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.

After the Kiss by Suzanne Enoch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a new author to me. I really enjoyed this book and am getting ready to start the next one in the series. The characters were well-rounded and realistic, including the secondary characters (parents and brothers).
As a horse person, I appreciate the fact that this author either did some great homework, or she knows horses too. It's really annoying to read a book that talks about horses that are either 18 hands (not that common) or HUGE animals of 15 hands (two inches shy of being a pony). The training techniques for the horse and the rider were spot on, again refreshing.
Without giving away any spoilers, Enoch was dealing with a tricky issue for that time, a hero who was a bastard. Again, unlike some other books I've read, she doesn't magically make this disappear or resolve it in a completely implausible way.
I stumbled on this book because members of my RWA chapter sometimes bring in books they're clearing off their "already read" shelves. What a happy circumstance picking up After the Kiss turned out to be!


View all my reviews

Making Memories

It is the natural order of things for us to be born, to grow, to foster a new generation and then to die, but the process is never smooth or easy. There are always bumps along the road either for us personally, or for those we love. As parents, we want to smooth the way for our children, to save them from some of the rough spots that we encountered. As children, we dread that time that must inevitably come in which we must say goodbye to our parents.

I said goodbye to my mother this week. Perhaps that’s not solely true, for I think we had been saying our farewells for some time now. When I visited, she would always have something that she wished to give me either because I was the only daughter and she felt it was something that should be passed on to a daughter—like the beautiful wooden jewelry box my father gave her that played Lara’s theme from Dr. Zhivago, or the college notebooks from an uncle who liked to write short stories apparently more than he wanted to take notes on botany while he was at university—or it might have been something I gave her that she wanted to give back to me. Those things do hold memories, and they make me smile when I look at them, but the greater gift was in being able to sit down and share those memories with Mom while we looked at them and talked about them.

Memories are what we make every day with the people we care about, so let me tell you about some of mine.

I remember my mother taking my baby crib and converting it into a canopy bed. Why does this matter? It shows an essential part of her character. She could take almost anything and find a way to repurpose it to use a catchphrase of today. This was nothing new or admirably resource saving. It was simply the way that she was raised. Nothing was wasted. That crib saw new life for me as a toddler bed, and it also holds the memory of her climbing into it with me when I was small and had a nightmare, or getting me out of it during the thunderstorm I was afraid of to hold my hand while we stood at the window and she helped me overcome that fear.

 Speaking of fear—probably not the right word—was the knowledge that she took her role as a parent seriously. When we had done something wrong, there was never any comment of “wait til your father gets home.” Punishment was meted out quickly and fairly. With four kids to raise, she managed to wear one leather belt completely out and had to get a new one. We had either learned enough she didn’t need to wear out a second, or she decided we’d all gotten too big to spank.

She wanted us to learn to make our own decisions, and then live with them—right or wrong. “Pick out what you want to wear today.” I can remember standing at my closet and agonizing over that choice when I couldn’t have been more than four or five. Mom swears I always picked my fanciest dress. From teenage and adult years spent in jeans and barn boots, I find that hard to believe.

Mom wanted to make sure we had the skills to live on our own…or she might have been just a master of delegation. We knew enough about cooking to feed ourselves, enough about sewing to hem and sew buttons on. She might have tried to teach me more, but that sewing thing didn’t take. We learned how to read maps, set up household bill paying accounts and filing systems. She taught me the basics of gardening and so many things I could never possibly write them all down.

One of the things she taught me was that building a strong marriage takes work. Love alone is not enough, though it is the foundation. It takes commitment, acceptance, and a willingness to truly forgive. I think that probably applies to any lasting relationships in our lives.

If I had to summarize my mother in just a few words, I would say “boundless energy.” She ran our house in such a way that I have no doubt she could have been a corporate CEO in this day and age. But that wasn’t the role she was raised to expect in her generation. Instead, she turned that drive, focus, and energy on her family—providing an anchor and stability for our dad as well as us. She also channeled that energy into volunteer work. I can remember “helping” with Heart Fund campaigns and political ones as well. Many times, I went with her to help deliver for Meals on Wheels. She was always active in something.

She used to wear us out on vacations with going places and doing things. In fact, it was when she looked at me and said, “I can’t do that anymore” that I realized we had entered another phase where the time we shared when I visited would be more about reflecting on what we had done than creating new memories. Yet, even this was another layer of making memories. If living in the South for the past quarter century plus has taught me nothing else, it’s that taking time to just sit a spell and talk has immeasurable value. You can learn a lot when you close your mouth and listen.

We talked about death too. It is a part of life that none of us can avoid. Mom was 90, and she would be the first to tell you that was about twenty-five years more than she expected to have because her parents passed away in their sixties. Every time she would say she didn’t expect to still be alive, I would remind her of one of her cousins who was well over a hundred before she passed away. At first, it was a joke, then maybe a wish, and finally I think it was a fear.

Age takes its toll on all of us, and Mom was tired. People have described her as a fighter, a scrapper, a firecracker, and she was all of those things, but ultimately, she was simply ready to say goodbye to all of us still travelling our own journey so that she could go on to the next phase of hers.

