Summertime by Diane Burton

“In the good old summertime…”

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy…”

“It’s summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime…”

Many songs have been written about this season. Some (like the ones above) remind me of bygone days. Days without air conditioning. Lazy days when we’d get our chores done in the cool (relatively cool) mornings. Then we’d do whatever we wanted. I’d grab an old quilt, find a shady spot (usually the north side of the house) and read. I devoured my mom’s books—Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna, and Nancy Drew. If Mom wasn’t too busy, we’d go to the library where I’d load up on more books.

Hot summers are not my favorite. They mean staying indoors or running from the house to the car to the store and back. I’m not a beach person who lies in the sun encouraging cancer. I used to, though, in my teens and twenties when I was too stupid to know better. Now I’d rather watch the waves on a winter day. The only thing that makes Arizona appealing is our newest grandchild. Okay, her parents, too. LOL

Here in Michigan, we are having an extraordinary summer. I think we’ve only had the AC on three times for short periods. As I write this, it’s 67° F in the middle of the afternoon and a great breeze is blowing through the house. I love this. Beachgoers are not happy. Rain storms come during the night and the days are mostly sunny. Where I live close to Lake Michigan, tornadoes have missed us, thank goodness, although one touched down several miles away. We've even had two earthquakes this summer. Yes, earthquakes in Michigan. Not close enough for us to feel but still . . . Very unusual.

Now 67 is a bit cool. I think Hubs just reached for a sweater. LOL My favorite summer day is 75°, sunny, with a nice breeze. I can work in my garden or sit in the shade and read a book. Things don’t change much, do they?

When Diane Burton isn’t blogging here on the 8th and 30th of each month or on her own site http://dianeburton.blogspot.com/ on Mondays, she’s writing romantic adventure stories that take place on Earth and beyond.

Had a fun Fourth by Barbara Edwards

Since we live next to the park where the town fires off the annual fireworks, we have family and
friends come over for a barbeque and viewing. there is no way to
describe the sight of thousands of sparks flaring
close overhead.

I don't think my photos need a lot of description.
Here's a few. I already asked everyone to come again next year.

The Neurotic's Guide to Book-Borrowing by Amber Leigh Williams

Before I get into this month's topic, I wanted to share some great news. My latest Harlequin Superromance novel, His Rebel Heart, is on sale now! You can buy it for just $3.99 this month from Harlequin, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and All Romance eBooks!

Can a rebel ever change his ways? 
Being a single mother and successful florist is tough, especially when your new next-door neighbor is the man who shattered your heart. Eight years ago, bad boy James Bracken walked away from Adrian Carlton…and their unborn child. Now he's back. And Adrian's desire to protect her son from the truth of his biological father isn't enough to hide the wild blue eyes of father and son, or to keep Adrian from surrendering to the raw passion between her and James. But is he truly the changed man he claims to be? Maybe this time his rebel heart really is home to stay.

Read the first chapter here!

All month long at Facebook, I'm giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card and more to celebrate the launch of His Rebel Heart!

When it comes to the safety and welfare of my books, I'm like Monica from Friends. The yellow gloves come on and the neurotic is unleashed upon the world.

I was once that person that took books in like strays from the street. If they didn’t have a home, people knew where to bring them—to my house where I would cram them in every empty nook and cranny I could find. My husband once opened a rarely used closet in the back of the house to put away Christmas decorations and was buried under the resulting avalanche of poor, rehabilitated paperbacks. He tried to tell me I had a problem, especially when I admitted that I hadn’t read all of them and there were several I probably would never get around to reading. “They have nowhere else to go,” I tried to tell him. “They’re not puppies,” he tried to tell me. Still, the man loves me. Despite the fact that hording in general and the sight of clutter makes him scratch, he’s put up with my neurotic book-related tendencies admirably well.

When mommy gets a box of books....

 

Then our son was born. Around his six-month birthday it became apparent that he loved books, too. In fact, he loved books so much, he ate them. He tore them. He threw them against the wall. The bigger the book, the better. To him in that first year of his life, there was nothing more satisfying than teething on the corner of a hardback. There was nothing that could make him giggle so much as shredding the pages of a mass market paperback. If I left a book I was reading anywhere within his reach, I would later find the bookmark a hundred or so pages forward or back from the place I had last read—and the bookmark itself would be tellingly damp. (Hey, at least he tried to put it back, right?) My love of books, that thing that had sustained me through tough times, butted heads with my devoted love and delight with my first child. Guess who won that little battle.

