Inglath Cooper's Blog, page 3

Dog Rescue – Sammi’s Happy Ending

Dog rescue can break your heart. I’ve had mine broken many times.

And if I’m honest, at one point, I believed Sammi would be another heartbreaker.

I’ve always thought her eyes say it all, rimmed as they can be with worry and concern.

I don’t know what Sammi’s early life was like, but I probably have a pretty good guess. She was found in a wooded area, scared and skinny and lost.

Fortunately, she was found by a nice person who brought her to the Franklin County Humane Society where I ended up fostering her. The idea was that I would give her the human attention she’d never had, and once she’d been socialized, we would find a home for her.

As is the case with many of my fosters, it didn’t go quite like that. For starters, it took almost two years of daily care, feeding, love, and attention before Sammi could bring herself to really trust us. Watching this play out confirmed my ideas of what might have happened to her as a young dog. One thing is for sure, she had not known human kindness.

It’s true that my family and I gave Sammi a lot. But she has given us so much in return. It really means something when you see a dog start to give you their trust. And it is something you truly have to earn when they’ve been mistreated.

Sammi now loves hugs, loves her doggy pals and loves going on runs with the golf cart.

In my books, I like happy endings, and I mostly write them that way. Sammi wrote hers by finding the courage to love us. And that makes it all the more satisfying.

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Inglath Cooper

I love books! From my earliest memories, I loved being read to and then reading practically every book in my elementary school library. There’s something about taking a little trip into a wonderful story that is its own unique pleasure. Over the years, my favorite authors have provided me with glimpses into worlds I would never have known had I not picked up their books. From Beverley Cleary to Lavyrle Spencer to Jodi Piccoult to Anita Shreve and so many others, I am grateful they chose to become storytellers. A great story has the power to move, change and shape its readers. To me, that’s an honorable calling and a task I aspire to.

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Best Romance Novels are Great Books

Would you agree that the best romance novels are great books?

A good book is like a mini-vacation, and for me, that has always been the appeal. No matter where I am – dentist’s office, doctor’s appointment, airplane – a great story takes me out of a less than appealing spot of time and puts me somewhere infinitely more pleasant.

Maybe nothing does that quite like the best romance novels, where we follow two people who want to be together, who ought to be together, but can’t quite clear all the obstacles thrown in their way. Romance books comprise many of the top positions on Bestseller lists. Who doesn’t like to watch two people fall in love? Remember what the newness of that feels like?

Put them in a small town with some lovable secondary characters, and you have LaVyrle Spencer’s romance books like The Hellion, Bittersweet, Separate Beds or Spring Fancy.

Put them at odds over how to heal a broken horse and the girl who loves him, and you have The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans.

Or pair Meggie Cleary with Ralph de Bricassart, and you have The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCollough.

Strand a teenage boy and his English teacher on an island, and you have On The Island by Tracey Garvis Graves.

Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester, and you have Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (loved the 2011 movie version!)

Each of these books took me through a torrent of emotions, and left me at various points along the way happy, sad, amused, conflicted, and wistful. That’s a journey well worth taking.

Many great books aren’t romance novels, but the best romance novels are great books.

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Please check out my Nashville series – available on Amazon.com!

Nashville – Part One – Ready to Reach. Buy it at Amazon.com

Young singer-songwriters going for the Nashville dream! Nineteen-year old CeCe Mackenzie leaves Virginia for Nashville with not much more to her name than a guitar, a Walker Hound named Hank Junior and an old car she’d inherited from her grandma called Gertrude.

But Gertrude ends up on the side of I-40 in flames, and Nashville has never seemed farther away.

Help arrives in the form of two Georgia football players headed for the Nashville dream as well. When Holden Ashford and Thomas Franklin stop to offer CeCe and Hank Junior a ride, fate may just give a nod to serendipity and meant to be.

