Bell Bridge Books

What Women Really Want

by Judith Arnold

A few years ago, a woman in my circle announced that she and her husband of many years were separating. Nothing permanent, she assured us. They were going to sell their house, rent two apartments, and reevaluate in a year. They still loved each other; they just wanted to live apart for a while.

The predominant reaction among my friends was…envy.

Mind you, we’re all in solid, long-term marriages. We love our husbands. Yet every woman I spoke to expressed the wish that she could do what my friend was doing.

I remembered my mother’s envy when my sister graduated from college and took an apartment in Manhattan. To call this apartment small would be charitable. I’ve seen bigger closets. But it was hers and hers alone, and my mother—who at that time lived in a comfortable seven-room house and had been married to my father for about twenty-five years—said, “This is my dream! An apartment like this, all to myself!” My father died some months after their sixtieth anniversary, and though she misses him, my mother now has—and loves—a cozy little apartment all to herself.

When you’re a novelist, you can make your dreams come true on paper, if not in real life. The dream my friend was living with her husband in their his-and-hers apartments seemed like a great premise for a novel. Thus was born Goodbye to All That. When female acquaintances of a certain age asked me what I was working on, I’d describe the book to them and they’d sigh and say, “Oh, I wish I could do that!”

The romance novels I’ve written explore the joys and emotional risks of falling in love. But for many women, after we’ve done the falling-in-love thing, the ’til-death-do-us-part thing, the happily-ever-after thing, routine sets in. We spend our days doing whatever needs doing that no one else wants to do. We make sure the kids have their school lunches with them. We remember the doctor appointments and the music lessons. We run the laundry, stock the refrigerator, and get the car to the shop for servicing, because if we don’t do it, it won’t get done. We do, do, do for everyone else.

We take care of our families because we love them. But the notion of living only for ourselves, tending to our own needs before we tend to anyone else’s, is as exciting a fantasy as being swept off our feet by a sexy hero.

My husband and I will be celebrating our thirty-fifth anniversary this fall. I adore him. He still makes me laugh. He still makes me think. He’s still cute. But every now and then, I find myself thinking about Ruth Bendel, the family matriarch who one day says “goodbye to all that” in my novel and moves into her own apartment, just to see what it feels like to be in charge of the remote control, to sleep in the center of the bed, to answer to no one but herself. A woman can dream, can’t she?

Find what YOU really want in GOODBYE TO ALL THAT – an April Monthly Deal for only $1.99!!

“The Mother I Will Never Forget”

by Phyllis Schieber

My mother, a survivor of the Holocaust, thought it was a miracle that she could feed, clothe and keep her children safe. For a woman who had survived the Tranistria Death March when she was fourteen, it must have seemed an extraordinary triumph. But many years later, she discovered Dr. Leo Buscaglia, an inspirational writer and speaker, on television, and she learned that it was also important to verbally express love to those you cherished. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.” From then on, every conversation ended with, “I love you.” I admired her willingness to learn and to grow. She was charming too. People were drawn to her, captivated by her beauty, her wit and flirtatious ways. But she was fragile, damaged. I seem to have always known that just as I always knew it was my responsibility to care for her.

After The Manicurist was released, I was interviewed on Blogaid Radio. The host, Mananna Stephenson, suggested that the relationship between Tessa, the protagonist in The Manicurist, and Ursula, her mother, had a dynamic similar to my relationship with my mother. Ursula, who is extremely troubled and needy, depends on Tessa to help navigate the world. Though I shouldn’t have been, I was surprised by the resemblance between the circumstances of Tessa’s life to my own life.

I frequently write about the complex relationships between mothers and daughters. I loved my mother. She could infuriate me with her stubbornness and her neediness, but she could also touch my heart in ways that no one else could. Though she hardly wore any, she loved make-up and always bought items that came with a special offer. Once I said, “Mom, why do you buy all this stuff?” She smiled and said, “Because once in awhile, you just feel like a new lipstick.” She was right. My mother was shaped by an experience so devastating that I often wondered how she managed to still find joy in anything, to still love. But she did.

The relationship between Tessa and Ursula is so laden with disappointments and pain that it seems unlikely the two will ever be able to overcome their differences. Yet, throughout, they are unable to escape the bond between mother and daughter, even if it is a tenuous bond. From time-to-time in her later years, my mother would ask, “Was I a good mother?” I always reassured her that she had been a very good mother. And it was the truth. She did the best she could. And I believe that Ursula does the same. She wants to be good mother. That matters to her as it does to all of us who are mothers.

