Joining me at the blog today is author Darlene DeLuca. Darlene writes contemporary romance that feels real and women’s fiction that explores relationships – what brings people together or keeps them apart. Her intent is to bring to life interesting characters that readers can relate to in real-life situations that combine a little fun, plenty of drama, and big helpings of friendship, love, and self-discovery, and will leave readers either cheering or sighing with a satisfied smile as they turn the final page.The Kansas City author enjoys getting lost in a good story with a glass of tea, a bit of dark chocolate and a warm, sunny beach.
“It’s not really letting go of the past that is the problem. It is coming to terms with letting go of a possible future that will never be. That is the struggle. To let go of the past you must let go of the future and live in the present.” – Anonymous
Letting go of a dream, watching a dream die, knowing a dream is out of your control… What’s the answer? How do you know when to keep trying, when to change your goals? When to give up?
I explore these questions in my new women’s fiction novel, Hard Lemonade, releasing Oct. 1. Emily Sherridan and her new husband leave friends and family behind in Chicago to pursue their dreams in sunny Los Angeles. Eric writes screenplays and dreams of making blockbuster movies. Emily supports his dream and plans to finish her college education at prestigious USC then launch her career in marketing and consumer studies.
They work hard. Emily throws all of her energy into school and work. Eric joins writing groups, networks within the industry, submits proposal after proposal to agents and studios. He’s building on the regional success he had in college. He won awards. The university theater department produced his plays. He and Emily arrive in L.A. full of hope and confidence.
But life happens—and it doesn’t follow their roadmap.
How they each respond to the changes and disappointments sets them on a bumpy course pitting hopes against reality.
Her husband fails. Her marriage fails. Does that make Emily Sherridan a failure?
With high hopes and rose-colored shades, Emily Sherridan leaves her family and friends to build a new life with her screenwriter husband in sunny Los Angeles. There, she learns that love conquers all…until the rent is overdue, the rejections pile up, or the test is positive.
As months, then years, go by and Eric’s career fails to launch, Emily is determined to hold everything together. But when he brings danger into their lives, it’s over. When the cops arrive at her doorstep, anguish mixes with anger. She wonders how low they can go—until one of the officers hands her the number to a women’s shelter.
Broke and broken, her dreams are dashed and her confidence is shaken. With Eric’s taunt about running home pounding in her ears, Emily pushes forward though she’s unsure of her direction. She cannot give up. Her daughter deserves more.
From rosy dreams to real-life roadblocks, Hard Lemonade is a compelling story of friends, family, and fierce sheroes.
Go here to get your own copy of Hard Lemonade ahead of its release on October 1st! Be sure to connect with Darlene on Instagram, Facebook, and her website.
Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from this compelling novel before it comes out!
By all appearances, I look super extroverted. I’m a theatre kid, for crying out loud. And not a behind-the-scenes theatre kid—like, a loud, belting-showtunes-in-the-car, first-in-line-to-want-to-play-an-improv-game theatre kid. I enjoy spending time with my favorite people in a relaxed atmosphere. I value my close relationships dearly. I’m kind of loud. I can guarantee you that some people would go so far as to say I’m annoying. I wear outrageous colors and patterns much of the time. I can hold my own at a party.
…But then, when the party is over, I’ll get in my car, feeling energized, and then go home and it will be two to three business days before I’ll feel ready to do anything people-y. Group projects give me the ick. I also thrive on canceled plans and a rock forms in my stomach when I’m invited to a party, because I’m still a people-pleaser and don’t want anyone to hate me for not going to something when they went to all the trouble of inviting me.
So if you know me personally, just know that I’m much more introverted than I let on. Which tracks with the kind of personality most authors have. Writing books is a nice, creative, blissfully solitary endeavor for the most part. You can create beautiful books without having to talk to a single soul.
Until, of course, that book comes out and you have to do people-y things to market it.
My first time selling my book in public was this past July, where my dear friend Amanda at The Gilded Page Bookshop hosted a Midsummer Book Fair. The event was PACKED with vendors and readers alike. My husband brought our boys and hype up my table. My best friend from Virginia even drove in to surprise me (Lisa, your code phrase to tell me you read this blog post is “praying mantis”). I even made a few sales!
Get you a bestie that drives hours to come support you at your first event.