5 Stars. “Ms. Cooper has written such a beautiful story that gives you hope. It fills you with laughter, sadness, and many other emotions. You feel connected to the characters and really share in their successes and hurt in their failures. I can’t wait for the next part to come out. I’ve really grown attached to the characters and want to see what lies ahead for them. Again…beautiful story.” – Amazon.com Reviewer

5 Stars. “Her car catches fire, 2 smokin’ hot guys stop to help. . . .the rest is history.” – Amazon.com Reviewer

5 Stars. “This book captured my attention from the very start! The characters are each unique yet seem to fit together. I love each of them, especially Hank. I was reading this on a plane and was so disappointed when I turned the page and realized I was going to have to wait to find out what happens. Excellent! I definitely recommend Nashville!” – Bookishblonde – Amazon.com Reviewer

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Good Books to Read

Looking for good books to read? Do you like to get involved in a series? If so, I hope you’ll give my Nashville series a try! You can get Book One Free on Amazon.com. iTunes.com.

Ever thought a dream might pass you by?

Nineteen-year old CeCe Mackenzie is determined to make her dreams come true. She heads for Nashville with not much more to her name than a guitar, a Walker Hound named Hank Junior and an old car she’d inherited from her grandma called Gertrude. But when Gertrude ends up on the side of I-40 in flames, Nashville has never seemed farther away. Help arrives in the form of two Georgia football players headed for the Nashville dream as well. When Holden Ashford and Thomas Franklin stop to offer CeCe and Hank Junior a ride, fate may just give a nod to serendipity and meant to be. Because while CeCe is chasing after her dream, she might find love as well.

New Adult Romance where “the characters are so alive you can almost hear them next to you.”

 

Other readers are saying:

An Excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE
CeCe     I’ve been praying since before I can ever actually remember learning how. Mama says I took to praying like baby ducks to their first dip in a pond, my “please” and “thank you” delivered in a voice so sweet that she didn’t see how God would ever be able to say no to me.     Mama says my praying voice is my singing voice, and that anybody listening would know right off that the Father himself gave that voice to me. Two human beings, especially not her and one so flawed as the man who was supposedly my Daddy, would ever be able to create anything that reminiscent of Heaven.     I’m praying now. Hard as I ever have. “Dear Lord, please let this old rattletrap, I mean, faithful car Gertrude, last another hundred miles. Please don’t let her break down before I get there. Please, dear Lord. Please.”     A now familiar melody strings the plea together. I’ve been offering up the prayer for the past several hours at fifteen-minute intervals, and I’m hoping God’s not tired of my interruptions. I’ve got no doubt He has way more important things on His plate today. I wonder now if I was a fool not to take the bus and leave the car behind altogether. It had been a sentimental decision, based on Granny’s hope that her beloved Gertrude would help get me where I wanted to go in this life.     And leaving it behind would have been like leaving behind Hank Junior. I reach across the wide bench seat and rub his velvety-soft Walker Hound ear. Even above the rattle-wheeze-cough of the old car’s engine, Hank Junior snores the baritone snore of his deepest sleep. He’s wound up in a tight ball, his long legs tucked under him, his head curled back onto his shoulder. He reminds me of a duck in this position, and I can’t for the life of me understand how it could be comfortable. I guess it must be, though, since with the exception of pee and water breaks, it’s been his posture of choice since we left Virginia this morning.     Outside of Knoxville, I-40 begins to dip and rise, until the stretch of road is one long climb after the other. I cut into the right hand lane, tractor-trailer trucks and an annoyed BMW whipping by me. Gertrude sounds like she may be gasping her last breath, and I actually feel sorry for her. The most Granny ever asked of her was a Saturday trip to Winn-Dixie and the post office and church on Sundays. I guess that was why she’d lasted so long.     Granny bought Gertrude, brand-spanking new, right off the lot, in 1960. She named her after an aunt of hers who lived to be a hundred and five. Granny thought there was no reason to expect anything less from her car if she changed the oil regularly and parked her in the woodshed next to her house to keep the elements from taking their toll on the blue-green exterior. It turned out Granny was right. It wasn’t until she died last year and left Gertrude to me that the car started showing her age.     What with me driving all over the state of Virginia in the past year, one dive gig to another, weekend after weekend, I guess I’ve pretty much erased any benefits of Granny’s pampering.We top the steep grade at thirty-five. I let loose a sigh of relief along with a heartfelt prayer of thanks. The speedometer hits fifty-five, then sixty and seventy as we cruise down the long stretch of respite, and I see the highway open out nearly flat for as far ahead as I can see. Hank Junior is awake now, sitting up with his nose stuck out the lowered window on his side. He’s pulling in the smells, dissecting them one by one, his eyes narrowed against the wind, his long black ears flapping behind him.     We’re almost to Cookeville, and I’m feeling optimistic now about the last eighty miles or so into Nashville. I stick my arm out the window and let it fly with the same abandon as Hank Junior’s ears, humming a melody I’ve been working on the past couple days.     A sudden roar in the front of the car is followed by an awful grinding sound. Gertrude jerks once, and then goes completely limp and silent. Hank Junior pulls his head in and looks at me with nearly comical canine alarm.     “Crap!” I yell. I hit the brake and wrestle the huge steering wheel to the side of the highway. My heart pounds like a bass drum, and I’m shaking when we finally roll to a stop. A burning smell hits my nose. I see black smoke start to seep from the cracks at the edge of the hood. It takes me a second or two to realize that Gertrude is on fire.     I grab Hank Junior’s leash, snapping it on his collar before reaching over to shove open his door and scoot us both out. The flames are licking higher now, the smoke pitch black. “My guitar!” I scream. “Oh, no, my guitar!”     I grab the back door handle and yank hard. It’s locked. Tugging Hank Junior behind me, I run around and try the other door. It opens, and I reach in for my guitar case and the notebook of lyrics sitting on top of it. Holding onto them both, I towboat Hank Junior around the car, intent on finding a place to hook his leash so I can get my suitcase out of the trunk.     Just then I hear another sputtering noise, like the sound of fuel igniting. I don’t stop to think. I run as fast as I can away from the car, Hank Junior glued to my side, my guitar case and notebook clutched in my other hand.     I hear the car explode even as I’m still running flat out. I feel the heat on the backs of my arms. Hank Junior yelps, and we run faster. I trip and roll on the rough surface pavement, my guitar case skittering ahead of me, Hank Junior’s leash getting tangled between my legs. . .

If you’re looking for good books to read, take a trip to Nashville!

 

Nashville – Part Ten – Not Without You

Nashville – Book Nine – You, Me and a Palm Tree

Nashville – Book Eight – R U Serious

Nashville – Book Seven – Commit

Nashville – Book Six – Sweet Tea and Me

Nashville – Book Five – Amazed

Nashville – Book Four – Pleasure in the Rain

Nashville – Book Three – What We Feel

Nashville – Book Two – Hammer and a Song

Nashville – Book One – Ready to Reach

 

 

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Cancer Prevention

Over the past couple of years, I have developed an interest in learning about healing, what helps our bodies to heal when illness strikes. The most important thing I’ve learned is that our efforts should be proactive. It’s much easier to ward off illness than it is to cure it. Elaine Nussbaum‘s story is a heart wrenching one, but she has much to teach us from her experience. Her account of how she turned away from chemotherapy and chose a different path is a valuable lesson for us all. Highly recommended.

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Never tried one of my books? If you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here.

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If You Like to Try Free Ebooks . . .

 

If you like to try free ebooks and you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here or on the cover above.

An excerpt from Good Guys Love Dogs

. . .The horrible noise coming from the driveway told Ian that as glad as she must have been to leave, Dr. Colby Williams wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They’d heard her engine grind for the third time when he stood up from the table and said, “I’ll go see if I can give her a hand.”

Frank started to get up as well. “I’ll go with—”

“That’s all right, Frank,” Phoebe said. “Ian probably knows all about cars. You can help me with the dishes.”

