New Year's Magic by Bea Tifton

Ah, the New Year. All that talk of new beginnings, a blank book, etc. A friend of mine posted something on Facebook along the lines of, “Well, it’s almost the new year. Time for all those ‘Everything’s going to be different and perfect posts.’” I was struck by her cynicism. 

 Don’t get me wrong. I realize that people don’t completely reinvent themselves just because the ball drops on Times Square. The world doesn’t become a Disney movie with helpful animals dropping by to clean my house, (still waiting for that to happen), everything doesn’t magically become perfect.  I’m a grown up, so I know that.

Background vector created by gluiki 

 But isn’t there something magical about new beginnings? They’re hard, sure. They can be messy, even painful. But the optimism. Isn’t that important? We haven’t’ lost our optimism. This year was a very difficult one for my family. There’s something comforting about a “This year will be better” outlook.  I think it drives us to better ourselves. To pick ourselves up and try again. To strive for better habits, a better life.

I’ve often heard people say, “If only I could go back. This time I wouldn’t make so many mistakes. I’d do things differently.” It’s a tempting thought. But the caveat is that we’d have to know we were going back, for without that knowledge, wouldn’t we just make the same mistakes? I’m pretty sure I would make just as many. They may be different ones, but still.

I prefer a different philosophy. Everything I’ve done. Every time I didn’t take that great advice that would have made such a positive difference, every time I impulsively made that illogical decision, and every time I made just the right decision made me who I am today. If I’d followed different paths, be they better or worse, I would be a different person. And after, um, (mumbles indistinctly) years on the planet, I like me. I’ve chosen to like me. And to be proud of the accomplishments I’ve made. And not to live in regrets or what ifs.

Viktor Hanacek Buy Me a Coffee

The New Year. A blank book. What an amazing feeling. What a great thing.  The possibilities are endless. Make the most of it.

Where the New Year is Taking me by Paty Jager

Welcome to a new decade!

Not to show my age, but over 30 years ago, after writing short stories for kindergarten classes and writing freelance human interest stories for the local newspapers, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. I had always been a reader and fan of mystery novels but it was after reading A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton  and a personal experience that left me filled with anger that I decided to write a murder mystery book.

As I was percolating the idea of writing this book and trying to figure out how I could make the amateur sleuth credible, I happened to be folding clothes and watching a talk show. On the show was a woman who decided to get to the bottom of her husbands activities. She talked to a Private Investigator and learned all the ways she, a regular housewife, could be her own P.I. She didn't have the money to pay one, but this one was willing to give her suggestions.

After the experience she wrote a book, "How to be Your Own Detective". I had an aha moment. The next time I was in a book store I purchased the book- this was before Amazon and one click! Using that book, I had a single mom, freelance photographer, use that book to discover who killed the woman her ex-husband was being framed for killing. 

Research for the Shandra book I'm working on now.

And the dead woman? Was the person who had filled me with anger. After writing the first book, I went ahead and wrote a second one, and after that, the anger I felt toward the person was gone. It took two books to kill off the person I had been betrayed by, but the murder on the pages of a manuscript worked.

However, the books didn't see the light of day. After a bad round with, what I now know as an unscrupulous agent, I turned to writing romance.

But the desire to write murder mystery never left. I am in my happy place now! I have two mystery series that are being well received by readers, and I enjoy coming up with the unique murders and twisted endings. For that reason I am taking a hiatus from writing romance.

I know this blog is titled Smart Girls Read Romance. And if you don't want to hear about mystery books, let me know in the comments and I'll come up with other topics to write about.

Until I hear differently, you will be seeing posts on here about my research for my mystery books and things that I have been doing for my writing.

Happy 2020 everyone!

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 43 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

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Top photo source: Deposit photos

"Little Women" (Movie) Opened in the UK Last Week! #books and #movies

Welcome to SMART GIRLS READ ROMANCE again. We're happy you dropped in!If you're as excited as me to see the new film LITTLE WOMEN, here are some interesting facts about the new film and, of course, Alcott's book.

The story behind Little Women all begins with Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, the home of the book’s author, Louis May Alcott. 

The new film, Little Women, opened in the UK today. It’s not surprising the director of the movie, Greta Gerwig, brought the cast and crew to Orchard House before filming. She wanted the women in the film to realize how Louis and her family really lived. 

Here are the actors in the new film:

Saoirse Ronan plays Josephine "Jo" March (Alcott’s alter-ego)

Emma Watson is Meg (based on Louisa’s real-life sister Anna)

Florence Pugh is Amy (youngest sister May)

Eliza Scanlen is Beth (namesake of Elizabeth).