Of all my many precious memories of my mother, being able to be with her as she said goodbye to this earthly life will be one of them. She wanted to die at home, so we granted that wish to her. We surrounded her with family and love, held her hands, and let her know that we loved her, and that it was okay to give up that fight and say goodbye because her job was done here. She had raised us to become adults who had found our own paths to walk, had learned to live with our own mistakes, and to forgive ourselves and others for those blunders that inevitably occur.

We opened the door to her patio during those last few minutes, so she could hear the birds singing, but more importantly so that her spirit could depart and have a pathway to Heaven. I have no doubt that my dad, my brother John, Mom’s parents and her sister were all there to take her hand and welcome her in.

I will miss her presence, her guidance, and that boundless energy drawing me out of my shell and daring me to do more than I thought I could, but I am so glad I had these years with her to build the memories I can carry on with me now. I would encourage all of you to look at your own parents, children, grandparents, and grandchildren and take advantage of that time. Make those memories so you can look back with a smile, sit a spell, and say, “I remember when…”

I love you, Mom. Thanks.

From Writing to Gardening: The "Blessings" of Abundance

In my spare time, when I’m not working or writing (which lately seems to be work), my family and I are growing a garden. Like many projects around our place, the garden has gotten much, much larger than I ever envisioned. In fact, I believe we could probably feed our entire neighborhood. If you’ve ever grown a garden, then you know that vegetables have a bad habit of ripening all at once. (Next year I plan to plant one seed per day to avoid this thoughtlessness on the part of my plants.) The net effect is that I’ve eaten and frozen broccoli to the point I don’t think I can look at another stalk anytime soon. Kale is my new best friend because it keeps doing its thing for weeks and weeks without bolting. Bonus: it’s good for you too. The problem now is cucumbers.

Over the past two days, Harvey and I have canned 24 quarts of dill pickles. We’ve had sliced cucumbers for lunch and dinner. And… We haven’t even made a dent in what’s coming in the door. Don’t get me wrong. I like pickles. However, our household can only consume so many pickles in a year. Now we face the inevitable question: what can we do with all these cucumbers? You see, our two rows (80 foot long rows!) of cucumbers have just gotten cranked. So I decided to find out if there were any non-food related things for which cucumbers could be used. Turns out, there’s quite a lot. Here’s some of the things I plan on trying: 1. Ant control – I checked three different web sites that recommend spreading cucumber peelings, the bitterer the better, around the places where you believe ants might be entering your home. I’m going to assume for cucumber usage purposes that the little pests are entering via the entire circumference of my house. With generously peeled peelings, I believe I can use about 352 cucumbers for this project. 2. Reduce swelling – we all know the cucumber slices on the eyes trick from all those spa scenes in chick flicks. I like this idea, but there are two problems: my son and husband aren’t keen on a spa day, and this isn’t going to use nearly enough cucumber. However, curing eye swelling is just one trick. Apparently cucumbers are good at dealing with another “swelling”: cellulite. Again, my expert web sites recommend rubbing slices of cucumber on cellulite to help tighten skin. If rubbing works…why not a bath? That should use bushels of cucumbers, and I might be able to fit back into my skinny swimsuit. 3. Cucumber will clean stainless steel sinks and faucets. What do you know, I have a stainless steel kitchen sink…and dishwasher…and cookware. Yep, mass cucumber usage here. 4. Squeak eliminator – toss out the WD40 and rub a cucumber slice on that noisy hinge. I wonder if it works on knee joints? 5. Shoe polish – I don’t see much mileage in this one. I think I’m down to about two pairs of shoes that actually need polishing. 6. Sunburn relief – if you don’t have aloe, use cucumber. Now, I might be able to use this since I’m fair-complexioned, but hubby and the kid have that olive insta-tan skin…damn them.

There are several more uses along with plenty of reasons to consume cucumber. It boosts your energy, cures a hangover, gets rid of bad breath, and lowers blood pressure. I think it might be able to bring about world peace too, but I haven’t seen that use…yet. There is one thing that gardening does add, whether it's cucumbers or the other vegetables we have coming on: it's a wonderful stress reliever and a great way to take a break from spending so much time in front of the computer either writing or promoting my books. Check out my website at www.laurabrowningbooks.com I've got a series out that I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Where is the Moral Compass of Today’s Young People?

I will say right up front that I teach in an alternative high school, so I am dealing with students who may not have the most stellar of pasts or come from the best of homes. Today, however, I listened in on a conversation taking place while students were getting work done in my class. The entire discussion centered around the best ways in which to steal items from Walmart without getting caught, and an open discussion of people they knew who had stolen everything from cell phones to TVs. Am I dangerously naïve? Just how the devil does one walk out of a store with a freaking television set? More importantly than that—never, anywhere in this conversation, was any thought or comment given to the fact that stealing is wrong. To take someone’s goods or belongings without permission or payment is fundamentally, unequivocally wrong. One of the students involved in this discussion regularly attends church. Are the Ten Commandments not taught there anymore? I may be a bit rusty, but I do believe one of them is “Thou shalt not steal.” I’m a parent, not always as attentive as I should have been over the years, but I have to ask… Your kid suddenly shows up with a brand new cell phone…don’t you ASK where they got it? If they walk in the door with a new television, don’t you ASK how they bought it? What the hell? What is our country coming to when people think that they should have anything they want just because they want it, without paying any price for it?

