Healing Touch is Now Available for Pre-order and I Need You!

Welcome back to Mountain Meadow, Virginia. On August 28, Healing Touch, the first book in my new small town contemporary series A Place to Call Home will release. For those of you who read my Mountain Meadow Homecomings series, you'll find some familiar faces along with the new ones.

Healing Touch tells the story of Luke Allred and Rachel Hastings. Luke is a widowed veterinarian who's coming home to establish a new life for his two children and him. His son is angry at the world. His daughter won't talk, and Luke worries he just might be the worst daddy in the world.

Rachel Hastings has a way with animals. In fact, she's the go to person when local wildlife is injured or abandoned, and her healing touch carries over to everyone...except herself. When she agrees to help watch the two new kids in town, she's also put herself back in the orbit of her high school secret crush.

Rachel brings her own baggage, with a failed marriage behind her and a determination to not let another man run or ruin her life. However, neither Luke nor she can ignore the explosive attraction between them. As they pull together, though, the secret Luke's children are hiding could tear everyone's world apart.

I am offering up a handful of free copies in exchange for a fair and honest review. If you're willing to do that, please email me at laurabrowning613@yahoo.com and let me know what format you need.

I am so excited about this new series. We met Luke's younger brother, Jake Allred, in Special Delivery, but the Mountain Meadow Homecomings series really focused more on the Richardson family--Evan, Tabitha, and Erin. A Place to Call Home will bring the entire Allred clan back to Mountain Meadow. Healing Touch is available right now for pre-order on Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. The next books in the series, The Secret Ingredient, comes out in December, and the story of the Allred twins is still a work in progress.

Time to Slow Down and Smell the Road Kill

The things I’ve learned from my ailing transmission…
I was having a great Saturday. Really. The Heart of Carolina Romance Writers meeting was great. Everyone had super stories from the RWA national convention in NYC. Virginia Kantra let us hold her RITA, which for those of you who aren’t romance writers is kind of like holding the best actor OSCAR, and the post meeting coffee was filled with great conversation with a great group of ladies.
Then I started home.
My first clue something was seriously amiss was on Wade Avenue when I stepped on the gas. The engine went VROOOOM…and the car went put-put. Not being a stranger to the vagaries of geriatric motor vehicles, my brain said…uh oh…transmission. I hit the cell phone panic button, i.e. I called hubby.
That netted me the helpful advice: 1) check your transmission fluid and 2) if you have any – drive home carefully or alternate 2) if you don’t have any – buy some and drive home carefully.
Thanks, honey.
So here are the 7 things I’ve learned from my ailing transmission:
1. The location of the transmission fluid dipstick is guaranteed to be in the one place where you will get dirty and burned checking it.
2. Even with your hazard lights on, people will still run right up on your rear bumper when you’re doing 45 mph on an interstate as if you are suddenly going to accelerate to NASCAR speed. Hazard. Lights. Flashing. Blinky. Blinky. Something wrong with car. You should pass me.
3. You need to leave earlier for work when you have to drive like one of those older drivers who need a booster seat to see over the steering wheel.
4. Engines running at 3500 rpms to maintain 45 mph get lousy gas mileage.
5. You should check your oil a lot more frequently when your engine’s running like that.
6. If your car takes odd-sized tires or windshield wipers, which usually means the more expensive ones, chances are you’ll experience the same issue with finding a replacement transmission.
7. And finally, the most important thing I’ve learned, road kill stinks a whole lot longer when you’re approaching and passing it at 35 instead of 55.
Sigh.