Marmee is played by Laura Dern

Meryl Streep is the formidable Aunt March 

Good things to know beforehand if you ever plan to visit Orchard House, although the house has a tour guide and will provide you with lots of information.

* The Alcotts’ home has been preserved largely as they left it, down to Louisa’s needlework kit with her name embroidered on it.

* The kitchen still has the soapstone sink and a bread board that artist May used to practice pyrography – burning pictures into wood.

* May’s paintings and drawings also adorn the dining room, parlor, Louisa’s room and her own bedroom. In the family’s study there’s a portrait of May, who spent her last years in Europe.

* The girls’ father Amos was an idealist teacher who championed vegetarianism, social justice and women’s rights but whose financial mistakes kept the family in poverty.

* The house was already 200 years old when he bought it in 1857 and named it after an orchard of 40 apple trees within the grounds.

* His wife Abigail, or “Abba”, always stood by him, despite his inability to support her and their daughters. Being without him would be like “living without breath”, she wrote in her journal.

* Louisa managed to make money by selling stories before eventually writing Little Women and its sequels, Little Men and Jo’s Boys. When her health began to deteriorate, she took safe harbor in Switzerland. She died at age 55.

* The sisters also used the dining room as a stage, performing home-made plays for friends and neighbors who gathered in an adjoining parlor. Below is a picture of Louisa's bedroom. 

For those who will never get the chance to visit Louis May Alcott’s home, you can find the book HERE  where Alcott dispenses immense knowledge about their lives and Orchard House. 

 

If you’re not a fan of Coming-of-Age stories (the official genre of Little Women), I have a book from the same era (set in the United States) on special this month.

 SOJOURN WITH A STRANGER

A dark, Gothic romance

"This story has everything & then some–romance, birth, death, voodoo, adventure, psychic ability. I could not put it down! Not once!"⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"Sojourn With A Stranger is absolutely wonderful! I was captivated from beginning to end. The characters blend together effortlessly while keeping up the normal love hate relationship they seem to share.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"Diablo excels at creating characters with depth and charisma and then placing them in unusual, sometimes uncomfortable, situations. The story is outstanding, the characters are delightful and the hot intimate scenes are tastefully described in such a way that is sure to set fire to your heart.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Raine Brinsley is penniless after her are parents drowned at sea. She's sent by the local minister to Stafford House to apply for a job as a servant. Despite the alarm bells going off in her head, she accepts the offer of employment. She has one goal in mind, to return to her beloved grandfather in Maine. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

About Sojourn With A Stranger:

Lord of the Manor, Derek Stafford, has his own dilemmas to worry about. His wife committed suicide some time ago after several babies were stillborn. Derek and his brother, Lyman, race to produce the first male heir of Stafford House. The winner will receive not only the title to the eloquent manor but also an enormous sum of money from their wealthy father.
Derek decides the beautiful Raine will make the perfect surrogate. If only he can convince the young woman that signing a contract to bear his son will serve both their needs: She can return to her grandfather and he'll inherit a life of wealth and luxury.
But dark stirrings are afoot at Stafford House. A ghost haunts the halls of the manor and the spirit is intent on exposing her killer to Raine. Steeped in murderous plots, Derek and Raine face insurmountable odds of achieving their dreams.
And fight the insatiable hunger between them.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR 99 PENNIES 

I Found a Pearl in my Research

Some Surprising Research 

by Sherri Easley

I have to admit every new year, I go through the same routine. I start with new notepads and planners and of course, I must have new colored pens. Any time I have a new beginning, I have to buy fresh notepads and the new year is no different.

One of the things I hope to do in this new year (besides learn how to  format this blog) is publish another book. That last one took 40 years and as my publishing mentor told me “you might want to pick up the pace a bit.”

I grew up on a farm outside of Mount Pleasant, Texas, and that general area was the setting for my first novel. The love interest in my book was from Jefferson, Texas, fifty miles away. I decided to research that area, more specifically, Caddo Lake, for my next book.

I have been to Jefferson and Caddo Lake many times and the mystery and lore along with the hanging Spanish moss on the Bald Cypress tress, always pulls me in. During my research, I came across one particular event that happened there near the turn of the century, I had never heard about. I am fascinated. 

First, if you are not familiar with this area, here’s the scoop. In the 1850’s, Jefferson was one of the busiest inland port cities in the state. As the westernmost outpost for navigation on the Red River, Jefferson became an important jumping-off point for westbound settlers.

The first steamboat, the Llama, reached Jefferson in late 1843 or early 1844. With persistent efforts to improve navigation, steamboats soon traveled to Jefferson from New Orleans and Shreveport by way of the Mississippi and Red rivers, Caddo Lake and Cypress Bayou, bringing supplies and goods.

