Cottage at Le Pouldu (Władysław Ślewiński)

Cottage at Le Pouldu, ca. 1892. Władysław Ślewiński, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Her Convenient Forever is on sale this month, so I thought that today, I’d share an image that goes along with an excerpt from that book.

If you’ve read the first three books of my Touches of Austen series, you will have met Felicity Love, and you probably really don’t like her. She’s not nice in those stories. I did a good job of making her unlikable if I do say so myself. And then, while writing book three, I knew that I was going to have to write a story for her. I didn’t really want to. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to make her likeable. But it simply had to be done.

Her Convenient Forever is that story.

It is set near the sea in Kent where Mr. And Mrs. Love have rented a cottage for the summer and where Felicity is coming to terms with the mess she has made of her life through selfish living. In fact, the opening chapter shows her in the very deepest kind of despair. This somewhat lengthy excerpt is from that first chapter.

Continue reading Cottage at Le Pouldu (Władysław Ślewiński)

Music Monday: To Love Again (Joe Yamada)

PUBLISHED TO YOUTUBE BY JOE YAMADA MUSIC ON FEBRUARY 7, 2020

I picked this pretty piano piece from my Music to Write by playlist today because it has the right tone and title to match with the book I have releasing tomorrow. In Her Convenient Forever, Felicity Love thinks she has lost her chance for love, and Boyd Hedrington thinks he cannot love again. While the story has some very somber notes, it also has moments of hope, joy, and rediscovery much like this song, To Love Again, does.

The excerpt from chapter 3 below hits one of those somber, sad notes in the story.


“Where shall we sit?” Mr. Hedrington asked Matthias, who looked at Felicity.

“I am going to sit on the sofa near the hearth,” she said.

Matthias smiled and nodded his head.

“Will three fit?” Mr. Hedrington said with a laugh.

“I should hope so,” Mr. Love said with a chuckle of his own. “My Felicity has always charmed the young gentlemen, but I was not aware that her abilities extended to such young gentlemen.”

He was teasing, and three months ago, Felicity would have rolled her eyes and giggled. However, at present, her cheeks flamed as she forced a small laugh.

“I am pleased to see Matthias wishing to sit with you,” Mr. Hedrington said softly as they sat down. “He has not found it easy to accept new acquaintances. I have had several neighbours call on us since our arrival, and aside from Mrs. Jones, he has not warmed to any of them.”

“Felicity is hard not to like,” Mr. Love said with a smile.

Again, while Felicity knew her father was praising her, she blushed and could not accept it. She had not been easy to like. In fact, she had been dreadfully difficult and even impossible to like for some people. One only needed to ask her sister, Grace, to discover the truth of it. There were many sins she had contemplated while looking at the stars when sleep would not come.

“Miss Love said you live a distance from here,” Mr. Hedrington said.

“Ah, yes, a little further than a day’s drive to the northeast into Kent,” Mr. Love said. “But we come here nearly every summer. There have been a few summers where we have not been able to make the journey due to other obligations, and we have missed our time here.”

“Is it always this cottage at which you stay?”

Mr. Love nodded. “We enjoyed it so much on our first trip that we have never considered any other place. Of course, our first time to the ocean was after our marriage. Mrs. Love had never seen the sea, and I could not resist being the first to show it to her.”

Felicity loved the way her father’s eyes grew soft when he looked at her mother and spoke of their wedding and first trip to this cottage. How many times had she asked him to tell her that story when she was young? It was likely why she had fallen so deeply in love with the idea of marriage. What girl would not wish to be so treasured as her father’s look said her mother was? Of course, as it turned out, Felicity had not gone about trying to find such a situation for herself in the right way, and now, she would never have someone to look at her in such a fashion.

“If you will excuse me,” she said before rising quickly and leaving the room, for she knew that those tears which had threatened before would not be refused this time.

[from Her Convenient Forever]


Find Her Convenient Forever in your Kindle store here.

