Bell Bridge Books

“The Infamous ‘Eyebrow'”

by Howard Odentz

I don’t have the infamous ‘eyebrow’.

You see, every time I look at a blog or a site devoted to horror writers, each one of them is pictured very close to the camera with their fingers tented in front of them and one eyebrow arching to the sky.

Just one.

I can’t do that. I also can’t taste that weird litmus paper from high school biology. I can, however, curl my tongue, but I doubt that little talent is going to help me look like the author of the creepy things I write about.

I suppose it all comes down to genetics—my genotype forces me to write scary things. My phenotype is somewhere between a New England preppy and a cartoon. Nope—nothing disturbing about that, unless you have an irrational fear of all things L.L. Bean or Looney Tunes.

How my brain got so twisted inside, who’s to say? All I know is that when my hands fall on the keyboard, murderous psychopaths and gory visions flow out of them, and sometimes children who like to kill.

So how is it that my favorite holiday is Halloween? What mental glitch makes me turn to ‘The Walking Dead’ instead of ‘Downton Abbey’? Why do I scour YouTube in search of scary videos that will add spice to my nightmares while I sleep because I think regular dreams are so boring?

Who knows?

My parents were no more terrifying than me. My sisters devoured Harlequin romances like they were the best thing ever. Sure, I was terrified of the family poodle, but she had little needle teeth and growled at me every time she had a bone and I walked into the same room. Who wouldn’t run screaming the other way—or dress her in doll clothes when she had the rare mellow moment?

For whatever the reason, I’m told that people burst out laughing in the middle of some of my horror stories. I guess there’s a little bit of funny swimming beneath the troubled current of everything I write. That humorous shark-fin that can give you the giggles sometimes surfaces. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but even when I don’t want it to be there, it sometimes knifes through my words, attached to a gigantic killer lurking just beneath each page.

In the end, I guess I can’t fight the scary or the dark humor. I suppose my eyes will always naturally stray to the creepy, twisted edges of things. It’s a weird way of looking at the world, but it’s my way, and I long ago learned not to fight it.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  For now, I have to run. My llamas are staring at me with those huge, dead eyes, hoping that I’ll grain them soon, and I have an appointment to get my dog, Einstein, fitted for a wheelchair.

What? That’s normal, isn’t it?

Isn’t it?

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Howard Odentz is a Western Massachusetts author of playwright. His first novel, ‘Dead (a Lot)’, described as a humorous and thrilling zombie-ride, was published by Bell Bridge books in 2013. In 2014 it hit #1 on Amazon in several categories including young adult horror and humor-horror. In 2015 it became an Ariana Award Winner and an Epic Award Finalist.

His latest novel ‘Bloody Bloody Apple’ was released on October 17, 2014 to all major on-line platforms including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple and Google Play. It is also available for order through bookstores or through the publisher, Bell Bridge, at www.bellebooks.com.

Read more about Howard Odentz at www.howardodentz.com.

Mother’s Day

by Anne Stuart

My childhood was not the stuff of dreams.  I loved my mother, and she loved me to the best of her ability, but the fact is she didn’t like children.  Why she had three of them is beyond me – I think she figured she ought to love them, and post war everyone was having three and four children.

Needless to say, with three children she didn’t want and an alcoholic husband, my mother suffered from depression and rages, and life in the Stuart family was fraught with chaos.

Things finally imploded when I was seventeen, when both my parents were hospitalized and I was sent to live with my aunt and uncle.  I’d basically cut class the first half of my senior year in high school, and suddenly I had to toe the line.  One class, that I will forever bless, was called Personal Typing.

The teacher was a fluttery, elderly woman named Miss Hale, who drew a picture of a tree on the blackboard and would exhort us to “hang our troubles on the trouble tree” while we learned touch typing.

The week before Mother’s Day she decided to teach us how to write cards, folding the paper in quarters, writing a couplet on the outside and the inside.

I came up with something like “Roses are red, violets are gray, my mother is gone, she abandoned me today.”  I was being a smart ass, of course.

Miss Hale came around, checking everyone’s work, and when she looked over my shoulder she let out an anguished cry and flung her arms around me, much to my embarrassment.  I stayed after class to explain the situation in my nonchalant way, and she insisted I write a kind greeting card to my mother.  Sigh.

Some teenagers are just too cynical for their own good.

The happy ending to all this is I became an adult and my mother liked adults, she was enormously proud of me, and I took excellent care of her until she died at 98.  Her last words to me were, “it’s my darling Krissie.”

