Romancing the Genres: second chance

Showing posts with label second chance. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Holiday Reading: Part One .... Delsora Lowe

As you can probably tell, I love both reading and writing holiday romances. Here's the list of books that I started reading in October. I still have more on my list and will post those holiday reads in December. Feel free to recommend any holiday reads you love or wrote in the comments section, since I am sure I'll be adding to my list of reads. Because obviously, I'll still be reading holiday romances into the new year. And if you care to read any of my holiday books, you can find them on both Amazon and Books2Read.

Happy Holidays Reads!

BOOKS READ:

The Matzah Ball – Jean Meltzer – September 2021

A Jewish author of Christmas romance books, hides her love of Christmas from her family. A second-chance book filled with secrets, family antics, and hilarity, plus some tender, romantic moments as the two get to know each other again.

Sweet Holiday Surprise – Cindy Kirk – Nov 1, 2023

A sweet, Secret Santa, unrequited love story set in St. Louis, MO, a stand-alone book 8 of a series.

Merry & Bright Christmas – Megan Ryder – October 2023

A second-chance holiday romance.

Kringle All the Way: A Dicken’s Holiday Romance – Judy Kentrus – November 2023

A second-chance love and time for forgiveness after so many years, with kids enjoying the magic of a Dicken’s Christmas.

Once Upon a Christmas Kiss – Collection: Ciara Knight, Brenda Lowder, Susan Carlisle, Terra Weiss, Susan Sands, Christy Hayes – October 2023

Six romantic novellas about women who receive the gift of love over the holidays.

Heating Up the Cowboy’s Christmas (Rowdy Ranch Book 8) – Vicki Lewis Thompson – November 2023

The matriarch of the Rowdy Ranch and anonymous western fiction writer finds her forever love.

Christmas Moon Over Holly Pointe – Cindy Kirk – November 2023

Strangers meet after a flight to Mexico gets cancelled. Ride along as they wend their way north to New England and end up in Holly Pointe, VT for a Christmas to be all.

A Christmas Reunion: A Tale From Blythe Cove Manor – Shirley Hailstock – November 20

Second chances in a delightful winter setting on Martha’s Vineyard – after all these years, can his attention be for real or does he want something she has? A quick read.

The Christmas Gift – Raine English – October 2016

A second chance, lost love, matchmaker story with puppies who are sure to show the way to love.

The Mistletoe Trap – Eve Pendle – December 2018

A second chance Regency, with some “naughty” embroidery and a misunderstanding in the bedroom leading to a forced marriage to spice things up and bring about a happily-ever-after.

The Cowboy’s Christmas Gift – Donna Alward – Nov 2023

A former soldier now must take over his grandfather’s ranch, the last thing he wants to do. Meeting the ranch foreman, a woman from his past, might or might not make his new “job” easier.

Don’t Mess With Mistletoe: A Dicken’s Holiday Romance – Peggy Jaeger – November 2023

Dorrit’s Diner in the tiny town of Dickens, Maine, never fails to entertain. This time the owner’s wayward son, the pilot, returns home for the holidays and takes over running the diner, so his mom can take time off. With a lot of surprises thrown in, one of Michael’s goals is to figure out the story around his mom’s new hire who lives in the apartment above the diner.

Carrigan Christmas Reunion – CJ Carmichael – April 2019

A Christmas reunion with an old childhood crush as Wren struggles to help her family prepare for the holidays during a medical crisis.

CURRENTLY READING:

A Song for Christmas: A Dicken’s Holiday Romance – Lori DiAnni – November 2023

A second-chance romance, with both heroine and hero have dreams and ambitions in music. Can they help each other realize their professional dreams and rekindle a lost love?

Chasing Holiday Tail: A Holiday Rom-Com Charity Anthology – Kameron Claire, Melonie Johnson, Tracery Pedersen, Amy Award, Dylann Crush, Christina Hovland, Hope Ellis, MK Meredith, Brenda St. John Brown, Sylvie Stewart, Arell Rivers, Stina Lindenblatt, Tawdra Kandle, Kilby Blades, Serena Bell – October 2023.

If you love dogs and the shenanigans of their owners as they find true love, this is the book of short stories for you.

What are your favorite holiday books?

Or favorite topics or tropes for holiday reads?

My Latest Holiday Read

Amazon (also in print)

Barnes & Noble (also in print)

Apple Books (also in print)

~ cottages to cabins ~ keep the home fires burning ~

Delsora Lowe writes small town sweet and spicy romances and contemporary westerns, from the mountains of Colorado to the shores of Maine.

