Happy Father's Day in the USA!

Arranging a Dream: a Memoir by J.Q. Rose

Click here to discover more books by JQ Rose 

on her BWL Publishing author page.  

Hello and welcome to the Books We Love Authors Insider Blog. In the US, today is Father's Day, Sunday, June 20. We honor and remember all those fathers and mentors who step in for dads in the lives of children.

My Dad

My memoir, Arranging a Dream: A Memoir, is about our life-changing year when my husband, my one-year-old daughter and I moved from family and friends and the security of two paychecks to West Michigan to become owners of a flower shop and greenhouses. In March of that year, 1976, my dad passed away. His passing turned my world sideways. Not only life-changing but also life-challenging. Dads and daughters have a special bond, and we certainly did.

I did not think I could move on from that horrible grief and despair that comes with losing a loved one. Those who have lost their family and friends to COVID come to mind as I write this. Believe me, you will conquer the grief and leave it behind, but the love and memories of your loved one will remain forever.

My dad influenced my writing as I grew up. He supported my efforts in writing poetry and stories. Sometimes I could hear the awe in his voice after he read one of my pieces. His reaction encouraged me to continue writing.

He was a funeral director. No, I didn't grow up in the funeral home. We always lived in a house not even close to the chapel. His personality, his love for people and his focus on details contributed to his success in caring for grieving families.

Dad was my model for the main character's father in my romantic suspense, Deadly Undertaking. It was a lot of fun writing that book and remembering growing up with Dad. He taught me how to operate a stick-shift, also known as a manual transmission, by allowing me to drive the hearse. Its called a funeral coach nowadays. He cautioned me not to take the corners too fast because the coach was top heavy. You can believe I proceeded with caution!

I hope you have good memories of your dad or the person who made a difference in your life.

Happy Father's Day!!

***

J.Q. Rose
Forever Daddy's Girl

About J.Q. Rose

Whether the story is fiction or non-fiction, J.Q. Rose is “focused on story.”  She offers readers chills, giggles and quirky characters woven within the pages of her romantic suspense novels. Using her storytelling skills, she provides entertainment and information with articles featured in books, newspapers, and online magazines.  Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, travel and presenting workshops on life storytelling are the things that keep JQ out of trouble. She and her husband spend winters in Florida and summers up north with their two daughters, two sons-in-law,  four grandsons, one granddaughter, two grand dogs, four grand cats, and one great-grand bearded dragon.

Click here to connect online with Janet.

Storm Chaser? Not Me? by Helen Henderson

 

Windmaster Legend by Helen Henderson
Click the cover for purchase information

For many years at every conference, lecture, and workshop I attended, the most often preached guidance was "Tell a good story." With "Write what you know," so close a second that it was just as often in first place as second.

While I have written tales based in the past and say I like to fly with dragons or hang with mages, I'm sorry to admit that in reality I don't. Research helps as does my imagination. But that isn't really knowing. So add "experienced" to part of the definition of knowing and it is easier to follow the rule. 

One setting (or event) that both myself and my characters have experienced is a storm.

Blizzards from my childhood and later years provided the inspiration for the sandstorm that trapped a character in a cave in Windmaster Golem.  

Winds howled outside the cave. Just beyond the entrance, columns of sand wheeled and pirouetted. Relliq watched the otherworldly dance. Anger mingled with dread. Desert storms were known to last for days. Some lasted season after season until the dunes swallowed up entire cities.

The characters in my current work in progress have to survive a different type of storm -- a tornado. When I started writing the scene my personal experience was primarily with blizzards, thunderstorms, and hurricanes. Superstorm Sandy was front and center in my memory as I didn't live that far from where she made landfall and had just finished archiving the photographs of its aftermath.

Although I now live in what is called the Dixie Tornado Alley, my experience with tornados was limited to local news coverage of the Christmas Eve tornado in Mississippi and  our town warning sirens going off whenever the national weather service issues a tornado alert for our county.  After the first alert and two hours of "wall to wall" non-stop reporting with the storms going farther south, not much thought was given them on later alerts. Then came Mother Day 2021. 

 

The local news broke into regular programming with details of a tornado sighted in our town and the warning to immediately go to our safe room. My husband got out a map and started tracking the tornadoes path by the roads announced. After I put my mother in an inside room, I alternated between a sky watch and the  news with its minute by minute radar reports. Luckily the tornado didn't zig right towards my side of town and dissipated before reaching an apartment complex and the three nearby schools.

 

Considering the weather events experienced in the world of Windmaster will I become a storm chaser in my real life? After the excitement of what could have been a close encounter with a tornado, my answer is an emphatic "No."

 

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination. 

Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter or Website.

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who has adopted her as one the pack. 

 

Is it Spring yet in Alberta, Canada? by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about Nancy's books please click on the cover above.

This is the brand new cover for the last book in The Alberta Adventures series. I really love it, it's Chance right down to the cocky grin. Who doesn't love a bull rider (as long he's not dating your daughter LOL)

So....Springtime in Alberta. It can never quite make up it's mind. One day it will be +16 Celcius and the next it is snowing to beat the band. Hard on my delphiniums who are eternal optimists and always start to push up green shoots as soon as the earth warms even a bit. 

So far this year, we've had some nice warm weather, and then a cold front dips down from the north and BAM- wind, and snow, and sleet, and rain

The pansies tolerate the cold so well I always put them out first. The geraniums, not so much. They come inside to hide until the weather turns again. The flowering plum in the front is working hard to put on a show, but we had some chilly weather and I'm afraid some of the buds got nipped. Hence the old adage to 'nip something in the bud' meaning to stop something before it manifests. 

I'm hoping to have a full garden, but it will depend on what weather we get in June. In the past, it has offered up a hard frost, hail and even snow, so we'll see.

The Saskatoon bushes are blooming, so hopefully I will get some berries before the birds do this year. The Rhubarb is begging to be thinned out already, it doesn't seem to mind the snow either. 

Ian Tyson got it right when he wrote the song Springtime in Alberta. 

On another note, Chance's Way is coming along. Look for it to release in September 2021.

Wishing you all happy gardening and praying for a Covid free summer.

www.nancymbell.ca

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