Bell Bridge Books

Fried Okra and an (Almost!) St. Paddy’s Birthday

by Jean Brashear

Is it possible to love leprechauns too much? To thrill overly to the sight of a shamrock and too-deeply cherish the color green?

Yes, my name is Jean, and I adore St. Patrick’s Day to a possibly embarrassing degree.

Okay, so I got attached as a child—its proximity to my birthday and the ready-made party theme imprinted on me early. Learning that my ancestors came from Ireland (with more than a few braw Scots in the mix) only cemented the bond.

Discovering that the first of my family tree to arrive on the shores of what would become America occurred as a result of my ship’s captain ancestor wrecking on the Virginia coast…oh, golly, does that mean I can maybe throw a pirate into the mix? Be still my heart!

I KNEW there was a reason Eudora “Pea” O’Brien of THE GODDESS OF FRIED OKRA (can you say The Great Subconscious?) became a swordswoman!

I’m all grown now, and, yes, I know March 17 isn’t actually my birthday…but I still have this deep-seated urge to brandish shamrock napkins and don green leprechaun birthday hats every March…and maybe to also whip out my sword and join Pea and Glory in a little celebratory sword dance to honor the sisterhood of all those remarkable Goddess of Fried Okra women!

Happy St. Paddy’s, fellow lovers of all things Emerald!

Jean

New York Times and USAToday bestselling author of THE GODDESS OF FRIED OKRA and nearly 40 other novels in romance and women’s fiction, a five-time RITA finalist and RT BOOKReviews Career Achievement Award winner, Jean Brashear will also confess to an ongoing fangirl adoration of the remarkable women at Bell Bridge Books and the amazing books they publish

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AND DON’T FORGET TO GRAB JEAN BRASHEAR’S NOVEL – THE GODDESS OF FRIED OKRA – TODAY FROM AMAZON!!

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No Pot of Gold at This End

by Kathryn Magendie

Lots of supernatural magic happens in the Smoky Mountains. And if some of it is unbelievable to you and you and you,  well, there’s no way to prove that, now is there? We can hide more deeds in and among these mysterious mountains than city dwellers can (and I say “dwellers” as if it’s not spelled and pronounced that way, as if I am saying “fellers” all mountain south way).

But there are some things that need no proving. You must believe them! For in believing them, you can take away a piece of the magic for yourself—you can look for what you must find.

I once was hiking along a ridge-top when I saw a rainbow arcing across the sky, touching the next ridge-top over from where I was. There was something different about this rainbow, something more solid though it undulated, sparkly, and it was beckoning to me. I was mesmerized, hypnotized, and didn’t even think to consider the distance I’d have to trek to find the end of that strange rainbow.

But in the way that magic happens, when the earth aligns just so with the moon, and the stars although unseen bare their sparkled supernatural gifts, with only a few long running steps I soon arrived at my destin(y)ation.

When I tell this story, seeing as it happened on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, people will ask, “Did you find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? A leprechaun?” I just shake my head. Seriously? A pot of gold? A leprechaun? Those kinds of things are for other legends and other fairytales in other lands. Not for here. Not for me. And they will then ask, “What did you find, Kathryn?”

“I found,” I then say, “a cup spilling over with brilliant color that washed into the cup and over its sides, and down the mountain . . .” . . . on it flowed, as if a creek where many colors of paint were spilled. I didn’t hesitate, but threw off my clothes and dived in. The water-colors were warm against my skin, and when I lifted my hand, it was red, green, purple, blue, yellow, orange—and all the colors among and between those. Glancing down at my body, it was just as my hand appeared. My hair streamed out behind me, brilliant golden silver.

I then drank some of the water, unafraid, for the rainbow whispered promises to me—“It is good; it is good; it is so very good, dear one.” And it was. I tasted sweetness, a sweetness that entered my body and then spilled out from my pores. I sweated colors, and then, quite suddenly, because it was so very lovely, I began to cry. I sat upon the grass tinted by the colors, my feet emerged in brilliance, and I cried for everything I ever lost and gained and would lose and gain again. My tears fell upon the grass in gemstones of emerald, ruby, sapphire. I did not pluck them from the ground for my gain, for they belonged to the rainbow.

