Brooke St. James is one of my favorite authors. Her series The Hunt Family and The Martin Family made me feel like I had new friends in different parts of the country. Her new series Shower & Shelter Artists Collective hit me very close to home since I am also an artist. Written in first person, the reader is immediately drawn into the story. The characters are genuine and lovable. These are pure and simple romances, very little angst, with sweet, honorable leading men and women. I loved the banter, the willingness to own their feelings, but stay true to their situations, and their strength of character. A perfect example is the last line in Chapter 12 of So Much for Boundaries when the heroine, Zoe, says, "Lane Alexander was entirely too noble." Each story leaves a smile on your face and peace in your heart. The books so far are, in order:

JFK to Dublin
Not Your Average Joe
So Much for Boundaries
Suddenly Starstruck

First line from So Much for Boundaries:

"I had been going to Fran's Beauty Shop since I was a kid. I was raised by my grandparents, and my grandmother, God rest her soul, went there once a week like clockwork to get her hair shampooed and set with rollers."

I'm looking forward to the next one. This is a series you won't want to miss. Happy reading.

   

Fridays are my nemesis

My weeks are full of work, school, and now preparing for my son's wedding. I always take on more than I should and that means all my personal stuff suffers. But I try to take time in the evenings to read - usually short novellas so I feel like I've accomplished something. Here's a taste of last week's from the newly released SILVER SCREEN KISSES: AN ECHO RIDGE ANTHOLOGY (BOOK 3):

"Lacey Johnson had always thought that hitting rock bottom required you to be an alcoholic or a drug addict. But no. It turned out there wre lots of ways to smack right into that piece of real estate."

My Fair Lacey by Janette Rallison

Each novella in this anthology is a parody of a classic movie with little twists. My favorites were this one and While You Were Skiing by Lucy McConnell, but they were all fun reads. Each novella was followed by a recipe from the story as well. If you're looking for a little light-weight entertainment, these are wonderful authors.

Happy Friday everyone. Sorry this is late, but I'm trying to juggle so many things right now. Not able to do much reading, but started a new anthology this week: "Love at First Laugh" Eight novellas, all with light-hearted tone; perfect for a quick escape. This week: Pepper Basham's book titled Second Impressions and here's the first line:

Birthdays were not her happy place.
Or at least they hadn't been for the last three years.

Happy reading!

It's a bit late...

I went back to a true classic this week. My favorite saying of all time is in this book. It begins:

"Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest."

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

FLF - Looking forward to this new connection

Good morning (or afternoon) everyone! Thanks for including me in the First Line Fridays group. I'm not sure what all to say, so I'll just submit a first line of a book I love:

"Susan Scott is a wonder. We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much more thrilling from my standpoint was the food."

From The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

It's a book made up entirely of letters between the characters and written by an aunt (her first novel) and niece team. The aunt, alas, didn't live to see it published. It's a period piece, just after World War II and takes place on the Isle of Guernsey in the English Channel between England and France.

Well worth the time!

Always learning...

Here's a shout out to Sydney Anderson with Singing Librarian Books for all her help getting my book seen by more people and read by people she believes can help promote the book. I am forever grateful. My debut novel, The Triple Date Dare can now be seen on her website: Singing Librarian Books and New LDS Fiction.com.

The Triple Date Dare 

Coming up: Book tour on Singing Librarian Books with a Facebook party on February 24th. This is a whole new world for me - the social media one - and I'm excited for all it can do for my book sales.

Novel #2 Building a Life is currently being read by my critique group with an anticipated publishing date sometime this summer. Here's a little clue:

Sara Castleton was resolved to make better choices now that there was a new life growing inside her. When her husband, Peter, plowed through that stop sign and left this world, he left a mess behind, too. Picking up the pieces of her shattered life, finishing the house Peter started could be the answer to her future, but she would need help.

When Nicholas Bradford was asked to step into Sara's unfinished housing project, he reluctantly agreed. He didn't always see eye-to-eye with Peter's friends and business associates, but one look at his pregnant widow and Nick couldn't say no.

Before they know it, they aren't just building a house, they're Building a Life.

It took longer than I expected. I guess most things do. But finally, finally my first novel The Triple-Date Dare is now available on Amazon.com. I can hardly believe I have arrived at this point. Click here to find the book on Amazon.

Several years ago, the idea for this story started swimming around in my brain and I bought a little NEO2 writer to start putting those ideas into print. Well, print on my computer. At the same time, I was looking into LDStorymakers Writer's Conference. Although I couldn't attend while I was still living in Hawaii, I perused the classes they offered and discovered the writer's computer program called Scrivner. For the minimal cost of $40, I bought the program and started playing around with organizing my story into chapters and scenes. It made me feel like a real writer.

I mentioned in my first post that I would put here some of the prompts for events in my novels. I have a few I would like to share.

The crabbing date. Yes, this was me, perched on the bow of the little boat along the rock jetty at Depoe Bay, Oregon in the summer of 1985. Boy that was a long time ago! My husband and I were just married and we were crabbing with his father and his father's cousin. The part where the first crab ring was teeming with oodles of baby crabs was real and I truly thought about jumping into the water except for the fact that all the little crabs were being tossed in one after another. We laugh about it now, but at the time, I wasn't sure eating crab was worth the effort. My husband pulls crab rings like David did, and is rarely skunked. Now, after all these years, we still head to the Oregon coast to go crabbing.

The shooting date. We are a family of shotgun enthusiasts. But it is our daughter, Amy, who out-shot her father's friends when she was included in an afternoon excursion. I always loved re-telling the story of how surprised those grown men were when our little 17-year old ruled the day.

The couple approaching David and Laura's quiet moment in the International Rose Test Garden in Portland. Back in the day, going to the Rose Garden was a pretty romantic way to end a date and we discovered this little bench surrounded by trees which, in the evening, provided a wonderful, dark place to steal a kiss. Once while we were dating, we were enjoying the privacy of that little cove when another couple started to walk our way. When we realized they were headed right for us, my husband (who was only my boyfriend at the time) cleared his throat and said, "Good evening." The other couple truly looked like they had been confronted by the boogey-man and ran for their lives. We still laugh about that. I would love to hear their version of the story...

The driftwood sculpture. This was an art my father-in-law perfected, although he didn't sell his pieces. We are privileged to have many of his wood sculptures in our home and I always admired the way each piece spoke to different people differently.

The rest of my story was pure imagination. I loved writing it and I can't really explain well how excited I am that it is now published. I guess if I had to sum it up I would say that I realized how to dream big. And I certainly had a host of help turning this story into a novel, not least of which was the Holy Ghost guiding me and feeding me ideas as I contemplated where the story would go.

Part of my inspiration for writing is to shine a light on the LDS faith which is so much a part of my life. I know the Lord is waiting to forgive us all our sins if we will follow Him. I also know that sometimes we feel like our sins are too great to be overcome and give up before we even give Him a chance. Laura and David's struggles aren't unique, but I wanted them to see that the love of God and the love they developed for each other could take those struggles and turn them into strengths. I hope their journey can be inspiration for others.

I am currently working on my next novel: Building a Life. It's the story of a young pregnant widow and the general contractor she hires to complete the building of a house begun by her late husband. I'll let everyone know when it's available.

Thanks for reading.