Frank sat down, while Ian tried to appear oblivious to Phoebe’s not-so-subtle matchmaking tactics.

It had been apparent to him from the moment he arrived tonight what was going on. When the Walkers called a few days ago and invited him for dinner, he’d accepted, thinking he should make an effort to get to know his neighbors. If he’d known what they had in mind, he’d have saved both Dr. Williams and himself the discomfort of the attempted fix-up. Once he’d arrived, he hadn’t wanted to embarrass them or their friend by telling them that he was engaged. He knew Phoebe talked to Mabel earlier in the week about inviting him to dinner, and he had a feeling his not-so-innocent housekeeper conveniently neglected to mention that he had a fiancée.

He stepped out into the Indian summer night, the air warm and fresh smelling. He still hadn’t tired of the simple pleasure to be found in breathing it in.

From the driveway came the sound of the engine grinding again. He crossed the driveway, and at the truck door, bent down and tapped on the window.

Colby’s head shot up, sheer frustration etched on her face.

The window lowered with a slight squeak. “I know that was awkward, but was I that bad?” he said.

She sat back in her seat, failing in her attempt to look surprised by the question. “No. I just—” she began, then stopped, looking chagrined.

“Their intentions were good. They obviously think the world of you.”

She shook her head. “What’s that old saying? ‘With friends like that, who needs enemies?”

He laughed then. She did, too, and he found he liked the sound of it. The awkwardness hanging between them eased, and he realized how good laughter felt. He didn’t laugh that often. “If you’ll pop the hood, I’ll take a look. I don’t know much about engines, but it sounds like your starter’s bad. Got a flashlight?”

She rummaged through the glove compartment, then handed him the light. She popped the latch, and he said, “Give it another try.”

She did, and he spotted the problem. “Yeah, that’s it. You’re going to need a new one,” he called out.

“Great,” he heard her say. She got out of the truck and came around to the front.

He straightened and lowered the hood, pressing it closed. He noticed then that a pair of blue coveralls had replaced her dress. “I’ll be glad to give you a ride.”

“I can’t ask that of you,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.

“I don’t mind. Let me just go thank the Walkers. Be right back.”

Ian went inside and explained what happened to Phoebe and Frank. Phoebe was anything but disappointed by his departure. She looked so happy that he wondered if she’d ruined the starter herself. He said goodnight and headed back outside, where the other victim of Phoebe’s matchmaking stood unloading some things from her truck.

“Would you like to put that stuff in the trunk?”

“Yes, please.” He stuck the key in the lock and opened it. She dropped her bag inside. He started to close it just as she reached in again. He grabbed her arm and jerked it back, barely in time to prevent the lid from slamming on it.

They both stood in shock for a second or two while his hand still gripped her arm. She took a hasty step backwards. “Thanks. I forgot to put my keys in the bag.”

“No problem. But I’d hate to be the person responsible for putting the town’s only vet out of commission.”

She smiled, rubbing her skin where his fingers had just been.

He opened her door, and she slid inside the car. To his surprise, he found himself noticing that she had a very nice shape beneath the faded coveralls. Wondering if it had been a mistake to offer his taxi services, he went around and got in on his side. “You’ll have to tell me where to go.”

“Take a right out of the driveway. It’s about ten miles from here.”

Ian backed up and headed away from the house. They’d just reached the main road when she said, “I’m really sorry for Phoebe’s lack of tact.”

“It’s all right.” From the sound of it, Phoebe Walker was in a lot of trouble with her friend. Strangely enough, he hadn’t minded the evening, setup or not. The Walkers were nice people. “If it makes you feel any better, I won’t be pestering you. I knew as soon as I saw your face tonight that you had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said quickly. “Now I’m embarrassed.”

“There’s no reason to be,” he said, glancing at her with another unexpected jolt of appreciation. She was undeniably pretty. He started to tell her about his engagement. The moment felt right, but the words somehow wouldn’t come, and he couldn’t say why. Except that he didn’t remember ever meeting a woman quite like Colby Williams. And he was intrigued. “It was a nice dinner. And I’m glad to have the chance to get to know my neighbors better.”

