By: Sandra Kitt

I’ve just finished several months of whirlwind activity for my latest release, The Time Of Your Life. It’s Book #2 in The Millionaires Club trilogy from Sourcebooks. I moderated a Valentine’s Day panel with, among the authors, Eloisa James and Ana Huang. I was on a panel for Black History month moderated by Beverly Jenkins. And more recently I took part in the Richmond Junior League 78th Annual Book Festival. I will also be hosted by Brenda Novak, who gave a wonderful cover blurb for my latest book, on June 29th in a virtual conversation. And, I can’t forget to recognize the 12th Anniversary of The Generistas, a fervent reader and writer group that uses blog posting to talk about, share opinions, news, and insights about their favorite genre. All of this flurry of activity is about romance.

My stories have always been character driven. The plot might carry the details of the journey, but it’s the he and her that draws the reader in and hopefully has them rooting for the romance to take root, and grow into the everlasting kind. 

In my story Beck, a journalist, and Eden, a 3rd year law student, are recipients of an extraordinary gift from a mutual benefactor. The temptation, of course, is to go hog wild with spending and living large. But the background of both Beck and Eden quickly instills in them both the need to do something more than just think of themselves. This is one of the ways I think of my novel as being ‘character driven’. And it’s one of the ways I always hope to reach readers with a story that gives a little more than a hot flirtation and a breathless…but satisfying…ending.

And I want the reader to be emotionally drawn to their journey, and where they will eventually end up. Of course, love has everything to do with it.

One of the fun things I had to do when putting the trilogy together is to come up with the many ways in which someone might come into a great deal of money that is unearned. And then have to deal with how so much money will change their lives. What would you do with sudden unexpected wealth? 

The Millionaires Club starts with Book #1, Winner Takes All. Book #3 will be out in April 2024, Finders, Keeper. Find out how a lot of money can be a glorious gift, or a humungous headache…or a lesson in how to love.

Sandra Kitt's first mainstream novel, THE COLOR OF LOVE, was released in 1995 from to critical acclaim from Library Journal, and USA TODAY. THE COLOR OF LOVE was also optioned by HBO and LIFETIME from a script by Sandra.

 

Sandra has appeared on the Black Board best seller list in ESSENCE Magazine.  Amazon.com has named SIGNIFICANT OTHERS among the Top 25 Romances for the 20th Century, and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS as one of the Top Ten Contemporaries for 2000. GIRLFRIENDS, an anthology from HarperCollins, was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Fiction.  Sandra's 2007 release, CELLULOID MEMORIES, earned a starred review in Library Journal, and was selected by the publication as one of the Top Five women's fiction novels for the same year. The first black writer to publish with Harlequin, Sandra also launched the Arabesque line from Kensington.  She is the recipient of two Lifetime Achievement Awards, the 2002 service Aware from Romance Writers of America, and the 2010 Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award.

Visit Sandra Kitt's website at
https://www.sandrakitt.com/

Plethora of Anniversaries by Paty Jager

I was excited when the Blog Queens, Judith Ashley and Sarah Raplee put out a call for posts this month about something we are celebrating. I have two major anniversaries this month and am excited about a new writing project.

This month is the anniversary of this blog. I've been with the blog from the beginning! So glad I was asked to join.

This is also the anniversary month of when my first book was published. My historical western romance, Marshal in Petticoats, was contracted by Wild Rose Press and arrived on the scene for readers to purchase in May 2006. It was, and is, the first book of my 8 book Halsey Brothers and Halsey Homecoming series. There is also a novella that goes with this series. That first book with Gil Halsey and Darcy Duncan introduced the Halsey brothers -- which at the time was just something that came to me as I was writing -- and readers wanted their stories. And so, Outlaw in Petticoats, Miner in Petticoats, Doctor in Petticoats, and Logger in Petticoats soon followed. And yet readers wanted more. Which led to Laying Claim, Staking Claim, Claiming a Heart and A Husband for Christmas. I love the Halsey's and am glad the readers do to.

And this is the anniversary of my wedding to my hubby! Thirty-nine years ago today, we were married in a small church in my home town. My mom made the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses. My favorite color back then was peach. The dresses were made of peach satin with a sheer overlay with flowers. After the wedding, the reception was held in my parents' backyard. The apricot trees were in bloom, flowers were blooming in the yard and the weather was warm for May 12th in that area.

getting ready- my cousin, bridesmaids and Mom.

