HOT Books Cooled by COLD Covers by Margo Hoornstra

It's been established by others on this blog that book covers do make a difference in book sales. Bare chested heroes, heroines in fishnet stockings and flirty skirts. All arranged in provocative poses. Like it or not, sex sells, and these eye catching covers will entice a prospective reader to check out what's inside. Maybe even purchase the book.

What happens, though, when a book cover is so tame the expectation is the story inside could be anything but a hot and satisfying romance?

Although pleasant to look at, what storylines does this cover evoke?

These are some I think of:

A children's book about furry creatures cavorting in the forest at Christmas.

A travel log about a road trip in some beautiful winter wonderland.

A young adult novel about a high school somewhere in the frozen north.

A day by day diary about a religious retreat.

Actually, none of the above tell the whole, well, story.

Here's what's on the back cover of Glad Tidings.

His twenty-fifth high school reunion leaves hard-driving hospital CEO Jake Holbrook feeling he’s missing something in life. So when a special woman from his past tumbles back into his life—and his bed—Jake is determined to keep her, even if it means recruiting her to work for him. Family practice physician Bethany Thomas knows it’s a bad idea to sleep with her late husband’s best friend—even if he is the only man she’s ever loved. Recently widowed after twenty years of marriage to the wrong man and haunted by guilt over his death, Bethany isn’t looking for an entanglement.  Especially not with her future boss.
Working together makes Jake and Bethany confront their clashing philosophies to patient care, and as the holidays approach, Bethany unknowingly betrays Jake. Now Jake’s job is on the line—can they overcome their lack of trust to find their own holiday miracle?

This is how Glad Tidings begins.

          "I love you, Bethy. Always have. Always will."
             Bethany Thomas heard those cherished words from the only man she ever loved and felt her heart soar.

          Lying beside him in the comfort of a darkened hotel room, she wanted only to put the crushing guilt and misery of the past few days behind her. To return to that place in her life where nothing mattered except that she and Jake were together.
          Still damp from their lovemaking, his solid form moved closer. Strong arms reached out to circle her waist. "It feels so good to hold you, Bethy."
          It feels so good to be held.
          Her hands trailed along the firm ridges of his chest, slid over broad shoulders, and clasped around his neck. Heat from his body poured over hers as wide palms came together at the small of her back then lowered to spread across sensitive flesh. Warm lips maintained a slow and sensuous pressure until he released their kiss and simply held her close.
          How long had it been since she'd known lovemaking this complete?
          Forever, she decided as a contented smile creased her mouth and she rested her cheek against the refuge of his chest. Being with Jake, she felt whole, protected. All was right with the world.
          "So good to hold you," he whispered again.
          Hearing his voice, remnants of--until now--a non-existent conscience rose up to grab onto the reasonable side of her mind. She swallowed to moisten a suddenly dry throat after the question she could no longer deny reared its ugly head.
          What kind of woman buries her husband in the afternoon and sleeps with his best friend that night?

Brutal honesty here, though most reviews are favorable, Glad Tidings has not exactly been a block buster in the marketplace.

What do you think. Did the cover cause those looking for a hot story give Glad Tidings the cold shoulder?

My days to blog here are the 11th and 23rd. For more about me and my books, please visit my WEBSITE

My Motivation To Write by Margo Hoornstra

Ask any writer why they write and you’ll get a variation of; Because I can’t not write. My reason for writing is much the same and I also write romance because of the happily ever after.

Everyone has a list of life’s challenges, experiences and adversities they’ve faced and, hopefully, overcome. In addition to being slightly older for The Last Rose of Summer line of The Wild Rose Press, the characters in my stories are no different. Not only do they tend to have been around the block a time or two, they are definitely mature and, in some cases, entering the second phase of successful careers and moderately happy lives. They’re everyday people slowing down, pausing to smell the roses, if you will. Who understand, at long last, what’s important in life. Many have been dealt challenges and granted second chances.

In many of my short stories, the heroines especially face, and manage to triumph over, their own adversities. In Forgotten Alliance, Sarah Novak was forced to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity. Greg Novak's journey is to admit to this failure and do whatever it takes to save his marriage.

My first full length book, Honorable Intentions, has single father Chase Canfield trying to rebuild a life for himself and his teenaged daughter. The heroine, Samantha Wells is a retired police officer embarking on the second phase of her law enforcement career.




The three Class of '85 high school reunion books I did, Glad Tidings and To Be Or Not are true second chance reunion stories. Next Tuesday at Two has a going home again theme with a twist. 

My current work in progress, Circumstances Beyond Her Control, has hero Brad Collins, a bounty hunter about to embark on a quest that will affect his life like none other. In this case, he thinks he knows it all and has no idea what’s in store for him. (I'll be totally honest here, neither do I. Yet!)

As is a sign of today’s times, many of my characters end up forming non-traditional families. And, it almost goes without saying the heroines are strong, intelligent and self-sufficient. The heroes are individuals who can eventually acknowledge they may not be perfect or have all the answers.

While, in my opinion, there’s a special beauty in the happily ever after guarantee of romance fiction, also in my opinion, there’s another bonus, the payoff, if you will as we all experience the ups and downs in real life.