I dream about my mother sometimes. She’s always young, always smiling and laughing. Sometimes I’m cutting the threads between the scarves she sewed for a few cents each. I’m reading to her as the pastel colored chiffon tumbles around me, and she nods, listening and humming a song she could never quite remember the words to. That’s the mother I choose to remember. She was a good mother.  That’s the mother I remember, the mother I will never forget.

 THE MANICURIST by Phyllis Schieber is a March Monthly 100 for only $1.99! Get it today! 

“Like Lightning in a Bottle”

by Anne Stuart

Every now and then a writer has something absolutely fabulous happen to her.  All the stars are in alignment, the gods are smiling, and life is good.

About twenty years ago I wrote what still remains possibly my favorite book ever, NIGHTFALL, and the circumstances were blessed indeed.

I’d been busy writing romances for the Harlequin American, Harlequin Intrigue, and occasionally the Silhouette Intimate Moments lines.  Series writing is always full of rules:  I had editors count how many times I said “bitch” and “bastard” (and if you’re familiar with my work you know my hero and heroine tend to think of their true love in such cantankerous terms).  I’ve traded two “bitches” for a “bastard” when I really wanted it, and made a mostly unsuccessful attempt at behaving myself.  As anyone will tell you, I’ve never been very good at being good.

I wrote books where the hero was the son of a mass murderer, or he thought he was the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper and the heroine was the reincarnation of a victim.  I had heroes pretending to be crazy, heroes who were unrepentant cat burglars, disfigured hermits, 1930’s pilots, shapeshifters before they were popular, ghosts from the Valentine’s Day Massacre, fallen angels.  I broke all sorts of rules and had a good time doing it, but everyone kept asking me when I was going to do a “big book.”  It was a time when most series writers were moving out of the category business, but I kept writing my edgy books and staying exactly where I was.  Whenever I came up with a proposal for a mainstream romantic suspense novel it was turned down and ended up going to Silhouette Intimate Moments (and both times becoming a RITA finalist – NOW YOU SEE HIM and SPECIAL GIFTS).  I finally gave up trying to please anyone and began writing historicals, having a wicked good time with them (literally) when out of the blue Jennifer Enderlin, then at Penguin/Signet called up my agent and offered a six figure contract for two romantic suspense novels.

After being flabbergasted for a few hours I said yes, and the idea appeared to me like manna from heaven.  I’d had no plans, no ideas, and suddenly it was all there before me.  I took all sorts of bits from the news – Norman Mailer got a murderer named Jack Henry Abbott paroled on the basis of his poetry (and his own ego) and Abbott ending up murdering someone.  There was a famous crime in Philadelphia where a teacher murdered a woman and her two children, though the two children were never found.  One of our endless Middle Eastern wars was on, giving me good role models for the father-in-law, and it all came together in a book so good it could cure cancer.

Now I’ve been told that’s a very offensive thing to say – that books can’t cure cancer.  But I’m basing it on Norman Cousins’s classic work, ANATOMY OF AN ILLNESS, where he discussed how laughter, watching Marx Brothers’ movies, cured him of a wretched disease.  It seemed completely logical to me – I think music or any art form can do the same thing.  When a book or a symphony or a movie speaks to you so exactly that you’re transported to another dimension then your body fills with all sorts of good stuff like endorphins.  Stuff that will heal you.  Personally I think that’s one reason athletes are healthy.  Not because they exercise, but because being a professional athlete requires you to get in “the zone” which is exactly where those endorphins etc.  lurk.

NIGHTFALL can cure cancer for some people – if it happens to speak directly to their fantasies.  It could, presumably, make other people ill with its intensity and darkness before the ultimate redemption.  I consider it a great gift to be able to write books that are that powerful.  Many reviews of my work say “Anne Stuart is not for everyone” or “not for the faint of heart,” and while I wish everyone could love my work I know that’s impossible.  At least I take comfort in the fact that few people are lukewarm about my work, and about NIGHTFALL in particular.

(BTW Norman Cousins was a good man, a peace activist but a sexist pig who believed women didn’t belong in the work force.  No one’s perfect).

A book like NIGHTFALL is like lightning in a bottle – no matter how powerful your will and your talent, you can’t make one happen.  It’s one of those rare, blessed times in a long career that carries you through the less inspired times, and reviews, sales, etc. mean nothing.  It’s my badge of honor, and I wear it proudly.

NIGHTFALL is a March Monthly 100 for only $1.99! Grab it today!

