The New Author to the Café

Dani Haviland at Big Footstock in Dallas, Oregon, September 2026. Making new friends, one giant at a time.

Hi. I'm Dani Haviland. I'm new to this group, but I've been around a while. When it comes to Indie Authors, ten years is a long time. I guess that makes me nearly ancient with fifteen years under my fingertips as both a writer and publisher (at Chill Out! Books).

I resisted the label 'Romance writer' for years. At the insistence of a fellow author, I finally accepted it. She insisted that any story with romantic elements is still Romance.

I write multiple genres of Romance. I started with Time Travel (The Fairies Saga), moved over to Cozy Suspense/Mystery (Arlie Undercover and That Twin Thing). My next effort was an experiment.

Since families are so diverse, why not have a multi-genre series? Triplets: Three Aren't One begins with a serious Women's Fiction tale, then proceeds with other family members' stories: Billionaire Romance, Rom Com, Medical Romance, and Time Travel.

In between my four series, I also wrote many singles, spreading humor, sharing bad guys, and the world's obsession with the Time Travel Romance, LOST. Yes, I created a Universe on purpose.

I also am a big fan of Bigfoot. I've created three (so far) illustrated books in the Bigfoot Talks About series of colorful, informative books for all ages.

And then there's the publishing aspect of writing that keeps me busy(ier). Ten years ago, a group of authors got together, pooled our resources and experience, and made the USA Today Bestseller List. We did the same thing two years later, bringing in a few new authors. Like minds, working together.

I still publish sets, not to get listed, but as a way for our group of authors to present our stories in themed multi-author collections. Unforgettable Romances, the first in the series, is still doing well almost ten years later.

Over the years, I have unpublished many of the sets, but I continue to produce more. Initially, we only had three genres: Contemporary Romance, Holiday Romance, and Romantic Suspense.

I expanded our repertoire with Romantic Comedy, Cozy Suspense, and Paranormal Romance. Before the end of the year, I'll produce our first Time Travel/Historical set: Unforgettable Journeys Through Time.

I'm not in every set. I have room to rotate the thirty or so authors who claim The Authors' Billboard and Chill Out! Books as gathering places to rally their reads, romances and more.

Check out the latest release: Unforgettable Christmas Cocoa Craziness. SEVEN romances, from Regency to Alaska to the Tropics.

Explore the Collection!

You can follow me on Amazon and BookBub to find more of my titles.

Thank you, my new friends!

Dani Haviland
USA Today Bestselling Author
Chill Out! Books

Back to the Future: The Story Behind the Story by Pat Simmons

I enjoyed Michael J. Fox’s character in all the Back to the Future movies. Sci-fi seems to hold a bit of truth for the future. Without realizing it, I had a “Back to the Future” book inside me. In 2012, I thought my writing career was over. As a Christian romance author, I had nothing if God didn’t inspire me with a story. The Lord reminded me of an idea I briefly entertained. I had once cared for my 89-year-old grandmother, and I wanted to write a story that would champion caregivers who love deeply but are overwhelmed at times. They just need “someone to understand the life they live. An agent helped me shape up The Caregivers proposal. Christian publishers didn’t seem interested at the time, so the outline sat untouched. Fast forward to 2020, when Sourcebooks approached me about the Caregivers series, which they renamed the Family is Forever series. God spoke to me that someone needed to read the stories. I wanted to explore different scenarios: caring for elderly relatives; a child who might outlive the caregiver; and, after being a caregiver, a person who needs a caregiver. I chose breast cancer, not knowing it would touch my family in the future. Writing Book 2, HERE FOR YOU, felt strange because no one in my family had been diagnosed with cancer. In fact, the Lord blessed me with relatives who have lived into their eighties and nineties. My mom is now 92 years old. Plus, it was fictional, right? I write about all types of plots within the Christian genre, and I had no reason to believe this story would hit home. When someone in my immediate family was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, I thought about Rachel in HERE FOR YOU, and wondered, Lord, if I hadn’t written that story, would it still have happened? But I know God’s will is divine and not determined by anything I write. But it was a thought. Like the Knicely sisters, I became a caregiver once again. This time, I cared for two elderly loved ones inside my home and one outside.