If you’re a first-time author and you’re looking to get a little advice from a fellow author who has participated in exactly one vendor event, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. Let me share what I wish I had known before I did it.
Know how to pitch your book to new readers.
I’ll be the first to admit that Stage Mouse is kind of hard for me to pitch. It’s historical. It’s 1890s. It’s the story of an Irish immigrant. It’s Newsies meets Gangs of New York with a sprinkling of the energy from An American Tail. There’s romance. There’s suspense. There’s hope. There’s theatre stuff. There’s mob stuff. There’s danger sometimes and intrigue other times. She’s a painter, so that’s cool.
When most people come by and asked me what my book was about, I answered with some bumbling assortment of word vomit that may have included the words historical fiction or Irish or vaudeville. It wasn’t pretty. I’m just glad no one filmed me.
I learned, both at the vendor fair and in scrolling Booktok/Bookstagram, that tropes sell. They’re a clear, concise way to tell prospective readers about your book. (If you’ve never heard of tropes before, or if you have and you’re not sure exactly what they are, here’s a good resource.) Every reader has preferences as to which tropes they like in a book. By knowing your book’s tropes, you help readers determine quickly whether they want to try your book. By the time I realized this and started trying it toward the end of the event, I had more interest. Here’s a version of that tropey pitch that I shared with prospective readers:
Stage Mouse is set in 1890s New York. We’ve got a slow burn sweet romance, found family, a reluctant hero, a secret society, and an immigrant story. It’s perfect for people who want the historical immersion of all those American Girl books they read as a kid, but with a grown-up sophistication and suspense. If Newsies is your favorite musical, you’ll love this story of the less-gilded side of the Gilded Age.
This isn’t limited to just in-person vendor events! Try it on your social media platforms, or wherever you’re promoting your books. (…And if all of that info up there does sound like something you want in a book, you can get one here.)
Hype yourself up.
Because I’ve only got just the one published book, I needed to fill my table with more stuff. I had tote bags with bookish phrases on them. I had bookish stickers to suit every type of reader. I also pre-wrapped some “blind date with a book” bundles of other titles. And when folks would approach my table, I’d say a not-too-pushy hello and let them know about all the bundles and stickers and bags and, oh yeah, I also wrote a book and it’s kind of cool, but no worries if you don’t want it.
We were a few hours into the vendor event, and I needed a bathroom break. Lisa was there to shoo me away and mind the table. I was away for maybe three minutes, and when I came back, Lisa was handing someone a copy of my book and one of the tote bags.
“You’re hired!” I joked (because I’m barely making enough for me to get paid, much less hire an employee, any promise of employment is clearly a joke on principle). To which she replied, “Hey, tell them about your book first. Don’t bury it under all the other stuff.”
Many of us, especially women, are conditioned pretty early on that we shouldn’t make much of ourselves or our accomplishments. It was easier for Lisa to engage a reader because she could tell them that her friend wrote the book. When someone else does it, it’s an endorsement. When I do it, it’s braggy and self-aggrandizing.
Then, I remembered the beginning of Barbie, where Barbie was getting awards for accomplishments in journalism and literature, and I checked myself.
What a gloriously hopeful, lovely thing the summer of ‘23 was.
What many of us mistake for humility is actually low self-esteem. We avoid saying positive things about ourselves for fear of coming across as selfish or insensitive. The thing is, it’s not a binary thing. You can celebrate your own successes and be honest about the ups and downs along the way. You can declare how awesome it is that you did The Thing and be gracious in delivering the message.
A lot of people don’t even want to write a book. Maybe some folks think about doing it. And if they start writing, they might not ever finish it. And those who finish a manuscript may not ever get it published. The fact that I not only completed a manuscript but published it is a big deal. It took me a little longer (because kids and Covid and other responsibilities), but I got there. And I should be proud of that.
So yes, I did take Lisa’s advice for the rest of the vendor fair. I pitched my book to people as if a friend wrote it. I told everyone about my book before telling them about anything else I had on my table. And wouldn’t you know it? I sold some books.
You aren’t for everyone. And that’s okay.
In addition to being a recently published author, I’m also an actor. Every so often, I take the stage with my local theater group to bring wonderful stories to life. From Miss Scarlet in Clue to Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, I love performing. I even had a brief stint once upon a time as a character performer at Walt Disney World. It’s fun to pretend for a little while—leave everything on the stage, and leave myself behind.