“I found my true being…”

by Augusta Trobaugh

I have always believed that Southern writing is character-driven, rather than being plot-driven. So in this story, I brought together characters (folks!) who were all from different generations, social positions, and race.

I have so much fun watching as these characters drift into each others’ lives and begin interacting with each other in a most completely authentic manner.  At that time, I become an “observer,” rather than a “writer,” because at some time or other in a story, the characters simply take over, and I am left to chuckle at them or to weep for them.

Also, when I was growing up in rural Jefferson County, Georgia, I became fascinated by the many creeks in the area.  In particular, I remember being delighted when, riding in the car with my mother, we crossed the bridge over Boggy Gut Creek.  As a child, I pronounced it “boogie goot,” but my mother corrected me, and I was even more delighted by the real name.

I grew up in Stellaville, Georgia (population 82), and right down at the bottom of the hill  from my home was Brier Creek, where I watched salamanders and minnows and also the antics of several otters.

When the character of Pansy Jordan came to mind, I was impressed by her intention to do as she believed the Lord Jesus Christ had bade her to do: “Get yourself washed clean in the River Jordan.” Such was her strong intent that she changed her name from “Pansy” to “River.”  But when she finally came to realize exactly how far away the real River Jordan was, she consented to be baptized in Jordan Creek.  In that way, my love of Georgia’s numerous creeks was satisfied.

I had a truly blessed childhood, roaming free (usually on horseback) through the rural areas.  I found my true BEING in all of nature – especially the forests and creeks.

Find your true being with RIVER JORDAN – a March Monthly 100 for only $1.99!

“A Sort of Homecoming for Me”

by Virginia Brown

I have a confession: I am an avid Anglophile. Since I was a small child, I have loved any and everything I could read, see at the movies, or watch on TV about the British Isles. Until recently, I never understood quite why I have always been so fascinated with anything English. A few years ago I began to research our family genealogy, and at last I understand. My mother’s ancestors came from England and Ireland, half of my father’s from Wales and Scotland. On my mother’s side I was able to trace our lineage back to Waleran de Gyrlington, born in 1058. He married a local Yorkshire girl, and happily set about creating a long line of descendants. Perhaps that is why, upon my first visit to England, I actually wept with emotion at setting down on the runway of Gatwick Airport. It was a sort of homecoming for me.

In researching background for NEVER TEMPT A DUKE, I chose Hampshire, a beautiful location on the southern coast with a rich history and gorgeous homes. I shamelessly borrowed from other country manors, castles, and villages to create my hero’s home and lineage. While the surrounding hills and vales are as accurate as I can describe them, the house itself is a composite of other impressive homes scattered over the English countryside. It was easy for me to imagine the Duke of Deverell in such a setting, and even easier to imagine a young American girl’s awe at finding herself living in Deverell Hall as his ward. Of course, Alyssa’s arrival was fraught with anxiety since she was pretending to be her twin brother, a deception that Blake Crandell, Duke of Deverell would certainly not appreciate. But what else could she do when faced with the alternative of languishing in a female academy at home in Virginia? Her twin, Nicky, had inherited an earldom through their father, but Alyssa’s future was uncertain. Since the duke had been made guardian, he had control over their lives until they reached the age of twenty-one. Nicky chose to go to sea, and Alyssa embarked on a deception that would change her life forever. As an American in an unfamiliar land with unfamiliar customs, she had much to learn, and never expected to fall in love with the duke. Nor had the duke any expectations of love, especially with someone he’d watched grow from a rebellious girl into a beautiful young woman. Deverell had few illusions, having been disappointed in love before, and had vowed to never allow himself to be tempted into such dangerous emotion again.

But he hadn’t anticipated the power of Alyssa’s desire or his own response. . . .

NEVER TEMPT A DUKE is an Amazon Monthly 100 for March for only $1.99! Grab it today!

Writing About Friendship

by Melissa Ford

Writers are supposed to write about what they know, right?  And what do we know better than our friendships?  There were the friendships our parents set up for us; the children of their friends that we were expected to share our toys with simply because our parents wanted to hang out.  (Yes, I am guilty of passing along this fine tradition to my own children.)

There were the first friendships we formed on our own on the playground.  The friends that broke our heart or didn’t return our affection or were too clingy.  The ones that dumped us.  The ones we drifted away from.  The ones that saved our lives.  The ones that we whispered our secrets to in the dark during a sleepover.

There are the old friends that we’ve been together with for more years than we haven’t been friends, and the new friends that we’ve intensely connected with in the last year or two.

