Bell Bridge Books

December 7th, 1941 was my father’s 15th birthday. He was out in the park across from his house playing football with his neighborhood buddies when his mother called him in. He wasn’t happy that his play was being interrupted, but you didn’t mess with my grandmother.

She had the radio turned on, and that’s when he learned that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. He was horrified. He tried to sign up for duty the next day, but they refused him because he was obviously too young.

For two years he waited and waited while his father taught him all about the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. At 17, still supposedly too young, he applied again. This time he was accepted into the Navy. By the time he left the Navy he was Captain of his ship. And the Navy paid for his college education.

To this day he is the most patriotic man I know. And July 4th means everything to him because it’s one of the days that means so much to our country in the scheme of things. So we’ll grill out and we’ll watch fireworks and we’ll talk about what this date really means. And it means the world to him. And he taught that to his kids.

Happy 4th, everyone!

Small Town, Big Day

Judith Arnold

My quaint New England town, more than 380 years old, takes Independence Day seriously. Our colonial militia defeated the British army in the Battle of Concord. My husband’s daily commute takes him through Minuteman National Park, which preserves the route Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott rode to alert the settlers in the farming villages west of Boston that the Redcoats were headed their way. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem commemorating that ride was written in my town at the Wayside Inn, which is still in operation. My town’s zip code is 01776.

I treasure the town’s history, but even more, I treasure what it is today. Just a half-hour’s drive from Boston, it contains winding roads, small farms, and dense forest tracts that remain unchanged from the days when the Wampanoag tribe occupied this territory, long before the white settlers arrived.

Of course, the town is firmly ensconced in the 21^st century. We have WiFi. We have supermarkets. We have traffic jams—oh, man, do we ever have traffic jams! But we’re still a small town, with a small-town Fourth of July parade. It features fire engines clanging up the main road to the town center, sirens blaring. A caravan of antique cars. Floats sponsored by local businesses. Floats sponsored by churches, scout troops and the police department’s D.A.R.E. program, designed to help keep kids from using alcohol and drugs. Children on bicycles adorned with crepe-paper streamers. Politicians carrying banners and shaking hands. The parade usually ends with a wagon drawn by a team of huge, regal Clydesdales.

I created a fictionalized version of my town, which I named Rockford for some of my Bell Bridge Books. Jill in Goodbye to All That lives in Rockford and reserves the “Old Rockford Inn” for her daughter’s bat mitzvah reception. My mystery series, which Bell Bridge Books will launch next year, is also set in Rockford, where the heroine—inspired in part by my younger son’s fourth-grade teacher—plays recreational soccer on a team called the Rockettes and occasionally drops by the “Old Rockford Inn” for a drink.

My current release, The April Tree, is set in the fictional town of Wheatley, which is also based on my hometown. It’s a place where tragedies can occur, but so can healing.

Reading The April Tree, you will recognize Becky, Elyse, Florie and Mark as people who could have grown up in any small town and who suffer a traumatic loss, one that complicates their passage to adulthood and tests their trust in the world around them. I hope you will also think of them as people who spent many a Fourth of July standing along the edge of the town’s main road, cheering at the fire engines, waving at the scouts on the floats and the children on the decorated bicycles, and gasping in awe at the grandeur of the Clydesdales. They’re small-town American kids, struggling to make sense of life, yearning to make peace with the whimsies of fate—and discovering the meaning of independence in all its manifestations.

Happy Independence Day!

FIREWORKS, FEISTY HORSES AND FRISKY COWBOYS
Kathleen Eagle

If you’re ever in North Dakota on the Fourth of July, head straight for Mandan, “Where the West Begins.”   Bismarck and Mandanare the Twin Cities of North Dakota, and like my current home near the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the cities are separated by a great river—the Missouri in North Dakota and the Mississippi in Minnesota.  In both cases, a state capitol looks across the water at its sister city.  In both places, the two siblings have two very different personalities.  It’s East meets West personified, where cowboys and Indians may be one and the same.  My husband’s people, the Lakota, are sometimes called “West River Sioux.”  Their Dakota cousins’ homeland stretches from east of the Missouri as far as the Mississippi.

