Are you ready for more of Heart's Haven?

 We're so excited about our upcoming Heart's Haven releases...TWO of them, coming only two weeks apart! To celebrate, we're having parties on Facebook - and YOU'RE INVITED! As always, we'll be visiting with our readers, sharing recipes, and giving away some great prizes. Trust me, you don't want to miss these events!

The first party is on Friday, Nov. 1st, to celebrate the release of Tanya Stowe's HAUNTED HEARTS. Here's a blurb from this wonderfully warm tale with just enough eeriness to make it perfect for this time of year:

Firefighter Scott Lunsford is haunted by his past. Tormented by loss and reeling from guilt, he hasn't been the same since a car accident claimed his girlfriend's life. He should have saved her. With his life and his faith in ruins, he takes a leave of absence and throws himself into the renovation of his turn-of-the-century house. His days are filled with renewing and rebuilding…but the nights bring voices and apparitions and Scott fears he's losing his mind.

Self-proclaimed klutz Suzy Daniels knows angels frequent her Heart’s Haven home, but the entity she encounters floating around Scott Lunsford is no angel. Suzy trips on her own feet and slides down the side of the trail, screaming all the way. But Suzy realizes Scott is being tormented. She tells the handsome firefighter she's seen the apparition and assures him he’s not losing his mind--he's just as sane as she is. Suzy doesn’t believe in ghosts but she does believe in angels, God’s spiritual warriors, and she’s convinced they can help Scott in this battle for his soul.

If you've been following the series, you know that Heart's Haven started with four novellas written by four authors. The original series included:

JEWELS FOR THE KINGDOM by Delia Latham
OPERATION BREATHLESS by Marianne Evans
LEAP OF FAITH by Tanya Stowe
DANCE WITH ME by Mary Manners

Our readers accepted these four books with such enthusiasm that we found we couldn't bear to say good-bye to Heart's Haven just yet. So...we put together another couple of series. One is still in the offing (we'll keep you updated!), but we're in the middle of releases for the Heart's Haven Holidays series right now. These books include:

LEXI'S HEART by Delia Latham (A Mother's Day story)
LOVE NOTIONS by Mary Manners (A 4th of July story)

 

(The above two novellas are available NOW...you can buy them publisher-direct or on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Christian Book - actually, pretty much any online bookseller should have them available.)

Finishing off the Holidays series are the two books pictured at the beginning of this post:

HAUNTED HEARTS by Tanya Stowe (A Halloween story) Coming Nov. 1st  Don't forget to be at the Facebook party!

MARIA'S ANGEL by Marianne Evans (A Thanksgiving story) Coming Nov. 15th  Stay tuned for release day/party news!

New Heart's Haven e-Book - get yours NOW!

Love Notions: New Heart's Haven Holidays novelette!

We are so excited to welcome LOVE NOTIONS to the growing list of Heart's Haven novelettes! It's a Mary Manners title, and if you've ever read a Mary Manners book, you know they are all special. Here's a peek into this latest delight:

Click the link above to purchase this e-Book
publisher-direct. Also available at Barnes & Noble and
Christian Book Distributors.

Jami Mitchell has come home to Heart's Haven to open a bookshop with the inheritance Grandma left to her. Nana's Novel Notions is the business of her dreams until she realizes who the tenant next door is: ruthless Riley Hunter. Growing up in the small town together, she's watched him dance through women while she's hidden her feelings with a concrete exterior. How will she cope, when she can't bear being in the same town with him, let alone neighbors?

Riley Hunter has sacrificed everything to shed the poverty of his childhood. While others held Sweet-sixteen parties, he cleaned up after them. But his hard work has paid off, and he's opened an architecture firm in the growing town. He's had a thing for Jami since high school, but she was the privileged girl who never gave him the time of day. Now she's come home with a wad of cash and has set up a book store in the business complex he plans to buy out.

Can the two put the past behind them, or will his dream shatter hers?

Get your copy of the newest Heart's Haven e-Book!