The vessels and steamboats returned downstream laden with hides, raw materials, cotton and produce. Slaughterhouses, canneries, iron works and shoe and garment factories followed as antebellum Jefferson emerged and a Civil War economy flourished.

All of this ended with the destruction of the Great Raft, a natural dam of tree trunks and roots on the Red River around Shreveport. Nitroglycerin charges removed the last portion of the blockage. While this made the upper section of the river navigable, it lowered the water level of the surrounding lakes and streams, including
 those to Jefferson. 

By the early 1900s, river commerce was dead.

Fifteen miles east of Jefferson you’ll find Caddo Lake, Texas’ largest natural lake, which straddles the Texas-Louisiana border. Like Jefferson and the bayou, a sense of mystery and history shroud the lake, enhanced by the ghostly drapes of Spanish moss hanging thickly from the limbs of overhanging cypress trees and the seemingly endless maze of the waterways.

The Caddo Lake formation is also cloaked in myth and mystery. Legend has it that a Caddo Indian chief disobeyed the Great Spirit, who then sent an earthquake to flood the chief’s village. For many years, people linked the formation of Caddo to the historic New Madrid, Mo., earthquake of 1811. More likely, the shifting Great Raft on the Red River, with logs piling up in the upper section and rotting away in the bottom section, reached a point in 1800 where it caused the Red to disperse and flood Big Cypress Bayou.

An abundance of wildlife lives here including deer, bobcat, red foxes, coyotes, beavers, nutria, wild hogs, thirty varieties of snakes and an occasional alligator. There are also many species of fish, even though the bayou is only 4 to 6 feet deep.

HERE'S THE SURPRISE!

In 1909, Sachihiko Ono “George” Murata went to work for Gulf Oil on Caddo Lake. During his time as a cook, he began to find pearls in freshwater mussels. After George found two pearls valued at $1,500 each, the Great Pearl Rush of Texas began.

Murata sold his first large pearl for $1500 to Tiffany’s in New York. Farm families from the area began to converge on Potter’s Point. They came by wagon, on horseback, and by walking. Soon, the shoreline and hillside were covered by a tent city as fortune hunters, known as “pearl hogs,” joined in. It was a good family get–away for them even if no pearls of value were found. Most of these people were hard-working cotton and/or corn farmers and had homes to go back to. These folks would wade around in the water on hands and knees, digging into the mud, to find these mussels. Most hunters became discouraged after a few weeks and went back home to the farm, but some “hogs” were successful.

A 1913 U.S. Bureau of Fisheries bulletin reported that in 1912, the value of pearls taken from both the Louisiana and Texas sides of the lake was $99,200, or around $1.9 million in today’s dollars.

The Great Pearl Rush of Texas was short lived. In 1914, a crude earthen dam was built to help raise the water levels that had dropped with the previous dismantling of the Great Raft. As a result, the mussel beds were covered with deep water, bringing the pearl rush to a screeching halt.




Today, if you visit the area, the eerie moss-draped cypress trees and abundant wildlife are still a throwback to centuries gone by. You can stay in one of Jefferson’s many B&Bs or campgrounds. You can also ride the restored steam engine along the Big Cypress Bayou or take one of the many ghost tours. Caddo is a place to be explored and experienced and was once the home to the Great Pearl Rush of Texas.  



If you have a chance, please read my book but remember, this is my first. ;) I have learned so much from this one! 

Thank you everyone and Happy New Year!

So about me: I just published my first book October- A Love to Call My Own which was inspired by stories my mom told of growing up poor during the depression. To make matters worse, they lived in the rugged bottom land of East Texas near Mount Pleasant. These stories just can't be made up.
I grew up on a farm very near to where Mom did and experienced the hog killing, gardening, hunting and the country lifestyle I wrote about. I also spent a lot of time in that bottom land looking for Indian arrowheads and relics.
I was the youngest of five kids- twenty years apart. My parents were older when they had me and had lots of the old country ways. My mother made her own lye soap, butter and buttermilk, jelly and canned our food from the garden. She was an incredible seamstress.
Today I work in Strategy for Boeing during the day and clear my mind with my sewing/embroidery business by night- I love to write and have started many stories over the years so maybe this will be a catalyst for me. 

All of you are such an inspiration!

I live in Fort Worth with my dogs-a Shihtzu named Snookie and my Lhaso, Bandit and my tuxedo cat Button and my Manx, Bobbin.