I was surprised at how much performing I did at the vendor event. Instead of being a completely different character, though, I was… myself. And that was surprisingly hard for me.
If folks scoff at things my character does in the play, I shrug it off. They’re not disparaging me, they’re disparaging the person I’m playing. If people come up to my table at an event and look around, hear my pitch, and then give me a polite “maybe I’ll come back around” but never do, they’re not rejecting a character. They’re rejecting me and my creativity.
Here’s the thing: there’s not a single book out there that has appealed to every reader. Not a single, solitary, one. I, for one, can’t get into the ACOTAR series, but I really enjoyed the Outlander books (the first three, anyway; after that the wheels kind of fall off BUT THAT’S FOR ANOTHER BLOG). I understand on paper that my book won’t be something everyone will want to read.
That’s all well and good until you watch people look at your years of hard work bound up in a paperback cover, maybe even leaf through it, only to put it down with a “meh” and walk away. It feels weird to see people in real time say no to something you’ve worked hard for. And yet it happens all the time when you shout into the void for someone to buy your book.
When you don’t appeal to every single reader, take heart: no one else does either.
Pictured: A person and a book that are not for everyone. (Except the American Girl posters. Those are for everyone.)
Give yourself time to decompress.
Maybe this is only true of those with neurodivergent brains (AuDHD checking in over here!), but it is draining to be yourself for hours on end. In most situations, you can let yourself drift into the background of conversations when you don’t feel talky, or you can take breaks.
During a vendor event, you have to be yourself. For hours. And not even just yourself, but the most winsome, authentic, engaging version of yourself you can be. (Don’t be a fake version of you, though. People pick up on inauthenticity.) You’re “on” for a very long time. And just like any device that’s left on for a while, you’ve got to recharge those batteries.
Try not to plan a big dinner out right after your first vendor event. Give yourself time to settle in at home, maybe stare at the ceiling for a few minutes (I’m not kidding; I did this and it helped me a lot). Let someone else do the cooking if you can. Don’t do any more work for the rest of the day. Breathe. Reset. Unless you’re an extroverted author, in which case, you might be riding high and are ready to host a party at your house right after or take a group fitness class or talk to more strangers or crash a wedding, or whatever it is you mythical social unicorns do. I wouldn’t know; I haven’t met a single extroverted author yet.
Get your payment stuff set up beforehand.
Some of you might be here looking for more practical advice, so this is me tacking it on the end. Set up all of the payment/transfer methods you can. I used CashApp, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle. I brought some petty cash to make change if anyone made a purchase with cash (they did). I also set up Square, which allows me to process credit cards on my phone.
And when I say “I set up Square,” I mean “I set up the app, my account, and even listed my items in my app, but then I didn’t set up tap-to-pay.” This is apparently a very easy thing to do on your phone, but I didn’t familiarize myself enough beforehand, so I was manually entering things into my tablet like a doofus. It didn’t lose any sales for me, but it was a clumsy way to do business during the day.
For the other methods, I had a little sign with all of the QR codes that folks could use to pay me. That worked just fine. For cash transactions, record them as they happen—a notes app or spreadsheet works, but I literally had a piece of notebook paper to use and that was just fine—so you remember how much to account for.
And at the end of the day…
…it’s the end of the day. Your experience may be very different from this. You might have successes and setbacks that aren’t at all like mine. The point is that you put yourself out there, you did the thing, and you should celebrate that. Take your own wins and losses and grow from them. And if you’ve got your own stories from your first vendor event, drop them in the comments! We’ll commiserate—and celebrate—together.
Author Liz Flaherty is joining me at the blog today with some “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” recipes that even a non-chef like me can do! The hero of her latest novel, Shades of Green, is definitely more culinarily gifted. Whether you’re a culinary genius or a never-cooker, you’ll find something to enjoy here!
Liz Flaherty
Unlike me … way unlike me … Cari Newland, the heroine in Shades of Green, went to culinary school and specializes in desserts and soups. She actually cooks a lot more than that, butusing those two goes along with the recipes I’m sharing. My first thought when I considered doing a blog post about recipes was to find some handy Julia Child things I had tried. Only there weren’t any. While I don’t hate cooking and baking, I’ve been the chief cook and bottle-washer in our marriage for over 55 years—I’m really over it. I have a nice collection of cookbooks, some that were my grandmother’s, but most of the recipes I useare stolen and/or shockingly easy. Even their names, as you can see here, are … er … not particularly memorable.