Author of the Starlight Grille series, Serenity Harbor Maine novellas, and the Cowboys of Mineral Springs series, Lowe has also authored short romances for Woman’s World magazine. The Love Left Behind is a Hartford Estates, R.I. wedding novella. A Christmas novel (The Inn at Gooseneck Lane) and novella (Holiday Hitchhiker) were released in late fall 2022. Look for book 3 of the cowboy’s series, as well as book 2 of the Hartford Estates series, in 2024.

Social Media Links:
Author website: www.delsoralowe.com
Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/delsoraloweauthor/community/
Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Delsora-Lowe/e/B01M61OM39/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Books2Read Author page: https://www.books2read.com/ap/8GWm98/Delsora-Lowe
BookBub Author Page: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/delsora-lowe-93c6987f-129d-483d-9f5a-abe603876518
Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16045986.Delsora_Lowe
Instagram: #delsoralowe / https://www.instagram.com/delsoralowe/

Thursday, September 29, 2022

The Past Isn't Dead. It Isn't Even Past .... by Anna Taylor Sweringen

"The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." - William Faulkner, Requiem for A Nun

As a lover of history, this line of Faulkner's thrills me. Why? Because I believe what has gone before is not only always present, but also has the power in the present as well.

Faulkner's line hit home when I took this picture many years ago from the Brooklyn promenade where the World Trade Center used to stand. That sky is broken and not empty. It's full of the lives lost, the lives forever affected by those losses and will always be.

In downtown Albuquerque there's an historic district called Old Town where they commemorate the arrival of the Spanish and the founding of Albuquerque. Plaques also share the history of the Church of San Felipe de Neri, the oldest continuing congregation in Albuquerque.

And yet as I stand in the quiet of the narrow streets and peruse the original architecture of Old Albuquerque, preserved in art shops and restaurants, Faulkner's line haunts me. Where are the plaques and markers that pay homage to the native people who occupied this land before the Spanish and the Christians laid claim to this territory? Surely their spirits are as present as the spirits I sense when I look at my broken sky picture. Surely their spirits hover around me in the streets of Old Town.

Whether seated on the Brooklyn promenade or standing in the cool quiet of the Old Town plaza, I imagine who filled this space with their energy and dreams and desires, whose legacy and lingering presence fill them now. Having been a minister, I'm already predisposed to accept realities that go beyond the five senses. No wonder I enjoy writing ghost stories as Anna M. Taylor. Well, stories dealing with spirits or supernatural energy to be more accurate because the past isn't dead. It isn't even past. Never was. Never will be.

Anna Taylor Sweringen self-publishes second chance romance gothic ghost stories in her Haunted Harlem series as Anna M. Taylor. Book Three, Always the Dead Between is slated to release October 31. In the meanwhile you can learn more about Haunted Harlem on Amazon here: http://amzn.to/355nKv0.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Kiss Me Again... Second Chance Romance

By Cassandra O'Leary

What would you say to the one who got away? Or the one who was never a 'thing' but you secretly hoped they would be… We're talking second chance romance.

I've been on a binge reading and watching spree lately, with the common theme of second chances. I love the tension and the emotional complexity of these stories, the push and pull between characters living simultaneously in the present and the past. Every look, every whispered remembering of what once was, or what might have been, adds layers to the superficial plot and dialogue. Now we're talking oodles of delicious subtext, people!

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The king (or really, matriarch) of the second chance or reunion romance is Persuasion. Often overlooked by casual Austen readers in favour of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion is a book that unfolds slowly, pulls at the heartstrings and hits you hard in the feels. It's a more mature take on love than some of Austen's other works.

In Persuasion, the heroine Anne Eliot is twenty-seven years old, which is on-the-shelf in terms of marriageability in the Regency era. Anne was once engaged at age nineteen, but was persuaded to break-off the relationship by her manipulating family. Eight years later, she still hasn't married and the love of her life, Captain Wentworth, returns to the village where Anne's family lives. Captain Wentworth was once a poor sailor, considered beneath Anne in terms of social status. In fact, the Eliots have fallen on hard times and are forced to sell their fine belongings and move out of their grand home—a job left entirely to Anne as the practical, capable type. Captain Wentworth has since made his fortune as a sea captain, so their roles are reversed from what they once were.