And I never sent her that Mother’s Day card.

Pick up Anne Stuart’s titles from Bell Bridge Books today:

The Pawleys

A brief episode in the British family history of Lady Toria Cash, the feline fatale of Downton Tabby

 by Sparkle Abbey

“Can you believe that alley cat?” Lady Meow Grandcatham lifted her whiskers in distain. “Thinking I’d simply fall under the spell of his gorgeous green eyes.”

I shook my head. “He does seem rather cheeky.” I’m Annakatrina, Lady’s Meow’s lady’s maid, and the alley cat she was referring to was Alexander Kittingham who’d apparently made a play for Lady Meow in a big way.

I carefully folded the lace frill she’d worn to dinner and reached for the brush I used every night on her silky black fur. Though I would never bring it up to Lady Meow, talk below stairs was that Alexander Kittingham was not actually a purebred British shorthair. He was often referred to as “Alley” in a disparaging tone, by Thomas Cat, Lord Grandcatham’s valet. Alexander was quite a handsome fellow and a favorite of the ladies around the dinner bowl.

He was nice looking with dark brown fur and deep green eyes, but I was not impressed. You see I’m madly in love with Mr. Bait. Poor Mr. Bait is currently locked up in the pound, but I had no doubt he would be freed.

“Beyond cheeky, I’d say.” Lady Meow lifted her paw to her neck. “Would you help me get out of this collar?”

I pulled on the diamond collar with my teeth and it snapped off easily. Carefully placing it in the ornate trinket box, I picked up the brush again.

Suddenly, there was a scratch at the door and I moved quickly to open it.  Lady Vi, Meow’s grandmother, stepped into the room. She was a formidable feline and referred to as the Dogwagger Countess because even the dogs at the neighboring estates were afraid of her. I don’t believe she’d ever actually bitten anyone canine or otherwise, but all it took was a hiss and the very slight unsheathing of her claws and it was clear she meant business.

“Grandmother.” Lady Meow purred. “What a surprise.”

“Not an unpleasant one, I hope.” The older feline stepped closer so Lady Meow could bump noses with her.

“I’ll leave you.” I moved quietly on soft paws toward the door.

“No, please stay.” The Dogwagger waved her tail in my direction. “I know Meow trusts you.”

“What is it, Grandmama?” Lady Meow dropped on her haunches. “Is something wrong?”

“What is wrong is my sources tell me someone is publishing a catty tell all tome about the Britain’s aristocats. I am told there’s a whole chapter devoted to the Grandcatham Family.” She leaned on the edge of Lady’s Meow’s bed and smoothed her fur.

Lady Meow began to pace. “Have you told Pappa’?

The Dogwagger shook her head. “No, nor your mother. It will be up to us to sort this out.” She gave a deep sigh and tipped her head to look at me. “We must find out who this low-life is and stop him or her before our good name is dragged through the litter box.” Sharp blue eyes pinned me in place.

“What can I do to help, M ‘lady?”

“My dear, you must be our eyes and ears.” The Dogwagger put her paws together as if it were all settled. “You can go places we must not and you will never be noticed.”

I had the thought that not being noticed was hardly complimentary, but knew she was right.

“You will help us, won’t you, Anna?” Lady Meow crossed the room in a single smooth leap to stand in front of me. Her golden eyes searched my face.

“Of course, I will.” I bowed my head.

And thus began my new career as Annakatrina, Cat Sleuth.

What would Mr. Bait think?

*

Downton Tabby, book seven in The Pampered Pets Mysteries by Sparkle Abbey, is now available for pre-order at Amazon. Visit Sparkle Abbey at sparkleabbey.com.

And don’t forget to grab your other favorite Sparkle Abbey titles, on sale til the 10th! 

Why is there no Grandmother’s Day?

This is a trick question.

Every book I write, including The Crossroads Café, focuses not only on a core romance story but is also about family;  mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, and grandparents. Sometimes the theme may be subtle, sometimes not. Family is the parallel core, regardless.

My mother made me what I am today.

All the good stuff and the bad. Some of it sad, but forgiveness was always a given between us.

She was simple, easy, heartbreaking, wonderful. Ma was normal, flawed, like me, but kinder than I am and more realistic. I miss her every moment of every day. She died in my home nine years ago next December, her bedroom filled with Christmas decorations, with me standing beside the rented hospital bed, yelling for help from the hospice nurse.