THIS TIME FOREVER, my latest release from Bell Bridge Books, begins as rodeo cowboy Cleve Black Horse runs into serious problems on his way to the annual Fourth of July Mandan Rodeo Days, advertised nowadays as “The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Boots On.”  You couldn’t prove it by Cleve—he didn’t make it to the rodeo—but I can tell you from experience that Fourth of July in Mandan, while maybe not the most fun I’ve ever had wearing boots, is definitely right up there in the top tier of good times.  When we lived in North Dakota, we rarely missed what I consider to be the real Western rodeo—outdoors, old-fashioned grandstand bleachers, clowns shouting out the same jokes you hear every year, a snow cone for every kid and a pretty blonde buckle bunny for every cowboy.

There’s an afternoon  parade down Main Street, of course, home of thriving local stores and lively saloons.  One of our favorite features is Art In the Park, where artists and crafters sell everything from fine pottery to funny whirligigs.  I have many treasures made by people I came to know through Art In the Park.  If you appreciate American Indian Art—and who doesn’t?—you’ll find it in the Five Nations Gallery at the Mandan Depot, which isn’t too far from the park.  One of the beauties of Mandanis that nothing is too far from anything else.

On “Patriot Night,” July 3, the rodeo committee does a fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project.  On the Fourth, the evening rodeo is followed by fireworks, made especially wondrous by the North Dakota night sky.  Most of my books are set in the Dakotas, where the sky is everywhere you look, and the stars are gloriously bright and abundant.  You have to see it for yourself.  Day or night, sunrise or sunset, no IMAX or Omni Theater or Biosphere will ever do justice to the Dakota sky.  It’s “America the Beautiful” in real life, real time.

And that’s what the Fourth of July is all about.  Have a good one!

DOWN WITH NARNIA. UP WITH GLOME.

By Ricardo Bare

“Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.” 

Every writer can probably point to a short list of authors or books that are their favorite influences. The stories that left deep impact craters on their souls and set their imaginations on fire. The authors that seemed to speak right into their hearts and spurred them on to want to be writers themselves.

For me, one of those authors is C.S. Lewis. Most of you are probably thinking about Narnia right about now, maybe picturing a golden lion, or Tilda Swinton affecting a coldly wicked glare. But let me stop that train before it leaves the station. Narnia is not why I name C.S. Lewis. Not by a longshot.

Instead, picture a woman with a face so ugly she hides it behind a mask. Her name is Orual, and she’s queen of a country called Glome, a land vaguely north of Greece, lost somewhere in the mists of time. Queen Orual hates the gods for taking everything she loves. These are her opening words, in C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece, Till We Have Faces:

“I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of the gods. I have no husband nor child, nor hardly a friend, through whom they can hurt me. My body, this lean carrion that still has to be washed and fed and have clothes hung about it daily with so many changes, they may kill as soon as they please.”

My experience is probably inverted from what I imagine is typical. I didn’t read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when I was a kid, and I didn’t watch that BBC show with the giant flying puppet of Aslan. The first book of his I ever read was something called Out of the Silent Planet, a strange little science fiction book about a man who travels to mars and meets all kinds of interesting creatures. I read a bunch of other works by Lewis after that, including Till We Have Faces.

It wasn’t until many years later that I finally read the Narnia tales, probably out of some sense of duty. Honestly, I don’t think I even realized he wrote them until I was looking at the cover of one of the books (I’m kind of clueless sometimes about popular culture).

I’m going to make a bold, maybe snobbish, statement. If you’re a fan of Aslan, brace yourself. Narnia is a weak and thin broth compared to the nourishment you will find in Till We Have Faces. The Chronicles of Narnia is Turkish Delight, Till We Have Faces is meat, red and juicy on the bone.

On the surface it’s a wonderful re-telling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but you don’t have to know anything about that to enjoy it. The story is really about love. Real transformative love, and all the other things we call love but are really vanity, or selfish possessiveness. It’s incredibly wise about human nature. It is beautiful and it is moving, and it’s why when I think about authors and stories that have inspired me, I think about Lewis.

This is my recommendation. If you like Lewis, you owe it to yourself to read the best story he ever wrote, Till We Have Faces.

In fact, I’d read it twice.

TODAY ONLY Jack of Hearts by Ricardo Bare is only $1.99 on Amazon Kindle!

JUST THIS ONCE

by Trish Jensen

So how many people here actually have a bucket list? Things you want to do at least once before, you know, you can’t do them any longer?