There was a shift. It started when he got a little older. The teething slowly died off (oh, thank goodness!) and the paper-shredding stopped. He liked his kiddie books, sure. But I noticed more and more that he liked to fan through the pages of my books, listening to the swish, smelling the lignin (that magic, vanilla-y scent that rouses every book lover), and watching all those words on all those pages merge together in one rushing wave. This thrilled me to pieces because I understood. This was once what I did. This was how my lifelong love of books was born so I was determined to encourage it. 


My boy and his books....

I went through my old paperbacks, riffled through boxes and closets and presented him with several of them to call his own. He’s almost three now. More than he loves being read to, even more than he loves the bright colors and fun pictures of his own library, he loves taking a few moments out of his day to spend with these old paperbacks. Every now and then, a page will rip by accident or I’ll have to throw one away because it got a little damp from a spill or the spine isn’t holding up to all the new handling from little hands. I learned to let go. I learned there are more important things than clinging to certain things, even my sacred books.



 

During the months of my second pregnancy, I went through my library. I sorted out of the books I truly loved, the books that I hadn’t read that I really wanted to read. I rearranged them on my shelves with loving care. The rest I put in two boxes – one for my little guy, another for the Salvation Army. I donated the latter. Those little hands wondrously devoured their new stack. My husband was tickled by the decluttering and the free space (which we desperately needed to put away all the baby boy things to make room for incoming baby girl things).

Story time with daddy....

Am I still a neurotic when it comes to my books? Absolutely. It might even be a little worse now because I know that all those books I have on my shelves, gated off to discourage kiddie activity, are special. Those are my collectibles, my keepers, my darlings. So when it comes to friends asking if I can loan them a certain title…there’s still hesitation. That’s how the Neurotic's Guide to Book-Borrowing came about….

On Twitter, I once discussed Kresley Cole's A Hunger Like No Other and absurdly felt the urge to mention that I'd loaned my copy out to a friend and hadn't seen it since. Those Lachlain fans threw righteous fireballs at my head. And rightly so. Some of the nicest people I know break spines and dog-ear pages (or have children like me who like books, too).

What's a book-lover to do? The following is the form potential borrowers must fill out before I'm able to decide whether or not to let them anywhere near my shelves. If you’re a book neurotic like me, I invite you to use it for your own purposes….

1)  List three references - including relation and phone number

2) Are you willing to submit to a background check?

3) Have you ever committed any of the following offenses: spine-breaking, dog-earring, or bathtub reading? (Note: Owner has the right to demand a polygraph.)

4) Do you agree not to eat while handling this book?

5) If the book is damaged, are you willing to pay for a replacement? In advance?

6) Do you agree to return this book within a two-week period?

7) Can you demonstrate how far you open a book to read it? Four inches? Five? (If you open it further, please stop filling out this form and refrain from speaking to me while I reevaluate our friendship.)

8) If a dispute over a borrowed book does arise, please keep in mind that owner has the right to utilize her attorney and will not hesitate to do so….

I know I'm not alone. Any other neurotic booklovers out there? Sound off, my friends!

Retirement? Hah! by Alison Henderson

When I retired two years ago, my sister told me not to worry about being bored. Stuff would materialize to fill my time before I knew it. Boy, was she right.

I’ve always considered myself an energetic person. Before retirement, I had worked full-time outside the home for decades while raising a family, managing a home, and writing four books. I expected that level of activity to continue, only now—without the outside job—I would be able to increase my writing output exponentially. Right? Wrong.

I neglected to consider the seductive power of slower mornings. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in more than nine years. (I’m sixty, so you can probably guess the cause.) The last few years I worked, that early-morning alarm became a snarling monster, out to sabotage my mood, my motivation, and my health. Of all the benefits of retirement, being able to grab an extra hour of sleep—no matter how fitful—is my favorite.

However, lolling around in the morning, reading the paper and having breakfast in my pj’s, comes with a price. Throw in a little gardening or an errand or two, and the morning has disappeared. Social media has to take some of the blame. When I retired, we moved from Minnesota to California. The weather is fantastic, but I lost my in-person social contacts. Also, due to the time difference, I feel like I’m behind the rest of the country by the time I sit down for breakfast. I want to catch up with old and new friends on social media and check out what’s happening in the world. More time gone.

And then there’s OG. He’s around all the time. When I worked and he was home alone, I didn’t worry too much about him. He was responsible for his own time. That’s just the way things were. Now I feel guilty if I don’t spend enough time with him, don’t give him enough interaction and attention. I used to come home from work, fix dinner, watch TV with him for an hour, and then retire to my office to write. I never felt guilty. I’m not sure why the dynamic is so different now, but it is. Maybe it’s because retirement is an adventure we’re facing together in a new place, with few social contacts aside from each other. I would tell OG to get out there, do something, make friends, except that he is by nature a grumpy, old hermit and would tell me to buzz off.