I am writing this in a sunroom that is now my office, just outside her bedroom. Fifteen feet from where she lay in that sad, rented bed with its undulating air-pump mattress to prevent bed sores, its pull-up rails to keep her from tumbling out, and the loud, gasp-and-release gush of the oxygen concentrator that fed life into her cigarette-ruined lungs.

A few of her clothes still hang in the room’s closet. I store my yarn in there, and so I often stroke her dresses while searching for a skein or hank. Her soft fleece jacket, her nightgowns. I talk to them. To her.

I want her forgiveness for something. It’s always there, the need to be forgiven by her.

Forgiveness was never an issue with my grandmother, however. Forgiveness was for weaklings. She wanted to mold me into a fire-breathing dragon, the spitting were-cat of Southern womanhood. Just like her.

As a result, I’m a product of a mixed marriage.

Submissive, chain-smoking, hard-drinking, tender-hearted Mama.

Dominant, teetotaler, hard-hearted Grandmother.

I have the fantasies of a Valkyrie mixed with the manners of a furious wildcat shellacked with the veneer of Melanie Wilkes.

Why, bless your heart. And to hell with you.  

There she is. Grandma is peeking around the corner of my mind, whispering to me. Good angel or fallen angel? Both?

She defended me fiercely during my years as a whacky teenager, but would come into my tiny bedroom when I slept too late and throw a pan of sizzling, oven-broiled buttered toast on me.

On the eve of my wedding, she very dramatically (at 85 years old) staggered down her hallway and collapsed loudly against my bedroom door.

“Have your fun and spend your money the way you want to before you get married. After that, you’re stuck.”

No offense to my beloved Husband of lo’ these many years, but she had a point, at least in her experience. She’d given up her career at Western Union in the 1940’s, as a trainer of telegram operators, because my grandfather (who also worked for Western Union) said she must stay home and become a fulltime mother to my Dad.

Dad turned out to be an only child. Go figure.

She put aside her daily downtown Atlanta life, where she rubbed shoulders with Margaret Mitchell, shopped at Rich’s Department Store, and was among the first at Western Union to know that President Roosevelt had died at Warm Springs—top secret messages came through her office on their way to Washington, D.C.—to become a farm wife wearing aprons and canning vegetables.

The anger in her was immense. As a child I watched her gleefully wring chickens by the neck; she patrolled her property with a sawed-off shotgun and challenged neighbors to so much as set foot inside her territory. Before electric or even hand-cranked can openers, she jabbed the wicked blade of a hand-held can opener into quivering tin containers. She pumped the blade around their rims like an oysterman cracking a shell.

She could kill people with that can blade. I’m not sure she hadn’t stabbed a few. Some of her nefarious siblings (from a dirt-poor family of eleven kids) challenged her as long as she lived.

She adored her baby brothers—they could do no wrong, in her mind—the preacher, the polio survivor, the dead war hero, and the youngest brother who joined the navy not long after World War One and eventually settled in sunny California with a bawdy, lovable, California beach babe.

But her sisters? Whoa. It was whispered she’d hauled her indiscreet younger sisters to back-alley abortionists in their teens; she’d even incarcerated one sister in a Catholic “school” for girls. Grandmother didn’t care about religion, not seriously, so she had few prejudices in that regard. To her, Catholic nuns were admirably strict.  She judged them on that merit, alone.

Grandmother didn’t take excuses for an answer. This was the girl who got on a train in 1911 and traveled to the far end of Georgia. She was seventeen years old and had never been outside her own home county before.

She worked her way through a teacher’s college amidst the hot cotton fields of South Georgia, waiting tables in the faculty dining room.

It was a co-ed school. The boys studied farming. Modern agriculture. Grandma became sweethearts with a football player. She posed for a picture on a tennis court, of all things, holding a racket and pretending she would ever willingly smack a ball for fun; besides, the college’s dress code was still rooted in the 1800’s. So there she stood, the farm girl corseted into a dark, full-length dress with puffed seeves. Her brown hair was done up in a high Gibson Girl ’do.

Her expression looked grim.

You’re going to aim a stupid little ball at me? You’ll wish you’d been skinned alive, instead. 

She never doubted herself, never apologized, never backed down. At the end of her life, as she lay in a nursing home at ninety-two, with me holding her hand, I said, “I love you.” I had hardly ever said that to her before. She’d never said it to anyone, me included.

“I love you,” I said.

“I know,” she answered.

Couldn’t pry a return confession out of her. Not even with Death’s scepter as the can opener.

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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.

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“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.