More frightening even than that, what is the destiny of a nation in which many, many people no longer seem to have any functioning moral compass whatsoever? This is the same group of students who asked me if I would “help” them during their state writing tests. I told them no in no uncertain terms. One of the students said, “She could get in trouble and lose her job.” To which, I replied, “You’re right, I could, but more importantly than that, I wouldn’t do it because it’s wrong, and at the end of the day, I want to be able to lay my head down to sleep at night with a clear conscience.” How alarming that that concept seemed something entirely new to them.

Paper or Virtual? How I Make the Choice Between Print and Digital Formats

I've read a couple of articles this year discussing the leveling off of e-reader sales, and I've heard plenty of people say they just have to feel a book in their hand, be able to turn the pages. It always seems to me in the articles sounding the slump in sales of digital readers that there's a certain amount of an I-told-you-so attitude to it, as if digital and print formats cannot peacefully co-exist. So, here's my personal take on it as a writer whose books appear in both digital and print formats, and as a voracious reader of fiction and nonfiction.

There's room for both. However, I have my personal preferences when it comes to my own reading. When it comes to reading for my own enjoyment, give me my Nook or my phone any day of the week. I can carry around a whole freaking library in my purse. Do you know how amazing that is to me? Not only can I carry around a whole freaking library, but I don't have to listen to reading snobs comment on what I choose to read. So you want to read the latest critically acclaimed piece of literary fiction? That's fantastic. I want to read hot sex scenes and stories that I know are going to have a happy ending.

I spend all day teaching writing and literature. Before I began teaching, I spent all day writing television news stories, most of which were heart-wrenchingly depressing. When I'm done working, I don't want to read more serious writing. I want dessert. I want candy. I want cake. So give me a fun, sexy, fast read that is pure entertainment.

And give it to me on my tablet, please.

When it comes to serious reading, such as literature that I am going to have to discuss, or textbooks, I would prefer to have them in print. Now, if you're a book purist, please skip the next few sentences. The reason I like them in print is because I write, highlight, and add sticky notes all over the pages. I have attempted to do this with digital books, but it's just not the same. For the latter half of my masters degree studies, I participated in a Nook program in which all  my books were downloaded to my tablet. Don't get me wrong. It saved me a TON of money, but I just couldn't get comfortable with electronically highlighting and writing notes. It just didn't feel right. I like my reference books in print as well. I think it's easier to use my Chicago Manual of Style or my APA manual when I can flip through the contents and the index and quickly turn to the page I need.

What got me thinking about this is that my publisher, Kensington, is putting the digital version of Special Delivery on sale for just 99 cents from December 27, 2015 through the end of January. This is a great deal--more than 75% off retail price. What makes it even better is it's the first book in my series, Mountain Meadow Homecomings. Although the book is not specifically tied to the Christmas season, it does take place around this time of year, so now is a great time to get it, if you haven't already.

The sale ends just in time for the release of book two in the series, Lost & Found Love, on February 2, 2016. This story is so much more than a romance. It's also about finding family and the redeeming qualities of love. I am really excited about this second book in the Mountain Meadow Homecomings series. I hope you will be too.

The best thing of all is that whether you enjoy digital or print... this series is available in both formats. Sorry, though, it's only the digital version of Special Delivery that you'll be able to pick up for 99 cents. However you choose to read, I hope you'll enjoy Mountain Meadow and all the folks who live there.

Finding Home for Christmas

I’m going to be spending Christmas away from my husband for the first time in twenty-four years this year. My mother is ill, so my son and I will be visiting and helping her over the holidays. Work and home responsibilities (animals…did I mention animals?) mean my husband will have to stay on our farm. Plus, I know he will want to see the new grandson and his very first Christmas. I’ll miss that, but I’m making a trade-off.

We have never been one of those families that fill a quarter of the room with presents, and as my husband reminded me, we can celebrate Christmas anytime we choose. Still, we become attached to that idea of being home for this particular holiday.

Thinking about that reminded me of the one other Christmas where I really felt I wasn’t home.

Sixteen years old, I was living with a family in Switzerland, thousands of miles from everything that was familiar to me. Their traditions weren’t my traditions. To top it all off, I had just recently had my cast removed after tearing ligaments in my ankle. I had had to undergo surgery within a week of arriving in my new temporary country. Homesickness had also arrived in a big way.

There are things I remember, like how fascinated and somewhat frightened I was by the fact my Swiss family actually burned candles on their tree. Nevertheless, it was beautiful. They also opened presents on Christmas Eve. While it was pretty cool to be able to open gifts early, it was a bit of a letdown Christmas morning. Santa was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there’d been St. Nicholas, but he’d come and gone weeks earlier on December 6^th.