Fortunately, he likes to take a siesta every day after lunch. That’s my me time, my writing time. If I were good and wrote every day, those two or three hours would be sufficient to accomplish my writing goals, but during the upheaval of our relocation I let my writing slide. Now, it’s like I’ve fallen off the horse and forgotten how to get back on. Whenever a writer tells you how important a regular writing schedule is, LISTEN TO THEM. It is so much harder to get your groove back once you’ve lost it.

Last year, for the first time in five years, I didn’t have a new book out. I’m determined not to let that happen again. I know myself and my level of ambition and motivation—I’m not likely to want to do what it takes to publish two or three titles a year—but I do want to publish one book a year on a steady, routine basis. This year, SMALL TOWN CHRISTMAS TALES is on target for a fall release, and I’ve started the second book in my female bodyguard series. I know I can finish that one next year if I muster the necessary self-discipline.

To help keep me on track, I’ve recently connected with two new critique partners, fellow Roses of Prose. I’m now responsible to other writers to produce pages on a regular basis for the first time in years. I’m excited by the possibilities. Wish me luck!

Alison

www.alisonhenderson.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alison.henderson.33

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alsnhendersn

Happy 4th of July!

"It ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other..."  ~John Adams

Nothing says summer like the fourth of July, especially in New England, comprised of states that were there “at the beginning” of the United States of America. I’m always amazed when I think about my country’s origins. It was built by brave folks who, despite the odds, fought for what they believed in.

I often wonder what George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John and Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson would think of the nation today. Would they be impressed by our progress? Would they approve of what we’ve done with independence?

Would their hearts break over the injustices that exist amidst the freedom they helped win for us?

I’d be willing to bet they’d give us a thumbs up on some things and a thumbs down on others. What words of wisdom would they share with us? What changes would they make? Would they be willing to fight for the nation as it stands today?

Simply watching the news or surfing the web reveals all of the problems the United States faces on a regular basis. Financial woes. Environmental crises. Racism. Violence. Drugs. I have to believe, however, that for every negative, something positive is also happening in the country. Someone is working on solving problems. Someone is finding solutions. Someone is keeping the fight going.

Because freedom is not automatic.

It needs continual defense. It needs people who understand its value. It needs people willing to do whatever it takes. It needs unity.

So today, don’t consider yourself Italian or Irish or French or Portuguese or whatever your heritage involves.

Instead, be American.

Be American and remember the sacrifices that have been made and will continue to be made in the name of liberty.

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com

The Maple Leaf Series, available now. Book One, More Than Pancakes, is always FREE in ebook.

Hot Topics -- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness... by Jannine Gallant

I never do political, simply because I'm in the business of selling books, and I don't want to piss people off. But, the Fourth of July is fast approaching...so I'm going to say what I think about Independence. Also, please note these are my opinions and not necessarily opinions held by my fellow Roses.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." I'm, of course, quoting the Declaration of Independence. This is what our forefathers based our government on. This is what we should all be living by. So, here I go, jumping into the two hot topics of the day.

1) The uproar over the Confederate Flag and all things glorifying the Old South. Honest to God, I never gave this any thought before the proverbial poop hit the fan. I sighed over Gone With the Wind and found it very romantic. I think most people do. That's the problem. We're romanticizing something that was anything but. An entire way of life was built on slavery. What about the right to Liberty mentioned above? I was a history major. I fully realize the Civil War was fought over many things, not the least of which was economics. 150 years ago people had vastly different perceptions of just who was equal to whom. Most of us are smart enough to have progressed. But certainly not all. So, what does the Confederate Battle Flag represent? If you believe what you see posted all over Facebook, many of those in the south are of the opinion it represents their heritage. The group espousing black rights feels it represents oppression of an entire race. I agree with both points. That flag flew in a fight to preserve a way of life that included slavery. So, should people be allowed to fly that flag today? Everyone has the right to the pursuit of happiness in their own private space. So, I guess that means flying whatever flag you want over your home since I'm all about individual freedoms. If you have the poor taste to fly the Nazi flag in your yard, or you choose to fly a Confederate flag or a rainbow flag or a skull & crossbones, that's your business. You should be able to do what you want if you aren't harming anyone, even if people find your actions offensive... But you should also have the common sense to realize that what you do says a lot about your beliefs, and your actions do affect others. People like the crazy-ass bastard who killed nine innocent people because he felt those 150 year old traditions were right and should be followed today feed off these symbols. Do I think the Confederate flag should fly over a government building. Hell no! Do we fly the British flag over the White House? No state government should proclaim by their actions they follow the tenants represented by anything but our current law of the land. What about all those statues dedicated to Southern Civil War heroes. I'm torn here. I respect history. I respect art. I think the people freaking out and acting like we're trying to erase history and cover up the Civil War by taking down statues have lost it. The call to take down statues isn't about hiding our past. It's about not glorifying a war fought to preserve slavery. Do I think all the men who fought for succession were evil? Of course not. I think they were raised to believe something they never questioned. Were they wrong in their thinking? Hell, yes! Do those statues have a place on public property? Maybe not, but my love of history and art would hate to see them go. I see them as art not a rallying cry, but maybe that's just me. As for Gone With the Wind, it's a work of fiction. We don't burn books. You can write about whatever you want. But maybe I won't think the book is quite so romantic anymore...

