Small Town Contemporary Romance with Mary Vine

I'd like to introduce you to Mary Vine. She and I go back a decade at least. That's when we collaborated on a booth at a Flea Market to sell our books. We have been doing it for ten years now. While she dabbles in several different genres she was first published in contemporary romance. 

Paty:      Why do you write Small Town Contemporary Romance?

Mary:    I read both contemporary and historical books, but I pick up contemporary romance the most. I love romance and happy endings, something to take me away from the stresses of the day. A small-town setting where everyone knows each other is comforting, and there’s a warm and homey atmosphere that gives one a sense of belonging. Being more familiar with a contemporary setting made it easier to write my first, second, and third books. After that, I branched out into other genres.

Paty:      Are your books sweet or spicy?

Mary:    My books are sweet. When I was younger, I said my mother was alive, so I couldn’t write spicy. Then after she passed away, I said she’d roll over in her grave. But I’ve always found the ongoing pursuit between a man and a woman to be very sexy and I try to show that in my books.

Paty:     I've noticed that you tend to put thought-provoking subjects in your stories. Why do you like to do that?

Mary:     In my contemporary book, A Place to Land, the heroine’s Russian family came to the United States when she was a child. Uli struggled with the new customs and the language she didn’t understand in school. From ten years old she worked hard to establish herself in this country, far better than the rest of her family. They wanted her to hold on to their customs and marry a Russian boy at eighteen, but she worked herself through college and earned the chance to provide for herself and her family if all goes as planned in northeast Oregon.

Paty:      Many of your books are set in Oregon, specifically NE Oregon. Why do you set so many of your books in this region?

Mary:    While traveling around Oregon, I fell in love with the northeast area, for the beautiful pines, ghost towns and the gold mining history of the past. I’m drawn to the period just after the Civil War. I then proceeded to write a historical, and a time travel series taking the characters from the present to 1870 across the mining camps. Even my contemporary stories crossover to this area.

Paty:      How did the plot idea for A Place to Land come to you?

Mary:   Some years ago, I was living in a metropolitan area and a Russian family moved in directly across from me. They had several children, many of them girls. They hung onto their customs in dress, and way of life. I thought a lot about how hard it could be for a child to learn a new language at school as well as subjects. Also, my own Norwegian father had to learn English when he went to school.

Paty:       I know we all like the characters we come up with but do you have a favorite character that you’ve written?

Mary:     I love all of my characters for many reasons, but I’ll name Isabella Moore, the heroine in my historical Wanting Moore. She was raised with five brothers. To endure her rambunctious childhood, she learned to be as tough as the boys, which only leads to trouble.

Paty:      Who are some of the authors you read who write contemporary romance?

Mary:     I like small-town romances, whatever the genre. I liked Bonnie Dodge’s Goldie’s Daughter for romance in the gold mining era. I like Paty Jager’s Isabella Mumphrey Adventure series for fast-paced adventure. The Commander’s Desire by Jeanette Green for an example of the sexy pursuit between a man and a woman that I mentioned in question 2.

Paty:      Just for fun – Tell us what is your favorite thing to do besides writing and reading?

Mary:     We ended up buying more property in northeast Oregon. Our retirement plan has been to make many trips from Idaho over to our place on three acres along the Powder River. We have forest and old mining tailings, and an antique steam engine/train travels by on weekends in the summer. It’s a great place to kick back and read, write, or drive around the area.

A Place to Land 

She isn't afraid of the big, bad wolf.
But he's a little concerned about her.

When Uli's impoverished family left Russia for America, she was only 10 years old. From that point on, she's been determined to make the American dream hers. When Headline Magazine offers the perfect story with which to launch her new writing career, Uli travels across Oregon to find out exactly how wolf and cowboy mix. As she finds her spirit guide in the wolf and her soul mate in the cattle rancher, a mysterious danger seems bent on finding her.

