2024-09-03

Romance Writers Weekly ~ Favorite Time in History ~ #LoveChatWrite



 This week, on the Romance Writers Weekly blog hop, we're asked, "What's your favorite time in history and why?"

I don't actually have a favorite time in history. I think every time has had good and bad aspects to it, depending on who you were and/or where you lived. I love exploring different eras in my writing, but I don't think I'd actually want to live in any of them.

When it comes to writing, on the other hand, I definitely like exploring time frames that I've actually lived through. I may have been a little too deeply influenced by the TV show Quantum Leap.

In my novella Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life (out today! as part of the Love and Espresso Anthology!) my character uses artwork to explore the history of her hometown. Here's a teaser:

Giada pushes a stack of papers across the table to me. “Here. Take a look. They’re numbered. Just line them up, left to right. Let me know what you think.”

 

I arrange the pages as directed, and then it’s my turn to look astonished. “Holy shit, G. This is incredible!”

 

Spread out on the table before me is a panoramic view of downtown Atlas Beach. More specifically, it’s a close approximation of the view you’d get if the wall on which the mural will be painted was transparent. With one major difference. It also shows how much the town has changed over time. 

 

The first picture, the one closest to the back of the shop, where all the original, architectural details have been preserved, shows the town as it would have appeared when the building was first constructed. As the scenes progress, you see the town change and grow over time. The final sketch, the one at the very front of the shop, shows the town as it is today in a way that will let it blend seamlessly into the actual view as seen through the store’s front windows.

 

“It’s perfect.” I tell her, still studying the string of drawings, finding more to like each time—like the way the background colors shift, moving from warm, almost monochromatic, sepia-tones on the one end to vibrant, full-spectrum, color on the other.

 

“You like it?” she asks, looking pleased.

 

“I more than like it, Giada,” I confess, knowing—even as I say it—that I’m telling only part of the truth. “I freaking love it.” But not as much as I still love her.



Now, hop on over to Jill Haymaker's page to find out what her favorite time in history is. And don't forget to check out her book, Return to Pine Meadows.





NEW RELEASE

Return to Pine Meadows

When Kara’s dad is diagnosed with dementia, Kara is forced to return to her family’s ranch. All she wants to do is sell the ranch and get back to her life in the city. She didn’t expect Hawk Mitchell, a boy who tormented her in high school, to have  turned into someone she can’t resist. Can the isolated Montana ranch she left in the past, turn out to be her future?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DBRJVBPC





It's Release Day for:

Love and Espresso

A Limited Edition Contemporary Romance Anthology




https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CSKS814M/

This collection features meet-cutes that take place in a bookstore/coffee shop. The heroines are looking for their HEA but never expected it to happen while picking up a cup of coffee or picking out their next book boyfriend.


Includes my new Atlas Beach story, Giada Mazzi is Living her Best Life:

Blurb: 

"life is more than just the lies we try and tell ourselves about what we’ve done and who we are.

 I guess the truth is that I never stopped loving Ben. And I never stopped imagining how different my life might have been if he were only the person I needed him to be, instead of the person that he is. Which is silly, right? I mean, truly; it’s laughable. Because if he were someone else, he wouldn’t be him.  And the world is already full of people like that. What good is one more gonna do me?

Besides, if I’m honest, Ben wasn’t ever the problem. That was me. I was never the person he believed me to be. Oh, I thought I was, in the beginning. I tried hard to be, and that worked for a while. Sort of. But eventually I reached the point where I had to make a choice between living life for myself, or for everyone else.

And when it came right down to that…how could I not choose me?"


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