All in all, it was a culture shock, and—Swiss or American—we were supposed to be celebrating the same holiday. The real comfort was in going to church. Despite the fact that it was darn cold inside that big sanctuary, the tunes were the same ones I had grown up with.

I remind myself of that now. Christmas will be different this year, but there is always something to be pulled out of it that can help give us a feeling of home, even when we are far away from the ones we love the most.

Another Mother's Day...Oh My!

Happy Mother’s Day. Today I have the privilege of being able to look at Mother’s Day from a new perspective. The cynic in me says this is another one of our trumped up days designed to generate business for card companies, florists, jewelers, restaurants, etc. The reality is every day is mother’s day, but there are special ones that stand out.

Uncle Jacob with the new addition

My daughter-in-law celebrates one of those today. Her first. Her son won’t be a week old until tomorrow. Like all of us when we were new mothers, she is, or will be, going through the overwhelmed, self-doubting, exhausted phases of parenting (I’m still waiting for that to stop—just kidding). There is nothing like a baby to blow up your entire existence. Many times what you imagined, dreamed, pictured, envisioned, planned, or scheduled gets tossed out the window. I remember reading an article while I was pregnant about an exhausted new mom who said, “I just want things to get back to normal.”

Normal, as defined by your existence as a single woman, then a married woman is gone forever. The author of the article sagely informed the new mom that she would have to find a “new” normal. Well, that’s not exactly true. There is no more normal. That’s the truism. Every day will be different. Some of those days will be wonderful, and they will stand out in your memory. Some of those days will be terrible. Those, too, have a way of standing out in your memory. Some will just be—days.

The biggest thing to know is despite all the books that can tell new moms how to insert tab A into slot B, there really is no owners’ manual on how YOU should parent YOUR baby or what is best for you and your family. Those decisions are yours to make, and you don’t really need to justify them to anyone, including your own mom.

I am lucky in having a mother who took the time to make sure each one of her four kids got attention, but not so much that we couldn’t function. Part of that might have been juggling four kids to raise, I don’t know. What I do know is that every one of us turned out to be very distinct individuals with very different personalities. We had the freedom to grow into thinking, caring adults who found our own paths in life. To me, that’s what being a parent is all about. It’s not smothering your child with too much attention. It’s not tossing your kid out when things get tough (although, yes, there are times that’s tempting). It’s knowing when to hold them close as well as when to give them that push, like the proverbial mama bird pushing babies out of the nest.

My mother is my greatest cheerleader (still). That is one of the best parts of being a mom. Whether they’re your kids by birth or by choice, you get to be in the corner for your kids cheering them on and praying like hell they don’t make some of the same mistakes you did growing up.

So, Happy Mother’s Day. 

Tuesday, my new book, Special Delivery releases. The heroine is a new mom. Please remember, this is fiction where babies don't spit up, howl, or poop all over the new swing. That's the wonderful aspect of writing fiction. I can ignore some of those realities of being a new parent.

An Interview with Special Delivery's Hero, Jake Allred

We’re one week away from the release of Special Delivery the opening book of my new series, Mountain Meadow Homecomings. Jake Allred joins me today. He’s the good guy in Special Delivery.

Me: Thanks for agreeing to this at the last minute.

Jake: You’re welcome.

Me: How does it feel being such a stand-up kind of guy?

Jake: Did Evan put you up to this?

Me: No. He might have mentioned that you hated that label so I should make sure to use it, but honestly, Jake, everyone around town talks about how friendly you are. Well, maybe not Betty Gatewood.

Jake: (leans back in his chair and rolls his eyes as he crosses his arms across his broad chest.) She’s not exactly my number one fan.

Me: I got that impression. She’s kind of nosy too. Is the whole town that way?
Jake: Pretty much.

Me: You know, I have to ask…if that’s the case, why on earth did you come back? I mean none of your family’s here anymore…

Jake: It’s my home. I needed that after the military. And before you go off in that direction…that topic is not up for discussion.

Me: But…

Jake: Seriously. I’ve talked to Holly and Evan about it, but that’s it. I appreciate your tact in handling it, although you could have left out the nightmares.

Me: It’s kind of central to who you are, what motivates you.

Jake: Making a home in the place I love motivates me.

Me: (It’s my turn to roll my eyes.) You know, you can be such a guy sometimes.

Jake laughs and arches a brow.

Me: All right. Tell us something about your family.

Jake: I have one older brother, two younger brothers and a sister.

Me: (I wait, but nothing else is forthcoming.) Jake…come on. You can elaborate more than that.

(Holly sticks her head in the doorway.)

Holly:  Jacob Allred! Quit giving that woman a hard time and talk to her.

(Jake gets this gooey expression on his face as he stares at Holly. She smiles at him and he grins as though he’s just grabbed all the gifts from under the Christmas tree. The grin fades as he turns back to me.)

Jake: All right. My older brother, Luke, is a veterinarian in Fairfax. Works for some big, fancy small animal practice. He’s married and has two kids—a boy and a girl. Then there’s me, and I’m followed by my twin brothers, Noah and Caleb. Noah’s a photographer. Travels all over the place. Haven’t seen him in a while.  Caleb’s got a bar on the coast. Then there’s Becca, the baby. She’s a chef at some fancy restaurant. That girl loves to cook.

