New Year…New Projects by Kristin Wallace

Happy New Year and welcome to 2019! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday with family & friends. The start of a new year is when we all make resolutions and plans, including writers. I wanted to let you in on some projects that I plan for this year. 

Project #1: Palm Cove Tales

First up in March, the (very delayed) release of SECOND CHANCE HERO, featuring Serena Douglas, who was a major player in The Heiress Games series. Serena is Abby’s “slightly” difficult sister from Not Quite An Heiress. She’s paired with security expert, Damon Grant, who also made an appearance in the books. This book was supposed to come out in the fall, but I fell way behind as Serena and Damon took their sweet time telling me their story. This story involves saving a hairless Sphynx cat named King Tut. Lots of fun!

 

Project #2: Return to Covington Falls Chronicles

At the end of last year, I got the rights back to my inspirational romance series, Covington Falls Chronicles. I plan to re-release the original 4 books this year and THEN there will be all NEW books. I’m so excited to be able to return to my quirky little Southern town and these characters I love. I’m curious as to what has happened to them J

Project #3: The Lost Royals

This is an entirely new series based on 6 royal siblings. The catch is…they don’t know they are royalty. After their mother and father (the King and Queen) die, the young children are spirited away and hidden to save them from their evil uncle. Years later it is finally safe to bring the children back. Only they are no longer children, of course, and they have no idea how to be royals. They must be “taught” how to be a royal.

So there are my plans. Now just to find a way to make it all happen…I foresee a lot of early morning writing sessions.

Kristin Wallaceis the USA Today Best Selling Author of inspirational and contemporary romance, and women’s fiction filled with “Love, Laughter and a Leap of Faith”. Look for her upcoming release, SECOND CHANCE HERO, soon. 

Small-town/Country vs. City ~ Jean C. Gordon

Are you a small-town/country person or a city person? Having spent most of my life living in or outside of small towns (or villages as we call them in New York State)—except for two years of college in Los Angles—I can say I'm a small-town person. And by small, I mean fewer than 5,000 people.

So, it's probably not surprising that I generally set my books in small towns, usually in Western NY, Central NY, or the Adirondack Mountains. But for my upcoming book, No Time for Apologies, Book 5 in the No Brides Club series from Sweet Promise press, I had to dig up those small-town roots and temporarily transplant them to New York City. I had fun leaving my writing comfort zone.

Letchworth State Park in WNY, where my husband proposed, the Adirondack Mountains, the Hudson River Valley, where my hero owns a beef cattle farm with his grandfather and, of course, the NYC skyline.

An aside: Despite spending most of my life in New York State, I didn't visit New York City until I was in my thirties and had to go there on business related to my financial writing job in Albany. Since then, I've been there several more times for Romance Writers of America conferences, BookCon last year, my son's eighth-grade class trip as a chaperone, and once to go sightseeing with a writer friend.

So, I had a feel for the city, but I had to do more research than usual for details. And because you can't completely take the country out of a person, the hero and heroine in my new book are originally both from fictitious Genesee in Western NY, near where I grew up. 

Question: When it comes to your romance reading, do you have a City/Country preference?

When six friends make a pact not to let love get in the way of their careers, the No Brides Club is born. But could meeting the right man at the wrong time cause them to break their vows to each other?

Kate Lewis left her family’s dairy farm and fell in love with everything about New York City—especially the high-powered, fast-paced world of finance. Once content to lie in the grass and watch clouds float across the sky, her biggest dream now is to work her way to the top of Wall Street.

Jon Smith is so much more than his plain name implies. He’s also a rising star in the world of finance, on a mission to save his grandfather’s cattle farm, and Kate’s former high school admirer.

When a shocking twist of fate puts these two in direct competition for a job they both covet, the last thing they need is any new sparks of attraction. Too bad fate isn’t done with them yet.

Will they give in to their attraction, or is their newfound rivalry too intense to put aside? Find out in this sweet big city twist on the classic second chance romance theme. 

Releases February 1

 To learn more about all the books in the No Brides Club Series,
click on the picture.

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New Year's Resolutions...and a low-cal dessert recipe! Roxanne Rustand

I don't know about you, but at the beginning of each year, I decide that this is going to be my year to exercise, lose weight, and work even harder at my writing. 

To that end, I went to the YMCA today and starting my water walking again, and tonight I am limping around the house like a hundred-year-old granny.  :)  Do you have an exercise schedule and keep at it?  I have resolved to get to the Y or use the treadmill at home four times a week this year.  No excuses!  I have also resolved to avoid making heavy, high-calorie meals and desserts. It's only January 5th, but I have high hopes!   :)

Here is a very quick, light dessert, if you are thinking the same thing. There are lots of versions of this recipe floating around, super fast and easy!

EMILY'S  KEY LIME PIE

OREO CRUST 

25 Oreo Cookies —sugar-free (or regular) Don’t remove the white filling.

5 tablespoons butter melted. 

Finely crush your cookies using a food processor or a rolling pin. Stir in melted butter and press crumbs into the bottom and sides of a 9" pie plate. Chill for about a half hour, then fill. For a crunchier crust, bake 8 minutes at 350°F and cool completely before filling. For fewer calories, skip the butter and press the crushed cookies into the pan as-is, though they won't have as much structure.

 KEY LIME PIE  FILLING

2  pkg sugar-free lime gelatin

1/2   cup boiling water

24    oz  key lime yogurt  low fat (I listed total ounces here as the little containers vary in ounces)

16    oz  frozen whipped topping --choose sugar-free or fat-free, thawed

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water.