The waters then rose up and washed around me, hugging me, and I knew the rainbow would soon have to leave. The cup tipped and spilled all of its wonder and I lay upon the ground and let the colors wash me clean. I saw my life before and ever since. But I could not see what was to come, and that was okay, for the rainbow eased my worry.

Soon, the cup was empty, the water-colors rising up out of it and back into the rainbow, and then, as if it had never been there at all (but it was! I saw it!), the cup and the rainbow disappeared. I mourned it for a moment, until I saw something glimmer in the grass—one perfect tear still held there, garnet—deep blooded red. I touched it and it melted into my skin becoming a part of my blood that raced through my veins. I smiled, rose, and hiked back down the mountain.

I would never be the same.

When I tell this story, people think it is a metaphor, that I have some grand reason for telling it, some purpose.

That is up to the listener. I only know what I experienced that March 17 in a year that is secret to everyone but me—perhaps it is this year, and I simply saw the future. Perhaps it was a hundred years ago, and I saw a past.

I long to hike up to the ridge-top once more, to see a rainbow, where I would not look for pots of gold or leprechauns, but instead for the beckoning. I long to search until I find it again—though, I know in that knowing way, it happens only once in a lifetime, in ten-thousand life-times. I know that now comes the time that I must leave it behind and never ever will I ever see it again.

Check out Kathryn Magendie’s novel – THE LIGHTNING CHARMER – today on Amazon!

Just click the link! 

Tip o’ the Hat to Murph

 by Judith Arnold

My ninth-grade English teacher was a tall, broad-faced, red-haired, vehemently Irish man named Eugene Murphy. Murph was brilliant, motivational, stern, and funny—the best teacher I had in high school. All these years later, I still remember the cadence of his coordinating-conjunctions chant, his purple-prose parodies, his explication of The Iliad and his flummoxed reaction when we all handwrote our Iliad essays in spirals so he’d have to rotate our papers to read them. I remember the day he confiscated our water pistols and then turned them on us and mowed down the entire class with spritzes of water. I remember the day he read us a short story he had written, a lovely, lyrical tale heavily influenced by James Joyce. I remember him serenading us with “Danny Boy,” his voice a sweet, high tenor.

One reason I wound up writing for and then editing the high school newspaper was that Murph was the faculty advisor. I didn’t want to lose the chance to work with him once I’d finished ninth grade.

Not surprisingly, Murph took St. Patrick’s Day very seriously. My senior year, the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City coincided with an awards luncheon for high school newspapers at the Waldorf-Astoria. Our school newspaper had won some sort of recognition from the Columbia University School of Journalism, and Murph piled the newspaper’s senior editors into his car and drove us into Manhattan so we could receive our award.

I don’t remember much about the award or the luncheon. What I do remember was that we arrived in the city hours before the luncheon so we could view the St. Patrick’s Day parade first. I recall little about the parade itself—a parade is a parade—but everything about Murph that day. He wore a necktie festooned with shamrocks, and balanced a kelly-green derby precariously atop his red hair. He waved at the marchers. He sang. He cheered. He made me wish I was Irish.

I am not Irish. I come from Eastern European Jewish stock, and I’m as proud of my heritage as Murph was of his. And so, the following Monday, I brought Murph a St. Patrick’s Day present: a square of matzo painted green.

Tears glistened in Murph’s eyes when he opened the box and saw that bright green matzo. Whether they were tears of joy or horror, I can’t say. I did warn him not to eat the matzo, because I’d used real paint, not food coloring. Perhaps his tears arose from disappointment over not being able to snack on my gift.

I kept in touch with Murph for years after I graduated from high school. He was my mentor, my inspiration. He definitely deserves some of the credit for my career as a novelist. Never does a St. Patrick’s Day go by when I don’t summon a memory of him standing on that crowded sidewalk on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, wearing a tacky green derby and singing “McNamara’s Band” as the parade passed by.