Personally, I actually never had one, at least not written down or even in my head until the day I was told I had about two weeks to live. That was almost nine years ago. But the moment I heard that news two things entered my shocked brain. One, that I had to write a will, and two, there was a long list of things I’d never tried that I had no time to try.

This is something that happens to a minister’s daughter, Shannon Walsh when she’s trapped in her back yard by what seemed to be a ferocious beast of a dog who was intent on tearing her apart. In those frightening seconds she begins an instant bucket list; a bunch of things she’s always wanted to do that now she’d never get the chance to experience.

Strangely enough number one on her list was to do something wild, like have a wicked affair with a bad boy, a man who’s all wrong for her. But just once, because of course her life was planned out from the day she popped into the world. When she was old enough, she’d marry a pious member of her small town, settle down and have the perfect family.

In those last seconds she mourns the loss of her chance to explore her wild side. So unfair she didn’t get a chance at that. It was even more important than going to SeaWorld.

But then she learns soon enough that the dog is actually a creampuff, trying to protect her from some unknown danger.

But when the dog’s owner comes to pick him up, Bucket List #1 is standing at her doorstep. Bad boy written all over his gorgeous face and body.

A sign? She didn’t know, but she also wanted to cross him off her list. She could  go to SeaWorld anytime, but he was a once in a lifetime chance. But just once. Just this once. He definitely didn’t fit into her long term goals. But wow, she was ready for just this one time, as long as he respected the fact that is was, and only could be, Just This Once. Too bad that plan blows up in both of their faces.

NOTHING BUT TROUBLE

By Trish Jensen

To say that I was something of a handful as a child would be akin to saying that nuclear weapons are a bit worrisome. The analogy is somewhat appropriate because I was a midget nuclear weapon.

For example, there was the time when I was five when I wanted cherry Jell-O, and my mother was off playing bridge. So I was determined to make it myself. I’d watched her make it for me so many times, I was certain I could pull it off. My oldest sister was on the phone with one of her girlfriends, discussing boys (oh, ick!), so I had free reign of the kitchen.

By the time I was done, the entire kitchen was cherry red and I’d nearly set the house on fire. My mother looked around, shook her head and said, “Patricia Louise, you are nothing but trouble!” I looked up at her and smiled and she saw my cherry red teeth and face and couldn’t help it. She laughed.

This was not the first nor the last time I was reminded that I was nothing but trouble. Most but not all of the times a rueful smile and promise I wouldn’t finger paint the dog again kept me out of well, the dog house. The worst were when my allowance was taken away for that week (the horror of that is too psychologically traumatizing to think about).

But the phrase always stuck with me. Nothing but trouble. What if I had a woman who was told that all of her life, too? But not in a

good way? What if it stuck with her to the point that she believed it?

That’s what happens to Laura Tanner, who grew up with a father who never let her forget she was a burden, not a treasured child?

Along the way she makes some bad choices, but is determined to be something. She scrimps and saves enough to open a bar in Manhattan, which she calls, of course, Nothing But Trouble. Along the way she meets an eclectic group of people who become best friends. One friend, Ali, comes to work for her. Ali is a psychic. A bad one. At last count, Ali is batting 0-1000 in her predictions.

So when Ali tells her one night, after reading the pulp in the Screwdriver (no tea leaves for Ali, she reads pulp) Laura had just prepared that Laura is about to meet her prince, man-shy Laura feels she’s as safe as safe can be.

Until a stranger walks into her bar and introduces himself as Brandon Prince.

Ali’s pulp can’t be right, can it?

Trish Jensen is a USA Today bestselling author.

Nothing But Trouble is now available for your NOOK or KINDLE.

Father’s Day

by Bill Allen

This year, for the first time since I was born, I have no father to celebrate with on Fathers Day. After a long, happy life, Dad passed away last winter at the young age of 92.  As one of three children, I was asked to say a few words at his funeral. My first thought was “Not gonna happen!” In the way of writers’ everywhere, I preferred putting words down on paper rather than voicing them to a crowd, particularly at a time when my emotions were sure to be raw with grief.

