How Time Flies ~ Jean C. Gordon

I'm up to 2009 with this month's retrospective and Mara's Move, my last hardcover book published by Avalon Books. Not too long afterward, Montlake Publishing, an arm of Amazon, bought Avalon and rereleased Mara's Move as a paperback and ebook. Montlake kept the Avalon cover, which I love.

Inside Tidbits

Mara continues the characters from Candy Kisses, and once again, I'm short on tidbits. I've thought and thought and can't recall where I got the story idea. At that point, I'd never even been on a cruise. I do remember researching cruises. And I got the heroine's name from one of my daughter's friends. It's so pretty, don't you think?

Mara Riley is out to prove she can make it on her own and to disprove her mother’s contention that the only way to security—and therefore happiness—is to marry a successful doctor or lawyer. But with her job as an activity director at a North Carolina mountain resort on shaky ground and her penchant for choosing all the wrong men, Mara’s not scoring high in the pursuit of either security or happiness.

Alex Price is on the rebound from a broken engagement. Who would have guessed his social-climbing fiancée would drop him, a successful lawyer with his own practice—okay, a successful practice with his two overbearing older brothers—for a back-to-nature forest ranger?

When these childhood adversaries meet on the “honeymoon” cruise Alex is now taking alone, they make a pact to help each other ward off unwanted attention from fellow shipmates—a pact that sends them sailing into uncharted waters.

You might be able to still find a hardcover copy available used somewhere or in a library. The paperback and ebook are only available on Amazon. The ebook is also included in Kindle Unlimited.

GET YOUR COPY

Moving up to 2007 ~ Jean C. Gordon

It's retrospective time again. Yes, there's a significant gap in my published books at this point. I was still writing for Avalon Books. But I was going through a difficult time. From early 2004 through fall 2005, my Mom and our dads were failing, and we were spending many of our weekends (my writing time, since I also had a full-time day job) driving 300 miles to Western NY to help care for them and relieve siblings. I didn't feel much like writing. Mom dies in early 2004 and the dads in August and September of 2005. As an aside, Dad would have been 100 years old today! Sometime in 2006, I picked up writing the rest of Candy Kisses, a fun story that came out in hardcover on April 1, 2007.

Inside Tidbits

To be truthful, I can't remember much about writing Candy Kisses, except that writing helped me deal with my grief. And my Avalon editor couldn't understand why the heroine would "out of the blue" come up with the candy contest that I thought was key to the story. She wanted to cut it. Somehow, I justified keeping it in. Not entirely sure how, except that I had my heroine see the game in a popular magazine. 

For those of you who've read it, tell me if you think the story would have fallen apart without the candy kisses contest.

Also, the hardcover book's cover is the first Avalon cover that was kept for the paper and ebook versions that were later republished by Montlake Publishing (in 2012) after it bought Avalon Books.

Candy Price is tired. Tired of her three older brothers talking her into blind dates with their friends; tired of living in Albany, New York; and tired of her overbearing boss. She'd love to break away and quit her job as a media assistant for a gubernatorial candidate. But that would only validate her brothers' view that she's flighty.

As a diversion, she decides to help her landlord---witty, gorgeous Mike Wheeler---find a new woman. Mike has a diversion of his own in mind: convincing Candy that there's more to life than out-succeeding her brothers. And if something develops between them, well, he certainly won't fight it.

The result? A contest to find the perfect kiss. The rules? Points per kiss are paid in candy kisses. And winner takes all as Candy and Mike begin to fall for each other in this sweet game of love.

You might be able to still find a hardcover copy available used somewhere or in a library, but because Montlake Publishing was owned by Amazon, the paperback and ebook are only available on Amazon. The ebook is also included in Kindle Unlimited.

GET YOUR COPY

Snowstorm Romance ~ Jean C. Gordon

Yesterday, while I sat all cozy next to the wood stove in our living room, waiting for our very late first snowstorm of the winter to start and looking for a topic for today's blog, "Snowstorm romance" popped into my head. So, wondering how popular that particular romance trope is, I Googled it. Very popular, it turns out. The first link that appeared in my search was to Good Reads and a Listopedia lineup of 159 romances in which the hero and heroine are snowbound or a snowstorm plays a significant part in the story.

When that list didn't seem to include any books by sweet romance authors that I read, I decided to check the Sweet Romance Reads blog authors. Googling each of them, I found that four of them definitely have "snow" books: Lyn Cote, Josie Riviera, Roxanne Rustand, and Cheryl St. John definitely do. If any of the other Sweet Romance Reads bloggers do have snowstorm romances, please let our readers know in the comments.

And just when I was about to type that I don't, I remembered I do: Trusting His Kiss, the novella that kicks off my Paradox Lake series. How about you? Do you like "snow" stories?

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Life is complicated for nurse and widowed mother of three, Kari Hazard. Her 15-year-old son Myles is rebelling, and she's unsure how to handle it. Still, Kari is not immediately thrilled with the actions Myles’s handsome new school guidance counselor is taking.
 
Eli Evans is a former Air Force officer and can relate to Myles’s feelings regarding his father, who was killed in Afghanistan. Eli also finds Kari extremely attractive, but an issue from his past could pose a problem for any prospective relationship.  However, an even larger obstacle is Kari’s residual anger and complicated emotions toward the military and her late husband.
 
In the small town of Paradox Lake, fate (with a little help from Eli’s mother) keeps pushing them together. Can Kari and Eli leave the past behind them and find a way forward to new love?