Silence lingered between them for a few moments, and then she said, “What made you move here from New York?”

“My son needed a change of pace. We’ll just be here for his senior year,” he said, not wanting to elaborate further. The last thing he wanted to do was put a black mark on the boy in the eyes of the community before he’d had a chance to prove himself.

“Oh,” she said. “My daughter mentioned him. He’s made quite an impression on the girls at Jefferson High.”

Glad to hear that maybe things weren’t as awful as Luke wanted him to believe, Ian said, “How old is your daughter?”

“Fifteen going on thirty.”

Ian smiled.

“She’s a sophomore, but young for her class. It seems like yesterday that she just learned how to walk and—” She stopped, her expression troubled.

Wondering if her relationship with her daughter might have problems of its own, he said, “It’s a tough age. They grow up before we know it.”

“Yes, they do,” she said, sounding resigned. “I’m just not ready to admit it.”

He drove for a few minutes, then flipped on his signal light when she directed him to take the next left-hand turnoff. “Go on down to the barn. The lights should be on.”

He stopped just outside the open door. A man in overalls and a red-checkered flannel shirt trotted out to greet them. “Hurry, Doc. She’s having a lot of trouble.”

Colby got out of the car, grabbed her bag and ran after the man who had disappeared inside the barn. Ian sat there for a minute, thinking about her. He found her easy to talk to, intelligent. And apparently able to handle with grace and good humor what turned out to be an uncomfortable situation for both of them.

He’d nearly slammed her arm in the trunk. That would have topped the evening off nicely. He thought about those few moments when his fingers encircled her wrist. The contact shocked him every bit as much as it apparently had her. He recalled now that she had very small wrists and hands. She was petite, probably not more than five-three. But somehow he hadn’t noticed it initially. Something about her exuded strength and self-sufficiency.

He got out of the Mercedes and made his way toward the barn. A single light hung above the door, making it hard to see where he stepped. Farm smells permeated the air, a combination of hay and manure and a fresh country breeze. Cows mooed in the fields. A stretch of mud lay between the gravel-covered driveway and the entrance to the barn. With no way to go around it, he waded through, his leather shoes squishing in the mire. He knew then how the city mouse must have felt visiting the country mouse.

Inside, he stopped outside the stall. A black-and-white cow lay stretched out on the straw-covered floor, straining heavily. Her eyes looked wild and pained. Sympathy for her plight stabbed through him.

Colby looked up at him, pulling supplies from her bag. “Ian, this is Harry Pasley. Harry, Ian McKinley. He’s new in town. My truck broke down, so he gave me a ride out here.”

“Nice to meet you,” Harry said, his hands tucked inside bib overalls, his weathered face concerned.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Ian said.

“Would you like a pair of coveralls to put on over those clothes?”

Ian looked down at his pants, the bottoms of which were now rimmed in mud. “Oh, no, that’s all right. It’ll come out in the wash.”

Ian watched while Colby pulled on two plastic gloves that reached all the way to her shoulder.

The cow’s straining ceased, and she lay still. “Is she okay?” he asked.

“She’s taking a breather. Let’s see what we have here,” she said, reaching her right arm inside the cow. A few seconds passed before she said, “There’s the tail. Definitely a breech, Harry.”

Ian watched as a frown crossed her face. “Uh-oh. There’s a nose,” she said. “We’ve got a second one on board.”

Just then, the cow began straining again. Colby went still. She looked up at him and said, “When she’s working, I rest. When I’m working, she rests.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Have you ever seen a delivery?” she asked.

He’d never even been around a cow, and certainly not one in this condition. The closest he’d gotten was a city petting zoo, and that had been years ago, when Luke was five or six. “Ah, no, I haven’t. Is there something I can do?”

“If she tries to get up,” Harry said, “I might need your help getting her back down.”