*The link in the first paragraph is to the song on Spotify. This is not an affiliate link. It is just my way of attempting to help out the artists whose music I share.


TSB: My Writing News and Adding Beauty to my Social Media

Can you believe this is the final Saturday of May? That means we have almost survived another month of 2020. 🙂 At times, it feels like time is dragging, but then, I immerse myself into my work, and, when I look up, I’m surprised at how much time has passed. I hope you are finding ways to make 2020 enjoyable and find the beauty in life despite any restrictions which still remain where you are. Below, is an update on the enjoyable, writing-related things that take up a large portion of each of my days. 🙂  And at the end, as my something extra, I have included one way I am attempting to add beauty to my life on social media.

Writing News

I don’t have any excerpts of writing to share with you this week because I don’t want to give anything away in either story that I am writing. So, this will be a short and kind of boring 🙂 update on how my works in progress are progressing. 

In my writing time, so far, I have written one chapter each of Protecting Miss Darcy and Her Convenient Forever. I’m actually planning to get one more chapter of Protecting Miss Darcy before the week is over. 

Continue reading TSB: My Writing News and Adding Beauty to my Social Media

Three Books, One Download, Just $0.99

I hope you are staying safe and well. Below you will find information about what I accomplished in my writing life this week and a link to a book (which is actually three books in one) that is on sale from now until next Wednesday (April 22). 

Writing News

Here’s an update on my writing I have with a short excerpt from two of them. Her Convenient Forever: I scheduled the first chapter of this story to post on May 12, 2020, and then I wrote the second chapter this week. I admit to feeling trepidation about writing a story for Felicity as she’s been horrid in the other stories, but I’m actually liking it so far. Here is a snippet from that chapter:

“Papa!” Matthias, who was in the garden with his nursemaid, ran towards him.

Papa was one of the few words that Matthias ever uttered. Boyd smiled at him and squatting down, held out his arms so that his son could run into them, but the smile was only an expression to let his son know how happy he was to see him. Inside, the weight on Boyd’s heart grew heavier as he remembered the sweet babbling boy Matthias used to be when he was three, before Anna had died.

He squeezed Matthias tight. “Did you have a good morning?”

Matthias nodded.

“And did you have any biscuits yet?”

Matthias shook his head.

“Then, I think we should find some because my stomach is beginning to rumble.”

Matthias wiggled out of his father’s embrace. Gone were the days of him wishing to be carried everywhere. Boyd knew it happened eventually with all children, but he had hoped that it might last a bit longer. He would just have to content himself with the fact that Matthias still greeted him with a hug and allowed him to hold his hand.

Continue reading Three Books, One Download, Just $0.99

The Saturday Broadsheet for April 11, 2020.

I hope you are all safe and well. Below you will find information about what I got done in my writing life this week and a link to a book that is on sale from now until next Wednesday (April 15). I have finished reducing the prices of my novels and novellas. I’ll mention that below as well. 

Writing Life

Here’s an update on my writing I have with a short excerpt from two of them. Her Convenient Forever: Guess what? I started the next Touches of Austen book. Here is the very first peek at how that story starts. 

Waves lapped at the sand below her. A group of gulls dipped and soared before landing just out of reach of the rolling waves. A breeze steady, but gentle, pulled at her skirts and tugged at her bonnet. The sun peeked out from behind a light grey cloud. If only her heart felt as perfectly lovely as the weather.

Felicity Love opened the small box she held but quickly closed it again. This must be done, but… she turned away from the edge of where the land dropped from where she stood to the beach far below. Perhaps tomorrow she would feel more prepared.

Turning around, she walked in the direction of the road which would take her to the small cottage her father had rented.

This place and this time away from home was her reprieve – her place to grieve and her place of solace where her heart was supposed to mend enough to face the future. But how could a heart, which had been shattered as hers was, repair itself in just two months?

Matching Mr. Darcy: I’m up to chapter 11. Here is how chapter 11 begins: 

Continue reading The Saturday Broadsheet for April 11, 2020.