a good person. I drink far more than I should, and I use my best friend, Alana, because together, we thrive on destroying each other - as well as the parts of us we hate. I don't believe in love, but sex is fun and it also makes me feel something . The morning I see Lily, the beautiful princess who smells inexplicably like strawberries every time I see her, I realize I'm in trouble. I should hate her. I want to hate her, because the alternative terrifies me. However, as she continues to crash into my life (often literally), I can't avoid feeling something that is the one thing I swore I would never feel. I can't fall in love, because people like me don't live in a world where love saves anyone. She just won't go away, though, and I don't know if I can keep running. The voices and the darkness hover over me and they threaten to bring me back to the safety of my hate, but the stupid scent of strawberries lingers on the horizon, as something like hope. Buy it Now! Listen to the Playlist or watch the Trailer! Title: Blue Rose (Alana’s story) Author: Sarah Daltry. Cover Design: Shoutlines Design. Warning: This book deals with topics of abuse and may trigger reactions in people who have experienced those things in their own lives. It remains a story about healing, but it's not always an easy journey. "Four. My life has been shaped by four people. Four men, to be more specific. My father, my stepfather, my best friend, and my boyfriend. The first two shaped it in horrible ways, but what I am, who I am, is all because of four men." Over the last twenty years, I've learned how to keep secrets. It doesn't really matter, since everyone already seems to think they know everything about me. So I hide. I avoid confrontation, I treat Xanax like a magic pill that will make it all go away, and I become everything they think I am. A slut. A whore. Nothing but trash. I can only name two guys who have ever made me feel like I was more than that. Jack is my best friend and I've loved him since I met him. Now, though, he's in love. with someone else, and I guess I need to get over him. Somehow. And then there's Dave. The guy I never gave a chance. The guy I used almost as much as people used me, because I wanted to pretend I was someone worth loving. Two years have passed since we last spoke, but I don't know how to stop thinking about him. My new therapist is making me face my past, and she tells me that life inevitably changes without our permission. I believe it, but I know what I am. I hear what she's saying to me, and I want to try again with Dave, to help Jack find joy, to love myself, and to move on. I just wonder if anyone can do that, really. Buy it Now! Listen to the Playlist or watch the Trailer! THE HISTORY OF AMBROSIA. For many Southerners, ambrosia salad is a dish often associated with holiday potlucks or aunts and grandmothers. It occasionally gets a bad rap, along with the often-maligned fruitcake, but when prepared correctly it can be light and delicious. The dividing line between love and hate seems to be one ingredient: coconut. But, this much is clear – ambrosia salad absolutely must include coconut. Ambrosia salad also has a bit of an identity crisis. Depending on your family’s prerogative, it might be considered a salad, but it may also be considered a dessert. It is a fruit dish so, depending on preparation, it can be light, like a salad. Other recipes are sweeter and include layers of whipped cream or even marshmallows, placing it clearly in the “sweets” category. My family always placed it in a different spot in the buffet line, depending on which aunt had prepared the dish. The word “ambrosia” means delicious or fragrant. Ambrosia was also the magical fruit of the gods in ancient Greek mythology. The gods on Mount Olympus ate ambrosia to maintain immortality and without it, they became weak. In Homer’s Iliad , the gods bathed in ambrosia and used it as perfume. And, though we are free to enjoy ambrosia today, mythology dictated that mortals would face death if they dared to eat the gods’ ambrosia or drink their divine nectars. (Truth be told, some of my cousins did act like eating any dish containing coconut would absolutely kill them.) Ambrosia began appearing in cookbooks in the late 1800s when citrus fruit became more prevalent in markets across the country. These early recipes were very simple, usually including only orange slices, coconut, and sugar layered in a glass dish. As ambrosia’s popularity grew, many versions began to emerge, often with conflicting advice. For instance, Mary D. Pretlow’s Old Southern Recipes warned, “You must not use canned coconut,” while James Beard’s Fireside Cook Book said, “The moist canned coconut is best for this.” Southern cooks, in particular, began to transform this dish into a more diverse fruit salad. I’ve been served ambrosia prepared traditionally, but also with grapefruit, banana, pineapple, maraschino cherries, raisins, nuts, and marshmallows. I’ve seen it topped with sugar, whipped cream, yogurt, and, once, mayonnaise (yes, really). I asked our café to develop their own recipe for ambrosia (pictured below). The result: a delicious coconut milk tapioca soup with citrus compote and vanilla bean shortbread. This take is far from traditional, but the flavors are all there – coconut, citrus, and a hint of sweet vanilla. Regardless of the ingredients, ambrosia salad is best served on the day of preparation. The sugar can cause the oranges (and other fruits used) to release their juices and the dish can turn to mush in a matter of hours. One of my favorite Southern cooks, Virginia Willis, offers a delicious, more traditional version of ambrosia in her cookbook, Basic to Brilliant, Y’all: 150 Refined Southern Recipes and Ways to Dress Them Up for Company . She tells a beautiful story of preparing the dish with her sister and grandfather for her grandmother, who loved ambrosia. And, for the record, she advocates using fresh coconut, not canned. Find her recipe – and instructions for properly preparing fresh coconut – here. 7 comments on “ THE HISTORY OF AMBROSIA ” Leave a Reply Cancel reply. Thanks for talking about ambrosia. Each of my grandmothers had her own variation on ambrosia and I have experimented with it a lot over the years. But my current favorite recipe is Scott Peacock’s using coconut, oranges, sugar, a pinch of salt, and cream Sherry. When I make the Peacock variation, I always have to add pecans. It’s a sophisticated, simple, and delicious version. Oh my this looks decadent! Being a “Northerner” my recollection of Ambrosia is definitely not as lovely as this or of those you describe in this post. Truly Southern cuisine is as pleasing to the palet as it is to the eye. When I make it to the south I must come and dine at the cafe!! My family version was of the marshmallow, canned mandarins, maraschinos, coconut and cool whip variety. (They also called it a salad somehow). I have such pleasant memories of it but these days i just can’t go there! I was hoping for a recipe for the cafe version… Sounds lovely.