Cake
1 boxed cake mix, flavor of your choice, 15½ ounces or thereabouts
12 ounces of carbonated soda (I use diet), whatever flavor seems to go with the cake mix
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Empty the mix into a large bowl and add the soda. Using a whisk, whisk it until it’s well combined. A couple of minutes at the most. Pour into a greased 9 X 13-inch baking pan or dish and bake for somewhere between 33 and 37 minutes, testing it for doneness with a toothpick.
I have read where others added an egg to this recipe, too, for protein, added richness, and structural binding. I have not done this, but if I remember next time, I will.
Allow the cake to cool pretty well to make it easy to cut. Ice as usual. I use sugar-free whipped topping instead to make it sort of diet. So far, my favorite has been German chocolate cake with Cherry Coke Zero, but I’m going to try lemon with Diet Sprite soon!
Soup
1 can Progresso Southwest-Style Black Bean Soup
5-ounce can chicken breast in water
A small can or a cup of frozen corn (optional)
Heat over low heat until it’s heated through. Sprinkle shredded cheese over it if you like (I do.) Makes two good-size servings. You can also add some cooked rice or pasta for bulk and flavor.
Thanks for being here today, and thanks to Jacquie for having me! I hope you’ll visit Harper Loch. When I wrote Pieces of Blue, Maggie’s story, it was with the intent of it being a single title. However Ellie, from Patches of Red, and Cari had other ideas! I loved writing their stories and I hope you like reading them.
Today, we welcome author Karina Bartow to the blog! Karina hails from Northern Ohio. Though born with Cerebral Palsy, she’s never allowed her disability to define her. Rather, she’s used her experiences to breathe life into characters who have physical limitations, but like her, are determined not to let them stand in the way of the life they want. Her works include a mix of mysteries and love stories. She may only be able to type with one hand, but she writes with her whole heart!
Like Jacquie, I’ve now written a couple of historical romance novels. When I was an aspiring author, though, I never would’ve believed that I’d touch the genre. History was never my favorite subject in school. While I usually managed to net a good grade in the class from doing the homework and memorizing the facts, I didn’t get too invested in it. On the occasions when we stepped out of the classroom and into a historical venue like the Gettysburg battlegrounds or a presidential home, however, the facts came to life for me, sparking my fascination.
It was the same way when I decided to dip my toes into writing in the genre. I didn’t really set out to fashion a story around history in general, but I had concepts that piqued my interest and enjoyed immersing myself in those periods once I dug in my feet. Granted, both novels cover events in 1964, which doesn’t seem very historical to me. With how fast the world and its advancements have evolved in the proceeding decades, I suppose it fits in the category. My 2022 release, Wrong Line, Right Connection, revolved around a switchboard operator, and my latest one, Undeveloped Memories, is centered on a roll of undeveloped film.
In the case of both plots, I had a personal attachment to the outdated elements. My honorary grandmother was a switchboard operator, and in fact, I interviewed her for a history project in middle school. I can’t say I had the reverence for it back then that I do today, but it always held a special place in my heart due to her experience. When I started the book, I researched its history and the way it functioned, but I didn’t bury myself in study material to the point that I grew bored as I used to in school. I also researched surrounding aspects of the story, but I did so in a similar step-by-step manner as I made it to certain stages of the plot.
I did likewise with Undeveloped Memories. The film concept wasn’t too foreign to me, since my mom used a film camera for my entire childhood and actually inspired the book by losing a roll back in the day. Because the novel delves a great deal into the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska, I had to devote much time to exploring the event. Thankfully, a friend who lived through it as a child provided me with an invaluable eyewitness account, and the Internet offered loads of information, too. Again, though, I spaced out my research to look into each component as I came to it, both so that I didn’t get overwhelmed and so I had the pertinent facts fresh in mind.
The gradual approach fostered the immersive feel those historical field trips did in my school days. It gave me the sensation of going through the developments along with the characters, and I hope it translated that way to readers. More than that, the process has made me view history differently. While customs and methods have transformed throughout generations, we’re all humans, with many of the same emotions and pursuits as those before and after us.