My mother thought it was rude we didn't open the presents at the reception. The people who were hauling our gifts back to central Oregon for us wanted to leave, so we loaded the gifts in their van and they took off. Because some of the bridal party had drank too much, we told them we'd spend the night if they did, to keep them from driving off drunk. Our first night as husband and wife was spent in a camp trailer with another couple.

The next day we left for the Oregon Coast for our honeymoon. Two hours from home and four hours from the coast, the car broke down. Hubby jury-rigged it to get home. While he was figuring out what we needed to do to fix it a person called needing him to haul something (he was a truck driver). He took the job to get the money to fix the car. We never made it to the coast for our honeymoon, he just kept working. We did made it a point every year for a while to go to the coast on our anniversary. This year we'll be apart on our anniversary. I'll be at my dad's doing a living estate sale to raise money to keep him in an assisted living center. After 39 years, it's about the way we treat each other every day that matters more than one day a year.

I'm also celebrating a collaboration. I've joined with 16 other authors who will be attending the Wild Deadwood Reads reader event in Deadwood, SD, June 7-10th, in an Anthology. The short stories are all set in Deadwood. They are historical, contemporary, and some paranormal. And the best part about the anthology is all proceeds are going to Western Sports Foundation, an organization who helps rodeo cowboys with medical expenses.

Here is a glimpse at the anthology.

WILD DEADWOOD TALES Anthology

Rodeos and romance, Old West adventure, and even a few ghostly tales. Deadwood's wild past and exciting present come alive in seventeen original short stories written by USA Today and Amazon bestselling authors to benefit the Western Sports Foundation. Contributing authors: E.E. Elisabeth Burke, Zoe Blake, Paty Norman Jager, Teresa Keefer, Megan Kelly, Sylvia McDaniel, Amanda McIntyre, Peggy McKenzie, Angi Morgan, Nancy Naigle, Jacqui Nelson, Terri Osburn, Ginger Ring, Maggie Ryan, Lizbeth Selvig, Tina Susedik and A.C. Wilson

Proceeds from this limited edition collection go to benefit the Western Sports Foundation, an organization providing critical assistance to athletes competing in Western lifestyle sports. Whether they need help recuperating from an injury or planning for the future, WSF is there for them.

website: http://bit.ly/DeadwoodTales

Here are the links to the book:

Amazon http://bit.ly/WDTales
universal Link https://www.books2read.com/WDTales

Apple  http://bit.ly/WDTApple

Nook  http://bit.ly/WDTBN

Kobo  http://bit.ly/WDTKobo
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/…/sh…/39739914-wild-deadwood-tales

The book will be available in ebook and print May 1^st, and you can purchase autographed print copies at the PBR Rodeo in Deadwood, SD on June 8^th and 9^th.

CASH’S CLAIM

Zoe Blake

She was his...and it was past time he staked his claim.

Jessamine Cooper was determined to stay independent and run her late uncle's ranch on her own. When she shows up in Deadwood with an ill-advised plan to win the money she needs playing poker, Cash decides it is past time for him to stake his claim.

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UNEXPECTED CALAMITY

E.E. Burke

A friendship that never died.

Calamity Jane is drawn back to Deadwood by a force more powerful than death, and becomes an unexpected savior in the midst of an epidemic.

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SAVING DALLIE

Paty Jager 

Everyone deserves a chance.

When a miner tosses his daughter into the pot at a poker game and the winner is a brothel owner, Beau Gentry is determined to keep the young woman out of the man’s hands.

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THE GAMBLER AND THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER

Teresa Keefer

Can a preacher's daughter play poker with a gambler and win?

Leticia Chasteen was always getting dragged into situations she didn't want to be in. Rusty McGraw the gambler was always coming to her rescue. Who will end up with the winning hand?

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A RISKY PROPOSAL

Megan Kelly

He loves her. She loves him. A proposal should be good news, right?

Callie Jones never wanted to date a bull rider. Now she’s fallen in love with Rome Anderson, who’s intent on winning the PBR Championship buckle. When he asks her to marry him, she has to decide: Does she break his heart with a no or doom her future with a yes?

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LOVE ACROSS TIME

Sylvia McDaniel

Is it possible to love someone in another time? Are dreams real?