“Sure,” Ian said, tempted to ask how they could possibly get what looked like an eight-hundred-pound cow to lie down if she decided to get up. But he didn’t, not wanting to sound like any more of a greenhorn than he felt.

When the cow stopped straining again, Colby said, “Okay, my turn.”

She wedged her left hand inside the cow and began to push forward. Without looking up, she said, “What I’ll try to do is push this little guy up enough that I can straighten his hind legs out. In a normal birth he would have come out front hooves first.”

Ian watched in amazement as she slowly pushed the calf forward. As the cow began to strain again, she stopped and held the position. It was a long, slow process. He couldn’t take his eyes off the scene. He’d never witnessed anything like it in his life. Colby, up to her shoulders in work a lot of men wouldn’t have the fortitude to do.

She approached the effort matter-of-factly, when she spoke, her voice low and soothing. He saw that she, too, sympathized with the cow’s pain.

Her coveralls had been splattered with blood, and a strand of her hair clung to the side of her face. He subdued an unexpected urge to smooth it back for her.

After what seemed like forever, she said, “Okay. I’ve got the back hooves out. We’re on the right track now.”

Ian stood to the side of the cow, his arms folded across his chest, the drama of the situation making him tense. The process went on for a good while longer, with the cow pushing and Colby helping to pull the calf forward until it finally slid onto the straw in a heap.

“There you go,” Colby said, smiling. “You were doing your best not to join us out here, weren’t you?”

Harry picked up the calf and moved it close to its mother, placing it back on the straw. Wonder assaulted Ian. He thought about his own son’s birth and how incredible it had been to hold the tiny body in his arms. He recalled the instantaneous love he’d felt for him, and his chest ached with the memory of it and a yearning for things to be right with Luke again.

“Let’s get the other one,” Colby said, reaching back inside the cow.

When the second calf emerged onto the straw with Colby’s help, the same sense of wonder washed over him. This one was noticeably smaller, its eyes round and startled. Ian’s heart contracted.

“Okay, girl. We’re almost there,” Colby said to the mother cow, looking up at Ian and adding, “I just need to make sure there’s not a third.”

“She could have another one?” he asked, incredulous.

“Oh, yes. I’ve had it happen.”

Amazed, Ian hoped for the cow’s sake that it didn’t happen now.

A minute or so later, Colby said, “Looks like that’s it.” She sat back on her heels and patted the cow’s side, her face alight with satisfaction and what looked like the same kind of relief he felt for the animal. “You’re all finished.”

Ian bent down and stroked the cow’s head. He’d never really thought about it, but he would have imagined this sort of thing became routine for a veterinarian. But the look on Colby’s face suggested it was just as gratifying to her now as it would have been the first time she’d helped with a delivery.

The second calf raised its head and let out a halfhearted bleat. Colby laughed. “Looks like she arrived with an appetite.”

Harry Pasley bent over to give the cow a pat on the side. “You did good, girl. You, too, Doc. But then you always do.”

The cow weakly reached around to swipe the closest calf with her tongue. If the birth of the first one amazed Ian, the second seemed like a miracle.

“These three have some bonding to do.” Colby wiped her damp forehead on her shoulder, then looked up at Ian and smiled. “Thanks for being so patient.”

Ian didn’t remember a smile ever affecting him quite the way hers did in that moment. He’d witnessed something incredibly special. He thought of the business he’d put his life into over the past seventeen years and couldn’t remember one incident during that time that made him feel this way.

Crazy but true.

And he had no idea what to make of that . . .

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Cashew Milk – For Ice Cream?

I’ll admit I was skeptical when I spotted it in the frozen section at Whole Foods. Cashew milk for ice cream? Hmm. I wasn’t sure about that one.

I’ve been a vegetarian for years, but am inching my way toward vegan. I am trying to reduce my dairy consumption for a number of reasons.

One, it doesn’t agree so well with my digestive tract.

Two, I don’t want to be a part of calves being taken away from their mothers and put in veal crates so I can eat ice cream.