CELEBRATE EVERYTHING GREEN (PAINTED OR NOT) THIS ST. PATRICK’S DAY!

AND DON’T FORGET TO GRAB DEAD BALL BY JUDITH ARNOLD FROM AMAZON TODAY! 

JUST CLICK THE LINK!

Three-Leaf Weeds

by Kimberly Brock

I’m not Irish. Not even close. I don’t even look good in green. But there’s something that gets to me every spring when St. Patrick’s Day rolls around – this whole business of luck. I don’t have it. I want to know how to get it. And I’m starting to worry maybe I just missed the turn on the way to my pot of gold.

People will put ridiculous amounts of faith in luck. They’ll latch on to just about any old thing and then claim it to be lucky. There’s the luck of the Irish. Blind luck. Lucky pennies. Lucky horseshoes. Lucky numbers. Lucky socks or shoes or hats or garter belts. Lucky stars. But even with these endless options, I’ve never really been lucky. I don’t stumble upon opportunity or trip over good fortune. I don’t win at slots. I never scratched off a game card and got the Free Big Mac Meal. I never met Ed McMahon at my front door in curlers to receive my Publisher’s Clearinghouse millions. But this stuff happens. Out of the clear blue, it seems, there’s luck. So, maybe people who love the idea of luck are in fact, actually, lucky. Maybe it’s real enough, not just coincidence. But – and this is not because I’m green with envy – I’m starting to think luck might be a lot more than, well, dumb.

I married a man who can find a four-leaf clover without fail. It’s a wonder to behold, how that taciturn man can walk onto any patch of grass, bow his quiet head, and call up a little miracle. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he creates them out of the wishes of his heart. To tell you the truth, I am suspicious of his methods. There’s something annoying about the fact that I can stomp all over that same little patch for hours and all I’ll see is grass and the most ordinary three-leaf weeds on earth. I resent it, if you want to know the truth. I put in the effort. I crouch and squat and squint until my back aches and my head is dizzy and in the end, I have nothing to show for it but a bad attitude. He, on the other hand, waltzes along, whistles, even. He will hardly glance at the ground, just plucking up little bouquets of blessings. He finds them so easily, he doesn’t even care to just give them all to me. Now, what is that? Is that luck?

So, finally, one day I said, It’s not fair. You don’t even have to try. I asked him how he did it. He smiled. And this is what I’ll think about this spring when the stout little leprechauns start trotting around, measuring their shillelagh sticks. He gave me a handful of clover and said, Maybe you’re just looking so hard you can’t see what’s right in front of you.

And that’s when I realized, my luck isn’t Irish at all. He’s German.

Check out Kimberly Brock’s novel – THE RIVER WITCH – on Amazon today! 

Just click the link! 

Red Headed Heroines Throughout History

by Niki Flowers

“Red-headed stepchild,” “Ginger,” “Fire-tempered.” These are just a few of the names that redheads get called just for being redheads! It’s mean, there’s no need for it, and (by the way) red hair is gorgeous! (In fact, I was a red head for a while 😉 Course it wasn’t as pretty as natural red hair. Haha).

All of that being said – and to start off BelleBooks’s Red, Green, and Irish Week – I would like to name and talk about some fantastic Red Headed Heroines Throughout History!

1. Emily Dickinson: A reclusive American poet who, unfortunately, wasn’t made famous by her work until after her death when her parents put it out for the world to see.

2. Margaret Sanger: The woman behind Planned Parenthood and who said it was okay for women to have a say in whether or not they had children. She rallied for birth control and brought about the age of liberation for women.

3. Elizabeth I: The daughter of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII, she was the last of the Tudor Line and was referred to as “The Virgin Queen,” for she did not marry, nor did she bear any children. Her reign was titled The Elizabethan Era and was written of in plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe.

4. Carol Burnett: Host of her own variety show – The Carol Burnett Show – from 1967 to 1978. She’s been in a plethora of other TV shows, movies, and voice overs. She will always be known for her Tarzan call, Went With the Wind (A Gone With the Wind parody), and her ear-tugging salute to her grandma.

