Available Now: EsKape Press Box Sets!

I am so excited to announce a double release this week! Two of my books published by EsKape Press are included in book bundles that are available this coming Saturday, November 1! Christmas Wishes is part of Holiday Eskapes, which this magical cover:

And Searching for Lady Luck is part of Romancing the Rogue, which will sport this delicious looking cover:

Both of these bundles can be ordered from Amazon by clicking on the photos. To celebrate, I want to share a little bit about the locations featured in each of these books.

Christmas Wishes takes place in the fictional town of Zutphen, Michigan. I live in a suburb of Grand Rapids, but I’m on the southwest side, so the city of Holland is not far away. Between Grand Rapids and Holland are several small communities, and many of them are named for cities in the Netherlands, which is the ethnic group that settled this area many years ago. In this area you’ll see many names starting with the last four letters of the alphabet – something that puzzled my editors and beta readers! Many Dutch names begin with the prefix Van, which means “from.” Here’s a picture of the downtown area of a nearby city, which shows how I imagine Zutphen.

Searching for Lady Luck takes place in Wildwood, New Jersey. I spent a wonderful week there with my kids, when my brother and his wife invited us to a family home near the Jersey shore. Since it’s a tourist town, I imagined it must have suffered during the Great Depression. It’s difficult to find pictures from the era of my story, but this is what it looks like now:

When you read books, how important to you is the setting? Do you get a picture in your mind of the places the characters live? If you’re familiar with the setting the author chose, are you disappointed if their descriptions don’t match the way you know they should look?

New Release!

I am so pleased to announce the release of my new historical novella, Searching for Lady Luck. EsKape Press is the publisher, and the fabulous Elaina Lee designed the beautiful cover. Here’s what it’s about:

Only seven years have passed since Rose Sheffield was a carefree college student, though it seems like a lifetime ago. Her father’s position at a major bank provided her with luxuries she took for granted. Now she works at menial jobs to support herself and her mother, and they live in what used to be their vacation home in Wildwood, New Jersey. Rose’s days are pure drudgery, until she meets Charlie. As luck would have it, she just happens to have the perfect place to display his artwork.

Before the Great Stock market crash of 1929, Charlie Brannigan was hailed as an up and coming artist in Manhattan. But now he’s back at his family home in Wildwood, delivering newspapers in the mornings and selling his paintings on the Boardwalk in the afternoons. He needs some luck in his life, and it seems every time a pretty lady named Rose appears, good things happen.

Searching for Lady Luck can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords,

and other ebook outlets.

Snippet Sunday

Photo from Wikipedia Commons

          Welcome back! For the month of March I thought I’d share snippets from Searching for Lady Luck, a novella I submitted just last week. It’s spring, 1936, and artist Charlie Brannigan tries to sell some of his paintings on the Boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey.

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          A wind gust blew one of his smaller paintings off its perch and onto the boardwalk. He scrambled after it, but a young woman bent and picked it up before he could reach it. She studied the scene he’d painted on the tiny canvas - a mother robin, tending her eggs in her nest. 

          “Good morning, ma’am. That’s one of my best miniatures. If you like it, I’d be happy to give you a bargain on it.” 

          The woman looked up from the painting and met his gaze. He blinked, wanting to make sure he wasn’t imagining the lovely face. Smoky gray eyes, wide and welcoming, in a heart-shaped face, made her look much younger than her clothing and severe hairstyle suggested.

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Searching for Lady Luck has been accepted as part of EsKape Press’s Luck Be a Lady anthology, due to be released this spring.