See?  As a subject, it’s pretty ripe for the write-what-you-know rule.

But being close to the subject is tricky.  No one wants to see themselves show up on the page, and it’s bad form to dissect your friendships in front of an audience.  Sometimes we can’t really explain why we’re friends with someone, or why we’re not.  We may not know what we did right or what went wrong.

Sometimes friendships defy words, though I never stop trying to write about the topic.

Life from Scratch is about a woman named Rachel finding herself after the dissolution of a marriage.  She finds her voice through the act of writing but also seeing what she wants reflected in her relationship with her best friend, Arianna.  Where do we first learn how we want to be loved? Our friendships.  And it’s where we constantly return to measure our relationships.

LIFE FROM SCRATCH is Amazon’s monthly deal for March for only $1.99.  Read it with a friend and discuss it over coffee.  Don’t forget to tell your friend how you could never get by without her.

Are these fakes, or are they mermaid sightings?

by Deborah Smith

For centuries, people all over the world have claimed to see mermaids. Either the beautiful, Hollywood siren type, with flowing hair and bodacious bosoms, but more often an odd, ugly creature with a humanoid head and torso but the lower body of a fish, dolphin or seal.

There have been photos, and drawings, and presentations of weird skeletons found on remote beaches. But until recent  years there weren’t videos.

Now, there are.

The amateur photographer has a shaky grip. The video blurs in and out. Its  focus is on a large rock in the edge of the tide, far below the cliff where the camera owner and his friend stand.

“I don’t think that’s a seal, man.”

“I’m trying to zoom in. Where’s the zoom button? Ouch. There.”

The image closes in. A large, dark form with tail flukes like a dolphin’s is stretched out on the rock.

“Where’s the Zoology on this? That is NOT a seal, man!”

Suddenly, the creature twists toward the camera, looking directly at the two young guys on the cliff. It has a pale area where a face and torso would be. The details show little more, perhaps a hint of dark eyes?

The mysterious being whips around, propels itself over the edge of the rock using what are clearly a pair of human-like arms, and splashes into the surf.

A hoax? Great use of computer wizardy, with actors pretending to be two hikers who just happen to capture video of a mermaid sunning herself in an isolated spot along the coast of Israel?

Regardless, it will send goosebumps down your spine.

http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/mermaids/videos/mermaid-sighting-in-kiryat-yam/

And then there’s this video:

Two men sit in a deep-sea observation capsule several thousand feet below the ocean surface in the frigid  waters off the coast of Greenland. They’re marine experts who routinely go to those depths as they use sonar to map the ocean floor for oil and gas exploration.

But they’ve also grown curious about marine sounds they can’t identify. An ordinary listener would say the high-pitched whistles and piercing shrieks are just the songs of whales. But these two men have heard every kind of whale song there is, and this is very different.

They sit in the blue-black light of the tiny pod. A main camera films them and the view in front of the pod, which has big windows that allow the occupants to see almost entirely around them and above them. The pod’s headlights beam ghostly white light into the sheer darkness.

As they listen intently to the unknown song, one researcher points a small video camera  upward, hoping the mystery creature will swim past, above the pod. His back is turned to the pod’s front window and the white glow of its lights.

Suddenly, a ghost-white hand slaps the window, inches from his body. The loud thump can be heard. For a split second the hand splays on the surface.

A palm, four fingers and thumb. Human. But webbed.

The researchers jump in fear. They pivot toward the hand. It pulls away with a swishing motion. The creature—or human being—disappears below the pod, out of sight.

When they watch the video from the front-view camera, pausing it to study the image frame by frame, they see a pale, sunken face with distinctly human features, slender shoulders and arms.

The visitor gazes back at them before it swooshes away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ROaTfBILM8

An elaborate hoax for a television special on mermaids?

Most likely.

Because, as all of us who believe in merfolk will tell you, they’re far too smart to be caught on tape.

Discover merpeople for yourself with ALICE AT HEART a March Monthly 100 – on sale for only $1.99!

“The Initial Blooming of My Imagination”

by Augusta Trobaugh

During my childhood, a “Swan Place” actually existed. It was a two-storied, unpainted house in Jefferson County, Georgia, set well back from the unpaved road, beyond a cotton field, and protected from road and field dust by many Sassafras and Crepe Myrtle trees.