2) The Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage. I don't even understand why this is an issue. Hello, people, we all have the right to pursuit of happiness. Just because a person believes marriage is between a man and a woman for moral or religious reasons doesn't mean they get to force those beliefs on someone else! Good God, our country was built on religious freedom. Our country is supposed to be based on the opposite of religious persecution. And telling a whole segment of the population what they can and can't do because it goes against your religious beliefs is just that: religious persecution. Our country is based on separation of church and state. One has no business infringing on the other. Call your beliefs what you want: Christian, old-fashioned, traditional, whatever. Live your life the way you want to live it holding any belief you choose near and dear to your heart. That's your right as an American. But let everyone else live their lives the way they choose, too. Discrimination is not okay. As long as you aren't hurting someone with your actions, you are allowed your own personal pursuit of happiness.

So, maybe some people's sensibilities are offended by our individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we each have those rights. We can each express who we are and what we believe. Be true to yourself...but don't try to force your beliefs on others. I'll get off my soapbox now. I hope you all have a happy Fourth of July as we remember the liberties our forefathers fought to preserve.

Suspense Stories Everywhere! by Rolynn Anderson

The scenery on the north coast of Kauai is too glorious for words, a range of spiked green mountains falling to bright blue seas edged by miles of warm sandy beaches.  Dazzling beauty.  Makes me want to buy a house overlooking Hanalei Bay, taking in the Bali Hai vista, forever.

So when I saw an OPEN HOUSE sign beckoning me to check out such a house, I did.  Drove my car right up that driveway. Never mind the house's five million dollar price tag.  Though it's much more fun to view this spectacular place in person, here's the house on a quirky YouTube, in two parts.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5lrwqK_zRU  Wendy's Amazing House

But the house is only one part of my blog topic.  More interesting (since we can't buy the house), is the fact that Wendy, the owner, is the widow of a man who was 'lost' in a desert in California.  Her husband was found much later, dead, in a car, in the Los Angeles river, with his hands chopped off. AND HE WAS A WRITER! The story is being told to us by Wendy's present boyfriend, the real estate agent who is helping her sell the five million dollar house.  Can you believe it?

Even while I drove away from the house and the gobsmacking vista, my novelist brain was awhirl!  Who was this handless man and is there some relationship to who he was and how Wendy became so wealthy? Plots begin forming in my mind.  How about in yours?  The funny thing...I was less interested in the real story than I was in developing scenes and characters that went in directions I controlled.  Is that something peculiar to writers, I wonder?

Once again, with this chance encounter, I learned how truth is stranger than fiction...and how my brain whirls when delicious suspense (and fabulous views) brighten my life.  Question is: based on your experience, do writers experience life in different ways than non-writers (like this need to take real plots in different directions)?

Example for me:  I watched a TV show about savants, including an actor.  These were people who have weird ways of remembering events.  Did I want to learn more about her?  No.  I wanted to develop my own 'savant,' entangled in a suspense plot.  Result:  Lie Catchers, set in Petersburg, Alaska, a heroine with a strange 'filing system.'

Blurb:

Two unsolved murders will tear apart an Alaska fishing town unless a writer and a government agent reveal their secret obsessions.

Treasury agent Parker Browne is working undercover in Petersburg, Alaska to investigate a money scam and a murder. His prime suspect, Liv Hanson, is a freelance writer struggling to save her family’s business. Free spirited, full of life, and with a talent for catching liars, she fascinates Parker.

Trying to prove she’s a legitimate writer who cares about Petersburg’s issues, Liv pens a series of newspaper articles about an old, unsolved murder. When her cold case ties in with Parker’s investigation, bullets start to fly.

Parker understands money trails, and Liv knows the town residents. But he gave up on love two years ago, and she trusts no one, especially with her carefully guarded secret. If they mesh their skills to find the killers, will they survive the fallout?