I can hardly believe Jake has strung so many words together at one time. It must be the power of Holly.

Me: What about your parents? (I look down at my notes.) John and Mary?

Jake: Dad decided he wanted to retire to one of those places where he didn’t have to lift a finger except to pick out his next golf club. So they’re in Florida. Don’t see that lasting. He’ll get bored.

Me: What about your other siblings?

Jake: (Shrugs) Who knows? Wouldn’t mind having them back. Are we done?

Me: (sighs) Yes. Thanks for helping out.

Special Delivery is available now for pre-order. Click here to get to my buy links.

The Place to go in Mountain Meadow

Mountain Meadow’s nerve center is the Mountain Meadow General Store, better known as Tarpley’s to the locals. In Special Delivery, it’s where Jake first sees Holly, after all.

Like Mountain Meadow, Tarpley’s isn’t an actual store. It is a composite that draws upon many stores I’ve visited over the years. I’ll start with the one from my childhood: the Prospect Store in Prospect, Kentucky.

When I was a kid, I made the trek down the highway along with my brothers or some of my older neighbors to what was then the only store in Prospect. That’s certainly not the case anymore as this area grew into a well-to-do suburb or Louisville with shopping centers, McMansions and some real mansions too. However, back in the dark ages, it was a small grocery with wooden floors, narrow aisles, and a really great candy display.

My friends and I would walk along the highway, pump our arms to get truck drivers to blow their air horns, and collect returnable soft drink bottles people had tossed out their windows. At three cents each in a day when penny candy was really a penny, every bottle collected was a huge bonus to whatever allowance we had to spend. Mr. Snowden would take our returns, hand us the change, and we’d promptly spend it again for whatever sweet treats were making our mouths water.

The Prospect Store had a meat counter in the back, and I remember stopping to look at the cow tongues and thinking, “Ew, how could anyone eat that?”

The original store’s no longer there. It’s a Marathon gas station now with a modern convenience store in its place. I guess that’s progress, but it sure is a loss in pure character.

The second store I had in mind when I imagined Tarpley’s is one in Danville, Virginia called Midtown Market. It reminds me somewhat of the Prospect Store with its crowded aisles and wood floors. It’s got a great meat counter and some of the best chicken salad around, bar none.

During my years of working in television and visiting and living in the South, I have also been inside any number of small groceries across the region. I quickly discovered a few things about them. 1) There’s usually a group of older guys who hang around out front during summer or inside during colder weather telling bullshit stories and drinking either soft drinks or coffee. Some stores even give them a place to sit and do that. 2) If you need to know where something or someone is, the store owners are the people to talk to. Just be prepared to share some of your own life story with them. 3) Never go into a small country store thinking that you’re going to grab something quick and get on home. Sharing some of the yarn-telling by either dishing out your own BS or listening to someone else’s is part of the charm.

Tarpley’s and real stores like it are the South’s way of reminding us to slow down and take the time to say hello. I hate to see them disappear only to be replaced by lookalike convenience stores that just don’t have that same character. I guess one of the sad effects of the pervasiveness of technology and big corporations is we are losing our sense of regionalism.

So Tarpley’s is a salute to places like Midtown and the Prospect Store. Thanks, Mr. Snowden, for leaving me with some rich childhood memories.

Hey, and don’t forget—Special Delivery releases in three weeks! Click here for buy links where you can pre-order.

What's with book trailers?

Check out this short book trailer for my upcoming release of Special Delivery...
Special Delivery

I decided to play around a little bit with Animoto. I'm still not completely sold on the idea of book trailers, although I have heard from some authors who absolutely adore them.

This is a shorty...just 30 seconds long, and you know, that's okay with me. As a former TV news producer, :30 is a lot of time. The average television commercial is just :30. I have seen book trailers come in around 2:00 to 2:30 minutes long. Way tooooo long.

So I may play around with this, but I have to say, I'd like to see some hard data that these things increase visibility and sales because to do one right, it would require a lot more investment of time and money than it might well be worth.

Life's Little Blessings

As I sit here at the computer this Christmas Eve, unable to really concentrate on serious writing, bored with reading, and unwilling to do anymore work around the house, I have spent some time thinking back on 2014, only a week away from coming to an end.

It has been a year filled with change for our family.

My husband lost his job in February. While it has forced us to live on my income as a teacher and the royalties I make as a writer (not yet where I wish them to be!), I considered it to be a blessing. For the past six years, he had worked at a job far enough from our home that he had to live there during the week and was only home for weekends. Maintaining a family life long distance is never easy. It also brings with it enough increased expenses in maintaining a second household (even though his lodgings were rent-free) that I often questioned whether we were really better off.

Adjusting our lifestyle to such a cut in income has had its ups and downs, sometimes like the most insane roller coaster ride you can ever imagine. Yet each time that I have grown concerned that we couldn’t possibly make it through a month, somehow we did. Royalty checks, big and small, arrived just in the nick of time, or my husband picked up some freelance work that helped to tide us over. A litter of puppies brought in additional income.