My sister was already preparing a thorough speech of her own, highlighting Dad’s life, so I needed something different. I decided to put together a list of a few things I learned from Dad, figuring it was something I could safely read without breaking down. I was of course wrong, but now, with a little time to process, I think it’s safe to dig out my list and dust it off for Fathers Day.  A lot of what Dad gave me had to be taught, whether through words or by example. I’m not sure if all of those things were for the best, but Dad thought they were important, so here are a few of them. Who knows? Maybe one or two apply to your fathers, too.

Dad taught me how to fix just about anything. 

He taught me a love for solving puzzles. 

He taught me to drive at least five miles per hour over the speed limit, so I don’t hold up traffic, and to pull into the middle of the intersection when waiting to make a left turn, so people can get around me. 

He taught me to spot a deer standing still in the woods, and to walk slowly and soundlessly, so I don’t scare away the wildlife.

He taught me that if I watch the ground when I walk, I’ll find all the stuff people drop.

He taught me how not to make lemon meringue pie.

He taught me not to take life too seriously.

He taught me that I should keep busy during my free hours, but that it’s okay to take time in the evening to sit in the dark and just listen. 

He taught me to spin the car around a few times on purpose after the first snowfall of the season.

He taught me that early morning is the most under-appreciated time of day.

He taught me that when you’re truly thirsty, nothing tastes better than water.

He taught me to listen before I speak.

He taught me to make fun of my own faults, and never anyone else’s.

He taught me to turn out the lights when I leave a room.

He taught me to pick up a broom and sweep when I’m out of things to do and waiting for the boss to return.

He taught me to give my body time to heal itself before I run to the doctor.

He taught me not to believe everything I’m told (unless he was the one doing the telling).

He taught me that not all kids have families like ours, so they might have different views of what is right and what is wrong.

He taught me that what I think is important will change as I grow older, and that truth is almost always disproved with experience.

He taught me that a promise made is a promise kept.

He taught me to know with certainty that if something can be accomplished, I can accomplish it.

He taught me to keep my head down during my golf swing.

He taught me to see the humor in everything. I think more than anything he wished he could have been the type to laugh at a funeral.

And he taught me that if you truly love someone, you’ll never need to tell them.

What I’m not sure he realized is that it’s okay to tell them, too.

I love you, Dad.

Bill Allen is the author of the Journals of Myrth.

WHAT IF

by Susan Kearney

Where Do You Get Your Ideas? Is the question I’m asked most frequently.

OK, I’m going to admit a secret. I don’t think of myself as a writer.  Writing was that hard boring stuff with commas and grammar that I was supposed to learn in school. But story telling?  Ah, that’s where the fun is.

My process for creating a story always seems to start with a “What if.”  For example, when I read the headline in my newspaper, Woman To Direct Secret Service, I started playing What if?  What if a woman took a bullet to save the President?

What if aliens saved the secret service agent?

And what if the alien who saved her was a sexy warrior from another world?  Now ever since I first saw Star Trek  I’ve always had a thing for sexy men in sleek space ships.  So I thought what if the man had to train the woman for an alien challenge?

OK.  So my imagination tends to go where others may not have gone before.  However, once I put my hero and heroines in space, I get to create entire new worlds.  But as a lazy writer, I tend to avoid the parts I don’t enjoy—like describing clothing. Hence, I made suits for my characters to wear that they can alter with a mere thought.

See, all this is fun.  And think about all the things one can do if the suits nullify gravity.  TheKamaSutra would need re-writing.  At least need more pictures, right?

That’s kind of how my mind works, one idea leads to another

Okay, so now I have built a world from playing What If.  What if the alien and the earthling fall in love?  Conflict is good, without it life is boring.  So mix in a common enemy—just to complicate my characters lives.  And then what if my hero can either save his home world or the woman he loves?

So my process to write a story is to play “What if.”  I don’t censor my thoughts.  I don’t say -–oh that’s too strange—-I leave that to reviewers. J

And I adore readers who leave reviews of my books all over the Internet. It’s especially fun to hear how excited readers are about the re-release of The Rystani Warrior series in e-books and print.

Coming late June 2013

THE CHALLENGE is out now. THE DARE, THE ULTIMATUM and THE QUEST will be out soon.  These stories can each stand alone, but I think they are best when read from first to last. Yes, the stories are hot and sexy.  Yes, there are moral and ethical dilemmas.  But the stories are about how my characters react to all the problems I throw at them. It just comes down to telling a story. And the first person I have to entertain is myself.