As a reader, I adore Anne as a no nonsense woman, a non-typical heroine who people see as unimportant and uninteresting. In fact, she's highly intelligent, caring and probably would have been a great business woman in another time. She's put her family above her own desires for so long, it's become second nature. Anne has to overcome social and trust issues, and her own narrow view of what her life should be, to finally find her way back to love.

Captain Wentworth represents freedom as much as love, since a second chance with him would also allow her to live her own life. And of course he's a noble hero, wounded by Anne's rejection but still so in love under a gruff exterior. When the story hits its climactic moment, near the end of the story, Wentworth declares himself in a letter that's heart wrenching:

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.”

Read it now, or try watching the excellent British movie version!

Persuasion, 2007 movie

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

This romantic women’s fiction book by the fabulous writing duo, Christina Lauren, is an utterly gorgeous tale of teenage sweethearts/best friends reunited.

There's a lovely setup in this book, when Macy meets Elliot (yes, there are some Persuasion and many other book references in here!), her new, nerdy but beautiful next door neighbour at her holiday home. He's literally sitting in her walk-in wardrobe reading a book, and later, the same space becomes her library, and their private refuge from the world. Macy's father paints the ceiling of the library with stars, and I was reminded of the line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

"When he shall die take him and cut him out into stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."

I'm not spoiling the ending or spilling the reasons why these two young people were separated, so you'll just have to read it for yourself!

Roman Crazy by Alice Clayton and Nina Bocci

Who loves all things Italian? Me! So it should be no surprise I fell in love with this book, set in Rome. We meet Avery at the start of this novel in a most surprising context (with an amazing and funny first line that I can't share here due to this being a PG rated site!) and her life goes up in flames.

Her husband was cheating, and she decides to leave him and her comfortable life to visit her old friend in Rome. There she meets Marcello, gorgeous and charismatic Italian architect, who just happens to be the man she could never forget. They had been lovers in college, until Avery had to go home to America and she never saw him again.

What I loved most about this book were the authentic Italian touches, from descriptions of places in Rome, to the food and the depiction of Marcello's extended family who come together for a local festival. Also, it's both funny and heartfelt. Avery has to make some big decisions about whether to follow the safe route and return to her old life, or to find a new direction and herself in the process. Recommended reading!

The Boy Is Back by Meg Cabot

I haven't quite finished reading this novel, but it's great fun. Told in an unusual style mixing text messages, emails, newspaper articles, diary entries and even online reviews, this book is a modern version of an epistolary novel (a novel written as a series of documents, with other famous examples including The Color Purple by Alice Walker and The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky).

There's various point of view texts from many members of the heroine's and hero's families, so it's a fun look at the shorthand way we communicate these days and sometimes mis-communicate. Becky Flowers (love the name) is a woman who organises other people's lives for a living, but of course she kind of fell into it herself without a plan. Her high school boyfriend, Reed Stewart, is a multi-millionaire pro golfer who's back in town when his family asks for help with his aging parents. Old scores need to be settled, and the kooky old couple with a house full of cats and raccoons bring the couple together again. Anyway, I'm still reading but I'm definitely hooked.

Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane

This story was gorgeous and also very British (which I love). The heroine, Georgina, meets up with her high school crush again when she applies for a job as a bartender at a renovated pub, owned by two Irish brothers. Of course one of them turns out to be her secret boyfriend, Lucas, from years ago. Only he doesn't seem to remember her at all. Can it be possible that one person can fall completely, madly in love, and the other person doesn't even remember it? Lucas is all dreamy but stern and standoffish (in a Heathcliff way, as noted in the book) whereas Georgina wears fluffy pink overcoats and is slightly off with the fairies. It's opposites attract and the kind of slow burn unfolding drama I love to read. With lots of laughs. And a dog.

Tree Love by Cassandra O'Leary (that's me!)

My own short story is a sweet bite-sized read about a couple who fall in love after first meeting at university. The hero (Dan The Man Mancini) ‘drops in’ on the heroine, Natalia Bianchi, years later, when he falls out of a tree in front of her! I hope the story conveys some of the longing and the temptation to try out another life that's typical of second chance stories, as well as being a fun, romantic read.