We planted a garden, then added a watermelon and cantaloupe patch in a different location on our mini-farm. Plentiful rain and moderate temperatures provided us with an abundance of fresh vegetables and incredibly flavorful melons. A neighbor killed and butchered one of his steers and brought us a box of beef. Just before Thanksgiving, my husband expressed the wish that he could add a deer ham to our smoker, and less than an hour later we were hauling an eight point buck home in the back of our truck.

In May, I earned my masters in education. Thanks to a gift from two very good friends, we had gas money so we could attend commencement in Virginia Beach. The pomp and ceremony had a wonderful bonus effect: my son, who was not at all excited about his own upcoming high school graduation ceremony, suddenly looked forward to the event. The smile on his face after that ceremony will live in my memory forever. School was not the easy academic ride for him that it had been for me and his father.

With the change in his employment, my husband decided to take a hard look at what he wanted to do. He had already completed a course in fixing small engines, which—to my thinking—paid for itself when he was able to fix our riding lawnmower himself.  He is now back in school and has completed his first semester of a very fine gunsmithing program.

My career as a writer has continued to grow and expand this year. I had a book release under a different pen name in July, which has done very well. My next release as Laura Browning, Special Delivery, will come out May 12, 2015, and is already available for pre-order.

Just this week, my husband finally secured a part-time job that he can fit around his schedule as a student and as the coach of a high school fencing team. My son has matured during this year, now holding down two part-time jobs as he continues to explore what he would like to do for a career.

In all, though this year has been filled with tremendous change, it has also been filled with such timely blessings, I can’t help but believe in the divine hand of providence at work. Through the many adventures and misadventures during my life, I have always felt I must have a very special guardian angel. Now I am sure of it.

I don’t wear my faith on my sleeve. Maybe that’s a function of being a Lutheran, maybe it’s just my personality. However, I have spent many moments this year thanking God for his assistance in so many little ways. So this holiday season, when we think about the miracle of faith embodied in the birth of God’s son, remember that miracles occur every day in many little ways. It might be the garden blessed with good weather or a timely gift from a friend. It might even be that longer than usual wait in a checkout line that put you two cars behind the impaired driver instead of right next to him when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed.

As Walt Whitman says, “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”

So as 2014 winds down and 2015 begins, remember to look for the best in every situation. Find those little blessings that can brighten your day and help you brighten the day of someone else. 

Love Will Bring You Home

Welcome to Mountain Meadow, Virginia -- home of some hot guys, some nosy church ladies, and the newest residents, Holly Morgan and her little brother. Oh yeah, and Holly's soon-to-be-born baby.

Special Delivery kicks off my new series: Mountain Meadow Homecomings with Kensington's Lyrical Press imprint.

I can't wait for you to meet Holly and the hunky cop who helps her out, Jake Allred.

Special Delivery will release May 12, 2015. It's available for pre-order now from Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. I hope you will love all the folks of Mountain Meadow as much as I do!

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

One of my writer friends had posted a question on Facebook: “What did you really want to be when you were growing up?” I flippantly replied: archaeologist, veterinarian, horse trainer, and artist. None of my careers have taken me down those paths. I have been a television journalist – in front of and behind the camera. I write for money—more or less. I am also a teacher—not a career that I would have told you would EVER be on my radar.

However, my response to the question of what I really wanted to be got me thinking. I have done all of these careers. They are part of the everyday fabric of my life.

First of all, let’s look at archaeologist. One look around my house would be enough to show you that I am indeed an archaeologist. Just this morning, I excavated a heating pad from the hinterlands of my office bookshelf. Every time I open the refrigerator…well that’s an archaeological expedition in and of itself. Entering my teenager’s bedroom—need I say more?

Veterinarian, medic…Yup, that’s me. When you have as many animals as we have had over the years, particularly horses which seem especially accident prone, you have to a) be made of money, b) marry a veterinarian, or c) learn to do that stuff yourself. So, here’s a probably incomplete list of my animal medical skills:

·         Expert foot bandager – horse and dog

·         Expert “bits” cleaner – trust me, you don’t want to know

·         Can treat eye wounds

·         Worm horses and dogs

·         Dock tails

·         Remove dew claws

·         Give shots – IM and subcutaneously on cats, dogs, and horses

Then of course, there are the human medical needs:

·         Tick removal from places you simply don’t want to know

·         Road rash cleaner outer

·         Butterfly bandages for the “hell no, it doesn’t need stitches” people in my world.

·         Applier of splints, ace bandages, and masseuse

·         Bandage changer for the “hell no, I don’t need to go to the doctor” people in my world

·         2^nd and 3^rd degree burn care…see above.

So, yes, I have gained extensive veterinary and human medical experience over the years. My husband, bless him, has spared me experience in the one area I’m not sure I could handle—putting down my favorite horse and my first JRT.

Next, horse trainer. I’ve had horses for going on 30 years now. That doesn’t count when I was a kid. I have fox hunted, evented, and played polocrosse. I have remediated three horses who were petrified of getting on horse trailers. One horse had been in a trailer accident in which the trailer came loose form the tow vehicle (before I owned him). No, nobody paid me, but I ended up with lovely horses over the years who always managed to get the job done for me.