My great-grandparents, Eliza Ann Narcissus Aldred Connell and Nathan Jerome Connell, lived in that large old house and provided stagecoach drivers, passengers, and horses a haven where they could eat, be refreshed, and spend the night.  The entire second floor was divided into two large bedrooms – one for gentlemen and one for ladies.  From what I have learned, this original “Swan Place” was selected as a rest stop for the stagecoach that ran from Savannah to Augusta.

Because I grew up during an era when children could safely wander around (especially in completely rural areas), I often went to that deserted old house, riding my horse there from my own home about half a mile away.  I had not personally known either of my great-grandparents, but I always felt something of their lives when I was there.  I could imagine my great-grandmother cooking in the detached kitchen (well away from the main house, in fear of kitchen stove fire) – the kitchen sort of a separate little cabin resting on logs and equipped with large iron latches, to which mules could be hitched to pull a burning kitchen well away from the house itself.

In that old house, I dreamed my dreams, inserting my great-grandparents into a story that I made up.

Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the initial blooming of my imagination.

When I wrote “Swan Place,” I created a much grander home than the old, unpainted house of my childhood, but the feeling of sanctuary was the same,  as was the fanciful thinking I had done there.

It’s a treasured memory!

SWAN PLACE is a March Monthly 100 for only $1.99! Get it today!

Get into the holiday spirit with this yummy recipe

from Skye Taylor’s novel – TRUSTING WILL (The third

in The Camerons of Tide’s Way)

Blueberry & white chocolate Scones – from Sandy Cameron’s Kitchen

2 cups flour                              4 TBSP butter melted or veg oil

1 tsp salt                                   2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar                           ½ cup cream or milk

4 tsp baking powder                 1 cup frozen  blueberries (or raspberries​)

½ cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°

Stir all dry ingredients together, then add butter, eggs, cream or milk and mix well.

Fold in berries and chocolate bits.

Spoon onto baking sheet lined with foil and sprayed with Pam. Sprinkle tops with a little white sugar if desired. Bake for 20 minutes until bottoms of scones are lightly browned and top springs back with pressed with finger.  Eat still warm from oven or cool.

Go grab FALLING FOR ZOEY and LOVING  MEG today!

And make sure you grab TRUSTING WILL – coming soon! 

By Forris Day Jr. of Scared Stiff Reviews

Got Zombies? Dead (A Lot) does. Dead (A Lot) by Howard Odentz is fun book about a zombie apocalypse as experienced by a group of young teenagers. One day they are just doing the regular things that kids do then the next morning the world is forever changed when a strange virus is released into the world that changes most denizens of this Earth into slow moving and very hungry zombies. Unfortunately for our adventurers a shot to the head does not kill these decrepit bags of flesh as it does in most zombie stories. But a bit of fire seems to do the trick.

Odentz’s tale takes place during the fall season in New England. It is a time when people from all over come to drive the back roads admiring the foliage that this part of the country has to offer. Too bad many of the leaf peepers have now become a part of the landscape, dead like the leaves they came to view, searching for food to satisfy their never ending hunger.

Tripp Light and his twin sister Trina seem to be immune to the virus that has turned most of the world into a bad B-movie. As they go in search of their parents they meet up with other survivors who have their own strengths to add to their ever growing group. Alone they will die but together this ragged acne prone bunch of teenagers just might have a chance. Follow along as they travel from their destroyed home to go in search of their Aunts house where they believe their parents are hiding.

A fun and witty zombie apocalypse narrative that will bring a smile to your face as you discover (or remember) how the teenage mind operates in times of difficulty. The dialog is clever and the characters are realistic. The locations are based on real ones and that is pretty cool because they were recognizable to me as I am from New England and I know most of the locations really well. As a matter of fact the crew drives by the house I grew up in in Three Rivers, Massachusetts. Kind of a treat for me as I imagined the sidewalks that I rode my bike on as a kid, filled with all my neighbors turned zombie. I still think some of my neighbors I had as a kid were indeed zombies.

Dead (A Lot) is aimed at the “Young Adult” market but I feel it is an enjoyable read to anyone of any age who enjoys a good zombie story full of fun characters and entertaining zombies. Yes, I found many of the zombies funny and amusing because they could not get themselves out of many simple predicaments that us living folks take for granted everyday. For example turning doorknobs is beyond a zombies knowledge so if they are inside that is where they remain unless they can find some other means of egress. They are forever hungry and always have something up their sleeve…well the ones who still have arms that is.

Make sure you grab DEAD (A LOT) for only $1.99 through Friday!

And don’t forget about Howard Odentz’s new release –BLOODY BLOODY APPLE – available now!