I don’t expect to compose a six-hundred-page biography on the Industrial Revolution or anything, but I have enjoyed giving my not-so-favorite subject another chance. As you age, I think you cultivate a better appreciation for history due to your vantage point in the stream of time and how history seems to repeat itself more than you realized as a kid. Whether you’re a writer or not, it’s beneficial to revisit those subjects that were once a pain in your side and see if you discern their value now.
All this said, don’t anticipate a science-based novel from me! I have yet to make such a transition on that class!
Learn more about Karina (including all about her fabulous books!) here:
This story begins the way any good story should begin: with a castle.
It’s a fiberglass castle, actually. Hurricane resistant, too, if you can believe it. And I wasn’t even dressed for a castle that day. I was wearing a t-shirt and an athleisure skort. Showing up any better dressed than that, and folks might mistake me for one of the residents. Not that that would be such a bad thing, actually…
Fine. Disney. I was at Disney.
During a midday break in our family’s one-day-only trip to Magic Kingdom, I saw a text from a friend of mine. She invited me to take part in a start-up book club, one with an emphasis on (a) actually reading the book and (b) being as fancy as possible with our monthly book club discussion gatherings. This is… surprisingly groundbreaking for a lot book clubs nowadays. There are lots of “book clubs” out there that are thinly veiled excuses to binge drink with a bunch of people and/or chat so much that no one actually discusses a book (or, in the worst case scenarios, they don’t actually ever read the book.)
It sounded good to me. I was then added to the Fancy Book Club group chat on WhatsApp, and… I missed the first three meetings.
By May, I finally came to my first meeting. May’s book was The Secret Life of Sunflowers by Marta Molnar, a dual-timeline historical novel telling the stories of the lives of people who knew Vincent Van Gogh well. Our cake was decorated to look like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. We discussed the book for over an hour (and this was after dinner and chitchat). It was the best first taste of Fancy Book Club—a monthly gathering that I’ve come to love for so many reasons. Here are just a few.
We take turns. One of our members had the good idea to create a shared spreadsheet to schedule out the year. Members take turns hosting in pairs. We’ve been to one another’s houses, but we’ve also had meetings in an old tannery warehouse, an RV, and a distillery. Someone once brought up that she’d talked to someone who had run a book club for decades, and she always, always, always plays host. She has to buy the food. She has to mix drinks. She has to clean house. What a nightmare. I’m grateful that we share the hosting responsibilities among our members—less pressure, less stress, and more fun to see how everyone chooses to decorate/theme/host. Best of all: we have a fabulous December meeting each year, where instead of a book discussion, we gather at our local rooftop bar and participate in a blind-date-with-a-book style book exchange.
We all get to vote on book selections. Every month, the hosts will come up with a shortlist of books for the club to choose from, usually centered around a theme (romance, historical, literary, even—gasp!—nonfiction). We’ll read descriptions and vote on our favorites. The choice with the most votes is the book we’ll read that month. It’s more fun when we can have some options—and, more often than not, even the ones that don’t win the poll will be ones I’ll add to my TBR. This ensures we have a wide range of books to discover from lots of folks with differing reading preferences. (We also may or may not have an annual tradition where one month is “Petty Book Club” and the hosts will select a book that didn’t make the cut earlier that year. It was only once, but it should be an annual tradition. Without the temporary switchover to Petty Book Club, I would have never been introduced to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and that would have been a darn shame.
We read outside of our comfort zones. We’re not a one-genre book club. Because we have diverse interests, Fancy Book Club has read contemporary literary fiction, romcoms, historical dramas, fantasy, among many other sub-genres. October’s book club pick was Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. I have never voluntarily picked up anything even horror-adjacent in my life (real life is already scary; why would I want anything even more frightening?!), but this was one of my favorite books of the year. I have read books that I would have never chosen on my own. In turn, I have learned so much more about the various experiences, perspectives, and people that make up our world.
We’re an amazing bunch. Fancy Book Club includes some familiar friends as well as some new-to-me-since-book-club-started friends. Some of these women are actual Pinterest Boards of hosting ideas, many are astonishingly skilled at crafting a gorgeous meal. Mixologists, teachers, party planners, parents, leaders—it’s like our very own Barbie World full of bookworms. Icons everywhere.