Caregiving is relevant. That’s why I'm reintroducing the HERE FOR YOU eBook, featuring Rachel. Please download it for yourself and anyone caring for a loved one. Let them know you see them. Enjoy, Pat

Pat Simmons is an award-winning and multi-published author of fifty-plus Christian romances. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, 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. Visit her at www.patsimmons.net.

Some Secrets Wear Very Good Tailoring by Camille Elliot

She sits behind the flowers, watching the man she cannot decide whether to trust.

Here’s a brand-new image of this scene from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer, where my heroine, Miss Phoebe Sauber, begins to suspect that the gentleman who intrigues her may be hiding considerably more than she realized.

Mr. Coulton-Jones didn’t see Phoebe because she was sitting behind the enormous flower arrangement, but he had just approached a man who stood against the wall near the fireplace. Mr. Coulton-Jones’s fine, coffee-brown hair had been forced into a fashionable style, and his cravat was elegantly tied, his shirt-points high but not overly so. His jacket was perhaps a couple of years old but not out of style, and it suited his muscular physique admirably.

“Aunt.” Phoebe nodded toward the two men.

“He only just arrived a moment ago,” her aunt replied.

Phoebe wasn’t certain how she ought to feel upon seeing him again. Now that she knew the connection between the symbol she had found on the Heath, her late Uncle Wynwood and Uncle Sol, Mr. Coulton-Jones’s meeting with that strange man took on a more sinister cast.

Was he involved in something to oppose the government or the war? Because if Uncle Sol were investigating something for the Home Office, it possibly involved one of those two. Yet remembering her conversation with him, and her impressions of his personality, she had a hard time believing that possibility. Or was she simply blinded by her attraction to him?

There was a purr in her aunt’s voice as she said, “It’s very interesting that as soon as he entered the room, he chose to speak to that man.”

—from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer

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Curious how it all begins?

Read the beginning of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer for free and discover why Phoebe's suspicions about Mr. Coulton-Jones are only the beginning.

👉 Read the excerpt now

A Soft Place to Fall by Liz Flaherty

The definition of freedom changes when it's combined with faith ...

It's an old favorite. A Soft Place to Fall was also at least my second marriage resurrected title. Although it's not included on anyone's list of tropes, it's nevertheless one I love to read and to write. Possibly this is because in the 55 years Duane and I have been married, resurrection has happened more than once--although not as dramatically, romantically, or neatly tied-in-a-bow the way it's done in books. Even the way I do it in books.

For a few more days, this story of heartbreak and redemption and family love and loyalty is 99 cents. I hope you'll give it a look.

Early McGrath doesn't want freedom from her thirty-year marriage to Nash, but when it's forced upon her, she does the only thing she knows to do - she goes home to the Ridge to reinvent herself.

Only what is someone who's spent her life taking care of other people supposed to do when no one needs her anymore? Even as the threads of her life unravel, she finds new ones - reconnecting with the church of her childhood, building the quilt shop that has been a long-time dream, and forging a new friendship with her former husband.

The definition of freedom changes when it's combined with faith, and through it all perhaps Early and Nash can find a Soft Place to Fall.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Soft-Place-Fall-Stories-Ridge-ebook/dp/B0BRBLDGDW/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

D2D: https://books2read.com/u/bW57yx

Massachusetts, A State That Inspired Three Books by Merrillee Whren

I've lived in eleven states in the US. When I first started writing, I made a goal to set at least one book in each state that I have lived in. I still have Arizona and Illinois left as settings. I'm currently working on my Arizona book. It is slow going these days, but I will eventually get it finished. I have set books in Washington State, Montana, South Dakota, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and Massachusetts, so far. I have also written a series of Christmas novellas set in Maryland, even though I haven't live there, because our older daughter lives there.

This blog post is about my Massachusetts books. Not only did I live in Massachusetts, but my younger daughter and her family currently live there. So we visit often. Boston, the capitol and major city in Massachusetts, has a lot to offer a tourist. There is an abundance of things to see and do. You can walk the Freedom Trail, which is filled with history. You can catch a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

Of you can find the duckling statues from the book, Make Way For Ducklings, in the Public Gardens.