Movie-star handsome, Jackson Holt owns one of the largest ranches in eastern Oregon and, like most ranchers, is none too happy with wolves crossing over the Idaho border near his livestock. The last thing he needs is a semi-environmentalist, journalist wannabe dogging his footsteps. Sure, Uli may be bright and sexy, but her need to prove herself and help her family threaten to lead her into the kind of harm he can't protect her from−when all he wants to give her is...a place to land.

buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Place-Land-Mary-Vine-ebook/dp/B0CNVCJLTN

Mary Vine is an author, publisher, speaker and retired educator. She writes contemporary and historical romantic fiction, a time travel series, mystery, and inspirational children’s books. Mary, and her husband can usually be found in Southwest Idaho or Northeast Oregon.

You can contact her at: authormaryvine@gmail.com. Authormaryvine.com
Amazon author page: amazon.com/author/maryvine

A humorous slant at growing older by Mary Vine

My goal this fall is not to fall. I did fall recently−over my dog. Why is it when you fall when you are older, your brain tells you you’re falling but it doesn't do anything about it? When I was younger, I’d at least stick a hand out to help brace myself against a fall.

Thankfully, my dog didn’t get hurt and I didn’t break anything. I suffered a black eye. Yet, I didn’t have to wear makeup as the “eye” was all anyone looked at. My husband thought he’d be blamed for it, poor guy. And a friend asked if my dog was a boxer.

At my last wellness doctor appointment (before my fall), my doctor said my weight was okay, but I need to start exercising. I must have joked about it, or said no or something, because she raised her voice at me. First time ever.

I exercised when I was younger, using various machines I could fit into my home. I wasn’t always good about getting it done, but at least I didn’t forget I’d planned to exercise on a specific day without needing a reminder. Now, I must write it down, but often at bedtime, I recall that I’d forgot to exercise. Yes, I wrote it in my calendar, but I forgot to look at my calendar. I suppose I could move my fitness machine where I could see it, but then I might fall over it.

Now that I’m older I realized I’d had it wrong about exercising. I exercised to improve my waistline, which back then was just fine. Young people are so critical of their bodies, but that is another blogpost. Anyway, now I need to exercise for a stronger body, especially stronger legs.

Yet, this morning I read a Facebook post that seemed serious at the beginning but turned out to be humorous. It stated that if you exercise you will live longer. At age 85 you will have five more months to live in a nursing home. And then, he said his father walked five miles a day and now at age 92 he can’t find him.

As I write I am stationary, which doesn’t help accrue daily steps. But then on second thought,  if I wasn’t a writer, I’d probably be stationary as well. I have deserted an office and a writing desk to sit in my very comfortable recliner as I write on my laptop. Why not be comfortable as I write?

No one is going to get me to write anywhere else, I tell you. I even have a recliner in my summer cabin. So, this fall’s strengthening program is going to be a goal I will have to work hard at. At least I can read while I sit on my incumbent exercise bike.

Hats off to all you writers who do get exercise, I admire you. I plan to be one of you soon. Uh…next week.

Secrets of Trillium Falls

A courageous but naïve woman and a benevolent but cynical man
reconcile to evict ghosts and restore a mansion.

Taylor Glenn makes a deal on a haunted mansion in the town where she accepts her first teaching job. Her naïve optimism assures her that her depressed grandfather will come to life and help her rebuild it with the passion he once possessed for restoring old homes. Three deaths are connected to the tower room and no local workman will set foot inside except for the former owner, successful real estate developer, Dillon Nash. She wonders if this captivating man is the salvation she needs or an even greater threat to her survival when mysterious events happen in the house.

Link to Secrets of Trillium Falls:

https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Trillium-Falls-Mary-Vine-ebook

Mary describes herself as a late bloomer. She started writing at age 36. With practice and encouragement, she started writing romantic fiction and became a member and officer of a writer’s group.

