Holiday Giving by Roni Denholtz

I’ve always felt it’s important to give to those less fortunate, and to be charitable during the holidays. My husband agreed. So when our kids were several years old, we started a tradition. Before Hanukkah, we would go to a toy store and I let them pick out a toy for a child their age (Amy would pick for a girl; Josh would pick for a boy). They knew these were for children from families who couldn’t afford to get them gifts.

They were delighted to pick out gifts that they themselves would like such as a Barbie or a Batman toy. We would then donate them to a toy drive or a women’s shelter. We would also pick out some non-perishable foods for the local food pantry; and we always picked up some treats for the local animal shelter.

I think this helped instill in them an appreciation for the satisfaction and happiness you get when you give to others. When both were in college, they were active in their university charities which raised money for children with cancer.

To this day, we all give to various charities around the holidays.

No matter what holiday you celebrate, it’s important to remember that some people are struggling, or alone, and the holidays are especially difficult for them.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

More about Roni!

My first published romance, Lights of Love, was a Hanukkah reunion story. I decided to do another holiday book since I love to read all kinds of holiday stories during the holidays! A Christmas Carol has always been a favorite, and I enjoyed the movie about how Charles Dickens wrote it (The Man Who Invented Christmas) which I saw with a writer friend.

While searching for characters to celebrate Hanukkah, I wondered what would happen if a hero had the 8 nights of Hanukkah to convince the heroine he loved her. And so...Eight Nights to Win Her Heart was born!

Here's the back cover blurb:

Roslyn Stein is convinced that her boyfriend Ben Jaffe will never marry. Ben’s parents’ contentious divorce left him with emotional scars.

But Ben doesn’t want to lose Roslyn. So he asks her to give him the eight nights of Hanukkah, to prove he really does love her and deserves another chance.

As they light the candles on the menorah each night, Roslyn struggles with the decision of whether to let him back into her life. And Ben realizes how much she really does mean to him.

Will Ben be able to win Roslyn’s heart again?

Roni Denholtz is an award winning author of 16 romance novels and novellas--contemporaries, holiday stories, cowboys and historicals.

She is also the author of 9 children's books and hundreds of articles and short stories, published in magazines such as Baby Talk and Lady's Circle.

Roni's social media:

I'm on Instagram as Denholtzroni (for some reason I got locked out of roni denholtz which where I first was).  

Please friend me on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/RoniDenholtzAuthor/

Check out my website http://ronidenholtz.com
And here's a direct link to the book!
https://www.amazon.com/Eight-Nights-Win-Her-Heart-ebook/dp/B07Y2FCW97/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=Roni+Denholtz&qid=1575138986&s=books&sr=1-6

Finding the Voice of Christmas

by M. L. Buchman

It's funny, I've been having some offline discussions about a writer's voice lately and I wanted to share it here. Then I saw that the month's suggested theme was holiday reads and I must say that I found a very appropriate example. :)

THE SEASON
I love Christmas stories. Which is odd as I grew up in a household where Christmas was not the most comfortable time (Dad was not a fan of the season). But my wife and kid taught me what a joy Christmas could be when it is done with heart and soul. And I've now written seven novels and twelve short stories set in the holiday season. (A total surprise to me...and yes, many more to come.)

Here's a collection of all twelve short stories:

Grab a copy here!

THE VOICE
What's funny about this collection is that the twelve tales are actually in ten different series and five distinct genres:

• military romantic suspense (The Night Stalkers, Delta Force, US Coast Guard)
• romantic suspense (Firehawks Hotshots, White House Protection Force)
• science fiction romance (Science Fiction Romance stories)
• contemporary romance (Where Dreams, Henderson's Ranch, and a standalone)
• thriller (Dead Chef)

And yet, if you were to read all the tales, from the angst-filled Relive the Day! to the thriller romp of Christmas Cookied Chef, I think there would be little question that they were all written by the same author.

That's voice!

Not character voice, but the voice of the author. Which leads me back to the discussion I was having with some friends earlier. So, what the heck is an author's voice?

Well, that's the real beauty of it. The one person who can't hear their own voice is, indeed, the author. Why? Because to the author, it sounds like themselves. Which, curiously enough will sound a little dull and flat--but only to the author. (Yep, it's a crazy profession.)

The challenge for the author is to then learn how to stay out of their own way. My theory goes something like this:

1. Do not over edit. That's the writer's intellectual brain trying to correct their natural, emotional one to what they "think" it should be. I'm not saying don't fix broken things in the edit, I'm saying try not to fix the things that aren't broken.
2. Focus on having fun. That's when we're being our truest selves. When we just plunge in and tell story. Sure, this can be wrackingly hard, or everyone would be doing it, but we love it or else authors would find something simpler to do like creating world peace. :)
3. Matching the author voice to the genre.

MY VOICE

This last point has already been a wild adventure for me. My career has spanned 25 years so far. I can't imagine what the next 25 will hold, but here's what I know so far.