Blend into the yogurt, then fold in the whipped topping.  Pour into crust.

 Sprinkle with extra crumbs, or “frost” with additional whipped topping and then sprinkle with cookie crumbs.

 Any combo of gelation and yogurt flavors will work.

Note that if you use a purchased graham cracker crust, this will probably fill two of them unless you cut the recipe in half.

Refrigerate for at least  two hours

Best wishes to you all for a  happy, healthy and successful year in 2019!

Roxanne Rustand

Flu Prevention 101 - #GetVaccinated #FightFlu @DonnaFaz

According to the Center for Disease Control, the best thing you can do to prevent contracting seasonal flu is to get the flu vaccine. However, the vaccine doesn’t always work. My husband and I were both vaccinated, and as I write this article, I am healthy while he is in bed with the flu. But I still believe the vaccine helped him; he is beginning to feel better at day five of the virus and the average sick time for the flu is ten to fourteen days so the vaccine seems to have shortened his illness somewhat.

The CDC offers a list of other things you can do to avoid the flu.

1.      Avoid close contact with those who have the flu.

2.    Stay home when you are sick.

3.    Cover your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze.

4.    Wash your hands often!

5.     Avoid touching your eyes, mouth, or nose.

6.    Clean and disinfect surfaces in the home, at work, and at school.

If you’d like to read more, you can find the CDC’s full recommendations here.

Do you have any home remedies for flu, colds, and coughs? I have heard that drinking hot lemonade helps. I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have.

Wishing you a healthy New Year!

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

USA Today Bestselling Author Donna Fasano has written over 30 romance and women’s fiction novels. Her books have won awards and have sold 4 million copies worldwide. Her work is available in paperback, audiobooks, and ebooks for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play. Learn more about her at her blog, check out her books, and connect with her on Facebook,Twitter, and Pinterest. She loves to hear from readers.

New Year's Trivia

Can you believe it's already 2019! Where did 2018 go? I mean, seriously, it whizzed by. I'm looking forward to the new year as I have several novellas releasing. In fact, one released yesterday titled The Runaway Brides Collection. What happens when seven brides get cold feet at the altar?

I thought it might be interesting to talk about some New Year's Eve and Day trivia today. For starters, did you know that New Year's wasn't always celebrated on January 1st? 

The early Roman calendar designated March 1st, as the new year. The calendar had just ten months then, beginning with March. Later, the calendar was extended by two months, but even before the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted as the standard, people had already begun celebrating New Years Day on January 1st.

Eating black-eyed peas, as many Southerners do, is believed to be a tradition that dates back to around 1730, when the Sherpa Jews moved to the Southern states of America. They enjoyed black-eyed peas as they celebrated Rosh Hashanah. 

The New York ball drop is over 100 years old. The first drop was in 1907, which is about six weeks after my home state of Oklahoma became a state. The ball has dropped every year, except for a couple during World War II.

The New Year's Eve kiss has been around since the Middle Ages. Historians say that it originated with German or English folklore, which believed that the first person you kissed would set the tone for the new year.

On January 1, 1788, Quakers in Pennsylvania freed their slaves, anticipating the emancipation of chattel slaves in the United States that occurred some seventy-five years later.

In some parts of the world, to insure a healthy household in the coming year, it is customary for the head of the household to spank his wife on New Years day.

Queen Victoria became empress of India on January 1, 1877.

In 1969, Congress introduced the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which would ban cigarette ads from TV and radio, mostly because of the FCC's urges that the ads broke the Fairness Doctrine. The act was signed on April 1, 1970, but didn't go into effect until January 2, 1971.

Ricky Nelson
(film studio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Ricky Nelson, an America rock and roll star died on December 31st, 1985 when his plane crashed, just two miles from the landing strip. Nelson and the rest of the passengers were flying to Dallas for a New Year's Eve concert.

According to data at Box Office Mojo, the highest box office sales draw for a movie on a New Year's day is held by Avatar.

Hawaii was one of the last places on earth to celebrate the new mellinnium on Jan. 1st, 2000.

What do Paul Revere, J. Edgar Hoover, Lorenzo de Medici, Betsy Ross and Pope Alexander VI have in common?

All of these historical figures came into the world on January 1st. According to tradition, babies born on the first of the year grow up to enjoy the luckiest of lives, bringing joy and good fortune to those around them. I wonder someone born on January 1, 2019 will grow up to greatly influence our world. 

So be honest, do you eat black-eyed peas for New Years Day? If not, do you eat some other food each year? Do you make New Year's resolutions?

Vickie McDonough is the best-selling author of 50 books and novellas, with over 1.5 million copies sold. Vickie grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead, she married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams penning romance stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. www.vickiemcdonough.com

Lyn Cote-Looking Ahead to Good Things!

Above is a photo of a place that my dh and I love to visit in the summer. It's a 3 hour drive to Lake Superior, but we love the rocky coast of the Apostle Islands and I WANT TO GO THERE THIS SUMMER! 

SO?

I ceased many years ago with the resolution lists. But I would love to hear from you about what good news or happy plans you have for 2019. Going on a cruise to celebrate something? A new baby or grand baby expected? Any weddings? Whatever. Please share.  BTW, I'm also planning on releasing a new romantic suspense series this year--"Windy City Intrigue" and I'm starting to write a parallel story of twin brothers-a historical, Journey to Peace. You might have read my book Journey to Victory.-Lyn Cote

For more info, click here.