The Beloved Hope Chest: Mattie Fisher’s three daughters know that she’s been keeping a secret from them. With each item pulled from the beloved family hope chest, they’ve discovered a new clue about their mother’s past. But there’s a reason Mattie has been keeping her history hidden, and she’s not sure she’s ready to reopen […]
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Born to an unloving prostitute in a popular Chicago brothel, timid seventeen-year-old Dinah Hubley was raised amidst the secrets held in every dark, grimy room of her home. Anxious to escape, Dinah pursues her dream of becoming a Harvey Girl, waiting tables along the railroad in an upscale hotel. But when she finds out she
Through the Deep Waters by Kim Vogel Sawyer Read More »
Using Scrivener for Windows recently, I used the Scrivenings mode. There is a bug where page-down and page-up do not work like you’d expect them to in a word processor. The arrow keys work fine, and that was my workaround. Find/replace was complicated to figure out, so I’ll explain. In Scrivenings mode, if your cursor is in a text
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Crave a snowstorm? Want to imagine Christmas and the smell a fresh cut Frasier Fir in August? Pick up Jodie Bailey’s Quilted By Christmas novella! Taryn McKenna believes she’s easy to forget. After being abandoned by her parents and left behind when her high school sweetheart joined the army, she vowed to never love again, and
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A friend recently asked for a list of things others thought a teen needed to know before they left the house. That got me thinking. There are a bunch of items that most of us have on our radar: cook (simple things like boxed mac & cheese, grilled cheese) cook meals bake from a box
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Recently I brainstormed a new novel specifically using GMC (goal, motivation, and conflict). I won’t go over GMC here because Debra Dixon’s GMC book is simply perfect. I will clarify a few key points though that helped when I plotted my latest novel: Goal: should be very obvious to the reader Motivation: must be larger
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Donald Maass states in his Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook that “A turning point in a story is the point at which things change.” Susan May Warren refers to this change in her Deep and Wide craft book as a series of disappointments (actually, each D gets more dire: disappointment, disaster, destruction, devastation.) So, turning
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Ingredients: 2 frozen deep dish pie crusts 1/2 cup white sugar 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 4 lbs of mixed apples (Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Braeburn, Cortland, McIntosh), peeled and cut into 1/4 inch slices 1/2 teaspoon of grated lemon zest Mix 1/2 cup white sugar
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Want to hear ocean waves and smell salty air? Pick up Aloha Rose by Lisa Carter for an inexpensive jaunt to Hawaii! Backcover copy: When Laney Carrigan sets out to find her birth family, her only clue is the Hawaiian quilt—a red rose snowflake appliquéd on a white background—in which she was found wrapped as
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If you want a solid suspense filled read, pick up High-Stakes Holiday Reunion, you will not be disappointed! Backcover copy: When Christopher Jordan sees the fear in Ashley Wilson’s eyes, he knows he can’t let her request for help go unanswered. Despite their tumultuous history, he’s the only person his ex-fiancée can trust to find
Book Review: High-Stakes Holiday Reunion by Christy Barritt Read More »