Some authors LOVE a particular genre. They eat sleep and breathe: romance, science fiction, high fantasy, cozy mystery... When they go to write in that genre, they've spent decades as a reader training their inner writer's voice to love that genre and they can just climb right in and pull it over them like a warm blanket.

Me? Not so much. I was deep in a career of reading action-adventure (Melville, London, Arctic explorers--I was about 10), when my Dad set down a science fiction book he'd just finished. I picked it up and didn't leave SF (except for a little bit of fantasy) for a decade. Then I spent another decade in thrillers and more years in classics before I stumbled on romance. Except romance already worked for me because Mom had raised me on a steady diet of MGM musicals and albums of Broadway shows.

So, I wrote some SF, a couple romances, and a few thrillers. Then I sold a military romantic suspense (MRS) series to a publishing house. Thirty novels later, I popped my head up.

My career was going very nicely, but I wanted a little more surety and some variety. The next steps looked something like this:

• I plunged into contemporary romance. Fourteen books later, I was getting the same kind of stellar reviews I had in MRS...but about 1/2 the sales. Hmm... I thought. Hmmmm....
• I then looked at all my reviews (did one of those word cloud things where more common ones are bigger). Sure I got: character, romance, heartwarming...but I also got: action, tension, exciting, even thriller.
• Hmmm, I do love a good thriller. In fact, much of my romance and SF reading had been over on the thriller side of the coin. 

THE PLUNGE

So, I'm now making an experiment and plunging into thriller to see if that genre more closely matches my author's voice. Early feedback offers a fairly definitive YES.

• "Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more." - Publishers Weekly
• "Superb!" - Booklist
• “The best military thriller I have read in a very long time. Love the female characters.” – Sheldon McArthur, founder of The Mystery Bookstore, LA

As I write this, Drone released yesterday to my strongest launch in two years, despite being in a new genre for most of my dedicated readers. Have I managed to match my voice to a genre? Only time will tell. For now, you can judge for yourself.

Not as Christmasy as the collection above, but way fun!
Click here to grab a copy: e-, print, large print, or audio

M.L. "Matt" Buchman has 60+ novels, 100 short stories, and lotsa audiobooks. Booklist says: 3x “Top-10 Romance of the Year” and among “The 20 Best Romantic Suspense Novels.”  A project manager with a geophysics degree, he’s flown and jumped out of planes and also bicycled solo around the world. More at: www.mlbuchman.com. 

Mutt's and Mistletoe Book Review

Review of Mutts and Mistletoe by Natalie Cox

From the first page of this laugh-out-loud Holiday Romance set in the English countryside, British Author Natalie Cox had me smiling at her heroine’s Ten Things I Hate About Christmas list. Told in the first person, the story gives the reader access to Charlie’s thoughts (gently snarky) as well as her words and actions. This adds an extra layer of humor to the hilarious fish-out-of-water mix.

Charlie’s seemingly stable urban life is overturned in a flash when she discovers her live-in boyfriend has been cheating on her with his personal trainer for over a year. Charlie struggles to make sense of what happened.

At the ripe old age of thirty-one, she’s lost (or had stolen) four years of her life, and she wants to make the most of what remains. But her self-confidence has been shaken. Her romantic heart is battered and bruised. She’d rather be alone than live with someone she can’t trust.

Charlie’s plans to hole up alone over Christmas with a bottle of Chardonnay and watch Audrey Hepburn movies is blown to smithereens when her apartment building blows up from a gas leak. Suffering from a concussion and temporarily homeless, she agrees to stay with her cousin Jez in the country while she recovers. Jez runs a high-end boarding kennel, Cozy Canine Cottages.

Unfortunately, Charlie has no experience with country living, and her only experience with dogs was with her mother’s third ex-husband’s over-indulged and under-disciplined pugs. At five years old, she experienced them chewing up her dolls, constantly trying to hump her leg and getting the attention she craved. Nothing to love there as far as she is concerned.

Charlie finds herself a fish out of water, but being an adventurous soul, she gamely tries to fit in with Jez and Slab (ancient Poodle), Hulk (spunky Pomeranian), Malcom (nervous, deaf Great Dane), Judd (three-time national champion Irish Setter), The Twins (two huge Alaskan Malamute sled dogs) and Peggy (very pregnant beagle).

When Jez’s long-term internet romantic partner gives her two weeks in the Arctic together for Christmas, and none of Jez’s friends can kennel-sit for her, Charlie gamely volunteers. After all, how hard can it be?

Plus, the pay is REALLY good.

When the boiler in the kennel building breaks down, Charlie must bring all the dogs into the house with her so they don’t freeze to death. Jez’s off-beat local friends rally round to help and before she knows it, Charlie begins to appreciate and enjoy the company of canines.

Unfortunately, every time Charlie runs into the handsome-but-prickly vet, he seems to get the impression she’s reckless and irresponsible. But he has such sexy forearms…and she’s learned he had his heart broken, too.

Natalie Cox has an amazing comic voice. Her characters are interesting and relatable, including the dogs. The plot has plenty of fun twists and turns with a heartwarming and happy ending.

