New Release! for Christmas in July

For several weeks in the United States, one of the top news stories has been the HEAT. 

Not political heat (which is a long-term story) ,...

and not tempers (though hot tempers flare in this weather)...

but HEAT of the Mother Nature kind. 



Everyone is searching for relief -- in air-conditioning, in front of fans, in movie theaters, in swimming pools, and in cool shelters. Cold temperatures and the Spirit of Christmas seem a long way off.

I felt a deep need for snowy days, holiday lights and brighter times. Christmas was never meant to appear for just a few weeks at the end of the year, but to live in our hearts every day.

This year, I decided to create a tangible reminder of holiday wonder by launching RESTORE MY HEART, the third book in the Pittsburgh Connections series, on July 10th. Read the book description below:

Click on Cover to buy now from Barnes and Noble!

  

Christmas miracles don't happen.

Sally Myers's alcoholic mother never celebrated the holidays. Her father and all the men who followed abandoned her, leaving her broken-hearted before she knew what whole-hearted felt like. From this rocky start, Sally has built a successful professional life. Still, she guards her heart against romance and love.

Now she has to work with appealing newcomer Jeff Campbell, a traveling restoration craftsman, just the wrong type of guy for her. In the hours of striving together to meet holiday deadlines, Jeff reveals himself to be both attentive and trustworthy. Maybe he could be the right man for her after all. 

Longing to believe in the miracle of Jeff's love, Sally drops her guard. When he leaves for his next project, her biggest fear is that he'll never come back.

~~~

Let this sweet contemporary story open your heart to the romance of the holidays. This third installment of the Pittsburgh Connections series delivers a deeply-felt story of real people falling in love. 

Catch the holiday spirit with Sally and Jeff! Buy RESTORE MY HEART from your favorite e-retailer today! (Head to my website Now for more information.)

And have the coolest Christmas in July ever!

Novella Review: MIDNIGHT IN DEATH, Holiday Heat

I love a good mystery and one of my favorite authors is J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts’ pen name for her In Death series). The series features Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a detective in the New York City of the near-future, and the friends and family she eases into her life as she solves the city’s toughest murder cases. The length of this series (45+ books and growing) gives us an opportunity to dive deep into Eve and Roarke, her financial magnet husband. I’ve enjoyed getting to know this cast of characters over the years, and occasionally take the time to dip back into an old favorite.

Midnight in Death is a novella set between books 7 and 8 of the series. It’s the first holiday Roarke and Eve have celebrated together as husband and wife. The plot of Midnight in Death is straightforward: David Sinclair, a serial killer Eve put away years ago, has escaped – and he has targeted everyone who took part in his downfall. Eve must work against David’s deadline to bring him down before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

Robb draws me in with her vivid descriptions of Eve’s emotional landscape – this steely detective used to be all about the job. Now she struggles with the strong feelings she has developed for her new husband, her trainee/partner, and the tentative connection she has begun with the motherly department psychiatrist.

The series is definitely HOT (see my Sensuality Content Ratings), and this story is no different — gritty tone, explicit violence and language, graphic sex — some readers find the series too dark. I read it for the deep, emotionally charged characters the author has created who leap off the page and stay with you long after the story is finished.  

In less than 100 pages, I can live and adventure 15 minutes into the future and sit on the edge of my seat while Eve fights to save those she's come to love (though she'll hardly ever admit it!). It’s a terrific post-holiday break.  I’ll take mine with hot chocolate, please. 

See this and other reviews on my Goodreads page.

Spiritual Snowmen for Christmas Meditations

The Everlasting Snowman by Hunter D. Darden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Last autumn, I met the author of "The Everlasting Snowman" at the Rag Apple Lassie winery in North Carolina and bought the book. I'm always looking for enchanting picture books about the Yuletide season, love, and service to read as part of my holiday meditations. What first drew me in were the watercolor illustrations (by Tamara Scantland Adams), washed in shades of blue, lavender, pink and white that recalled Michigan winters, but also reminded me that I had entered a fantasy world where snowmen talk and share their view of the world. The story follows the life of a snowman family throughout the year and shares the advice a snow child's parents give when faced with the little one's sadness about the brief span of a snowman's life.

The story works on several levels. At its base is a charming story of talking snowmen that children can enjoy. Taken on a spiritual level, the story may open up discussions for both children and adults. First, the snowman tale illustrates one form of everlasting life, a common theme in Christian theology. From a Buddhist perspective, the story might foster discussion about the impermanence of life and how we humans cope with that reality as well as the rhythms and circles of life that we all experience. Finally, the book presents a way to introduce natural science to children by showing how a natural substance, water, is preserved in several forms on earth and is essential to life on our planet.

I thought I had purchased a simple tale of talking snowmen and got a small treasure of wisdom. "The Everlasting Snowman" is worth adding to your winter reading list.


View all my reviews on Goodreads