We’re different readers. We have different perspectives on life. Some are introverts; some are extroverts. We’ve got different strengths. But we do have a profound shared love of books and getting out the fancy serveware once a month Just Because.
If you find yourselves blessed with a book club that feels like a warm, welcoming, decadent party, one where life’s crazy anecdotes meets thought-provoking literary discussion, then you are blessed indeed.
My guest blogger today is Brenda Lowder. Brenda is an award-winning author of lighthearted women’s fiction and romantic comedy novels. She lives in Atlanta and loves international travel, fine dining, and air conditioning. She’s a big fan of fiction in all its forms—books, films, television, and the lies we tell ourselves. Her brilliant and smoking-hot husband and two princess-scientist daughters love her enough to insist she’s still twenty-nine. (She also happens to be a very dear personal friend of mine!)
School ended for my kids last week. I don’t know if you feel like I do, but for me the sparkle and promise of summer with all its possibility glitters before me like a shimmering oasis of sun, sea, sand, and sky.
I love this time of year. Maybe there’ll be a beach trip. Maybe there’ll be some visits to or from family out of town. Maybe there’ll be an adventure that I won’t know anything about until I’m smack in the middle of it. My mind whirls with the possibilities.
I know there’ll be reading. The lazy days of summer, stretching sunlight far into the evening hours, are the perfect time to soak up words along with the sun. The books I read each season become as much hallmarks of my experiences and memories as the trips I take and the inches my children grow. And here, poised at the very top of the summer, the precipice before the dive off the high board into fun, is the best part—making my plans.
Today I’m making my summer wish list. Top of the list is to read The Keeper by Tana French—third in the series and I loved the first two. Second is The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss—looks like a delicious, guilty pleasure and who could resist those gorgeous sprayed edges? And third, to have that mystery adventure that I haven’t guessed yet. What’s on your summer wish list?
To get you started, I have a gift for you! The eBook of my book, Keeping the Pieces, is yours free! Pick up your copy here. And the eBook of my book Sparks Unlimited, the second in the Keeping the Pieces series, is on sale for 99 cents! You can pick it up here. Treat yourself to this pair of beach reads and get your summer reading off to a great start!
Thanks to my friend Jacquie Bosma for allowing me to guest blog today. I can’t wait for the release of her book Stage Mouse.
Happy Summer, my friends, and Happy Beach Reading! 😊
Guesting at my blog today is author Chelsey M. Ortega. Chelsey is a teacher by day and award-winning author by night. History is her first love, and any story involving magic and romance, her second love. She especially loves witches and is still awaiting her acceptance letter to a well-known school. Chelsey received her Bachelor’s in History Teaching from Brigham Young University. In addition to writing, Chelsey teaches high school U.S. History and ELD. She lives in Utah with her husband, three children, and two cats. Follow Chelsey at www.chelseymortega.com.
Have you ever come across that tumblr-screenshot-turned-into-a-meme thing about that claim that certain deaths in the Harry Potter series are pieces of JK Rowling’s soul, and thus by the end of the 7th book, she had seven horcruxes, just like Voldemort? Well, I have a much less gruesome version of that.
My debut novel, Bondwitch, came out two and a half years ago, and it follows the adventure of a teenage witch named Annamaria as she navigates learning how to use her powers, protect herself from vengeful vampires, and open up her heart to love. In Book 1, Annamaria is the only POV character. Written in third person limited, the reader gets to know only what Annamaria is thinking, feeling, and doing.
Towards the end of Bondwitch, I threw in three very short moments where we hop into Marianna’s head (Annamaria’s sister). I enjoyed exploring Marianna’s headspace so much, that I decided she deserved a larger role in the sequel.
Bondwitch: Hybrid came out last week, and is a dual POV; following Annamaria and Marianna in their next adventure.
Annamaria Lyons is finally with her grandma, but Libby holds unyielding control of her coven and granddaughters. Betrothed to a male witch, Annamaria’s heart secretly belongs to her vampire boyfriend. When Libby threatens deadly consequences if she refuses the arranged marriage, Annamaria faces an impossible choice: obey or risk everything to follow her heart?
Marianna Lyons is a big disappointment. Stripped of her magic when she was forcefully turned into a vampire, she is now an outcast, desperate for Libby’s approval. When Marianna is tricked into breaking coven rules, she faces a difficult decision: endure brutal rehabilitation, or leave her new home. As Marianna struggles to rediscover herself, will she accept her new identity, or conform to Libby’s impossible demands?