Happy #2020! by @JacquieRogers #cookies #instantpot #max

2020 - More Good Things to Come!
by Jacquie Rogers

Lots happened in 2019.  I'm shaking my head that we managed to come out unscathed. LOL.  But we do count our blessings.  Mr R and I have both come through surgeries with terrific results.  We completely remodeled the master bathroom and I totally love it.  Mr R and our son installed a new kitchen sink including an instant hot water dispenser and water filters all around.

Then came fall, and now it's winter.  Brrrr. 

View from our front door.

Right now the wind is blowing hard and while it's not terribly cold (39 degrees), that wind chills you down to the bones.  So what does this mean?  Chili weather!!!  And I got a new Instant Pot Max just in time to save the day.  Okay, so I already had four Instant Pots.  Who's counting.  And anyway, it was on sale.

Lentil chili in my new Instant Pot Max

For Christmas, my son, his wife, and my granddaughter visited from Seattle and I can't even tell you how much fun that was.  But preparation was in order, because my granddaughter loves to cook and she really loves to decorate.  Since they had limited time here, I decided to make the gingerbread cookies in advance so they'd be cooled and ready for her.

Left: my son-in-law rolling out the dough.
Right: That is NOT a dog turd.  It's gingerbread dough.

And here she is decorating.

All set up and ready to decorate!

Granddaughter and her Christmas cookies.

The holidays are all about friends and family.  We had a blast at Roberta Whittemore's Christmas party.  Lots of my friends from Silver City were there. 

But more and more, it seems people have allergies that prevent them from partaking in all the wonderful Christmas goodies.  My daughter Mercedes hunted down a recipe and made sugar-free grain-free dairy-free cream puffs.  Believe me, they were a hit. Talk about delicious.

A fun Christmas party!

I was really sorry to see the holidays end, for I truly do love to get together with everyone--I only wish some of my crazy Texas friends would've been here, too.  You know who you are.  And a few from Ohio.  And Arizona.  And Missouri.  Okay, all over the US.  Oh wait, and Canada.  And Australia.  You know what?  With the internet, we have friends everywhere!  Now if that isn't a gift, I don't know what is.

For 2020, I fully intend to lose weight (like an entire person), get back to writing on a regular schedule, at least as regular as I ever get, and be serious about improving my health.  As for the house, I'd really like to get the kitchen remodeled and the appliances all replaced.  It would be super nice if all the boxes of books flew into the bookcases, in alphabetical order, of course.  We're still moving in.  Yes, it's been over a year and we're not even close to being unpacked, especially the shop.  So that's an ongoing project.

By the end of the year, I intend to get another Honey Beaulieu book out and also a few novellas in the Hearts of Owyhee series.  And grow some awesome tomatoes.  Maybe watch a few movies in Mr R's theater.  I'll definitely be reading more books from the talented ladies at Smart Girls Read Romance.

Happy reading, and may you have a healthy and prosperous 2020!

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LOOKING BACK -- LOOKING FORWARD

By Caroline Clemmons

What a year this will be! A new decade, all shiny, sparkling, and fresh. We can make it anything we wish.

Many of us take stock of our goals at this time of year, looking back. Did I accomplish those tasks I set for myself last year at this time? Well, some of them. I didn’t lose the weight I intended—again. I didn’t get the house deep cleaned—again.

The past year brought sadness. In January I lost my brother Don from heart complications. A favorite cousin, Lisa, in Oklahoma is needlessly near death from cancer that was at first misdiagnosed. (And yes, I am angry as well as sad about her plight.) My nephew Randy’s wife passed away. My cousin Ray’s son passed away, the second of his three children to die prematurely. Although sometimes not doing so is almost impossible, we can't allow ourselves to dwell on sad things.

On a more cheerful note, for someone with my moderate writing speed, I released a lot of books (eight and re-released one). I had planned to write two more but, as has often happened, life interfered.

In the coming year, I intend to actually lose weight and get more fit. Yes, I really, truly mean it this time. I do. Trust me.

Several commitments mean I have books lined up that I look forward to writing. Each is part of a multi-author project. Starting off my year I'm currently tweaking, AN AGENT FOR LYDIA, Pinkerton Matchmaker Series, which will release on January 10. Christine Sterling conceived this series and the one immediately below.

A BRIDE FOR LUKE, Proxy Bride Series, will release on February 19. Isn't this a great cover? Virginia McKevitt designed it and the one for Lydia.

STUART, Bachelors and Babies Series, releases on March 1. Charlene Raddon designed this cover and conceived the series. 

When thinking about looking back or looking forward I recall the song we sang at church on Sunday, "Count Your Blessings" My greatest blessings are my sweet Hero and two sweet daughters. I'm always grateful for them! 

Do you have resolutions or goals for the new decade? What blessings are you counting?