All right.  You get the idea.  It would be even better if you get the books.

Susan Kearney is the USA Today Bestselling Author of The Rystani Warrior Series. Get THE CHALLENGE (Book 1) today at Amazon Kindle for ONLY $4.79! Look for THE DARE in late June 2013. THE ULTIMATUM and THE QUEST (Books 3 and 4) to follow.

DESK DEFINITION

By Lisa Turner

It’s been said that our friends define us. What about our desks?

Five things I found scattered on my desktop:

1. A prediction from a fortune cookie that reads: “There’s a big change ahead of you.” Depending on my mood, I can either be elated about that or wildly depressed.
2. A set of DVDs entitled “Building Great Sentences” that instruct you on the correct way to write sentences that go on for a page and a half without taking a breath. I renamed the course: “Addicted to Parenthetical Phrases.”
3. A coffee mug bought at Square Books in Oxford, MS., home of William Faulkner. (Please note the parenthetical phrase at the end of that sentence.)On the mug is this quote from Flannery O’Connor. “Whenever I ask why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”  The mug is my totem. I can’t write unless it’s in my line of sight.
4. Sticky notes of useful words and people’s names. There’s Preston Teagarden. Nancy Pynch-Worthylake. Zook Rebus. Ding Paulie. The word “idjit” is a favorite of mine. “Don’t hold me responsible; I’m an idjit.” I also like “rabid.” You never hear it anymore. I once used “rabid” to describe a friend who does needlepoint. She took it to heart. We’re no longer speaking.
5. A grocery receipt for $110 worth of groceries that fit into two small bags. Here’s a question: In the grocery store check out line, do you watch what the person in front of you buys so you can figure out what their life is like? If I checked groceries, I’d be totally entertained. I enjoy Pinterest for the same reason. Pretty pictures, deep psychological profiles.

I spend more time with my desk than with my friends. This exercise has been a revelation.

Today only get Lisa Turner’s A LITTLE DEATH IN DIXIE for only $1.99 at Amazon Kindle!

PUNDITRY OVER PERFUNCTORY

by Deborah Smith

I Eat, Therefore I Yam.

The Lard Cooks In Mysterious Ways

I’m Not A Biscuit, Don’t Butter Me Up.

I love slogans and sayings. For one thing, they turn words into a toy box full of colorful blocks, sort of an old-school Rubik’s Cube, and it’s fun to arrange the blocks until CLICK, you’ve figured out the angles and discovered some nifty patterns. But also, pedestrian though they may often be, slogans and sayings often contain serious kernels of truth. They’re one-line poems. Haiku for the half-hearted. Shortcuts to Deep Thought.

But they touch us. The three above are from The Crossroads Café and its spin-off novellas—The Biscuit Witch (now published) and The Pickle Queen (coming in August.) By the time I get to the third novella in the trilogy, The Kitchen Charmer (this fall,) I’ll have more pithy perceptive packets of punditry  than a politician in a pickle.

Ah, alliteration. I love you.

Since discovering the world of Pinterest, where EVERYTHING EVER THOUGHT OF is posted with links to the source material, I’ve begun collecting memorable, witty or simply silly words to live by. Or, at least, to laugh by.

Here are some of my favorites, all of which are inspirational, particularly when it comes to writing a novel:

“She loved mysteries so much that she became one.” (Literatureismyutopia.tumblr.com)

“Sometimes you miss the memories, not the person.” (sayingimages.com)

“I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.” (Unknown)

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” (Sylvia Plath)

“When I first met her I knew in a moment I would have to spend the next few days re-arranging my mind so there’d be room for her to stay.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.)

“Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.” (Stephen King.)

“There are certain fiction character’s deaths you will never recover from. Ever.”

(problemsofabooknerd.tumblr.com)

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” (Margaret Atwood.)

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” (E.L. Doctorow)

“At any given moment you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end.” (artistlaraharris.tumblr.com)

“Forget all the reasons why it won’t work and believe the one reason why it will.” (Unknown.)

And last but not least, a TRULY IMPORTANT saying inspired by Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, as contributed by redbubble.com:

“Marry the beast. Get that library.”

Yours in pithy profundity … Debs

Today is the LAST day to get NY Times bestselling author Deborah Smith’s THE CROSSROADS CAFE for only $1.99 at Amazon Kindle!