In a romance, the hero and heroine find love and acceptance on their own terms and to fit their own lifestyles. Something readers can identify with, maybe even find inspiration in.

They can do it. I can do it. We’re all going to be okay. Which in large part, is motivation in itself.

Links to my books and stories, some for free, can be found on my Blog

Children and Animals, They Always Steal The Show By Margo Hoornstra

Children and animals seem to possess the awww factor. Put them in a book or movie and the audience is immediately in their corner.

Glad Tidings, my first book for the Class of ’85 reunion series for The Wild Rose Press, has one such character, a little girl named Tina. In this excerpt, she has disappeared from the foster home where she’s been living and the hero, CEO of Mynderse Hospital Jake Holbrook, is desperate to find her.

*****

Jake’s mouth was dry and his face was numb, yet his palms soaked the inside of his leather gloves with sweat. He’d lost feeling in each toe awhile ago and the rest of him ached from the ruthless lash of a bitter wind. The abrupt drop in an already record setting low temperature flash-froze the slushy streets into skating rinks.

And would do worse to the fragile skin of a child.

Another brutal blast of frigid air whipped by his face to make his nose run and his eyes tear up. He could hardly see where he was going as he hunkered into the collar of his topcoat for its scant protection.

Having come full circle around the area more times than he could keep track of, he stood on the deserted loading dock at the back side of Mynderse. Before setting out, he’d dropped Bethany at the hospital so she’d be there if one of many other searchers brought Tina in. With the unforgiving cold of iced rain landing on his cheeks, he nearly quit breathing when he heard a sound like a small animal in distress. His entire body ramrod straight, he strained to listen when another whimper, faint as the first, came from beneath him.

Jumping off the dock, he dropped to all fours to search underneath then pulled aside the cardboard covering of a makeshift shelter. Peering inside, he nearly cried out when he found Tina huddled in the back corner, her legs covered in corduroy slacks, wearing a coat he could only hope had enough lining to keep away frostbite.

Wrapped in the thin arms of the boy known as Zeke.

“What in the world—?”

He dove inside to gather them to him then, helping first one then the other back up onto the dock, he soon had Tina clutched in one arm with Zeke under the other. The key card he fished out of his pocket fit into a metal case beside the door. At the opening click, he hit the handle with his backside and pulled them all into blessed warmth.

Working quickly, he removed his top coat to wrap around Tina and bundled the boy into the jacket of his tux. Then he sat down on the floor, with her cuddled in his lap and him sitting along side.

“What in hell were you doing?” In a voice raised more in alarm than anger, he started right in on the boy.

“It’s my job to take care of her.”

“What do you mean it’s your job to take care of her?”

“She’s my sister.”

He tightened his arm around youthful shoulders and went for an answer he’d tried for before. “Where are your parents?”

It was Tina who piped up from the folds of her camel hair shelter. “My mommy went away and didn’t come back.”

Jake sucked in much needed oxygen. “You two live alone?”

Zeke sagged beneath his arm. “We did.”

On reflex, Jake held him closer. “That’s why you weren’t going to school.”

“She’s too young to be left alone. Then she ran away on Halloween.”

“You’re the one who brought her here?”

“Yeah.” He looked up, mouth set in anger. “You took her away from me.”

“I did that for her own good,” Jake answered in a matter of fact tone which he quickly softened. “That’s why you were hanging around in here so much. You took her from the foster care home.”

“I needed to protect her.”

“Didn’t you realize she was safe?”

Young eyes relented then grew hard. “She wasn’t with me.” The crack in his voice betrayed a valiant show of strength. “So she couldn’t have been.”

“You got me there, pal,” Jake admitted. “How did you live?”

The boy raised himself to bring his mouth close to Jake’s ear. “After Mom died,” he whispered, “and, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened, messed up as she was, nobody came by to kick us out until a few days ago.” He shrugged as he sat back down. “I’d figured we were gonna be okay.”

“You’re name’s not Zeke, it’s Tommy,” Jake surmised out loud. “Which do you prefer to go by?”

Another shrug. “Tommy I guess.”

Jake swallowed hard. “Okay, Tommy, tell you what we’re going to do.”

Even as he shared a proposed solution, he hoped to hell his plan would work. If it didn’t—he paused in the middle of those thoughts—he’d just have to come up with one that would.
****

From her office in Family Health which was long ago closed for the day, Bethany heard the muted wail of a child in pain.

“Ow! My fingers hurt! And my toes. They burn!”

Out of her chair, she hurried into the hallway and toward the sound. The sight which greeted her as she came out to the reception area stole her breath and melted her heart. Jake knelt in front of two children, Tina held close with one arm and his other around a boy she’d never seen.

She came to her knees beside them and tried to pick up Tina who kept a strong grip on the collar of Jake’s shirt. “It’s okay, princess. It’s okay,” he soothed as best he could with the little girl’s head nuzzled firmly under his chin.

Heeding the look he gave her that all would be explained soon enough, Bethany settled back on her heels. One hand rubbed up and down Tina’s back, with the other she reached out to bring the boy close.

“Doctor Thomas, this is Tommy, Tina’s brother.”

