This will be my last post for 2009! I hope 2010 will be filled with happiness and blessings for each of you!

This picture of our Christmas tree doesn’t do it justice. It’s prettier than this. There are 800 miniature white lights. The only place we could put it was in our foyer, so I didn’t do my garland on the stairway railing this year. We had planned to put it in our dining room but not enough room. Our dining room table and chairs we bought last August take up a lot of space. I never thought I’d be happy with an artificial tree but I didn’t miss having a real one this year.

I’ll be here tomorrow to announce more about my new release, MARRYING MALLORY!

Our Christmas tree is so elegant and beautiful, but I can’t share a picture of it because something is wrong with our Kodak digital camera. It’s frustrating - maybe later after I have more time to trouble shoot the problem.

I’m getting excited about my upcoming release of my inspirational romance, MARRYING MALLORY.

EXCERPT:

Her luck was about to change. Mallory Harrington could feel it in her bones.

In the past, she’d felt cursed at times. Too many things had gone wrong in her thirty-two years of life. It’d started when her father left. He never even said good-bye, but at age five she knew he wasn’t coming back. He hated living in Findlay, Ohio. They couldn’t go with him because her mother refused to leave Grandma.

As a seventh grader, Mallory climbed a tree to get a football for the little neighbor boy. After dislodging it from a high limb, she tossed the ball to him. Mallory started her long climb down, but slipped before reaching the ground. A barbed wire fence ripped her cheek during the fall. The jagged opening required thirty stitches.

Then she was robbed of being valedictorian because a few weeks ahead of graduation, another student’s grades were a little higher. She’d counted on receiving a full academic scholarship to college.

When she married Toby Harrington, she finally felt blessed. Doubly blessed when she gave birth to their son, Joshua. But her happiness ended the night Toby asked for a divorce.

All she ever wanted was to have a complete family and live happily ever after. Was she jinxed? The name Mallory meant luckless. If her mother had realized the meaning of her name, would it have made a difference? Would she still have named her Mallory?

Don’t be silly. My name didn’t cause my marriage to end. I’ll get what I want in my life. I’ve already accomplished the first challenge. I can’t wait to share my good news with Elizabeth and Heather. Thank you, Lord, for my friends, Elizabeth Wright and Heather Richards. They are a constant in my life, just like You.

She glanced at her kitchen clock to see if it was time to meet them and felt a surge of excitement. She couldn’t wait to share her important news. Five-year-old Josh was at Toby’s so she was free to go to dinner with her friends. She was glad they’d decided on the Olive Garden restaurant within minutes of her house.

Before leaving, she grabbed the paper by the computer. She stared for a minute at the attractive man with black hair. I’m glad I printed his bio and photo to show Heather and Elizabeth. As Mallory held the paper for a minute, she realized that this man would change her life… if she went ahead with the plan. After folding and shoving the paper in her purse, she headed out, anxious to leave to give her incredible news in person.

~~~~
Available on January 1st as an ebook - to buy it, go to Dessert Breeze Publishing or Amazon Kindle!

Before Christmas, I finished reading Ceri Hebert’s book, Finally Home. I had bought it several months ago and was excited to read it now on my Kindle. Amazon converted the PDF. format so it could be read on my ebook reader. I had to rotate the ebook in order to have the bigger print so that was disappointing. I learned with the PDF. format you have to do this in order to have a bigger font on the Kindle.

It’s a great book with wonderful and realistic characters. I loved the romance between Victoria Barron and Alex Carmichael. Both Torie and Alex are stubborn people with entirely different backgrounds so it was interesting to see how they managed to overcome their problems. I can see Ceri getting published soon with a bigger publisher - Finally Home is that good!

BLURB of Finally Home:

Despite their chilly past, Torie Barron and Alex Carmichael’s identical goals drive them toward a headlong collision over the horse farm they both covet, until a family tragedy puts an end to Torie’s dreams. As her life is swept down an unexpected and rocky path, she turns to the man who has been so infuriating yet intriguing. The man who stomped her heart into the ground when they were teens. Will Alex be her savior, or the one who stands in the way of all she’s ever wanted?

~~~~
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Emily’s family video she made of past Christmases was awesome!

Keep your fingers crossed because I emailed my novella “Your Place or Mine” to Carina Press. The editor at The Wild Rose Press asked me to work on a few scenes AGAIN. I like it the way it is now. I appreciate all her suggestions but just burned out and can’t do anymore with it. Angela James was my final line editor on my Samhain book, NO GREATER LOSS, and she’s the editor at the new Carina Press. It’s a digital publisher under Harlequin.

Contest coming soon! I promise!