Sadie Mae Miller is hanging up her barrel racing crown and beginning a new life. But when her grandmother asks her to sleep under a new wedding ring quilt with promises of visions of the love of her life, she doesn’t quite believe her. Until she falls asleep. Only problem is, he lived in 1880. Does time separate the lovers?

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ONCE UPON A DEADWOOD DREAM

Amanda McIntyre

Sometimes to find your future you must face the past.

Past and present meld together in Deadwood when a woman who discovers true love must fight to escape a deadly twist of fate.

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THE BROTHERHOOD

Peggy McKenzie

Sometimes, love is hiding in the most peculiar places.

Major Lucas Hamilton, widower and father of four boys, insists on the disciplined order of a regimented household. But when a bumbling young woman falls at his feet, will he take a chance on her or send her packing before she burns his house down to the ground.

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MAVERICK SEDUCTION

Angi Morgan

Teenage crush or true love. You decide.

Sean Maverick is on a charity auction block until a beautiful woman from his past buys him for the night. Em Stone believed in love at first sight even if she had to lasso and knock Sean off his feet.

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TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Nancy Naigle

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride? Never say never.

Kendra is fine with being a bridesmaid. She hung up her wedding hopes and dreams eight years ago when her cowboy chose the rodeo over her, but when these two cross paths in Deadwood it looks like the timing just might be right for a reconciliation.

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RESCUING RAVEN

Jacqui Nelson

In a gold rush storm, can an unlikely pair rescue each other?

Raven wants to save one person. Charlie wants to save the world. Their warring nations thrust them together but duty pulled them apart—until their paths crossed again in Deadwood for a fight for love.

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AFTER THE FALL

Terri Osburn

When it comes to love, sometimes falling is the easy part.

Aspyn Fielding blames Tucker Stargill for not talking her brother, Colt, out of riding bulls. When Colt is gravely injured during a ride, Aspyn is hopeful Tucker will finally see things her way, but Aspyn is the one who has a change of heart.

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BEST RESULTS

Ginger Ring

Finding the perfect results from one simple test.

Orphaned at a young age, both Adam and River yearn to find a living relative from either of their families. After finally deciding to put down roots in Deadwood, a simple DNA test brings a result that is more than they ever expected.

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A GIFT OF GOLD

Maggie Ryan

There may be gold in the Black Hills, but Bennett had his eyes on a far more valuable prize.

Not one to be deterred by the dictates of society, Lorelai Samuels had a dream to open a restaurant in the bustling new town of Deadwood and no one was going to stand in her way, especially not the infuriatingly handsome and stubborn Bennett Redding.

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GOTTA HAVE FAITH

Lizbeth Selvig

Win or lose, she’s about to take on the big boys.

Faith “Rabbit” Redmond forms an extreme plan at the Deadwood rodeo to convince a champion bull rider that women can excel at the dangerous sport. If she wins his respect, she might also win his love. .

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THE SCHOOL MARM

Tina Susedik

Can a schoolmarm with dreams of a better life, fall for a disreputable man?

Suzanna Lindstrom travels as a schoolmarm in fledgling Deadwood. Having left her parents’ struggling farm, she dreams of a better life in Deadwood with a man who’s struck it rich in the gold fields. Fresh off the stagecoach, she meets Kingston Winson, whom she disregards as disreputable. Is he who she thinks he is? What lesson will she learn?

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TRICKS

A.C. Wilson

Tricks inspire courage and new love while daring others to dream.

Pushed to choose a direction for her life, Tandi discovers that some crossroads are necessary. Surprisingly, each marker leads her to an arena of spectators with her talented horse and a handsome guy who gives her hope to do the impossible.

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 32 novels, 6 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters.

blog / website /  Facebook / Paty's Posse / Goodreads / Twitter / Pinterest / Bookbub
 
 Top photo purchased from Depositphoto

Super Boomers

By Courtney Pierce

I create baby boomer characters who embrace their middle-ageness with gusto, of which I am one. We have superpowers―we’re invincible, embrace change, and are immortal―in our own minds. These qualities make for rich layers of emotion that reflect our polarized history of innocence and disillusionment. The conflict sits under the skin like embedded shrapnel. 

Growing up, I wrestled with foiled rabbit-ear antennae to pick up signals of a black-and-white, perfect world. Color bloomed in my imagination. Assassinations and racial violence were quickly turned off in favor of spinning vinyl that snapped, crackled, and popped.

