We Make Plans and Life Gives Us A Petting Zoo Parade by Merri Maywether

Life is messy. We make plans and backups for those plans. Even after we’ve thought of everything that could happen, we’re still surprised. And that’s what makes life fun and funny. 

For that reason, I love including small moments of chaos in my stories. Then my characters use those moments to fall in love. That’s my favorite kind of unexpected twist. 

Most of the time, the ideas come from real life. I’ll be in a moment, mentally preparing for what could happen. Then I think, if I write it, it did happen. 

My husband sits in his cozy chair and watches as I commit the story to paper. All the while, I am quietly giggling.

This week, I thought I’d share one of those imagined scenes that made it into One More Kiss. It’s a second-chance romance about how two people’s lives were affected by a delayed goodbye kiss.  

I had a lot of fun writing it. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy reading it too. 

P.S. The picture of the bicycle came from an exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum. The heroine in my story would have loved seeing it, so I shared it with you. And no chaos occurred while viewing it. 

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 “Do you have rats here?” Eric sounded as uncertain as Troy felt. Three Creeks was rural, and woodrats usually roamed in more isolated areas. Once, a curious bear roamed the halls of the high school building. There was the occasional mouse. 

A shadow shifted on the baseboard, and a chicken strutted across the hall like it had places to be and didn’t have time for the men in the auditorium. 

Brock was the first to react with words. “That’s not good.” With several long strides, he closed the gap between where they stood and the action in the hall. 

Troy was behind him, and the heavy footsteps of the men who had helped set up the auditorium followed. 
They stepped into the hall, and a fuzzy, long-eared bunny that had been following the chicken and whatever it was chasing froze. The duck that had been following waddled around. If there were people other than the men in the hallway, it could have been an animal parade. 

A beam of light shone through the open doorway at the end of the hall. That answered the first question. They knew where the animals had come from, sort of. But why? 

A woman’s scream from the end of the hall seemed to motivate the animals to go from parading to scurrying down the hall. Brock scooped the bunny and clutched it to his chest. “It’s the petting zoo.”

 
“What kind of rat is that?” Clearly, it was a woman who wasn’t familiar with farm animals. If Troy were to take a guess, he’d say it was Alana. 

“It’s okay.” Chloe’s authoritative voice echoed through the hall. “It’s a guinea pig.” 

That meant things had gone from bad to worse. The parade had diverted into a search-and-find mission.

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One More Kiss is available for preorder at Amazon  📚

Story Inspiration by Merrillee Whren

One of my writing goals is to write at least one book set in every state where I have lived. I have lived in eleven. I have written books set in nine. I still have Illinois and Arizona to add to my list. This latest book is set in Arizona, where I currently live. I still don't have a definite title for this book. For now, I call it Hannah's Story. Hannah was a secondary character in the last book of my Kellersburg series, Hometown Girl. This series is set in the small fictional town of Kellersburg, Ohio. The series features stories of faith, family, and love. 

Hannah is the friend of Samantha Dawson the heroine of Hometown Girl. I've taken Hannah out of the Kellersburg series and moved her cross country to Arizona. The hero and owner of the Arizona ranch, Mac, is a widower with grown children. In order to keep the ranch on a good financial footing, his kids have convinced Mac that they need to make the place a guest ranch. The ranch has been a part of his deceased wife's family for several generations, and he doesn't want to lose it. Hannah is hired by the main investor in the project as the hotel manager. The photo above of the saguaro was partly an inspiration for the book. This twisted saguaro is in my neighborhood. The ranch's name is Rancho Saguaro Retorcido, which translates to Twisted Saguaro Ranch. 

Near the area where I live, there are numerous guest ranches. A few years ago, I attended a weekend retreat at a guest ranch for a mission, Unite4Africa. They build schools, churches, and wells for water. They give orphans goats and sanitary products to young girls so they don't drop out of school. Besides learning about this worthwhile endeavor, we also had some fun. Staying at the ranch was definitely part of the inspiration for the book. Here are some photos I took.

Here is an AI produced picture of what I think my hero and heroine look like. I didn't find any real photos that did the trick, so I thought I would give AI a chance. What do you think?

This new book is a May-December romance. How do Mac and Hannah resolve all the issues related to this kind of romance? What do you think of May-December relationships? 

Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of forty-plus years, and has two grown daughters. Connect with her on her Facebook page and sign up for her newsletter.

Why Christmas in July Is the Best Reading Holiday Nobody Talks About and a free holiday romance. book by Josie Riviera

 Every July. I turn the air conditioning down to a temperature my electric bill will never forgive, I make a mug of green tea, I pull a blanket over my lap, and I read a Christmas romance novel. Outside here in the southern U.S., it is ninety-five degrees, and the cicadas are deafening. Inside, I am perfectly, contentedly pretending it is December.

There is a reason Christmas in July has become a genuine cultural tradition. Retailers figured it out years ago, but readers knew it long before the sales did. Christmas stories are all about slowing down, candlelight, and the sense that love might arrive before the year runs out.

Crank down the thermostat, and give yourself a Christmas in July. Along with several other great authors, I'm offering my sweet romance, Christmas in the Air, FREE with Newsletter signup.

Consider it my gift to you.

Are you a Christmas-in-July reader, or do you save your holiday romances strictly for December? Please tell me in the comments below.

Josie Riviera is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary, historical, and inspirational romances that read like Hallmark movies. She lives in the Charlotte, NC, area with her wonderfully supportive husband. They share their home with an adorable Shih Tzu, who constantly needs grooming, and live in an old house forever needing renovation.

Sign up for her newsletter and get a FREE ebook on her website: josieriviera.com

A New Season Sale! by Liz Flaherty

Once upon a time, my husband and I drove over a bridge with a sign giving the crossing the name Fallen Soldier Bridge.

It was one of those things you just don't forget. One of those things you know you need to do something with, but what? 

That explains the genesis of Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, from which came the A New Season Trilogy, the stories of Syd, Riley, and Dinah. They've loved before. Lost before. Gotten their hands dirty in working through life. Learned. 

They are no longer young. They've never been perfect. But they're starting over.

And their stories are on sale for 99 cents.

Amazon: A New Season

D2D:  A Year of Firsts

            Reinventing Riley 

           The Summer of Sorrow and Dance 

I hope you spend some time in Fallen Soldier and that you enjoy the trip. Thanks!

Bumps in the Road by Liz Flaherty

I started out writing sweet romance. 

Of course, I did. I was nine years old, typing a princess story on my aunt's portable Royal typewriter at a table on my grandparents' enclosed front porch. From there, I moved to stories about 13-year-olds who crushed on their brothers' friends. (Think Trixie Belden without the mysteries.)  They were much like me, only my heroines had good hair and were allowed to wear lipstick. 

As I went through junior high, writing stories in longhand on looseleaf note paper I kept in double-pocketed folders, the stories stayed sweet. Several first kisses were exchanged, some noticing of how guys looked in letter jackets because they all had broad shoulders and hair just a little longer than was actually acceptable. Everyone drove really cool cars and the girls never sat at home on Friday nights; if they didn't have dates they were perfectly happy to go out with girlfriends in yet another cool car.

And yes, they all had good hair.

Sometimes they swore a little. Not a lot, but likely more than I could have gotten by with. 

Time out for marrying, having children, working full time, raising said children, and being a terrible housekeeper, and then I got serious again. I had a ton of Chapter Ones in folders, several main characters whirling around in the back of my mind (behind the insanity of teenagers in the house) I joined RWA. I was a charter member of a chapter. I loved ... no, I loved being part of the whole romantic fiction industry long before I was published.

Which took several books and many, many submissions of expensive photocopies of paper manuscripts in Courier font--remember those? And then I sold a Precious Gems novel, Always Annie. In addition to the lukewarm love scene I'd already written, editor Hilary Sares required another one. A not especially lukewarm one. And a little more sizzle here and there, thank you very much. 