5. Geri Halliwell (or Ginger Spice!) She was the most musically famous of The Spice Girls. She was on the Spice Girls Reunion of ’07 and she has many solo albums out. Even though she didn’t marry soccer hottie – David Beckham – she’s still very famous and very lucky. What could beat a music career (besides publishing ;P)?

6. Lucille Ball: I Love Lucy! In fact, who wouldn’t? Married to Desi Arnaz and mother of two adorable munchkins. I Love Lucy will always be remembered as the first American program to have a lady in the leading role and also one of the first to show a woman who was preggers (even if they weren’t allowed to say the PREGNANT word).

7. And last but not least, my three personal favorite Red Heads: Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Anna from Frozen, and Meridia from Brave! As a Disney-a-holic, I can safely say that these three redheads show Bravery, Beauty, and Brains (And a lot of Awkwardness from Anna) and they also have the ability to inspire little girls to believe that they can be and do whatever they want in life despite the challenges they face. 🙂

Those are just a few of the numerous Red Headed Heroines of History. Who are some of your redheads? Let us know in the comments!

And don’t forget to celebrate Red Heads by grabbing BelleBooks’s own Red Headed Heroines off of Amazon!

Just click the links! 

These are just a few of the many red heads we have over here at BelleBooks! Check them all out at Bellebooks.com and on our Facebook page here! 

WHEN IRISH EYES ARE SMILING

by Mary Strand

From a certain perspective, I grew up in an Irish household.

This is pretty funny, actually, since I’m only 1/8 Irish and half Norwegian.  My mom was 1/4 Irish but, not being a math person, thought of herself as 110-percent Irish.  This mostly meant that she tended to lead the wailing on “Danny Boy” and sang the loudest on “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” the latter possibly with the assistance of Irish whiskey, and she had a penchant for giving her kids names like Brian, Sheila, and Patrick.  My dad had little say in the matter, but he sighed a lot.

I followed in my mom’s footsteps, but mostly just on St. Patrick’s Day.  In college this meant green beer, lots of it, and dancing Irish jigs to any song, most of those songs entirely inappropriate to an Irish jig, especially since the bar where we performed these jigs was a disco bar.  (Don’t blame me.  Blame the late 1970s.)  In law school my so-called Irish self and I spent St. Patrick’s Day in one of the Irish pubs a block or two from Georgetown, on Capitol Hill.  I was kicked out of one of them one year.  For an Irish lass, it was a proud moment.

Next thing I knew, I was married and practicing law, and St. Patrick’s Day became yet another day of work or, in a wild moment, a civilized dinner of corned beef and cabbage.  No more green beer.  No more getting kicked out of anywhere.  No more Irish jigs.

And then, one year, kidlet # 1 was born.  Due on Easter, he arrived four weeks early (bless his little 1/16 Irish heart) on St. Patrick’s Day.  My mom insisted he be named Patrick.  Tom and I had long since named both of the kids we were to have, and Patrick wasn’t in the mix.  My mom declared, mournfully, that I had failed her and all of Ireland.  These things happen.

Ever since, St. Patrick’s Day has been all about kidlet # 1.  His lifelong favorite color is green, but he has no interest in corned beef, cabbage, Irish soda bread, or (so far) green beer, and he calls the shots on his birthday.  As a result, my wild St. Patrick’s Days have become a distant memory.  One of my brothers, who remains as 110-percent Irish as my mom was, calls me every year to explain that he might not be able to come to kidlet # 1’s birthday dinner, because, gee, it falls on St. Patrick’s Day.

Yes, it does.  And it will next year, too.  But now we celebrate a more important holiday:  my son’s birthday.  Still, I’ll always have a fond spot in my 1/8 Irish heart for St. Patrick’s Day and my mom’s favorite Irish blessing, embroidered on a decorative pillow:

May those that love us, love us.
And those that don’t, may God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles
So we’ll know them by their limping.

LET YOUR IRISH EYES SMILE ON MARY STRAND’S ROMANCE NOVEL – COOPER’S FOLLY.

HEAD ON OVER TO AMAZON AND GRAB IT TODAY! JUST CLICK THE LINK!