Her story writing really took off when she discovered the pines, firs and rocky knolls of Northeast Oregon. Mary’s husband enjoyed panning for gold in the creeks, but she fell in love with the mining ghost towns and the history surrounding those areas. Three of her magazine articles based on ghost towns in Northeast Oregon, and the history of the Chinese miners who followed the white man to the mines, were published nationally. Mary has written books with gold mining or boom town settings, including a time travel series back to 1870 in Cracker Creek, which is now called Bourne, Oregon.

Mary is also a leader and speaker for the Idaho Creative Authors Network. She graduated from college and taught speech and language classes to K-12 students.

 www.authormaryvine.com

The Summer Solstice by Mary Vine

When I wrote book three of my time travel series, I had to come up with a plausible scenario for how and why some of the characters were able to travel in time. First, I know time travel hasn’t been established but how can I make you romanticize the possibilities?

I enjoy reading time travel stories and don’t particularly care if the transport isn’t at all believable. For example, I read a time travel story where the heroine sat in a dentist’s office getting a tooth fixed when she instantly transported from present day to the wild west in the 1800s. No explanation at all, she simply believed something strange had happened. Or, how about a story where the heroine is standing in a store or on a ledge and vanishes? These scenarios are not what I want in my books. I want something explained in a science fiction way, something that might happen with a portal and advanced technology or perhaps happens in another realm or dimension in the future. At least these ideas have some substance to them. When I researched ideas, I also read about mythology, folklore, and pagans.

The summer solstice is when one of the Earth’s poles has its full tilt toward the sun (the sun is at its highest). It’s the longest day of the year or, we experience the most daylight. The longest daylight, making it the shortest night of the year.

I’ve been walking the earth for a long time and in all those years, I’d heard of the summer solstice, but otherwise didn’t pay much attention. Until I started watching documentaries about the Mayan and Aztecs, that is. There is a temple of Kukulcan at Chich’en Itza in Mexico that was erected in such a way that during the summer solstice the sun casts shadows on the south and west sides so that it looks like the temple is split in two. Yet the sun on the equinox, however, creates a shadow on the temple that looks like a snake descending. I found it interesting that all around the world we find ancient sites that were built so that their structures lined up with star systems or the sun. Obviously, the path of the sun was very important to our early ancestors, and they’ve celebrated for at least 11,000 years, starting in the Middle East.

The summer solstice arrives at a point between the planting and harvesting of crops and gives the people a moment to rest and enjoy the midsummer in various ways.

Pagans believe that the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest on solstice days and that spirits and fairies were at their most powerful; that day we as humans can, imaginably, exceed the usual limitations of the world.

Above all, old-world solstice celebrations revolve around love (think weddings in June). Making wreaths and ritual items with natural materials, and lighting and jumping over fires. Native American nations and tribes (northern and southern) celebrate more spiritually. And the flow of events is tied to rites of passage, giving thanks to Mother Earth and the Sun.

In the process, I named my third book, in my Gold Club Series, Summer Solstice. All three of the books are together in this one volume.

A Nugget of Time
A Boise newspaper sent Dixie Lea to interview the owner of the largest gold nugget found in a century. While waiting for him in a mining territory of Northeast Oregon, she walks into a man-made cave. Feeling dizzy, she puts a hand to the wall of the tunnel and wakes up alone on a hill with no transportation out of the woods.

Goldbrick
FBI Agent Crawford Stone expects to go hiking in Northeast Oregon but enters a cave and travels back in time to a rowdy gold mining town. He’s not the only one out of place as he finds an attractive woman attempting to ward off the men gathering around her.

Summer Solstice
Emily Stone had prepared for a journey back in time since middle school, when she received a tintype photograph and a letter sent by a relative from the 1870s. Crawford Stone and Dixie Lea are to return to the past on the day of the summer solstice, and she will go, too. To prove herself capable, she practiced the training discipline of parkour and the combat sport Muay Thai. Now totally self-efficient, she receives her master’s in education and can teach anywhere, especially in 1870. She has one year to live in the past. One year, until the next summer solstice comes around and she can return to the future.

