Riley Blake's Blog: First Post

News from Nashville, Tennessee

Hey there Goodreads!

I'm new to Substack and just finished my first post yesterday. If you love free reads, cover reveals, true crime discussions, entertaining articles, and receiving recipes in your inbox, then please check out my link below!

A 'soft launch' is going on now. The pre-launch is December 28th with our official launch in January 2025!

https://rileyblakebooksandtruecrime.s...


Hope to chat with you soon at Substack!

~Riley Blake

It's Been a Minute

Hi Fellow Readers,

I hope you're doing well and looking forward to the holidays. Last night, I realized my last blog post was during the Kindle Worlds era. How time flies.

A lot has happened since then. My husband and I moved to Middle Tennessee in 2018. We spent the first couple of years in Nashville, doing all the things that everyone tends to do when they first move to Nashville--seeing the sights, going to games, visiting museums, etc. Of course we listened to a lot of country music, too!

After the touristy-stuff was out of our system, we moved to Columbia, which is a better location for us. We’re about thirty minutes from my brother's and sister-in-law's farm and centrally located between Huntsville and Nashville. Prior to our move, we were ten minutes from Broadway so we were ready to move to a more rural area. We loved the city for a season, but I’m a country girl at heart.

There's an interesting story about how we ended up here and I hope to share that soon. We're very active in our church and have been blessed with a lot of great friends and things to do. We're never bored.

My husband and I are hobby farmers now, too, which is a new kind of wonderful. I'd love to have a million acres and rescue more goats and sheep, but for now, we do what we can and try to save the little ones. We were saddened to learn how many young animals are destroyed/slaughtered before they're even eight weeks old. As soon as we met some of these little ones, we knew what our calling in life really is. We save some, but we can't save them all. The truth of the matter is, these little ones saved us also. They've been such a huge blessing in our lives.

If you love animals, please check out my TikTok sometime: @goatlifeonthegoatfarm. We should have a lot of new babies on the ground soon. Currently, we have 16 nannies expecting and most should give birth within the next 2-3 weeks. It’s so spectacular to see the new kids, especially during those first few days.

I won't write a book here, but just wanted you to know that I really appreciate your readership after all this time. As some of you know, I stopped writing for a while after my youngest brother passed away. I spent a long time grieving that loss and really didn't expect to bounce back. The grief was overwhelming and changed so many of us. After a few years, the pain is still fresh, mainly because of how he died, but his death stands as a reminder. Life is short and every single day is a treasure, one that we can’t take for granted.

Ben actually edited The Stiletto Scandal which is why it has taken me forever to finish the sequel to that novella. He was so funny and I love telling some of his stories. Maybe sometime soon I can share them with you.

In recent weeks, I've had several releases in the Miss Fortune world. I started writing in this hilarious universe during the Kindle Worlds era. After Kindle Worlds dissolved, authors were allowed to continue writing while publishing through J&R Fan Fiction. I absolutely love writing in this world and appreciate Jana DeLeon for allowing authors to bring their stories into her characters' lives.

A Cozy Retirement Mystery series gained another novella also. The latest is Christmas Presents which has a few family recipes, including one from the 1940s that was always referenced as the ‘chocolate sauce’ cake. It was my grandmother’s recipe and I hope you love it.

It's good to be back writing again and I'd love to hear from you anytime. We can talk about books, films, bible study, or even rescue goats and farming, just whatever you have on your mind.

Until next time, let's connect on Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram. I'm trying all social media now, but still learning a lot about Instagram. I'm sure my 10 year old granddaughter will come along one day soon and show me how to post like a boss! (Isn't that how it goes now? The kids know more about technology than their grandparents!)

I hope to see you here again. Until next time, I wish you happiness, blessings, peace, and love.

~~~~Riley

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