She pulled back from the child she embraced. “Hi, Tommy, I’m Bethany.”

“Hi,” he mumbled with a shy nod.

“My fingers! Ow!”

An alarmed gaze shot to his sister. “Is she gonna be okay?”

Bethany cupped her hand over one of Tina’s and winced as a numbing cold seeped into her palm. Her quick visual for the white of frostbite revealed only the bright pink of exposure.

“She’ll be fine.” Out of necessity, she shifted to take charge physician. “We need to get both—all of you, warm.”

*****

You could call the result of this scene a pre-happily ever after to the final happily ever after.

And isn’t that the purpose of a romance?

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From a Short Story, How a Full Length Book Came to Be By Margo Hoornstra

Glad Tidings is my second full length romance for The Wild Rose Press, and the first of three I contributed to their Class of ’85 reunion series. It’s also a story which has its own story in how it came to be.

Draft Number One

A few years ago, I was offered a contract for Glad Tidings as a short story when something told me this romance had the makings of a book. So with my editor’s okay but no promises she’d take the book, I embarked on creating a 75,000 word romance novel. Which I ultimately ended up having to cut down to 40,000 words, in order to sell it—again.

Draft Number Two

In the original short story, a man and a woman become acquainted walking to the parking lot as they leave a place they both work. Since employment was the starting premise, in the longer version this man and woman needed more defined jobs. Which led to the development of Jake Holbrook, CEO of a major hospital system and Bethany Andrews Thomas, a doctor who worked there.

Draft Number Three

As the story progressed, I brought in two self-involved antagonists, one each for Jake and Bethany to have to deal with and added a bunch of individual conflicts for them to solve. All of which, as it turned out, did nothing to bring Jake and Bethany together or, believably keep them apart. Plus, the story began to drag. And so began some major word, scene and character cutting.

Draft Number Four

It was back to two people, a man and a woman and their jobs. But, this time, they had to have more defined jobs that would invite necessary conflict. As a result, Jake became a by the book and numbers because I have to pay the bills hospital CEO and Bethany an I’ll take care of my patients regardless of the circumstances or the costs family practitioner. Now their philosophies about their work put them at odds with each other. But so what? They also needed to have a reason to want to rise above their differences.

Draft Number Five

To make their working together struggles, well, work in their story, they each needed a history that made who they were blend with who they had become. Jake and Bethany each needed experiences in their pasts that would also give them philosophical similarities, a common ground. To soften Jake up a bit, he became a former Peace Corps volunteer who had reluctantly abandoned his I’m going to take care of the world attitude for one which is more realistic. To toughen Bethany up, she became recently widowed after her husband died of an illness she failed to diagnose in time to save him. And her self confidence is a little shaky.

Draft Number Six

Jake and Bethany also had to be at some turning point time in their lives when their story was told. For Bethany, she realizes she was married to the wrong man for twenty some years. And Jake never married because Bethany was no longer available he realizes now. Both feel they’ve missed out on so many things in their lives those twenty some years they’ve been apart.

Plus, they now have a reason for coming together after all these years. Her late husband’s funeral. From there, theirs became a forever friends turned lovers story line.

And that’s how I opened the book, as Bethany asks herself: What kind of woman buries her husband in the afternoon and sleeps with his best friend that night?

BLURB

His twenty-fifth high school reunion leaves hard-driving hospital CEO Jake Holbrook feeling he’s missing something in life. So when a special woman from his past tumbles back into his life—and his bed—Jake is determined to keep her, even if it means recruiting her to work for him.

Family practice physician Bethany Thomas knows it’s a bad idea to sleep with her late husband’s best friend—even if he is the only man she’s ever loved. Recently widowed after twenty years of marriage to the wrong man and haunted by guilt over his death, Bethany isn’t looking for an entanglement. Especially not with her future boss.

Working together makes Jake and Bethany confront their clashing philosophies to patient care, and as the holidays approach, Bethany unknowingly betrays Jake. Now Jake’s job is on the line—can they overcome their lack of trust to find their own holiday miracle?

EXCERPT

“Doctor Thomas.” He hurried after her as she stopped to retrieve her coat from an outside rack. “Doctor Thomas, wait.”

“Doctor Thomas?” she whispered as a smile played onto her features. “How very formal, Mr. Holbrook.”

Halted mid-stride, he couldn’t stop a flush which crept up his neck. “You know what I mean,” he answered, his tone low. “You did a good job in there.”

He watched surprise, with maybe a touch of hurt, flare in her eyes. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

The blush struck again. “Of course not. I was sure you’d do fine. I’m just pleased—for you—that it went well.”

The eyes studying him tapered, the edges of her mouth drew down. “Thank you. I think.”

He fell into step beside her. “Give me a break. I’m a little nervous here.”

“You?” she asked as they made their way to the elevators at the end of a wide corridor. “The always in control, eternally professional, reserved yet outgoing Jake Holbrook is nervous?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Damned if he could stop the freaking blushing she seemed to enjoy.

Thanks for stopping to read about one author’s story about the creation of one book. For a chance to win a free PDF of Glad Tidings please leave a comment along with an e-mail address for contact.

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