Summer Reading Blog Hop

Summer Reads Blog Hop

Book 2
An autographed copy
can be yours!

Welcome to the Summer Blog Hop! Put on your flip-flops and bathing suits, slather on the sunscreen, and get ready for a great summer of reading. Thanks to Cody Gary of Avon Romance for starting this round robin blog hop.  My hostess is Charlene Raddon.

Each author answers five questions about his or her latest release and/or current WIP. They also post a recipe… hopefully pertaining to their work. Then, each author invites five more authors to participate and links them all together!

 One lucky commenter will receive an autographed copy of A Heart Broken, book 2 in the An Everlasting Heart series. Be sure to leave a comment WITH contact information so I can get your book to you!

 

 



Book 1 in the An Everlasting Heart series. In other words, the one I mention in this post!

1. When writing, are you a snacker? If so, sweet or salty?  Actually, yes. Since I write late at night after the kids are in bed and most of the world is fast asleep, I make a cup or three of decaf coffee and grab a handful of raw spaghetti to snack on.

2. Are you an outliner or someone who writes by the seat of your pants? And are they real pants or jammies?   I have written one fiction book with an outline and it wasn't my favorite way to write. I prefer to be a "pantster" and enjoy the adventure with my characters! As for if I prefer real pants or jammies, I like my new balance and danskin shorts that double as sleep shorts AND day shorts ... sometimes in a row!  

3. When cooking, do you follow a recipe or wing it? Depends on what I'm cooking. Since I cook as little as I can get away with, I usually cook something I don't need a recipe for, but if I get a wild hair and go all out, I totally wing it.

4. What is next for you after this book?  Well, this book is first in a series, has become a bestseller, and is up for the RONE award in Romance Excellence for 2012 in American Historical Fiction. Hopefully good things will happen with that come August! Books 2 and 3 in the series, A Heart Broken and A Heart at Home, are available now with book 4, A Heart Forever Wild, coming soon! Rebekah's Quilt, my debut Amish romance, will release November 16. My next children's book, Little Spoon, will release in September -- all coming from 5 Prince Publishing!

5.  Last question … on a level of one being slightly naughty and ten being whoo-hoo steamy, how would you rate your book?  I would say a three. It is a definite romance, but it is sweet.

 Want to keep hopping? Check out the following websites:

OTHER BLOGS TO VISIT FOR THIS BLOG HOP:

http://www.jeshays.com/
http://www.wittyonlineeditor.com
http://vintagevonnie.blogspot.com/
http://www.charleneraddon.blogspot.com/

Enjoy this excerpt from A Heart on Hold:

The trees were thick along the Sabine River that muggy October day in Arkansas. “Something’s not right,” Sanderson muttered to Lieutenant J.B. Price.

“What is it, Captain?” The Lieutenant’s voice trembled.

Unable to put his feeling of unease into words, Captain Redding simply shook his head. There was no way he could explain to the green Lieutenant that he sensed he was leading the Lieutenant and the rest of his men of the 17th Griffith’s onto the brink of a great precipice with the howling wind blowing angrily behind them. Or that the wind could send them hurtling to their deaths at any moment, was growing closer by the millisecond.

“Can’t you feel it, Lieutenant?” Sanderson could hear every crack of every twig, every leaf that shimmered in the rare passing breeze, every footstep from every man, and every breath taken by them, hoarse and jagged with fear.

Lieutenant Price held out his hand as though to feel for precipitation. “Feel what, Cap’n?”

“INCOMING!” The dreaded word tore from Sanderson’s lips as the thick, heavy calm was transformed in an instant into a hail of bullets raining down upon them. The cypress tree that Sanderson had been standing alongside was stripped of its bark, mini balls riddling the soft wood underneath. “We‘re caught in a crossfire, Lieutenant,” Sanderson called as he realized the bark was gone from both sides of the tree. “Take five men and cover the front, the rest of us will take the rear!”

Sanderson instinctively dropped to one knee, leveled his musket and squeezed off a shot, dropping a Federal soldier who had dared peek out from behind a gnarled cypress tree, only yards away. He managed to kill two more before Private Joe Dan ‘Lil Joe’ Simmons’ urgent tugging on his sleeve drew his attention off of the ensuing battle.

“I’m plumb out of munitions, Cap,” the young soldier chirped, his voice wavering on the edge of hysteria, “And they’s comin’ through that there marsh in droves!”

Sanderson dared a glance over his shoulder and verified that, indeed, a passel of Yankees were headed their way. “They’s gonna reinforce them that’s already behind us, Cap!” Private Simmons’ voice was a high-pitched cry now. “An’ we got ‘em in the front of us, too!”

Without so much as a pause, Sanderson drew his Bowie knife from its scabbard and tossed it in one fluid motion to the trembling Private. “We fight to win, Private!” Sanderson’s voice was a booming thunderclap over the melee alongside the boggy river before he killed another Union troop that charged at Lil’ Joe’s back.

Here's an 19th century recipe for green beans:

Fry a slab of bacon in your cast iron skillet. While it browns, slice an onion and add to your skillet. Do not drain the fat! Dice a clove of garlic and sauté until golden. Add your fresh snapped green beans -- as many as the skillet will hold. Cook on a high flame, covered, until you taste one and simply have to eat them then and there. Enjoy with hot coffee and homemade bread!