Welcome to Paradox Lake
Any fan of sweet romance will love the stories of small-town love in the Paradox Lake Sweet Romance series. Grab your tea or coffee, settle into your favorite chair, and be swept away into the cozy Adirondack town, where complex characters navigate challenging situations as they find their way to love. Whether it’s love at first blush, old flames reuniting, or second chance romance, you’ll find pure reading enjoyment and satisfy your craving for sweet, wholesome romance. 

Part of an ongoing series full of familiar faces, each story will stand on its own. With novel and novella lengths available, there’s something for everyone. Paradox Lake is written by USA Today Bestselling sweet romance author Jean Gordon, who’s penned stories for the No Brides Clubs Series, Indigo Bay Series, and Harlequin Love Inspired, as well as for multiple sweet romance collections.

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Do You Have a Bucket List? ~ Jean C. Gordon

I don't have a bucket list per se. But my husband and I recently returned from a trip to the Scottish Highlands. I've been interested in Scotland since I was in fifth grade and read a book about Mary Queen of Scots and her three childhood friends, also named Mary. The book The Four Marys is now out of print. I checked. Since then, I've read numerous biographies of Mary, along with ones about Lady Macbeth and Queen Margaret. So you can imagine how exciting it was for me to walk through Mary's room at Edinburgh Castle and visit Queen Margaret's 13th-century chapel (below).

Another highlight of the trip for me was Culloden, a battle site of the 1745 Jacobite uprising. The site museum had a book with the rosters of men who fought there, and my husband and I found names of probable ancestors--Lindsays and Gordons. The book No Quarter Given is also out of print, but the museum guide thought it might be republished soon, since it's very popular with people researching their ancestry.

And, of course, there's all the natural and architectural beauty to see.

 

  

Do you have something you've always wanted to do?

~~~~~~~~~

You may have guessed this already. Yes, I have written a couple of Scottish books. One is a mildly spicy historical romance, His Lady Viking, set in 10th-century Scotland. I wrote it quite a while ago--the only historical I've written. I loved the research so much that I kept getting lost in it and not writing. The other is my Hopeless Romantics of Willow Ridge romance, Falling for the Scotsman. I have another Hopeless Romantics novella coming out in early 2024 with a Scottish heroine.

Aedan Hakonson spent his childhood hating the Norse and his adult life fighting them. The son of a Norse warrior and a Caithness noblewoman, he’s never forgiven his father for abandoning his mother and him. Battle-weary and heavy-hearted, Aedan is wary of relying on anyone for anything.

Kara Thorddatter is a Viking warrior. For all intents and purposes, she’s her father’s second son and better suited for the world of a Viking warrior than her studious older brother. If only her father and stepmother would acknowledge that fact and let her lead the independent life she wants.

When Kara’s brother disappears in a storm off the coast of Alba, she and Aedan are drawn together into a mutual quest for a hidden Viking hoard—a quest that reveals love is the real treasure.

BUY

Can their book boyfriends lead a book club of hopeless romantics to a real happily ever after?

Sorcha Laurent’s family-owned distillery has become her whole life. A far cry from where she’d expected to be when she’d left school with her newly minted MS in Chemistry and a sparkling new engagement ring on her finger. The family-business emergency that brought her home to the small-town of Willow Ridge has cost her a fiancée and her dream job in medical research. Now she’s at the end of the five-year agreement to manage the family distillery. Sorcha is ready to get back to having a life of her own. It’s time to throw in the bar towel and figure out what new dream might replace the one she lost. Little does she suspect that dream might involve potential business rival and swoon-worthy scholar, Ross Campbell.

A former Scotland National Rugby team player Ross Campbell is on track to his dream job, a professorship at his alma mater Edinburgh University. All he has left is to finish his doctoral thesis, while earning a few bona fides as a history teacher at an exclusive boys school outside Savannah. The fact that people here in the States accept him for himself, not as a former rugby star nor an heir to the Campbell Beverage conglomerate, is only frosting on the cake. And there’s no overbearing grandfather around pushing him to join the family corporation. Ross expects all things to continue according to plan, but meeting fiery Sorcha draws him down an unexpected and surprisingly enjoyable path.

When Ross catches Sorcha’s eye at the Savanah Scottish Games because he looks just like her historical romance book boyfriend, little do they know where their chance meeting will lead. A 50-year-old connection between her grandmother and his grandfather. A centuries-old mystery about a rumored stolen whisky recipe. Feelings that neither have experienced before and don’t know how to handle.

Will Sorcha and Ross’s research sessions take them beyond solving the recipe mystery and their intertwined ancestry to true love? Can they break free of family obligations and interference to live their dreams in a future together?

BUY

Why Write Romance?

 

For the first time since before Covid, I participated in an author panel and book signing at a local library. It featured four romance writers. One of the questions the moderator asked was what inspired us to write romance. We all began our answers with, we read romance. And we read it for the feel-good happy endings. 

From there, our stories varied some. One author had been laid off from her tech job when the internet bubble burst and was home with a toddler. Reading romance books gave her some adult time and prompted her to try her hand at writing it--to her success and enjoyment.

Another was writing fan fiction online as entertainment and realized what she was writing could be a book. A romance book in which she controlled the characters (as much as possible) and the storyline.

The third author is a first-generation American who turned to reading romance to relieve some of the stress of feeling she didn't fit in. But she was looking for lesbian romance and not finding much. So she wrote one of her own.

As for me. I had a day job writing technical financial copy and supervising the editorial team at my employer. I really liked my job and the people, but it could be stressful. Reading romance was some relief. I thought, maybe, writing romance--fun writing--could be, too. And I could get to meet other romance authors through a local romance writer community and other romance writing groups.

And here we all are, more than a few years later, still reading romance for the uplifting joy of a happily ever, or for now, after ending. And writing it for the joy of sharing our happily ever afters.

Now, passing the question to you. Why do you read romance?

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