And three, I just heard some statistics about the water usage required to produce different kinds of foods. 1 pound of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water. 1 pound of cheese requires 600 gallons of water. Oh, and here’s a sad one. 1 pound of chocolate requires 3,170 gallons of water. On the other hand, 1 pound of broccoli requires 34 gallons of water along with cauliflower and brussel sprouts.

Back to why I’m looking at the Cashew Milk ice cream. So I read the label and glanced at the different flavors. Snickerdoodle. Sounded promising. But admittedly, it isn’t often that redo’s like this one get anywhere near being as good as the real thing.

Except that this one is! So Delicious Dairy Free Cashew Milk ice cream – they call it frozen dessert – really is so delicious. I ended up getting the Snickerdoodle, and it is a wonderful find. Eating it made me feel totally indulgent and not a speck deprived.

I am starting to believe that the way each of us can make a difference in this big, overwhelmingly complicated world is one choice at a time. Changing what we can for the better. It’s these little choices that will whittle away at the big problems and hopefully take away their power to permanently damage our beautiful earth.

Check for So Delicious Dairy Free Cashew Milk ice cream at your local grocery store by clicking here.

 

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Never tried one of my books? If you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here.

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Books to Read – Get into a Series

A good series lets you plan out what books to read and gives you a continuing story to look forward to.

Sometimes, it’s hard to know which books to read because choice and instant gratification are now at our very fingertips.

But even so, we’re still faced with the challenge of finding a story we’ll really enjoy. For readers, there’s nothing more discouraging than starting a book and not wanting to finish it.

As a writer and a reader, characters have always been what make me love or not love a book. I love getting to know them, their strengths and weaknesses, what makes them fall in love with one another.

The Nashville series was a first for me. I’d always written stand alone books, but I loved the idea of getting to follow my characters from one book to another, giving them new adventures and hurdles.

That’s how CeCe, Holden and Thomas came to be. You can read the first book in the series free. To download it from Amazon, click here. To download it from iTunes, click here.

Here’s what some readers have said about the series:

In this story, you meet CeCe, Thomas, Holden and precious Hank Junior. Cece is determined to fulfil her dream of becoming a country singer and songwriter. Everything works against her, and she finds herself alone on a the side of the road with only Hank Junior (her dog) and her guitar case. Coming to her rescue, Thomas and Holden take care of her and their little group becomes close as they travel to Nashville.

Ms. Cooper has written such a beautiful story that gives you hope. It fills you with laughter, sadness, and many other emotions. You feel connected to the characters and really share in their successes and hurt in their failures.

I can’t wait for the next part to come out. I’ve really grown attached to the characters and want to see what lies ahead for them. Again…beautiful story.

The author introduces you to college-aged Cece, who is bound and determined to make a career for herself in country music. When her car essentially explodes on the side of the road, she’s stranded and winds up trailing along with Holden and Thomas who also happen to be on their way to Nashville to make a go of becoming country music stars. Holden, nursing a wound from a not quite ex-girlfriend he left behind is gruff toward Cece, but soon we see the attraction between them build even as they resist it.

I loved every minute of this well written story. The characters are easy to connect with and their is a lot of chemistry between Holden and Cece. This is the first book I have read by Inglath Cooper and I cannot wait to read more.

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Never tried one of my books? If you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here.

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Good Reads – The Husband’s Secret

If you’re always looking for good reads, I’m sure you’ve heard of The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. A bestseller, it’s only recently risen to the top of my To Be Read stack of books. Four teenagers, a lot of dogs and writing goals limit the time I actually have to sit down and read at this phase of my life.

In an effort to extend that time though, I often listen to an audiobook in addition to reading the ebook. I love the Kindle and Audible feature in which the ebook and audiobook constantly synch, depending on which one you read from last. If I read from the ebook before I go to sleep at night and then listen to the audio in the car the next morning, the audio finds where I left off in the ebook. Which is really cool if you think about it.

