Bell Bridge Books

From a Teenage Girl to a Teenage Boy

by Marilee Brothers

I spent five years of my writing life inside the head of Allie Emerson, the teenage girl featured in the Unbidden Magic series. It was surprisingly easy for me to channel Allie, even though it’s been—well—let’s just say I haven’t been a teenager for a good long time. Apparently teenage angst lives on forever. After I finished Midnight Moon, the last book in the series, I decided to write a YA book with a male protagonist. Enter Gabriel Delgado, hunky eighteen-year-old senior at Maple Grove high school.

The creative part of my brain got a major wake-up call. I was no longer a seventeen-year-old girl. I had to begin channeling a teenage boy. OMG, guess what boys think about? You know the answer, of course. Sex. One statistic says every fifteen seconds. Another says, they never stop thinking about it. From its title, Baby Gone Bye, you can probably figure out that Gabe acted on his thoughts. Therefore, he should not have been surprised when the doorbell rings and he finds a little “surprise” waiting for him on the front porch. So, what’s a household comprised of four males supposed to do with a little baby girl? Guess you’ll have to read the book to find out. Baby Gone Bye is now on sale for $.99 here: https://amzn.com/B00H4DZ844

Excerpt from Chapter One  – it’s Friday night and Gabe has a date. He believes, incorrectly, that his evening will go on as planned. At this point, the family thinks the child is a boy.

The hall clock bonged seven times. Startled, Gabe leaped from the couch and placed the kid in his car seat. “Man, is it seven already? I’ve got a date. Can we put this on hold until tomorrow?” Without waiting for an answer, Gabe headed for the stairs.

     “Gabriel.” The steel in Papi’s voice stopped Gabe in his track. “Look at me.”

     Slowly, Gabe turned to face his father. He heard Simon whisper, “Dumb shit.” Henry giggled nervously.

     “Gabriel,” Papi repeated. “Do you remember when Rosie was a puppy?”

     Gabe shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wondering if he was about to step into something stinky. “Yeah,” he said carefully.

     Papi’s dark eyes snapped with intensity. “And how did you take care of her?”

     Gabe rolled his eyes heavenward, trying to remember Papi’s three cardinal rules for puppy care. “After she eats, put her outside to poop. Play with her. Put her back in her crate.”

     Papi clapped. “Excellent.”

     Gabe grinned. This was going well. He’d soon be on his way.

     “Now, Gabriel, tell me this, how do you take care of a baby?”

     Uh, oh. Gabe felt beads of perspiration pop out on his forehead. “Well, um, I guess you’re saying it’s the same concept. Right?”

     Papi strolled up nice and close and gave Gabe his shark’s grin. “So, after you feed him, you will take him outside to poop, play with him, and then put him back in his car seat?”

     Right then, Gabe knew he was screwed. He glanced at his brothers. No help there. He’d already stepped in it. Might as well go all the way. He looked his father square in the eyes. “Naturally, I won’t take him outside to poop, but I’ll feed him and play with him.”

    “And you will start this … when?”

     “First thing tomorrow morning.”

     Papi said, “And tonight?”

     Gabe squirmed. “Remember what you said earlier? We’re Delgados. We stick together when there’s a problem.”

     “Ah, now I understand.” Papi stroked his chin. “You assumed one of your brothers or your father would take care of your child while you went on a date. Is that correct?”

     Gabe flushed. “I would appreciate it.”

     “Gabriel,” Papi said again. He pointed at the baby. “That is not a puppy. It is a tiny human being who needs round the clock care. Care that will be given to him by you, his father. Do you understand?”

     Before Gabe could formulate an answer, he heard the amazingly loud rumble of baby flatulence. All eyes turned to the child, whose face was bright red as he clenched his fists and strained.

     Simon snickered. Looks like you forgot to take him outside to poop.”

     Papi handed Gabe a container of baby wipes and a diaper. “Better get used to it. He’ll be doing that a lot.”

     That’s when the Delgado family found out he was a she.

Inspiration

by Sparkle Abbey

Inspiration is everywhere. As writers, we are always looking for ways to be stirred to greatness. Inspiration drives action…or in some cases, words on the blank page.

When we’re on deadline, we don’t get to wait for inspiration to hit, we have to sit down and do the work. But that doesn’t mean we stop looking for ways to add joy or meaning to our lives and our stories.

We’re moved by great books and entertaining movies. An oceanside photo and a road trip with our closest girl friends. A great conversation and other people’s success stories. The way we live our lives often provides our greatest inspiration: a positive attitude and a large dose of laughter.

The setting for our latest release, Raiders of the Lost Bark, was inspired by an Orange County camping trip that Anita and her family took a number of years ago. For three hot summer days, at the beginning of what was to become a five year drought for California, Anita’s family pitched their well-used six-person tent at the desolate Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park campground. Bees, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions. What were they thinking? After two restless nights of sleeping on the hard, dusty ground, and watching over their shoulders for mountain lions, they broke camp and headed east—to the even hotter Las Vegas desert, a cold hotel room and running water.

Years later, we tossed around the idea of a story set outside of Laguna Beach. What if our pampered characters were stuck between the sandstone canyons and parched wilderness campsites? How would they cope? What luxuries would they take with them? Would they still be able to catch a killer under the stars?

As you can see, sometimes inspiration is so close we just have to take a moment and stop; be mindful in that instant by listening to the silence, and taking a few deep cleansing breaths. We’re not all inspired by the same things or in the same ways. So what inspires you?

We hope ya’ll enjoy our latest Pampered Pets Mystery adventure, Raiders of the Lost Bark, out March 25^th!

Melinda Langston, amateur sleuth and Bow Wow Boutique owner, finds herself “Glamping Under the Stars” with a blackmailer, Orange County’s hottest new gourmet pet chef, Addison Rae. But before Mel can put an end to Addison’s strong-arming, the chef is found dead. Mel is just one of many suspects who had motive to snuff out the demanding chef.

Was it Redmond, the angry sous chef who detested working for Addison? What about rival chef, Pepper Maddox? The glamping chef gig was hers until Addison blackmailed her way into the job. And then there’s Asher, a charming fellow camper whose past relationship with Addison isn’t the only secret he’s guarding. Mel’s not one to tuck tail and run, even when it looks like she may be the next victim.

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter). They are friends and neighbors as well as co-writers of the Pampered Pets Mystery Series. The pen name was created by combining the names of their rescue pets–Sparkle (Mary Lee’s cat) and Abbey (Anita’s dog). They reside in central Iowa, but if they could write anywhere, you would find them on the beach with their laptops and, depending on the time of day, with either an iced tea or a margarita. If you’re missing any of their  backlist this is a great time to grab them. Details here. And if you want to make sure you’re up on all the Sparkle Abbey news, stop by their website and sign up for updates at sparkleabbey.com.

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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