Taste of Cyn

Yucking Other People’s Yum

By Cynthia Sax on October 27, 2026

I posted a cute story this summer about the Mafia Squirrels stealing the paintbrush I use to hand pollinate the squash and cucumbers.

Someone commented a bit of nonsense about how hand pollination is destroying the world.

(I don’t think he understands what hand pollination is or much of anything about gardening.)

This isn’t the first time he’s left a comment like this.

Any time I post something joyful, he comments, criticizing it.

I’ve reached the conclusion that he is trying to steal my happiness around any task or thing I love.

He is deliberately yucking my yum.

This is an act of hate, not of love or friendship.

And, in this tire fire world, I don’t have the energy for this.

(shakes head)

I blocked him and moved on with my life.

Don’t yuck other people’s yum (if that yum doesn’t directly hurt others).

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Muse Food – Bringing Two Characters Together

By Cynthia Sax on October 26, 2026

The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I planted these two magic carpet thymes (SUCH a great name) a little bit apart, thinking they would grow together fairly quickly and created one big patch.

Instead, they are trying their best to grow in the other directions.

And this is often how romance plots flow in a romance novels.

Two (or more) characters are placed in close proximity to each other. They have things in common and you would think they would become one fairly quickly.

But instead, there’s conflict and they look like they are growing apart, perhaps forever.

But we know, as with the magic carpet thyme, they will eventually become one solid unit.

(grins)

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Cynthia Sax Weekly Update – October 25

By Cynthia Sax on October 25, 2026

I’m continuing to happily craft the first draft of the tenth installment of the Super Secret Project. Action is building to the dark moment. (grins) I can feel the tension and it is delicious!

Have a wonderful week, my friends! (big hugs) This is Halloween week so let’s get into the Halloween spirit. Wear black or orange. Stir some soup (bonus points for cackling – laughs). Do the Monster Mash. Eat tiny chocolate bars and pretend you’re a giant! Have fun with it, my friends!

Cyborg Sizzle Escape Omnibus

Half Man. Half Machine. All Theirs.
* * *
While these cyborg warriors battle to escape their cruel manufacturers, they find the human females they are destined to love for all eternity.
This omnibus includes the first seven stories in the Cyborg Sizzle series: Releasing Rage, Breathing Vapor, Being Green, Crash And Burn, Defying Death, Chasing Mayhem and Jumping Barrel.
All of these Cyborg Romances are set in a dark, gritty, often violent universe.

Releasing Rage

Rage, the Humanoid Alliance’s most primitive cyborg, has two goals–kill all of the humans on his battle station and escape to the Homeland. The warrior has seen the darkness in others and in himself. He believes that’s all he’s been programmed to experience.
Until he meets Joan.

Breathing Vapor

Vapor is the most advanced cyborg the Humanoid Alliance has ever developed. He’s a finely honed weapon, a warrior without parallel, half man and half machine. No lock can contain him. No being can stop him. Whatever he wants, he takes.
He wants Mira Breazeal, the Designer’s daughter.

Being Green

Green, a cyborg warrior, cares for one being—his plant Windy. When Windy becomes sick, he’ll do anything to heal her, even venture across the universe to visit a worlds-renowned plant doctor.
He doesn’t expect to find love.

Crash And Burn

Crash was manufactured to be one of the best warriors in the universe. The cyborg has spent many human lifespans fighting the enemy. But, unlike his battle-loving brethren, he doesn’t enjoy killing. When he escapes the Humanoid Alliance, he vows to never end another life.
Then he meets Safyre, an infuriating human female, and he considers breaking his vow.

Defying Death

Cyborgs don’t show emotion. Death learned that lesson early in his long lifespan. To survive, he hides his fierce passions behind a stoic wall. He calls no warrior friend. He never admits to caring for any being.
Even the human female he’s destined to love.

Chasing Mayhem

Mayhem has spent his lengthy lifespan obeying the Humanoid Alliance’s rules. Finally free from their cruel control, the cyborg warrior plans to cause chaos. He infiltrates a remote settlement, provokes the savage locals until they want him dead, and allows himself to be captured by the sexiest little Retriever he has ever laid his mechanically-enhanced eyes on.

Jumping Barrel

Barrel requires an Expert for the Tau Cetian orphans. He’s looking for a female who is willing to commit to a lifespan-long role, who is comfortable with moving off planet, and who, preferably, has the ability to speak the offsprings’ first language.
His female, however, is looking for a hero.

Buy Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/Cyborg-Sizzle-Escape-Omnibus-Continuum-ebook/dp/B081VFHF1S

Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyborg-Sizzle-Escape-Omnibus-Continuum-ebook/dp/B081VFHF1S

Amazon AUS:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Cyborg-Sizzle-Escape-Omnibus-Continuum-ebook/dp/B081VFHF1S

Amazon Canada:
https://www.amazon.ca/Cyborg-Sizzle-Escape-Omnibus-Continuum-ebook/dp/B081VFHF1S

Apple Books:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/cyborg-sizzle-escape-omnibus/id1488934271

Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/cyborg-sizzle-escape-omnibus

Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/992060

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Putting Instagram On Pause For Updates

By Cynthia Sax on October 24, 2026

With all the drama surrounding Meta social media properties, I’ve decided to hit pause on any updates on Instagram.

(My Facebook account was deactivated years ago and I was never able to get a new account approved. I guess I wasn’t botlike enough for them. – laughs)

I’m okay. Don’t worry about me if you don’t see any updates there. (smiles) I’m merely waiting to see what happens.

