Today, I’m sharing my (Leenie’s) Nature’s Fury and Delights collection of novelettes with you. Or should I say rambling on about my Nature’s Fury collection since I was struggling with some brain fog issues when I recorded this yesterday. 🙂
I’m also trying out a new mic set up. One of these days I’ll get all the tech stuff figured out. (I hope LOL) Probably about the time I start to feel a bit more comfortable being on camera? Maybe?
Enjoy!
Today, I’m pairing a beautiful piece of music that is aptly named with the first few paragraphs of my novelette Apple Blossoms and Whispering Hearts. This is what we call the meet-cute in romance writing. AKA when the hero and heroine meet.
Thomas is a bachelor who struggles with social interactions – especially when they are with ladies. He’s a bit unsure of himself and sees himself as not very much of a “prize.”
Clara is a widow with an energetic young daughter. She thinks she’s had her one chance at happily ever after.
Enjoy!
P.S. Apple Blossoms and Whispering Hearts is the Patreon free read this month. You only have to be signed up as a member to read it. No subscription required. It’s also one of the stories in First Blooms and Second Chances, the second collection of Nature’s Fury and Delights that is on sale all this month for $2.99 USD (with all other currencies also reduced). Regular price is $5.99 USD.
Continue reading Orchard Skies (Thad Fiscella)
(If you’d prefer to listen to this post in audio read by Christopher, my cloned narrator, you can do that on YouTube at this link.)
Many years ago, at the very beginning of my writing “career” (while I still had a day job as a teacher), I wanted to make writing a regular practice. This desire became a plan for a writing exercise called Thursday’s Three Hundred, which was doomed to fail. 🙂
The plan was to use a random visual prompt and write three hundred, equally as random, words of a story scene, that I would share on my blog each Thursday.
The exercise failed because I found I couldn’t just write three hundred words and move on. That very first three hundred words begged to be turned into a story called Hope at Dawn, and the next new story I started begged me to turn it into a series — what is now my Willow Hall Romance series. So, while the exercise failed in part, that failure has produced a fair number of stories, and I did develop a consistent writing practice. In that way, it was more of a success than a failure.
Today, I’m sharing the first chapter of that first failed exercise that was prompted by the image in the video graphic of a Sunset on Fogo Island. I took this picture not too far from the cottage at which I was staying in Joe Batt’s Arm. This was the first trip I had ever taken to Fogo and was when I fell in love with the remote and rugged beauty of the place.
Hope at Dawn begins on a rocky shoreline as a gentleman, who was not deemed worthy enough to marry the lady he loves, waits for her to return home after an extended period of time away.
As he sits, watching the waves while darkness fades into light, faint hope is the only thing to which he has to cling as he waits to see if the work he’s done while she’s been gone is enough to now be worthy of her hand.
Continue reading A Fogo Island Sunset
This image that I found on Depositphotos feels like the story that I’m sharing from today in this post. It’s lonely and quiet. It’s rimmed with shadows that hide many things. And yet, it’s got that light which is chasing away those shadows and making the scene feel a little welcoming.
I’d say this story, Frosted Windowpanes, is like that. There’s a welcome to the scene in which the main character finds himself, but is it a lasting welcome or will the shadows of the past and circumstances of the present snuff out the glimmer of home? I can’t tell you how it happens because that would be spoiling the story. But, this is a Leenie Brown story and touched with inspiration from Persuasion, so you know the ending cannot be bleak, right?
Below is the first chapter of this four-chapter novelette from my Nature’s Fury and Delights Collection. For those who are familiar with my Willow Hall series, you’ll see a few names that should be familiar since Mr. Mullins’s estate is located in Derbyshire near Willow Hall and Kympton.
One more note before I let you read the beginning of the story: Frosted Windowpanes is the free Ream and Patreon read this month, so at the end of the chapter, I will include links to find it on those platforms (you do have to sign up as a free follower to access it there) and links to where the story is available in stores and such.
Enjoy!
Continue reading Wintery Night in the ParkThis month’s Saturday Broadsheet, with all my writing life updates, is now available at the link below.
In this issue of the Broadsheet you will find:
