Fall Vibes Only by Laura Hunsaker

 Today at work we changed out the Thanksgiving/Fall decorations for Winter/Holiday decorations, and I have to admit, it made me sad. Even my neighbors have put their decorations up earlier this year.

I don't think I'm ready for winter yet! In fact where I am, we've barely had our autumn, let alone winter weather. So I decided to keep up my fall decorations. At least for the next few days.

It made me wonder why I love fall so much when I'm really a summer girl at heart. I really think it's less that I love fall (although pumpkin spice everything is my jam), and more that I love the break in weather, and the last slow days before the crazy busyness of the holiday season starts. I'm enjoying the nice weather, I'm enjoying not having to be everything everywhere all at once. I'm enjoying the last of this year. I'm not quite ready for the end of the year yet. 

So for now, today, it's still fall for me, and my desk. At least until Fall becomes Fall-la-la-la time.

What is your view? Are you ready for the Winter holidays? Or are you dragging your feet and in denial like I am?

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Kate Landry is soon to be Kate Donovan, if only the groom would show up.


Maid of honor Cara Nguyen wants everything to go smoothly for her best friend's wedding, yet almost immediately, the wedding turns into a fiasco. Kate and Kyle deserve to have the wedding of their dreams, and Cara wants to make it happen. It’s hard to do when the flowers are delivered to the wrong location, the groom is missing, and the lovely sunny day has become a sweltering hot mess. She definitely doesn’t have time to get distracted by a sexy groomsman in a kilt.


Kyle Donovan is ready to marry the love of his life, but first he has to help some stranded guests…


Dash Helms is in the small town of Chester, California for his friend Kyle’s wedding, when he is immediately tasked to help. A caravan of wedding guests break down on their way, one of the groomsmen misses his flight, and the beautiful maid of honor is the only thing he can concentrate on. When Dash is asked to step in at the last minute as a replacement groomsman, of course he says yes. But the striking brunette he’s walking down the aisle wants nothing to do with him.


With everything seeming to go wrong, what can go right?


In this wedding short story written for Kate and Kyle from Dark Past, the cast of the Fatal Instincts series comes together to celebrate their friends. With everyone in the same place at once, and romance in the air, can this small town handle them?

GIVING MORE THANKS

by Judy Ann Davis

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We have so much to be thankful for in the United States that I thought I would just re-post a poem I always loved at this time of the year. It’s by an unknown artist. 

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with friends and family. My husband and I usually spend the day cooking together. Both our sons live too far away (Alaska and S.C.) to join us for only a short time. We do try to sneak in a Skype meeting sometime during the day to converse with them and the little ones. If anyone is traveling this weekend I wish you a safe journey home. 

Let’s also hold those who are fighting for their freedoms around the world in our hearts, minds, and prayers. Freedoms are precious desires and needs and are essential in all our lives.

 Giving Thanks - Author Unknown

For the hay and the corn and the wheat that is reaped,
For the labor well done, and the barns that are heaped,
For the sun and the dew and the sweet honeycomb,
For the rose and the song and the harvest brought home -
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

For the trade and the skill and the wealth in our land,
For the cunning and strength of the workingman's hand,
For the good that our artists and poets have taught,
For the friendship that hope and affection have brought -
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

For the homes that with purest affection are blest,
For the season of plenty and well-deserved rest,
For our country extending from sea unto sea;
The land that is known as the "Land of the Free" -
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

 

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COURTING BETSY -Book 3 of the Ashomore Brothers Series

  

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My Favorite Way to Spend a Fall Day by Laura Hunsaker

 I love Fall. I'm a Summer girl at heart, but there's just something about the crisp air, the heat cooling down, and the chance to relax outside (It's just hit the 80s where I am, so this is gorgeous weather!) One thing about Fall is that it makes me want blankets. Like, all the blankets. I want to sip hot coffee surrounded by a nest of blankets and read a book. This image says it better than I can:

And every night this week I've done exactly what I want: I've read a book in my cozy blanket nest and loved every minute of it. With Summer, and the sun being up so late, my kids being on Summer time, school being out, I feel like it's harder to find time to read.

With Fall, and the weather, and the pumpkin spice everything, I just want to read. And for you, and your next book to add to your TBR, I'm so excited to share Dangerous Past with you!

As of now the book is up on Netgalley, and up for pre-order on Smashwords, but the release date is set for November 21, 2023 and this is the one guys. This is the book you'll want in your own blanket nest on a crisp Fall night. 

Share your favorite thing about Fall with me in the comments! Is it apple picking? Or is it cozy nights with a good book? Let me know!

Dangerous Past

A one night stand with an FBI agent puts Lark in the cross hairs of an investigation into a serial killer. Is she the victim? Or is she the killer...

She’s running from her past… 

Lark Seawell is the daughter of a serial killer. His reputation has long been a shadow looming over her since his arrest when she was a child. Especially since she’s the one who called the police. She has spent her entire life trying to live as anonymously and quietly as possible. She is not her father’s legacy. 

He wants to be her future... 

FBI agent Jay Sutherland is visiting a friend in a small mountain town when free spirit Lark asks for help with her injured dog. He is instantly enamored with her, and their one night stand stays with him far into the next morning, though Lark is long gone. When his partner realizes that she is the daughter of The Highwayman, Jay refuses to believe Lark is anything like her father. 

What happens when she stops running… 

When a trail of dead bodies follows Lark on her cross-country drive, the FBI believes she’s the killer. How can the sweet woman who rescues injured animals and makes him feel things he hasn’t felt in years be a murderer? The bodies don’t lie. Jay knows there’s more at play. If he’s wrong, and Lark is as much a monster as her father, he may be the next target… 

*Author's Note: This book contains a sunshiney heroine, a gruff hero, a couple of goofy dogs, some intense action, and begins when a one night stand leads to more…

FALLING OVER AUTUMN IN CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA

by Judy Ann Davis

John Sloane: Taste of Autumn

Central Pennsylvania has had its first frost. Our rainbow colored leaves have turned brown and floated downward into heaps on the ground. If you wander outside, the scent of smoke wood floats on the air from wood-burning stoves in the neighborhood. Birds of summer have vanished. Apples, pears, and grapes fill the market bins. These are all signs it’s time to hunker down and get ready for old man winter.

With outside temperature dropping, I like to turn on our gas fireplace in the family room to grab some extra warmth and also to enjoy the vibrant flickering flames. I dig out my glass pumpkins for the living room and fall decorations for the front door. And finally, I search my cupboards for my favorite candles.

Candles have a history of dating back into the B.C. periods. Everything from tallow, beeswax, whale oils, and animal fats was used to fashion them, even if rather crudely. While Romans used oil lamps for light, they began dipping candles from tallow (beef or
mutton fat) around 1000 B.C.

Pixabay

There is something mesmerizing about a lit candle during the colder months. Maybe it’s the flicking flame, maybe it’s the warmth of fire, maybe it’s the scent, or maybe it’s the candle’s ability to help illuminate a darker time of the year. Whatever the enticement, I find myself lighting one during our evening meal and later when I’m writing or watching television.

Of course, there are also the usual activities to enjoy during autumn: Drinking cider, tasting apple sauce, accruing more books than I could possibly read, and searching the closets for jeans, scarves, vests, and warm clothing.

So here’s wishing you a great autumn season ahead with colorful harvest skies and tasty pumpkin pies. Oh, and some candles for light to make your world bright!

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COURTING BETSY -Book 3 of the Ashomore Brothers Series

  

 

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Down the silence solemnly... by Liz Flaherty

This is old. I'm sorry, but my creative brain is...resting this week. I wrote it in October of 2015. Since I still feel the same way about fall, and since I actually read this at a writers' group meeting just this week...

The title of this post is from a James Whitcomb Riley poem called "A Dream of Autumn" that sang to every sense I possess.

I had a writers' group meeting last week. We wrote about the senses and autumn. Since I don't have anything original to offer here, I'll show you part of my assignment. (We don't have letter grades there--a good thing, too!)

My office is in the garage and its door is probably 50 feet from the back door of the house. I make this walk upwards of 10 times a day. More if I’m restless or if the words are hiding from me. Less if my fingers can’t keep up with them.

Coming from the house, I look toward the east and west horizons to see if anything has changed since the last time. Are the beans out of the field? Did they spread manure—I can tell when they do. Are the suet feeders empty?

Going back to the house, I look down. For season-predicting wooly worms. For the nasty little black worms that come out in fall. To see if the cats’ bowls are empty. Again. To make sure I see the step that hasn’t moved in 10 years or so but still manages to trip me from time to time.

When I hear the noises, I know where to look to see the waving magic carpet of murmurations of starlings or the honking, straining vee of geese heading out for their long flight.

What I don’t hear will call my attention just as quickly, and I still know where to look. The deer will be sauntering through the lower slope of the side yard, slurping up water released by the geothermal system that keeps our house comfortable in all seasons. The cats will run down to join them, silent in their reminder that this is their yard, after all. The deer nod their heads in greeting—or so it seems to me—and go on drinking.

When darkness has fallen, its velvet cushion of quiet is often broken by sounds from the high school. We’ll hear the band on Friday nights when there are home games, kids shouting at other times. It never ceases to amaze me how loud and clear the voices are from two-point-three miles away. We laugh, Duane and I do, about our remote control bleachers.

Sometimes we are in the real bleachers when our grandson plays or our son-in-law coaches, or in lawn chairs at soccer matches where a younger grandson runs and kicks with unbridled glee and without mercy. There is much said about youth sports being too competitive, but the memories that are made on fields and gym floors and ball diamonds are not ones I’d want to give up. They are ones I still hear and feel and see and smell in the soft-crisp nights of autumn. Those memories are like the scent of burning leaves and the snap of fresh apples in their sweetness.

I have walked between the house and the office twice already this morning and am getting ready to make the third trip. The grass is still an optimistic green beneath the scattering of leaves, the marigolds and the mums raucously bright reminders of the brilliance of fall. The cats mutter as they eat the morning food they had to remind me at least three times they were waiting for.

The grain trucks are already rumbling over the roads this morning. The air smells of harvest time and makes me want soup and something pumpkin and desserty even though I haven’t had breakfast yet.

Soon I will walk on the Nickel Plate Trail. The leaves will crunch beneath my feet. I’ll laugh out loud and alone at the book I listen to as I walk. The air will smell so good. Feel so good.

It is fall in all its glory.

Although Life's Too Short for White Walls isn't new, Joss Murphy and Ezra McIntire's story is a favorite with me. It's set in a rural Kentucky campground, written with some of the sounds and not-sounds of above nestling in my writer's heart. They're in new places in their lives, battling the scar tissue we all carry after our worlds go wrong. 

Is It Fall? by Laura Hunsaker

 It's about 100 degrees where I live, and my air conditioning is still running, so why on Earth did I buy a Pumpkin Spice Latte today? 

Because it dropped below 100 and we had cooler temps for a week courtesy of the Hurricane, and next thing you know I'm wearing a scarf and drinking a PSL! School is in, I'm seeing Halloween candy in the stores, and today Starbucks dropped the mother of all fall beverages, the call to fall, the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

So with fall practically here, and my boots and scarves on stand-by, I am ready! The main thing I think of with fall isn't apple picking, or leaves changing, or any of the typical fall activities that I see online. (I don't live somewhere where we do that), my main fall activity is wanting a hot coffee, a blanket, and a good TV show. Which brings me to my big question: What should I be watching?

I don't watch a lot of TV but I am buddy watching Supernatural with my daughter, and Good Omens with a friend...but what is out there that you love? What would I add to my list. Usually I re-watch faves, or I watch stuff with my children, but I want to branch out. I feel like I spend too much time online and I want to try something new.

So my post is a two-parter: What do you love about fall, and since I love being cozy in my house with a hot coffee and show, what should I be watching? Tell me all about it! 

And keep an eye on my website www.laurahunsaker.com because I have Dangerous Past and Dreams of the Future releasing soon...perhaps this fall...

In the meantime, enjoy the Backstreet Boys parody, "Pumkin Spice Latte."

NATIONAL FOOD DAY - October 24th

 by Judy Ann Davis

When October inches into Central Pennsylvania, she brings with her frosty mornings and the brilliant hues of autumn. The golds, reds, and oranges of the maples, oaks, birches, and sumac cover our hillsides. 

October 24th has been annually proclaimed as National Food Day focusing on healthy and nutritious foods. For me, it's the month when my favorite foods appear--those warm and cozy dishes like soups, roasts, puddings, and favorite drinks like cider and hot chocolate. 

Growing up, I always looked forward to October meals on the farm. My parents were from immigrant Polish parents, and my mother was an exceptional cook and baker. She made traditional dishes such as stuffed cabbage rolls (golumpki), beet soup (borscht), and dumplings stuffed with cheese or  mashed potatoes (pierogies).

The other day I found some fall mushrooms popping up in our yard. It reminded me of my childhood days when my mom and dad would set off on a foggy morning into the woods to collect them. Mushroom hunting is an old Polish tradition handed down when the first Polish immigrants came to America and brought their knowledge with them. These gilled fungi are hunted in both the spring and fall. One of my favorite dishes to this day is steak served with fried mushrooms and onions.

Apple cake (szarlotka) and cheesecake (sernik) are the most frequently served sweets in Polish homes. For those who love sweets, here is a easy fall favorite of mine, passed down by my mother.

NOBBY APPLE CAKE
 
6 TBSP butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted flour
6 cups diced apples
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Cream margarine, sugar, and eggs.
Sift dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture.
Stir in diced apples, nuts, and vanilla. 
Pour in greased pan.
Bake: 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

 JUNE - The Pianist

Book 1 in the Musical Christmas Series 

Now on Sale for $0.99 

 

MAGICAL SEPTEMBER

 by Judy Ann Davis

“By all these lovely tokens, September days are here.

With summer’s best of weather and autumn’s best of cheer.”

– Helen Hunt Jackson

 Magical September waltzed in with her cooler temperatures and autumn splendor.

 Let’s remember to:

      Admire September’s magical sunsets and the harvest moon

      Enjoy the beauty of goldenrod along our roadways.

      Appreciate the last green leaves before Jack Frost hauls out his paint box

      Take a few minutes to watch the rolling fog lift itself from the land.

      Drink a glass of refreshing apple cider.

      Call a friend and grab lunch to share in the fall merriment.

If I were to ponder the summer of 2022, I’d have to admit Central Pennsylvania had a hot humid season with temperatures rolling upward near ninety degrees many days. We received enough rain to encourage every weed in our flowerbeds to flourish. I grew a horse weed plant taller than I am. I filled buckets with purslane, plantain, dandelion, dollar weed, quack grass and clover. Humid conditions during the day and hot muggy nights encouraged white mold on many plants’ leaves, but our ferns went crazy, loving the humidity. Ironically, my tomato plants were stubbornly lazy and didn’t produce as well as they had in other years.

But now, it’s time to watch September spin the last of its magic as it blows a farewell kiss to us in less than a week. The hummingbirds have disappeared. Crows gather in noisy flocks. Geese honk farewell as they wing their way south.

Hans - Pixabay

  Acorns plummet to the earth with a plop. Mushroom 

  silently pop up from the ground. Milkweed pods 

  burst open sending seeds sailing into the air on 

  fluffy floss. Pleasing scents fill the air: smoky wood 

  fires, hot chocolate, cinnamon and nutmeg spices, 

  roasts in the oven, and apple   and pumpkin pies. 

  Oh, and let’s not forget pumpkin spice coffee

  sold in every establishment in town

                                   

JIMaro Morales - Pixabay

In many northern states,  September delivers the first frost of the season and signals autumn is approaching. I love autumn because of the exquisite colors it brings. Maple trees cover our landscape in gold, scarlet, and orange. It’s a painter’s paradise.                                

 

September is also jacket weather on cool nights. It’s the season when we dig into the back of our closets and pull out those jeans, flannel shirts, and fleece coats. Dry leaves rustle beneath our feet when we take a walk in the brisk outdoors.

Do you have a favorite sign of the autumn season? Share it with others in the comments below. And watch out for those falling acorns!

JUNE - The Pianist

Book 1 in the Musical Christmas Series 

Now on Sale for $0.99