I thought I’d share my new trailer for my inspirational romance, MARRYING MALLORY! It will be available on January 1st from Desert Breeze Publishing and Amazon Kindle.

~~~
I see an end in sight. I only have a gift certificate left to buy for a relative. I need to clean the house tomorrow (Wednesday) for Christmas Eve. Emily’s been busy making a Christmas video for us to watch on Christmas Eve. I asked her if she could take video clips from different years at Christmas time. Well, she decided to also scan old Christmas pictures and more recent ones and include them in the video. She also has asked each sibling to give their favorite Christmas memory. I can’t wait to see the finished video. Emily received her college grades today. She received all As.

Marrying Mallory will be available soon! It releases on January 1st.

I’m sharing the blurb and an excerpt today!

Enjoy - need to hit the stores again today. Next year I’m doing my Christmas shopping EARLY!

BLURB of MARRYING MALLORY:

Is Mallory Harrington jinxed because her name means luckless?

Things have gone wrong for Mallory since she was a small child. All she ever wanted was to have a complete family and live happily ever after. It appears she has it all when she marries Toby Harrington and they have a son. Unfortunately, their marriage ends when Toby has an affair with his law partner. After their divorce, Mallory feels guilt that she couldn’t forgive Toby for his affair. As a Christian, she should be able to forgive him for his sin.

Mallory decides to do something for herself, and get a surgical procedure that she’s always wanted. She makes an appointment with plastic surgeon, Doctor Seth Whitman, for it. Although she’s attracted to the handsome doctor, she doesn’t want to date him. She doesn’t feel that she should ever get married again.

Seth realizes that having Mallory as a patient might not work. She intrigues him too much. He wants to spend more time with her, but definitely not on the operating table. Should he refuse to do her surgery and lose Mallory as a patient? Or just do the unethical thing and date her before the scheduled surgery?

Mallory learns that sometimes faith is about accepting what can’t be changed and grabbing what God offers her. Life must go on.

EXCERPT

He realized he’d made a mistake having coffee with Mallory. He liked her too much which wasn’t appropriate for a patient-doctor relationship. Add to that, he thought she was beautiful. Her dark brown hair shone in the bright sunshine that streamed in through the window by their table. Her brilliant green eyes mesmerized him. Incredible eyes with such a sparkle to them that he loved staring at them. Her warm smiles got to him, too. He’d noticed in the office Mallory had a tiny scar that looked like a dimple when she smiled. He’d wondered then what had caused the scar but hadn’t wanted to ask her.

Maybe he should tell her that she could skip the nose surgery. Mallory’s face had so much character with her strong cheekbones, overwhelming smile, beautiful eyes and personality that an imperfect nose was of small importance.

“Thanks. This is nice to relax after a rough day with junior high students.” She took a sip of coffee. “And I love the smell of coffee. When I was growing up, I always woke up to the aroma of coffee brewing. My mom had to have coffee first thing in the morning.”

“How about you? Do you get up at the crack of dawn?” He bet she looked cute even in the early daylight hours.

“I usually don’t have any trouble getting up.”

Should he talk to her about not having the surgery? Sure, he should. It was his obligation. “Mallory, I know Sharon put your name on the calendar for your surgery, but I’m not so sure you need to have anything done. Look at Sarah Jessica Parker. She has a strong nose.”

“But my nose is bigger than hers.”

“You might think your nose is imperfect because of the size, but I do think it gives your face character.”

“Well, I can do with a little less character on my face.”

“Your nose is large but it’s aristocratic… like Princess Diana.”

“And look what happened to her. Prince Charles loved Camilla.” She snapped her fingers. “Guess what? Camilla has a small nose.”

“But Princess Diana was considered beautiful.” Like you, he wanted to say but didn’t.

“I bet you’re afraid I won’t be happy with my appearance because I still won’t have the perfect small nose. I understand that you can only do so much, but it’ll definitely be a big improvement over what I have to live with now.”

“I’m happy to do your surgery but if you should change your mind, I’ll understand.”

She gave him a warm smile. “You’re stuck with me. I’m not changing my mind on this. I loved seeing the imaging of what I’ll look like after surgery.”

Mallory was definitely serious about having rhinoplasty. Part of him was glad because he’d be seeing her again several times, for sure. But he wasn’t sure he liked that it’d be as his patient. “Then I’ll see you in June for your surgery.”

She cleared her throat. “What made you decide to become a plastic surgeon?”

The abrupt question caught him off guard. He thought about that for a moment. “I was impressed how plastic surgery made a difference in my sister’s appearance. When we were still young, a stray dog came in our backyard and attacked her. Amy had to endure many surgeries.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’m still not sure why the dog went after her instead of me. We were both playing outside.”

Her cell phone rang. While she pulled it out of purse, his eyes shifted to her mouth. Mallory had full perfect lips. Ideal for kissing. Big oversight spending time with Mallory outside the office. Now he was noticing her lips.