I read Mutts and Mistletoe in bed the first time, and woke my husband multiple times laughing out loud. Two weeks later, I read the story again because it was soooo funny. I laughed just as much the second time around.

This book goes on my ‘keeper’ shelf! ~ Sarah McDermed

Buy at  Amazon

Available in Print, Audible, E-book. Can be found at all the large print and e-book retailers, and in many languages.

Reads for the Holidays

by Courtney Pierce

This holiday season, I’ll be breaking from my decades-old tradition of poring through the inspirational stories of Charles Dickens. I’ve always embraced his tales of the human condition in my antique editions, two-columns of tiny print on whisper-thin, fragile pages.

Holiday reads are about connecting to emotions that re-calibrate our attitudes, allowing us to take stock in our abundances. In the process, we soften our scar tissue, and lift ourselves to be better people than we think we are.

At the urging of my 85-year-old Mom, I picked up a full-price hardback edition of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Yes . . . I’m one of those few reader/writers who are willing to pay full pop for a keeper-book on the shelf. It’s an amazing debut novel by Ms. Owens and is one of those rare first efforts that became a runaway bestseller. When I read the summary on the front flap, l worried that it might be depressing. Who wants a downer of a book around the holidays? But now I understand its success, and it wasn't just a new writer's beginner's luck.

Ms. Owens's writing style and voice in this book are unique. The combination completely captures the culture of “swamp folk” in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Like many colorful locations in that part of our great country, the demographics, history, and topography shape the attitudes and beliefs of their inhabitants. Having myself grown up on the East Coast, both in the north and nearly south, this book hit home for me on many levels. Mom picked another winner that makes me want to work harder at being a successful writer.

Six-year-old Kya, the youngest of five kids, is living in a shack in the remote marsh country. Her alcoholic father has driven away her mother. Kya’s siblings all leave too, one-by-one, to get away from their poverty-stricken life. When her father is killed, there is only Kya, left alone to fend for herself. The long arm of the law and authorities don’t often reach to people in the marsh. A reader can’t get through the first six chapters without appreciating the gift of family and having enough to eat. I found myself so hungry that I gobbled up every word.

This is a story of survival against all odds, jumping up to touch bottom. Little Kya not only learns to survive, but to thrive with ingenuity, purpose, and instinct. The things we take for granted in lifeꟷeducation, socialization, electricity, the clothes on our backꟷare huge leaps for little Kya. And survive she does, even after being accused of murder. She’s a vulnerable target, because Kya is considered to be merely swamp trash by the locals.

As I read this book, I am reminded of the poignant real-life story of Frank McCourt as told in his memoir, Angela’s Ashes. Even after 23 years since it's publication, I can never erase the scene where young Frank scours the Irish pub for discarded fish and chips wrappers just to lick the grease. The settings of these two books are thousands of miles apart, but the refusal to crumble under adverse circumstances makes the world much smaller. We who have so much, eat so much, whine so much are humbled by these stories. They inspire us to give away more than we take, even if for a short while. Then we retreat back into our comfortable ways until the next book inspires us.

Maybe I haven’t abandoned my beloved Dickens after all. I will see his messages everywhere this holiday season, holding up a mirror to the selfish, divided, and mean-spirited. And in their reflection, should they choose to see it, is a countenance that projects benevolence, unity, and kindness.

I’m in the early stages of drafting my seventh book, Big Sky Talk. The research phase of this process is both arduous and satisfying. I'll be delving into Native American folklore in order to weave authenticity into the prose. My goal is to sit down with tribal elders to discuss the spiritual meaning of reincarnation among the Blackfoot, Kootenai, and Salish tribes, which are prevalent here in Montana. Access to this wisdom must be earned . . . and so I shall work hard. I think I may have discovered my new Dickens.

Lessons heard. Lessons learned.

I have so much to be thankful for this holiday season. I now live in one of the most beautiful places in the world: Kalispell, Montana. Snow-capped mountains and abundant wildlife surround me at every turn. We fish and hunt to fill our freezer for the long winter ahead. We hike to remain healthy. A loving family wraps me in their arms by the glow of a wood stove.

And most important, I still have my freedom.

Photo: Micah Brooks

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Kalispell, Montana with her husband, stepdaughter, and their brainiac cat, Princeton. Courtney writes for the baby boomer audience. She spent 28 years as an executive in the entertainment industry and used her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. She studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, Courtney is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal.

Audiobook now Available!

Check out all of Courtney's books: 

courtney-pierce.com and

windtreepress.com 

Print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com.

Available Now!
Book 3 of the
Dushane Sisters
Trilogy

The Dushane Sisters Trilogy concludes with Indigo Legacy, available now. There's love in the air for Olivia and Woody, but will family intrigue get in the way? Ride along for the wild trip that starts in a New York auction house and peaks in a mansion on Boston's Beacon Hill. 

The Dushane sisters finally get to the truth about their mother.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."