A Special Mother's Day Romance

LEXI'S HEART

by Delia Latham

 

Book one in the Heart's Haven Holidays Collection

Now available

Forty-three-year-old Lexi Carlisle’s abusive marriage ended three years ago. Deeply scarred by the experience, and helplessly watching her beloved mother succumb to Alzheimer's, Lexi is devastated. After selling her fancy home, she rents a cottage in Heart’s Haven, a special place unlike any other. Slowly learning to live again, she despairs of ever delivering the message of love that burns within her heart for her ever-worsening mother. But Mitch Gaynor, a handsome Christian author, reminds Lexi that with God all things are possible, planting within her battered and distrustful heart the seed of hope for a miracle. But can she open her fortressed heart to God? And is Mitch a part of His plans for her future?

Her heart. His faith. Love reborn.

 

Get Lexi's Heart on Kindle

Z is for...

Zilch.

It’s meaning? Nothing. Zero. Absolutely nada.

But writing about nothing didn't sound like a lot of fun - to read or write - so...I'll write about Zilch instead.

Zilch is the name of a dice game our family enjoys playing. Some folks call the same game Farkle. Actually, we call it Farkle most of the time, but I hear the “official” name of the game is Zilch.

Ever played it? It’s a great way to keep a group occupied, but still free to visit and enjoy one another’s company. On those rare visits from relatives who live at a distance, we almost always pull out the dice and enjoy a game of Zilch…or Farkle. (Maybe we should start calling it Zarkle…or Filch…or Farch…) lol

Family game night is a great way to spend an evening. I love the fact that players can actually visit with each other during play, breaking the growing routine of every family member staring at a computer or television screen. In the same room, but not connected. Conversation? Zilch. Interaction? Zilch. True family time? Zilch.

All that ZILCH equals NO FAMILY,

and the Heart's Haven angels

say that's not a good thing.

Not a good thing at all.

Try this Zilch instead, and make it a rule that your family members - everyone living under your roof - participate one night a week. Get to know each other again. It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s inexpensive—six dice and you’re all set.

Wouldn't it be nice if your family grew closer because of "nothing"?

Let's talk about it. What does your family do to stay connected? (Please don't say, "Zilch!) :D

Y is for...

If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday, laying flowers on its grave by the hour, you cannot be planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today.

—Joyce Chapman

 

The thing about yesterday is that it’s gone.

 

Done. Over. Finished.

 

No matter how righteously we lived those twenty-four hours, or how grossly we mismanaged them, no life remains in that day. It is essentially dead…and we all know what happens if dead things are not buried. Yep, that’s right—they raise a doggone obnoxious stink.

 

So we should live each day as we wish, because when tomorrow comes, today is dead. Now, come on…I know you didn’t really say that!

 

Burying a man doesn’t undo all the good he might have done while he lived. Nor does it heal all the hurts or close all the wounds he inflicted. And letting yesterday go doesn’t erase the impressions we made on others, the kindnesses or cruelties we committed, the footprints we left in the sands of time.

 

I loved my Dad. Adored him. He was and will always remain my hero. When he died, I seriously questioned how I could possibly go on without him. And yet, I knew I had to keep living. It would have negated all the wisdom he ever shared with me had I stretched myself across his grave and insisted on dying too. I had to honor his memory by living what remains of my life according to the principles of honesty and integrity that he taught me by example. The physical, flesh-and-bone creature who was “Daddy” is gone…nothing he did in his life, right or wrong, can be changed. But the essence of who he was lives on—in me, in my siblings, and in the lives he touched, for good or bad, while he lived.

 

So yesterday’s gone, but not forgotten.

 

We’ve all made mistakes we wish we could un-make. We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, and wish we could un-do. I certainly have.

 

Regret is a fact of life. And it can be a good thing. Those who commit atrocious acts and experience no sense of shame or sorrow for their actions have problems far more serious than I’m qualified to discuss.

 

But regret that doesn’t result in change—which brings about a measure of peace and self-forgiveness—is counteractive. It gives yesterday the power to ruin today and tomorrow.

 

Let’s bury the past, with all its mistakes and regrets; cover it over with the lessons we learned from living it; and plant within that fertile new soil a thousand seeds of hope and change, of goodness, kindness and love.

 

Grow a better tomorrow from the seeds we plant today on yesterday’s grave.

 

It’s a way to turn yesterday’s ugliness into tomorrow’s beauty—and yesterday’s beauty into a glorious future.