These are just a few of the things you can see there. I love to have my characters do all these touristy things around Boston. 

I created several little fictional towns near Boston, where my characters live. Here are the stories that Massachusetts inspired.

You can find buy links to these books on my website. Click here for information. In what state would you like to see a book set?

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 September Feels Like a Fresh Start by Josie Riviera

 Has anyone else noticed that September feels more like a new year than January does?

Maybe it's all those years of following a school calendar, but when the calendar turns to September, the air seems to change. The evenings ask for a sweater. New routines. New goals. 

I think that is why September belongs to sweet romance readers. A heroine who moves back to her hometown and wonders if the door she closed years ago might still open. The hero who returns changed and hopes the people who knew him before will make room for the person he has become. 

Faith teaches us the same lesson. Grace does not expire in spring.

That belief is at the center of my newest book, Faith and Fireworks. 

Levi Holt is a former Army chaplain who returns to Bitterroot, Montana, carrying grief he cannot name and questions he's afraid to pray. The town wants its chaplain back. He's not sure that man came home.

 Annie Whitlock, the chamber director planning the town's 250th Founders' Day celebration, wants him to participate in the festivities. What neither of them expects is how a season of new beginnings can soften even the most guarded heart.

If September has ever whispered "start again" to you, I wrote this story with you in mind.

Faith and Fireworks, Book 3 in the Montana Sweethearts series, is available in ebook, paperback, large print, hardcover, and audiobook.

Order your copy today.

I'm always happy to offer free ebooks. Grab your copy of my inspirational sweet romance,

 A Harvest of Miracles today, because it's only free for a limited time.

What does September mean to you? Fresh starts, or counting the days until pumpkin everything?

Please comment 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

Participation Matters by Liz Flaherty

"The small towns I write, I realize, are the ones where every kid gets a trophy because participation matters. Where everyone is important. Where 'love thy neighbor' doesn't depend on race or gender or income or who you voted for."

I wrote that a few years ago. I was glad to find it this morning, because it served as a reminder of why periodic avowal of "this is my last book" doesn't really mean anything. 

I'm pretty sure I'll always write, even if I discover I really don't have any more books in me. Because I still see scenes both in real life and in my mind that I want to write down before I forget them. 

This weekend, all of our kids and a few of our grandkids were here. We had our first extremely successful meeting with JP, our first and only great-grandson. Ten of us went for breakfast together at a local restaurant, laughing and remembering, taking bites of my daughter-in-law's cinnamon roll pancake, and drinking a lot of coffee. 

It's a hard time for our family, the kind of year that all families have at some point. But that paragraph at the top, believing it and trying to live it, writing its meaning into books, sitting at a table with nine people I love with all my heart ... those things are so rich, so life-giving, that I'm not going to declare anything as the last. I will participate until I can't anymore, and celebrate the trophy that life has been. 

Blessings to everyone.

Pastor Cari Newland’s life is stuck in the middle.

Her friends and parishioners at Harper Loch are mostly older than her thirty-three years… or they’re younger. While she likes being a single minister, she would also like to meet someone who sees her as someone besides “Preach.”
She gets hugged a lot, she realizes, but she never gets held. She’s never been the daughter her parents wanted or the woman her long-ago fiancé needed. Her life is good, but it’s lonely.

Enter handsome navy pilot Zack Grant. Visiting his parents at the lake, he attends a wedding Cari officiates. They talk and they dance and they are … interested. But Zack’s life is a thousand miles away and Cari’s life is firmly in Harper Loch. When interested begins to grow into something more, Cari and Zack must decide how to fit into each other’s world and whether or not they can make a long-distance romance work.

But Cari’s life is in the small lake community in Michigan. Zack’s is in the Florida Panhandle. And neither of them has any intention of changing locations.

Buy links:
Amazon: https://a.co/d/0dKnw8fA
D2D: https://books2read.com/u/3RRAgL