As I navigated two plots and two main characters, I discovered something about myself: I am both Annamaria and Marianna in their respective situations. Marianna is who I am: softspoken, afraid of conflict, obedient. Annamaria is who I want to be (and occasionally bring out when I’m feeling really brave or comfortable): bold, fiery, and puts herself first (usually).
Have you ever walked away from a conflict and an hour later you’re playing the conversation you wish you had in your head? Annamaria doesn’t wish she’d been more assertive an hour later. She simply is assertive. So, when I’m writing a scene in Annamaria’s head, I ask myself what I would want to do, but probably not be brave enough to actually do that; and that’s what Annamaria does.
Are you that person who remains calm, flexible, and in the middle? Or do you know someone like that? That’s who Marianna is. She wants everyone to be happy, even if she has to sacrifice her own happiness. When I’m writing a scene in Marianna’s head, I ask myself what I would actually do in that situation, and then I increase the passive and obedience tenfold.
These two sisters are two halves of my soul. Breathing life into their being and telling their story has been a wonderful journey thus far. But their story isn’t over yet. Two more books are in the works. In the meantime, check out Bondwitch and Bondwitch: Hybrid at https://chelseymortega.com/books/.
My guest blogger today is M.G. de Grey. She is a romance author (Then The Earth Moved, Let Love Find a Way, Then Time Stands Still). Disappeared, published earlier this month, is her first foray into the thriller genre. She uses her extensive knowledge of the countries she has lived in to infuse her novels with a strong sense of place. To learn more, and to get her latest release, Disappeared, visit https://marygeorginadegreyauthor.com/.
[A quick TW: de Grey’s book, Disappeared, as well as the content of this blog post, contain subject matter that may be triggering or painful for some readers to read, including mentions of child exploitation, murder, and human trafficking. Click below if you wish to continue reading this impactful guest blog, as well as learn a real-world way to help those affected.]
I’m not cute no more. I growed out of it just like when I growed out of my favorite Reptar jammies. —Chuckie Finster
There are a lot of helpful things I’ve learned over the years, but one thing is so helpful I use it almost every day: Two things can be true at once.
You can love your job and also feel burnout. You can be a cat person and a dog person. You can make steps toward building a more sustainable environment and feel a bit of you die inside when the paper straw disintegrates as soon as you take your first sip. And you can be old and young.
Because I’m a Blockbuster-card-carrying, Garden-State-soundtrack-listening, unprecedented-times-living millennial. And I feel like more of an incongruence than I was in seventh grade. Which, I mean, you didn’t know me then (maybe), but just know that it’s saying a lot. Trust me.
The in-between: where we don’t recognize anyone at the VMAs but we also use tap to pay
Millennial is invoked pejoratively by every group except millennials ourselves (and sometimes not even us, because self-loathing is a shared experience among our generation AND WE’RE WORKING ON IT OKAY). Middle schoolers use it as a catch-all for the perpetually uncool, try-hard, cringe folks that are their parents’ age which, okay, fair. GenX and up still think we’re teenagers, apparently, if the grainy memes on my occasional trips to my Facebook feed are any indication. (Fact check: we actually do know how to read and write in cursive, we did not ever eat Tide Pods, but bless you for thinking we’re still teenagers. Lord knows I’d like some of that skin elasticity right now.)
My fellow millennials have either hit forty or we’re teetering dangerously close to it. Our backs hurt. We have to make up for killing our pores with Noxema pads and St. Ives apricot scrubbing by embracing multi-step skincare that costs about the same as a car payment. The Challenger exploded when I was three weeks old, and I’ve been living in Unprecedented Times ever since.
There’s something lovely and freeing since I turned forty this year, though. I have learned to embrace the things that make me weird—all that cringe behavior that gets eyerolls from my children and would have earned me a sneering look in high school from the cool kids’ table—and let it fly. I’ll use the gif reaction. I’ll send texts longer than three or four words (which I’ve now learned is apparently a super millennial thing to do?). I’ll wear the clothes I want to wear, read the books I want to read, and I’ll enjoy it even if I’m the only one having fun. “Weird” hits even deeper after forty than it ever did when I was eleven and listening to it through my boom box and gazing at my multiple posters of Taylor Hanson on my walls.