The Husband’s Secret is an engrossing read from the very beginning because you will want to know exactly what the secret is that the husband John Paul has been hiding. He has spent much of his adult life trying to come to terms with an event that forever changed him.

This story provides a very clear reminder that choices always have consequences. And too that those consequences almost never affect a single person, but others as well. It also makes you think about the fact that sometimes we do things that simply cannot be undone, as much as we might wish for them to be. We see here that impulse and anger are rarely our friends.

The Husband’s Secret isn’t light reading, but it is extremely digestible and will leave you pondering the notion of what if and life’s narrow escapes.

I would compare this book in type to JoJo Moyes’s Me Before You, a big women’s fiction novel with threads of romantic interest, if not exactly romance.

Here’s the book’s back cover copy:

At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that is not meant to be read…

My darling Cecilia,
If you’re reading this, then I’ve died…

Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not only the life you have built together, but the lives of others as well. And then imagine that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive…

Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything—and not just for her. There are other women who barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they, too, are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.

 

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Never tried one of my books? If you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here.

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Police: What If We Didn’t Have Them

The police. What if we didn’t have them?

Have you ever thought about that? I have. Plenty of times. The world can be a dangerous place. Sometimes, randomly so. Just last night, Fox News reported the murder of a four-year old little girl who was shot in the head by someone passing the truck she was riding in with her parents. There are no words for this kind of evil.

And it occurs even though we have laws and police to enforce them.

What would our country be like if we didn’t have laws and police to enforce them?

I cannot imagine.

That is why it is so worrisome to me to see the evolving anti-police sentiment growing in our country. I am writing this after hearing a news report of another police officer shot in New York City while trying to apprehend a suspect in a crime.

Being a policeman or policewoman is an incredibly dangerous job. That’s enough to keep plenty of us from ever thinking we could do it.

But now, added to that, is the lack of respect for them and what they do every day.

To the person who refused to serve a policeman in Olive Garden because he was wearing his weapon; to the person who denied service to a police officer in Dunkin’ Donuts; to the person who wrote Black Lives Matter on an officer’s Starbucks coffee cup; I hope you are never in need of a police officer’s assistance. But if you are, I hope they will not deny you service. Even though I’m pretty sure you would deserve it.

 

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Never tried one of my books? If you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here.

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Movie Reviews: Fireflies in the Garden

Movie Reviews

Family dynamics are complicated at best, and Fireflies in the Garden is a movie whose theme flows from this very truth.

I tend to like movies about families and all their complications. And Fireflies in the Garden is a story about a dysfunctional family with their share of skeletons in their closets. Michael Taylor(Ryan Reynolds) grew up in a house with a very domineering, demanding father, Charles(Willem Dafoe). Michael rejects his father’s controlling ways. As he grows older, the conflict between the two escalates to the point that Lisa(Julia Roberts), Michael’s mother, constantly intervenes in an attempt to make peace between them.

The story begins when Michael is an adult and a successful writer. He’s returning home for his sister’s graduation when his mother is killed in a car accident. Michael’s father had been driving the car.

This movie is not without its painful moments. The anger and resentment between Michael and his father are very real. I found myself wondering how a relationship between father and son can get to such a point. I think the answer has to be pride and a refusal to recognize when it has become our guiding force.

Fireflies in the Garden is a story about family, relationships, mourning, the reality of people’s needs and the power of forgiveness and moving on. The acting is first-rate. But one thing I found notable is that they didn’t really seem to mourn Lisa’s loss. It was as if it just got skipped over. You can decide whether you agree with me or not.

Despite the abundance of choice now at our fingertips, good movies are hard to find. If you’re someone who likes to find the best movies on Netflix, or Amazon Instant Video, I think you’ll find Fireflies in the Garden worth the watch.

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Never tried one of my books? If you like stories that take you away for a bit, feature characters looking to live fulfilled lives with love and dogs and relationships that matter, I’d love to give you a FREE copy of Good Guys Love Dogs! Please just click here.

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