Buy link: Gold Club Series Books 1-3: Vine, Mary: 9781952447921: Amazon.com: Books

 

Mary Vine is an author, publisher, speaker and retired educator. She writes contemporary and historical romantic fiction, a time travel series, and inspirational children’s books. Mary, and her husband can usually be found in Southwest Idaho or Northeast Oregon.

Tips on Relationships by Mary Vine

 

Writers consider many types of human relationships as they start to write a novel. The ins and outs of daily life and how these events affect their character’s life is a major part of what an author states and expands upon.

I have begun my seventh decade in life, so I have seen and learned different sorts of relationship traits, and outcomes, that are especially of interest to me, because I include romance in my fiction writing.

As I’ve watched teen couples over the years, I have seen girls seek to warn or attempt to remove the other girl/woman they found out about, when in fact it is your boyfriend that you need to talk to. What does he want? What if he shows that he doesn’t want to change? Don’t ignore it, thinking you will change him. That is an unhealthy mindset. You won’t. No matter the sadness, move on. The feelings or excitement the two of you have while in the dating period is the best you will probably ever have, so don’t be hanging on the fact that things will get better later.

And guess what? No one is perfect and we all have some kind of baggage, we are still experiencing the residual emotional effects from past situations in our lives that can even go back to our childhood.

One of the hardest things I’ve learned through the years was that once you fail to respect your partner, respect is nigh impossible to get back. A relationship hinges on mutual respect.

A sense of humor is good at every age. There is a quote I like by Dennis Haysbert that says, ‘Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying or getting overly angry or to maintain control.’ You indeed have a gift, if you and your spouse can see the humor in a situation and can laugh together (not necessarily in the moment, but soon after), relieving stress.

When I married my husband, I noticed that when we had a disagreement, he would leave the house in a huff. That continued for a while, but then eventually he didn’t leave the house but only went to the garage. Then after more years, he left the conversation by going into another room in the house. Now, after more time, he usually doesn’t leave the discussion (even if I may want him to). Obviously, over the years he learned to trust that I loved him and wanted to work things out. In preparation for this post, I asked him what relationship advice he had, he said, “To be straight up, tell the truth, and it helps everything work out after that.”

Can you have a relationship if you don’t share the same faith? Yes, I think so. We both believe in God but have different ways of showing it. I am totally fine with that, but I would be crushed if my husband didn’t believe in God.

As you grow older you most likely will find that some of the things that bothered you when you were younger don’t upset you anymore. Things you no longer feel are important, which helps not just your life, but your spouse’s life as well. Don’t waste stress on something that is no longer a priority or because someone else thinks you should.

My parents, and my husband’s, are now gone, but alive in our memories. We wished we would have asked them more questions about the past. Also, some of those of our age are ill, and friends and family are starting to pass as well.

I remember an older woman I’d talked to many years ago said, “Now that my husband has passed away, I miss hugs so much.” I thought I knew what that meant back then, but now, over time, I really know what she means. A hug, a touch of a hand, a kiss are appreciated because we know that we will not have that for many more years. Now, kindness and loyalty are the priority. In my long-held opinion, kindness and loyalty are the love story for every age.

Love and gold. Mystery and passion.

All famous mystery author Stanton Black wanted was to leave the flashbulbs of Hollywood behind. Hiding out in the wilds of northeast Oregon seemed like the perfect way to get over an attempt on his life while researching his work. His latest novel would draw on the history of his ancestors and the lore of gold country. Now, all he needed was a suitable tour guide.

Special education teacher Maya Valentine was no tour guide. After the death of her parents, Maya has come home to Salisbury Junction for the summer only to have an ailing friend talk her into escorting Stanton around the area. As a pattern of crime around her and the newfound gold on her property leads to mystery, her relationship with Stanton turns to thoughts of romance. A romance too impossible to consider.