Simplicity. It becomes a superpower in the digital age, a power riddled with the buckshot

of change that comes too fast. Sixty years of generational history shaped our baby boomer uniqueness: Civil Rights, space travel, dropping in and dropping out . . . and Bewitched. Anything was, and is, still possible with the twitch of the nose.

As I finish the final installment of my trilogy about the Dushane sisters, Indigo Legacy, a new tale is beginning to take shape. Future Past will be the story of a middle-age woman, whose gift of future sight is clouded by the past. When her visions turn from benign to dire, only reconciling her baggage will thwart the reality of her own impending death. A vision worthy of a good fight. Of course, this new book won’t be as dark as it sounds. A spunky Jack Russell terrier named Rudy serves as the lightning rod for supercharged predictions. This little hero’s insight surpasses that of humans. As is my style, the humor in the story carries a poignant message: “Make the most of every minute because none of us knows what will happen to change our lives in the future.” Could be good. Could be bad. And sometimes, a baton is grabbed with only trust and determination as a guide. Then we run as fast as we can.

It's an author's right to project fact into fiction. My books reflect layers of personal experience in real time. Characters get to discover a new beginning at the same time I do. At the ripe age of fifty-seven, I will marry a man who'll restart my life. And with the utterance of a vow in June, I’ll become a mother, for the first time, to an eleven-year-old stepdaughter and four grown stepchildren . . . with kids of their own. Me? A mother and a grandmother without paying all those dues? It’s as if I twitched my nose and the love of my new life appeared in front of me, complete with the richness of a family. How do I even begin to write on the page of what I'm experiencing inside? None of this was even a glimmer on the horizon just six months ago.

Even an attempt at capturing on the page makes me feel like a superhero. 

No matter what extraordinary gifts I give my characters, I believe the ability to risk everything to step into the unknown, purely on faith, is the true superpower that shines through the prose.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her bossy cat. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she 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, She Writes, and Sisters in Crime. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

The Dushane Sisters are back in Indigo Lake. More laughs, more tears...and more trouble.

Protecting Mom's reputation might get the sisters killed―or give one of them the story she's been dying to live.

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."

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's trilogy about the Dushane sisters. Beginning with The Executrix, three middle-age sisters find a manuscript for a murder mystery in their mother's safe after her death. Mom’s book gives them a whole new view of their mother and their future. Is it fiction . . . or truth? 

Get out the popcorn as the Dushane Sisters Trilogy comes to a scrumptious conclusion with Indigo Legacy. Due out in 2017.

The Most Romantic Thing to Happen to Me This Year. . .

by Diana McCollum

I will tell you what that ‘Romantic Thing’ was with a little story.

Snow started falling December 16, 2016. It continued to snow periodically through this February 7th.

January 10, 2017, our anniversary and another foot and half of snow fell by 7:00 am that morning. We spent our day shoveling mounds of snow off the driveway (really long), off the sidewalks and from around the cars. It took longer than usual because it was so darn cold! We’re talking nine degrees!

So we’d shovel for a while, go into the house get warmed up and back out we’d go. We have to keep our drive and sidewalks cleared as my 91 year old mom lives with us. She uses a walker and needs a clear space to get to the car. In case we had to take her or one of us to the doctor or hospital, the snow had to be shoveled.

It continued to snow all day long. We shoveled the drive another two times before the day was over. Our anniversary, our special day we’ve always celebrated, but this year no special anniversary dinner, movie out or anything. We were exhausted. By mutual agreement, we wished each other Happy Anniversary, and we watched a movie on T.V. and ate popcorn.

Fast forward to January 25, 2017, I went to my writer friend’s house for lunch. I had a great time, lots of good conversation and food. When I got home and walked into the bedroom, there were two cards on my pillow. There was a sentimental and a funny wedding anniversary card. Inside, my husband had written “Tho the snows of 2017 caused a delay, I wanted to tell you how much being married to you, means to me! And how much I appreciated you shoveling with me.”

Next to the cards was a gift bag. Inside was a beautiful silver and emerald earrings and necklace set.

He tells me he loves me every day. But this was romantic, because it was unexpected and from the heart.

My husband does things every day that shows me he loves me. I do the same for him. That’s what keeps our love burning.

May you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day, another day for showing your special someone how much you are thankful for them and appreciate them.

 Do you have a special romantic anniversary?