Rewards for a job well done...

Happy Anniversary and congratulations to Romancing the Genres! The longevity of this blog speaks to the dedication of its founders and its many contributors, of which I’m honoured to be one.

The theme this month is how we celebrate ourselves. I must confess it took me more than a few minutes of thought to determine whether or not I actually celebrate myself. I concluded that I do though I’ve never thought of it in that way. Rather, I celebrate my accomplishments.

A book release is always accompanied by a bottle of Prosecco, along with equal parts elation and sorrow. A finished knitting project is acknowledged with a metaphorical pat on the back and a sense of relief. When I’ve reorganized a closet or a cupboard, I celebrate by opening the door and admiring my handiwork…several times…every day for about a week. When I experiment with a new recipe, I enjoy eating the fruits of my labours and am proud of my skill.

For me, the celebration is in the act itself. It’s a quiet, private, personal acknowledgement of a job well done.

Now, I do deliberately reward myself on a regular basis. Shovelling several cubic yards of soil into new garden beds was recently (last weekend) rewarded with a tall cold one and a bowl of corn chips. Keeping to a regular exercise schedule for a week is routinely reinforced by a bag (the small, single serving size) of Hawkins Cheesies (the best in the world, in my opinion). And meeting my weekly writing goals earns me a day of baking and reading.

So whether it’s called a celebration or a reward, I do recognize and take pride in what I accomplish, whether it’s baking a perfect loaf of bread or writing a novel.

Speaking of baking and novels…

Unemployed photojournalist Raynor Elliot stops at a bakery near the famous Deerbourne Inn. Not only does he get a lead on a job but the bakery’s owner is that awkward kid he knew in high school, only now she has fabulous curves and an irreverent sense of humor. The cozy bakery, with its aroma of sugar, vanilla and spice, has more to offer than tasty cookies.

Fiona MacLeod has been plagued for years by the need to make amends for telling The Big Lie. When the lie’s victim strolls into her bakery with his icy blue stare and killer charm, she feels like she’s standing too close to a hot oven.

Between running her bakery and frosting cupcakes for the Mad River Garden Party, she's pretty sure she's falling in love with this infuriating, sexy man. Can Fiona dredge up the courage to confess, face the consequences, and hope for forgiveness?

Available for purchase at your favourite ebook retailer.

Luanna Stewart has been creating adventures for her imaginary friends since childhood. She spends her days writing spicy contemporary romance, romantic suspense, paranormal romance, and historical romance. When not torturing her heroes and heroines, she’s in her kitchen baking something delicious. She lives in Nova Scotia with her patient husband and two spoiled cats.

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"Super" Heroes

By Courtney Pierce

Superheroes are real, but in my books, they’re not swinging from spiderwebs, crushing meteors in space, or using laser beams to control the atmosphere. I leave those kinds of characters to authors who write Young Adult and Fantasy. 

My heroes are everyday people who merely overcome adversity to reach a goal. Sometimes the journey is peppered with a little magical realism or unintentional humor, but the protagonist always crosses the finish line ahead of the pack.

Earthly feats of heroism in others inspire us to be better stewards of ourselves, such as learning how to love again after betrayal, self-sacrifice to help others, beating a potentially fatal illness, or settling the score from a past conflict. These may seem like pedestrian problems, but my characters can be so obsessive-compulsive about overcoming them that they don’t always know how far along in their journey they are.

In my first trilogy, Stitches, Brushes, and Riffs, a baby boomer couple undertakes a worldwide quest to unlock the meaning of a magical artifact. Every clue pushes them forward to the goal to learn the secret to immortality. And when they unlock the truth, they can make a choice: do they want to become immortal at the end of their mortal lives? It takes an around-the-world adventureꟷwith the FBI in pursuitꟷto discover their internal truth.

In my second trilogy about the Dushane Sisters, The Executrix, Indigo Lake, and Indigo Legacy, the story is a two-fold quest: emotional closure of a husband’s hit-and-run murder and the truth about a found manuscript for a familial murder mystery. My character of Olivia Novack and her two middle-age sisters take a wild path to find answers that is both personal and often hilarious. But it's their sibling bond that makes all three of them superheroes. Yep. They'd step in front of traffic to save each other, and then bicker about which make of car was most lethal.

In my new book-in-process, Big Sky Talk, my hero has quite a bit to tackle when the sheriff comes knocking on her door. Judith Cenderon's moving boxes aren't even unpacked before her life becomes a collision of the past, present, and future. Add in a little magic of Salish Native-American folklore, things get supremely interesting when her dead dad comes calling in the form of a reincarnated bear.