I'm working on another second chance story too, which will be either a long-ish novella or a full length book. We'll see when I finally finish writing…

About Cassandra O'Leary

Cassandra O'Leary is a romance and women's fiction author, communications specialist, avid reader, film and TV fangirl and admirer of pretty, shiny things.
In 2015, Cassandra won the We Heart New Talent contest run by Avon Books/HarperCollins UK. Her debut novel, Girl on a Plane, was published in July 2016. Cassandra was also a 2015 finalist in the Lone Star writing contest, Northwest Houston Romance Writers of America, and a 2014 finalist in the First Kiss contest, Romance Writers of Australia. Her indie published romcom novella, Heart Note, is out now!
Cassandra is a mother of two gorgeous, high-energy mini ninjas and wife to a spunky superhero. Living in Melbourne, Australia, she's also travelled the world. If you want to send her to Italy or Spain on any food or wine tasting 'research' trips, that would be splendiferous.
**Winner of the global We Heart New Talent contest. Nominated for BEST NEW AUTHOR in AusRomToday 2016 Reader's Choice Awards for excellence in Australian romance fiction**
Read more at: cassandraolearyauthor.com

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Get Me to the Wedding by Delsora Lowe

As a romance writer and reader, who doesn’t love weddings?

And June is synonymous with the premier wedding month. Although, I have to say, I vowed never to get married in June. Fall is my favorite month, and I planned that someday I would marry in September or October. My wedding date was June 5. 😊

As anyone who had been involved in a wedding, whether the bride or the bridesmaid, the mother-of-the bride or an excited guest, we know getting to the wedding is a journey.

In my Starlight Grille series, Moonlighting, book three (SPOILER ALERT) ends in a proposal, and books one, The Legacy of Parkers Point, and two, Come Dance With Me, (SPOILER ALERT) end in weddings. It took a lot of community and character building, plus support and encouragement from friends, for each couple to get to their happily-ever-after.

In my new release, The Prince’s Son, book one of the Cowboys of Mineral Springs, (you guessed it) the ending has to do with this subject, BUT I’m not telling you what happens. Book two, The Rancher Needs a Wife, due out this fall, same subject (but again NO SPOILER).

Can you see a theme here? I do love the epitome of a happy ending. My very first book, which remains packed away “under lock and key and under the bed” was inspired by my daughter’s wedding, in the true-life Maine town in which Serenity Harbor (of the Starlight Grille series) was based on.

The twist in this book was the mother-of-the-bride found her own happily-ever-after during the week leading up to the wedding. This book was a book of my heart—my first book and a book about a woman my age (at the time I wrote this book, I was a LOT younger). And someday, when I can find the typed version of the manuscript (somewhere in a packed box), I will rewrite it. Sadly, the whole book got wiped out when a repair person came to update the internet and computer in 2001. But I still remember various parts of the story.

The newest romance trope is writing about “seasoned” characters, as they find love the second time around, a twist on the second chance trope. Although I’ve personally vowed never to marry again 😊, I’m pretty sure if I found the perfect mate, I would.

So, of course, I have thought about weddings for the over-fifty generation. I imagine they will look much different from the weddings of the younger crowd. Probably smaller and more intimate. Not as formal. Perhaps a destination wedding with family and close friends. Or elopement, then a big party. Or maybe no wedding at all. Living in two homes, with partially separate lives as they mold their relationship to fit into long-held, single-status of both, but still wanting to share most of their time together in their own version of a happily-ever-after. The options are endless.

This is the fun of writing about weddings. There are so many variations, that the topic is always fresh. And for those writers who pen series, the love story of a primary set of characters in book one can result in a proposal and wedding in the books that follow. You may have noticed that trend in several Hallmark movies that have turned into a series of movies that end with the wedding.

One of my college friends was married in a tiny, old, and very cold chapel in February, back in the day when New England winters were frigid and the snow was high. The setting and ambiance were breathtaking. Another was married by the ocean. And another in a sweet, old church renovated into a small event venue overlooking a cove filled with working lobster boats.

So much potential. Weddings. Celebrate them, whether in June or October or any other month of the year.

Oooooh, I think I have several wedding story ideas percolating. With that, I’ll say goodbye and start making notes.

Until then, enjoy the myriad of wedding-based romance books and movies that are sure to be released this month.

Tell me if you have a favorite wedding story, fictional or not. Or a favorite dream wedding venue or location.

~ cottages to cabins ~ keep the home fires burning ~Delsora Lowe writes small town sweet romances and contemporary westerns from the mountains of Colorado to the shores of Maine.

Author of the Starlight Grille series, Serenity Harbor Maine novellas, and the Cowboys of Mineral Springs series, Lowe has also authored short romances for Woman’s World magazine.