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Mayas-Gold-Mary-Vine-ebook/dp/B0BRJG7R32

A courageous but naïve woman and a benevolent but cynical man
reconcile to evict ghosts and restore a mansion.

Taylor Glenn makes a deal on a haunted mansion in the town where she accepts her first teaching job. Her naïve optimism assures her that her depressed grandfather will come to life and help her rebuild it with the passion he once possessed for restoring old homes. Three deaths are connected to the tower room and no local workman will set foot inside except for the former owner, successful real estate developer, Dillon Nash. She wonders if this captivating man is the salvation she needs or an even greater threat to her survival when mysterious events happen in the house.

“Mary Vine has a knack for combining suspense with romance…”
-Night Owl Romance

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Mayas-Gold-Mary-Vine-ebook/dp/B0BRJG7R32

About Mary Vine

Writing Romance with Humor, Suspense and Inspiration…
Writing Language-based Children’s Books that Educate, Inspire and Give Hope.

Mary describes herself as a late bloomer. She started writing at age 36. With practice and encouragement, she started writing romantic fiction and became a member and officer of a writer’s group.

Her story writing really took off when she discovered the pines, firs and rocky knolls of Northeast Oregon. Mary’s husband enjoyed panning for gold in the creeks, but she fell in love with the mining ghost towns and the history surrounding those areas. Three of her magazine articles based on ghost towns in Northeast Oregon, and the history of the Chinese miners who followed the white man to the mines, were published nationally. Mary has written books with gold mining or boom town settings, including a time travel series back to 1870 in Cracker Creek, which is now called Bourne, Oregon.

Mary is also a leader and speaker for the Idaho Creative Authors Network. She graduated from college and taught speech and language classes to K-12 students. She loved teaching idioms, sayings, expressions and proverbs that are important for language deficient students to learn. Her first children’s book deals with the phrase, THE BIG GUY UPSTAIRS.

Mary’s husband has Multiple Sclerosis and, over the last decade, she has seen firsthand that when unwelcome change comes along there is always something to be thankful for. She wanted people to know this, that there is hope in silver linings. Her latest children’s book displays this hope in BIJU SILVER LINING.

Silver Linings by Mary Vine

Mary Vine

As a young adult, I had no idea what the expression silver lining really meant. Around 2002, my husband was transferred to Boise, Idaho for three years, a move we did not want, but it was a place that I learned how to enjoy the sunshine, write for publication and found the best work experience I’d had up until this time. Yet, still I didn’t fully grasp the meaning until we’d moved away from Oregon, after my husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. We left our home and state to find a more affordable life.

From our three-year stay, we’d learned that SW Idaho – at the time - was an inexpensive place for us to buy a house and not have a mortgage. Now, we saw there was a reason we were placed here via the work transfer.

After this move, we found two doctors that gave my husband a different diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (type), one that included medications that have helped him feel better each year. I found a church that was just what I needed. I got a job with higher pay.

The list goes on and on. Sometimes, we don’t know what we have or what will happen until the storm hits us and we are left with a cloud with a silver lining. The next time a storm comes your way, and it will, be sure to look for the silver lining, they are certain to come and will strengthen your faith.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned some things, some thoughts that I want to pass on to my children and grandchildren. One of these messages is about silver linings. BIJU SILVER LINING is the result.

Writing Language-Based Children’s Books That Educate, Inspire and Give Hope.

Mary Vine is an author, publisher, speaker and retired educator. She writes contemporary and historical romantic fiction, a time travel series, and inspirational children’s books: BIG GUY UPSTAIRS, BIJU SILVER LINING and DRAGON GILBY. Mary, and her husband can usually be found in Southwest Idaho or Northeast Oregon.

To learn more about Mary Vine, visit www.maryvine.com

http://authormaryvine.blogspot.com

Mary’s books can be found on Amazon.