Hero quests are fun to write. Their momentum keeps readers turning the pages. And I get to sprinkle in a few of my own truths into the prose, while my characters go through multiple hoops to discover their own. But not all heroes are towers of impenetrable strength. No matter the genre, the protagonists have a chink in the armor where an arrow can get through to their heart. It can be a physical vulnerability, such as blindness or chronic pain, or it can be an emotional trauma buried deep in their psyche, such as the loss of a husband or child, a lover's betrayal, or conflicts with familial relationships. A character’s bugaboos keep us rooting for the win, but we revel in their pain.

I love to push my heroes to accomplish feats they’d never thought possible, both emotionally and physically. They dig deep for courage to face their fears or react with instinct when pushed. Just when they want to curl up in a ball of defeat, something happens to rise them to their feet.  Without question, my heroes would step in front of bullet to save a sister, lift a car to free an accident victim, or run like the wind if their lives were on the line.

And that’s the keyꟷsurvival. Heroes value life above all else, both their own and the lives of the ones they love. Bad guys don’t stand a chance with these amazing characters. For all their flaws, readers love our heroes for what they can accomplish under duress. We want them on our side, by our side, and their spirits filling our insides. They inspire us.

None of my protagonists are truly “super”heroes, though. They make a difference by never giving up, even if it means skirting the law by doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Recognition isn’t their goal, but quests for adventure ring our heroes' chimes. Sometimes it’s magical. Other times, it’s heartwarming and poignant. 

Oh...and did I point our that all of my heroes are over the age of fifty? Whoever said that us older set can't save the day too? Yes, we are heroes by experience and wacky wisdom, but we might require at least a couple of bounds to scale the building and a double dose of BioFreeze the next morning.

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."

Rolling in the Dough?

by Courtney Pierce

When I was in my twenties, success was defined by having a million dollars in the bank—cold cash, not this artificial Bitcoin stuff we have now. The amount sounded like a lot of coin to me at the time, though. Thirty-five years ago, it was. And a pound of bacon was well under two bucks back then. Have you priced a pound of bacon lately? How about an artichoke? And when did a six pack of cheap toilet paper top ten bucks? I’m wiped out when I go to a grocery store. It’s an extortion racket!

So how does one get that cool million in the bank? Lottery tickets were never a sound investment for

me, but I must admit that I dreamed of that scratch-off moment with the winning news. My heart raced at the thought of what I’d do. Fantasies about that sexy car were hard to resist. I can still recall the imagined aroma of hand-stitched leather. Then I figured I’d have to spend a lot on a lawyer and a tax adviser, even before I had my picture taken with that oversize Styrofoam check. Heart-racing visions of winning the lottery quickly dissolved to those of predators: charities, friends I’d never known, and those who checked in at the Why Me Inn. Dang! I’d give it all away, anyway, to assuage my guilt of receiving money I hadn’t earned.

Back to work. That was the key to financial security.

Pesky word “work”. Right through my forties, the term signified a sense of accomplishment, self-pride, and climbing the ladder to show my worthiness. It was about that million dollars too. Along with my ego, the monthly statements of accounts became a measuring stick of success. My accountant wanted me to be insatiable because his growth depended on mine. Don’t get me wrong. I love my accountant like my own father these past thirty-eight years, but he’s getting ready to retire too. Now what? Do I have enough? Had I earned the right to freedom?

The closer I get to that magic age of sixty, the less fear I have of turning my back on the corporate world. I’m not razoring through my fingernails over the thought of retirement. My husband and I will only do something different and personal, like writing full time, growing and hunting our own food, and hiking the trails of Glacier National Park. We want to make experiences our goal, not buying more stuff. Besides, we’ll be cutting way back on our expenses in retirement, so our monthly nut should go down.

I take a deep breath and relax. Snow-capped mountain vistas. Mist drifting over the surface of the lake. Loons call for us to paddle the canoe in the morning hours.

Panic shoots through my spine, shattering my fantasies.

Wait just a darned-tootin’ minute! A million dollars is what my accountant says I need just in my retirement account to step away at sixty-six (preferably at seventy-two to maximize Social Security). I brace myself for battle. My fight-or-flight reaction retreats and my shoulders drop in defeat. All plans of a frugal retirement are eclipsed by the destinations on our bucket list: Roman walls in England, castles in Scotland, mountains in Peru, fishing in Portugal. Have you priced plane tickets lately? The baggage fees alone are more than the cost of a ticket used to be.

Back to work. I’m no boomer with a Trust fund. No one is going to will me a million bucks when they die. Everyone I know plans to bounce the last check they’ll write.

And my husband is so right. He says they wouldn’t call it "work" if it wasn’t.

Photo: Loma Smith

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Oregon, with her new family. 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, and She Writes. 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 summer, 2018.