If you’re not careful, you might just buy the sweater that “looks a little young for you,” wear it on a solo trip to Disney, and get a bunch of esteem-boosting compliments on it. Embrace your whimsy responsibly.
I read somewhere recently (and by “read somewhere” I mean “it was a caption on an Instagram post I think”) that being in your forties means getting to be the person you wanted to be at fifteen, only this time, you’re not apologizing for it or minimizing it. I’ve leaned into that in recent months, and I’ve got to tell you, my soul has never felt lighter.
My fellow millennials, our whole lives can be summed up in the two things can be true at the same time truism. We can feel our age when we get out of bed and we can wear cute clothes. We can crash out over Italian brainrot and we can still go bar for bar on the End Of The World flash video from eBaum’s World. We can run tech support for our kids when they don’t know how to connect to the router and we can run tech support for our parents when they don’t know how to find that PDF they saved. We can embrace a firm “I will not be leaving my house after nightfall” policy and we remember what to do when we hear that Cash Money Records Taking Over For The Nine-Nine Into Two Thousand. We can be emotionally exhausted at the state of the Everything Going On All The Time and still have hope that it won’t always be this way.
We can be old and we can be young. Let’s make like Hannah Montana and get the best of both worlds.
My guest blogger today is Susan Harris Howell. Susan is a psychologist and retired university professor. The Spirit of Vanderlaan draws on her career to capture the warmth between a teacher and the students who inhabit her office. Susan is also the author of Buried Talents. She and her husband have two grown children, a daughter-in-law, one adorable grandson, and an incorrigible beagle named Doc.
My new desk came to me in 483 pieces—slats, panels, and hardware wrapped in plastic bags for “easy delivery and assembly.” My daughter commented that the company might have just sent me a tree and an ice pick for the work it would require.
I sat on the floor, surrounded by debris that looked nothing like the desk I had ordered. I wanted to lie down and cry. I would have too if I would’ve had enough floor space to lie down. This was an impossible task.
I wanted to send it back, but I could no more repack that box than I could unring a bell. So, I picked up the forty-eight-page instruction booklet, turned to page one, and put the “twist-lock fasteners into outer ends A and C.”
That first step was the beginning of a three-day process which led to the beautiful desk I now adore. It also taught me a few things about another “impossible” task I would soon face – writing my first novel.
Here’s what I learned.
Lesson One: Just do today’s work.
As I thumbed through the encyclopedic-sized instruction manual, I knew I’d have to narrow my focus. So, I concentrated on step one without mentally moving on to steps two or three. This helped me begin and kept me moving forward.
Likewise, when writing a book, we often work best by tackling one manageable task at a time without mentally wandering into steps two, three, or beyond. Narrowing our focus can move us forward.
Lesson Two: Be confident.
That first day, colleagues dropped by to offer condolences. I assumed they would know more than I and would have secrets to share on furniture assembly. Sadly, none of them did; evidently, there were no secrets.
Similarly, when we have a story to tell, we can’t assume someone else will tell it better. They have their own stories to write, their own desks to assemble. My story is my story; your story is yours. Be confident in the telling.
Lesson Three: Use available resources.
On the first day when my husband offered our power drill, I declined since the instructions clearly said power tools weren’t necessary. On day two, I grabbed that power drill and didn’t let go. Using the right tool made the task easier.
Likewise, when writing, we can avail ourselves of quality resources. Books, conferences, blogs and podcasts – a lot of information is out there. Find it and use it.
Lesson Four: Let others participate.
When one of my students (now a friend) offered to help, I gratefully accepted. Not only was Bethany’s help priceless, she and I bonded through our desk-a-thon experience. For several days, we posted pictures and progress reports on social media. Friends across several states watched with interest and celebrated the finished product.
In the same way, writing is richer when others walk alongside us. Whether they read each draft, encourage our persistence, or subscribe to our newsletter, many will participate if we invite them. Don’t go it alone.
The take-away?
My desk now serves as a daily reminder of what can be accomplished when we focus on today’s work, remain confident, use available resources, and invite others to join us.
I hope these lessons encourage you in your next “impossible” endeavor.
For more from Susan Harris Howell, and to learn more about The Spirit of Vanderlaan, visit susanharrishowell.com.