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The Hungry Gap

By Cynthia Sax on October 23, 2026

Gardeners often talk about the ‘hungry gap’, the duration between last harvests and first harvests.

Here in Toronto, Canada, that is often between December 1st and April 1st.

In the our household, the tomatoes picked green in November usually ripen over December.

(We also, of course, always have herbs growing indoors.)

Then we enjoy butternut squash for January, March, and April.

This year, we’ll have enough butternut squash to eat one a week during that time. (grins) One butternut squash lasts the two of us two days. That’s a LOT of butternut squash. And it’s a happy challenge to have.

We also have dried beans, of course. And our frozen tomatoes. And anything we buy or bought at the store.

In the Fall/Autumn, boxes of local produce are sold at grocery stores. The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I chop up (or otherwise process) vegetables and freeze them. We always have enough vegetables stored for the ‘hungry gap.’

In the UK and other places, gardeners can often ‘store’ vegetables like kale and beets outside (i.e. just leave those plants in the ground). We get so much snow it is a lot of work for us to do that. Being lazy, I prefer to have the vegetables in the freezer.

Laziness is also why we freeze stuff and don’t can it. Plus it is merely the two of us.

To shorten the ‘hungry gap’, we ensure we have vegetables (usually perennials or self seeders) ready to go in the garden as soon as possible. Peas, bok choy/pak choi, french sorrel, good king henry and other vegetables love the cooler Spring weather. They often emerge/are planted as soon as the ground thaws.

I grew up hungry, not eating every day. I like to have vegetables in the house or in the backyard garden. That makes me happy.

(smiles)

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Throwback Thursday – Dark Cure

By Cynthia Sax on October 22, 2026

Have you ever had a one night stand that just…didn’t…end?

This is the situation Gisella, the Refuge’s human medic, is facing.

What she wanted was just one night of stress-relieving no-strings-attached hot-as-the-desert-sands sex.

What she gets is all that plus a dominant determined alien warrior with claws who insists she’s his one and only fated mate.

A warrior seeking forever faces a medic living in the moment.

Gisella, the Refuge’s medic, is dedicated to her role. She doesn’t have the space in her lifespan for love, a mate, or children. Healing is her entire focus.

But she’s also a female in her prime. She has needs, wants, cravings…especially for a scarred, long-haired barbarian warrior temporarily residing in the settlement. One fierce, soul-blasting, passion-filled encounter is all she is willing to give him before she returns to her duties.

Oghul, a Chamele Warlord’s Second-In-Command, has waited his entire lifespan to find his gerel, the being fated to be his. He’s thrilled to discover she wants him as savagely as he yearns for her.

His little human medic appeals to his primitive possessive side. Greatly. He wants to stamp his ownership all over her bountiful curves, take her back to his home planet, claim his fiery female permanently.

When Carinae E’s solitary sun rises, two determined beings with very different desires find their lifespans entwined. Their battle for emotional supremacy will span systems and alter destinies.

The universe will never be the same.

Dark Cure is a STANDALONE SciFi Romance set in a gritty, dark world.

Buy Now:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HCTHN27

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07HCTHN27

Amazon AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07HCTHN27

Apple Books : https://books.apple.com/us/book/dark-cure/id1436359104

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/dark-cure

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/895634

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Gardening – What Did You Not Eat?

By Cynthia Sax on October 21, 2026

When I’m completing a review of a gardening season, I pay special attention to the fruits and vegetables we had excess of and/or didn’t eat.

It makes little sense to devote precious gardening space to fruits and vegetables we don’t want.

This past season, for example, we had a LOT of kale.

Kale is awesome. It is both drought and cold resistant.

And we like kale.

In small quantities.

But we didn’t need to have thirty plants.

So next gardening season, we’ll reduce the amount of kale we plant. We’ll likely swap in swiss chard, which we didn’t have enough of.

What fruit or vegetables did you grow and didn’t eat?

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Change The World

By Cynthia Sax on October 20, 2026

When we talk about changing the world, we often think of huge actions like arranging a protest rally or figuring out how to decrease all the plastic waste currently in existence.

But it is actually quite easy to change the world.

You donate a can of soup to a food bank, for example.

That soup gives someone else a meal, allowing that someone to focus on the exam she’s taking that day.

Doing well on that exam helps land her a scholarship.

She goes to school in a science program.

And eventually cures cancer.

Or you smile at a mom struggling with two toddlers in the grocery store.

She feels a bit better, treats her toddlers with more kindness.

The toddlers grow up. And one of them starts a charity, helping young single moms.

Which results in hundreds more kids growing up feeling supported and happy.

And a few of them start charities also.

You will likely never know how your kindness has changed the world for the better.

But I assure you

it has.

(smiles)

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Muse Food – The Rear View

By Cynthia Sax on October 19, 2026

There are few things more adorable than a busy little bee bum deep within a flower.

(smiles)

What is happening BEHIND your main characters? What does the scene look like from the back view?

Sometimes looking at the scene from a different angle sparks magic within us.

Try this if you’re stuck on a scene.

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Cynthia Sax Weekly Update – October 18

By Cynthia Sax on October 18, 2026

I’m almost halfway through the first draft of the 10th installment of the Super Secret Project. There will likely be 15 installments (which will end up being a trilogy of long novels) so I’m at a point where everything is starting to come together and the conflict is escalating. (smiles) It is very exciting.

Have a wonderful week, my friends. (big hugs) It is spooky month, as I like to think of October. Read something spooky. Watch a spooky movie. Dress spooky (lots of black, maybe a spider-themed brooch or something like that). Have fun with it. Life is too short to be serious all the time!