For that book and several others, I sizzled. Not a lot, not especially happily, but I wrote a couple of love scenes I was actually proud of. Even now, I think they were pretty good. 

I still swore a little, sometimes a little more ... what  ... earthily? Not coarsely (in my estimation), not the Bad Words that I never said anyway. But sometimes it was like a United Methodist bishop once said, paraphrasing, if he hit his thumb with a hammer, the first word he said wouldn't be darn. 

I wasn't writing sweet anymore. While I may insist I don't know how it happened, I do. Yes, I do. 

But personally, when I read, I either skipped or skimmed love scenes. I thought euphemisms were often dumb but I didn't enjoy the clinical terms, either. They felt forced. Sometimes it felt as if the love scenes were held together by mere threads of story. 

As I went along, with different publishers, trying different things, I gave up writing love scenes that included eithe body parts or consummation. Just as I gave up always writing women who had good hair. Yes, that was me you may have heard cheering as I slammed the bedroom door shut. Not because I have any kind of problem with other people writing or reading anything up to and including erotica. 

But, as Bob Dylan wrote so eloquently so long ago, It ain't me, babe. 

Frankly, it's not always easy to say what I want in a story without swearing, so sometimes I do. Not often, but I refer back to what the bishop said. 

So, here are the bumps. I think you can write too sweet, but what that means is that it's too sweet for me, not for your readers. I think you can be too crude , but doing it just because you can isn't reason enough. For me. 

As usual, I don't have a solution to what is sometimes a problem, and I am the first to admit and complain about the constant obstacles in the publishing road. I do have thoughts, though.

Should we have ratings like movies do? I think it would be a good idea, since what one person considers merely spicy yet another person finds to be unmitigated filth. What one person considers sweet or clean is insipid and colorless by someone else. 

Regardless, we will all continue to do what we've done all along. We will tell--and hopefully sell--our stories. We will wend the way to happily-ever-after over whatever bumps get in our way. Aren't we the lucky ones?

P. S. If you're looking for a sweet and clean marriage resurrected story, Early and Nash's is way up there in my list of my own favorites. It's a story of family, faith, and quilting. I hope you'll give it a look.

 

Then and Now--home sweet home USA! by Lyn Cote

This photo is dated July 4, 2014 and shows what I see from my front porch. Things haven't changed much which is fine by me! Hope you're all getting ready for the 4th and are happy to be Americans. I am! God bless American!!! Lyn Cote

The Treasure Hunt Within Museums by Pat Simmons

I don't care what city or country I'm in, if someone suggests a roadtrip to a museum, save me a seat. Not just any musuem--it has to be history, especially Black history--the artifacts, the oral history, and more. My latest museum find was in Phoenix area while in townfor a family reunion. While other relatives shopped, Kerry and I took an Uber to the Musical Instrument Museum. I didn't have any pre-conceived notions about what I would see.

From the moment we walked through the doors and were handed headsets, Kerry and I were blown away. Not only did they display historic instruments, but music from around the WORLD---a lot. There were so many impressive displays, but one was worth the cost of the $20 admission--the orchestra display and the "show and telling" of the instruments in the orchestra. But there's more. The museum had captured music not only from different eras, but countries too.

I was not disappointed in our field trip. As a matter of fact, I sold the idea of visiting the MIM to my local cousins. My tip of anyone is to explore what's in your backyard. You'll never know what you will find. ------------------------

Pat Simmons is a multi-published author of fifty-plus Christian romances. She is a self-proclaimed genealogy sleuth, a five-time recipient of the RSJ Emma Rodgers Award for Best Inspirational Romance, and the 2022 winner of the Leslie Esdaile “Trailblazer” Award. Pat lives in St. Louis and holds a B.S. in Mass Communications from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and has worked in radio, television, and print media for over 20 years. She serves as a publicist on the board of the Christian Book Lovers Retreat (CBLR). Visit her at www.patsimmons.net.