Finally, artist. I don’t paint, unless it’s a wall or a table. I doodle. However, there are other media – I have photographs, sculpture, and of course, my writing because it is also art. Over the years, with my son, there have been homemade Halloween costumes, grease-painted faces, clay and craft projects, and carved and painted pumpkins. This year, I might add watermelon jack-o-lanterns to the mix if our melon patch doesn’t hurry up. 

So, no, I might not have studied archaeology or veterinary medicine. I might not be training the next Olympic wonder horse or giving Rembrandt a run for his money. I have, however, enjoyed a very rich, adventuresome life that was never limited by believing I could only do ONE thing when I grow up. 

Broken Heat Pumps, High-Stakes Testing, and Biting Dogs

Sometimes, life gets in the way of the best of plans. When my newest book released at the beginning of this month I thought, great! I’ll get a plan together to promote it, do some book giveaways, some guest blogging and all those other fun things.

Screech…. That would be the sound of the train derailing.

Somehow, my publisher didn’t get the word that the release date for my books was right in the final week of two simultaneous graduate level courses in which I had papers due…in each class…at the same time. Hey, that was okay. I got the papers turned in…just in time to have to push hot and heavy into prepping my high school students for their End of Course Writing exams. I’ve analyzed more reasons, evidence and counterarguments in the last month than I really want to see—at least until next semester when we’ll do it all over again.

So, while I was deep in the middle of reviewing parallelism and using specific vocabulary, I woke up one morning and thought, “Gee, it’s cold in here.” However, with a terrier curled against my back, I didn’t think too much about it, until I finally stumbled into the bathroom where I could hear the outdoor portion of the heat pump running madly, but couldn’t feel any air blowing out of the vent.

Not good.

The final distraction to promoting Broken Heart came from this cute guy whose picture you see here. Sweet face, soulful eyes. In fact, this is the little cutie who likes to curl up to my back at night. He is also the dog that my son takes great pleasure in teasing. This is not a good thing. Said cute, cuddly, worshipful Jack Russell Terrier is also a former abuse case. His previous owners saw fit to toss him out a car window, which is how we ended up with him. We quickly discovered he has real fear issues with men. It took him two years to warm up to my husband. He blows hot and cold with the teenager.

Which is why I usually find myself saying: “Get out of his face. He’s going to bite you.”  I don’t even stick my face in this dog’s face, and he thinks I walk on water, dance on the moon, and need to have him lying near my feet or sitting on my lap whenever I remain motionless for any length of time.

However, teenagers being the way they are. I don’t know what I’m talking about when I say: “Get out of his face. He’s going to bite  you.”

Which is why I spent Saturday evening wiping up blood, soaking a prized T-shirt in cold water, and examining my son’s upper lip to decide if it needed stitches or not. I refrained from being the first one to say: “I told you so.” My spouse took care of that.

My teenager’s gone to school with an ice pack this week.

All I finally said was: “I’m sorry this turned into such a painful lesson son, but I hope you’ve learned it this time.”

And he said: “I have. I don’t want to repeat it.”

Which just goes to show you, teenagers can learn something.

So, where does that leave me with promoting Broken Heart, which—if I do say so myself—is a darn good story? Leave a comment and I’ll enter you in a drawing to win a copy of it. To be fair, I'll give away two copies. So I'm going to hold off and hold the drawing on November 9th.

How far would you go to help Family?

Broken Heart, book 4 in my series about the Barlow-Barrett family brings at least part of the family together. Stacey gets help from all of her brothers when she finally decides to stand up for what she wants. How families function, or don't, is a theme that runs through this series. Here they are, a family that could buy and sell most of us several times over, but few of them seem to have happy lives.

In book 2, Balancing Act, the hero and heroine are both people devoted to family. Seth has stepped up to run the family business, and Tessa will do whatever she has to in order to protect her younger brother, even if the price is her shot at love and happiness.

How far would you go to help family? Leave me a response and I'll enter you into next week's drawing for an e-book copy of Balancing Act. Remember, I'll be drawing each book in the series...10/20 will be Remember Me, and on 10/27, I'll draw two winners of the newest release, Broken Heart.

This week's winner of Bittersweet is Dawn. Congratulations!

Do You Need Money for Happiness?

When I was a kid, there were plenty of times that I thought,"Everything would be great if only we were rich." It was usually those moments when I wanted something I couldn't have, or I would have to save my money to get what I did want. As an adult, I can appreciate those lessons my parents taught me about learning to work hard for what I want in life. So thanks, Mom and Dad for making me save for six years to get that pony.

Over the years, I have met enough people with money to realize that having wealth isn't a free ticket to a life of infinite happiness. Just look at the news that hits the Internet every day, and anyone can see that. Sure, that person pulling in millions might not be wondering if there will be enough money to put gas in the car until the next paycheck, or if they have enough food in the freezer to cover what they can't buy fresh in groceries, but there are some problems that transcend a family's net worth.

The four books (so far) in the Barlow Barretts' series touch on some of those issues. Anna, in Bittersweet, struggled with the issue of never feeling as though she fit in. Seth, in Balancing Act, struggles with living up to his role as the eldest son--when  his heart's in a different place. In Remember Me, Brandon discovers how life in the limelight can turn ugly, and in this latest book, Stacey faces some of the biggest challenges of all. She's done her best to be the perfect Barlow-Barrett, but it's not enough. Even worse, she faces domestic violence in a marriage that's unraveling.

Broken Heart was a tough book to write, but as I started exploring exactly what kind of story Stacey might have to tell, it occurred to me that the way she'd led her life was simply too good to be true. Nobody had a life as perfect as hers seemed to be, unless they were a Barbie and Ken doll in one of my childhood games.Since I pretty much write by the seat of my pants, it surprised me what issues began to emerge in Stacey's life.

I have to thank my editor, Dianne, for making me go back and rewrite Jace, Stacey's husband. He's not a likable character, and there are people who will feel he doesn't get all that he deserves, but he has a story not unlike Stacey's. Like her, Jace's life has been all about keeping up appearances. It's his reaction when he can no longer do that that becomes the problem.

You know, I'd like everyone to have a chance to get in on this series from the beginning, so this week I'm offering readers a chance to get a copy of Bittersweet, book 1 in the series. All you have to do is leave a comment on whether you think having money makes life hard or easier. I'll draw a winner and announce it next Sunday when I'll do the same with book two, and so on. Pass the word.

Summer Reading Sale

In that other universe in which I teach English at an alternative high school...summer has arrived. In celebration of the fact that about 10 percent of the graduating class did so because I tutored them through their reading and writing exams during my planning period and after school, I'm putting my Guardian series on sale through the end of June. The coupons are good on Smashwords. All you have to do is enter the coupon code prior to completing your checkout. Book #1: The Guardian Michel was originally $0.99 -- with the coupon code PA46R -- you can get it for free through June 30, 2012. Book #2: The Guardian Michael was originally $1.99 -- with the coupon code KE93L -- it is $0.99 through June 30, 2012. Book #3: The Guardian Gabriel was originally $2.99 -- with the coupon code KX63P -- it is $1.99 through June 30, 2012. The books are available in the e-book format of your choice at Smashwords. Happy reading!

A gift to All my Followers

Thanksgiving, that uniquely American holiday in which we stop to give thanks for what we have before we rush to the TV to watch parades and football followed by a feeding frenzy, is almost here. For us, it's also the start of the Holiday Season.

Every year, The Wild Rose Press offers a free e-cookbook to its authors and readers. I'm thankful I am able to contribute two recipes to this year's edition. I'd like to pass along those recipes, along with all the wonderful ones contributed by my fellow authors. Take a moment to download it, and you'll see there are some super eats included.

I'm not going to give you a sappy list of things for which I'm thankful other than to say -- my thanks to each and every one of you who's supported my efforts as a writer, either by buying my books or offering me your friendship and advice.

Here's to all of you.

Secondary Characters: Adding Substance to Your Storytelling

Coming from a background in journalism, particularly broadcast journalism, boiling my writing down to basics is second nature. So when I first contemplated the idea of writing a full-length novel, it was a little daunting. How could I possibly write something so long that focused on two characters? Okay, you’re probably asking yourself why I would focus only on two characters. Well…when I looked at submission guidelines for various publishers, the line “secondary characters should be kept to a minimum” or something similar kept popping up. Now for someone who’s kind of a minimalist to begin with, my brain said: hero and heroine on a desert island. No other humans. Okay…ready, set, write. Wrong.

Life isn’t like that. And even in the fictitious world of romance, we need secondary characters because they serve some very important purposes. First and foremost, they help show us more about our main characters. One of the ways in which a writer uses indirect characterization is to reveal a character through what others say about that character and by how the hero and heroine interact with each other and the secondary characters. Does that mean you need a cast of thousands? No, but I think as writers, we also need to give more credit to our readers and what they can and can’t keep straight.

The second way in which secondary characters become useful is in providing additional conflict through subplots. In writing a short story, writers should keep storylines on an extremely narrow focus—few characters, no subplots—but a novel needs more. If as writers, we don’t include subplots, it’s like slapping the burgers and dogs from the 4th of July cookout on the table with no buns, no condiments, and no side dishes. Personally, I like my diet a little varied.

Finally, those secondary characters that pop into stories can end up demanding a story of their own. In the case of Winning Heart, the contemporary romance I have releasing today from Lyrical Press, two of those secondary characters evolved into a secondary romance within the frame of the same novel. (For you bargain seekers—woo hoo! Winning Heart turns into a two for one deal.) Another secondary character ended up getting his own story, Bittersweet, which will come out in December.
So, don’t kiss off those secondary characters. There are a few of them worth taking the time to develop, so when you serve up your writing for readers to consumer, they not only get the entrée, they also get a full course meal.

I invite you to leave a comment, but more importantly, check out the link to Winning Heart today because all this week, it’s 30% off. That’s an incredible deal for a full-length read!