Jeanette Lewis's Blog, page 7

My Candy Christmas

This year our decorations revolve around the dog and what he may or may not do to them. Last night we discovered he loves candy canes and, while he’s tried to be careful around the tree, he’s 75 pounds of crazy energy and we’ve already had a few mishaps. So my tree is covered with plastic ornaments that have no sentimental value and I’m not too upset when something breaks.

For the years we don’t have the pet worries, I like to have a theme. And one of our favorites is our candy themed Christmas. We’ve collected quite a stock of ornaments. Some years we make gingerbread cookies to hang on the tree, and some years we don’t. But we always do the popcorn strands, with red beads instead of real cranberries. Here are a few pictures from years’ past. (Click them for a bigger image.)

Join us by sharing the holiday traditions at your house. Email photos and/or stories to me at AuthorJeanetteLewis@gmail.com and I’ll post them here. Please include your country, state, or province so we can see how far around the world our village reaches. For privacy reasons, I will only include your first name and last initial in each post, or if you’d rather be totally anonymous, let me know.

Christmas in Our Village

It’s always amazing and humbling when I see that people all over the world are reading my books and over the years, I’ve found that the sweet romance community of readers and authors is amazingly supportive, kind, and fun. It’s like we’re our own little village, only very spread out.

So this year, I want to introduce you to each other. This project is called “Christmas” but really it can be any holiday celebration. I want to see what brings the magic of December to you.

I’ll do a post later about Christmas in my own house, but first, a word about my mother. She is the most amazing woman I know and every year she put immense effort into making Christmas special for me and my five siblings. Six kids! Without the internet! I don’t know how she did it.

I don’t remember a single disappointed Christmas morning. I remember a lot of sleepless Christmas nights because we were too hyper and excited, but even when I was old enough to know a few secrets, her magic never failed me. I hope someday my own children can say that about me.

Part of Christmas lives on at my parents’ house year-round thanks to my mother’s Dickens village. I remember when she started collecting it and only had three houses. Now she has hundreds and she keeps them in a glass case to enjoy all the time. All these pictures are from her collection. I asked her to send me some photos of her favorites.

I already had daughters of my own when Mom got the case for the village. My younger daughter used to perch on a stool in front of it and make up stories. She’d talk just softly enough that you couldn’t understand, and she’d stop if you got too close. Even now, I wonder what magical tales she told herself as she sat there for hours at a time.

Then the grandsons came along and I think Mom has more than one plastic army man embedded somewhere in the village. It was pretty high currency for a while. My autistic son is not eager to express affection, but he was willing to trade a bear hug with Grandma for a chance to put a sniper on the roof of the castle!

I have a village of my own, but it is nowhere near the scale of my mother’s. No matter the time of year, going into her house and seeing the village all lit up immediately puts me in the Christmas spirit.

I love you, Mom!

Please join us by sharing the holiday traditions at your house. Email photos and/or stories to me at AuthorJeanetteLewis@gmail.com and I’ll post them here. Please include your country, state, or province so we can see how far around the world our village reaches. For privacy reasons, I will only include your first name and last initial in each post, or if you’d rather be totally anonymous, please let me know.

Looking forward to seeing your photos!

Love,

Jeanette

New Release – Charming the Mountain Man!

The Tamarack Ridge Romances are designed to be read in any order without missing any of the story. But you might have fun spotting crossover characters.

Load up your tablet with Romantic Summer Reads!

Looking for some new reading material? This promo is HUGE! Pick from more than 90 romance titles, all free.

Titles range from sweet to steamy, and it’s a great way to discover new authors. Now through September 16!

Go to the Romantic Summer Reads Promo

My Snow Valley Collection is Up!

My Snow Valley Collection is up on Amazon. Get all four of my Snow Valley novels in one! Free for KU users.

Coming soon – Charming the Mountain Man!

Coming August 22!

Charming the Mountain Man

Tamarack Ridge Romances Book Two

Colton Ramsey spends most of his days in the woods—guiding backpackers, hikers, and hunters on adventures through TR Outfitter’s, his family-run business in Tamarack Ridge, Montana. Though he prefers to lead groups, Colton agrees over email to take Lee Bonzell on a solo elk hunt, for a premium price.

Only Lee turns out to be Leigh—a spunky female lawyer from Georgia with big green eyes and an accent like melted butter. Stung at being left behind too many times by her outdoorsy brothers, Leigh is on a mission to prove girls can do anything boys can do … including bring home a bigger elk!

At first Colton refuses to go on a hunting trip alone with a woman, especially one with little hunting experience. After Leigh threatens legal action against him and the store, he reluctantly agrees. But just because he’ll take Leigh on the hunt, doesn’t mean he’s going to take it easy on her.

Colton and Leigh face off in the Sawtooth Mountains. Both are expecting to emerge the victor, but neither expects that victory might mean love.

The Billionaire Bride Pact Romance Collection

Check it out, you guys! All five of my Billionaire Bride Pact books in one collection. On sale now for only $7.99 or free for KU. Don’t you love those shoes?

Sweet Illusions is on Sale!

Sweet Illusions is on sale for only $0.99 — now through July 10. Don’t miss it!

Eva Malone was very young when her mother forced the family to join a violent doomsday cult, but she remembers a little about how normal life used to be. As a young woman, she escapes the cult and relocates to Indigo Bay, South Carolina to pursue her dream of peaceful anonymity.

After several tumultuous years as a policeman in Atlanta, Ben Andrews has had enough. He returns home and joins the Indigo Bay PD, where the most exciting part of the job is getting a kitten out of a tree or rescuing tourists who lose their keys at the beach.

Eva and Ben are immediately drawn to each other. But as the prophesied date of the apocalypse draws near and the cult steps up its efforts to find her, Eva realizes she can’t maintain her sweet illusion forever.

Get Sweet Illusions here

Birds, birds, birds

It started with this mercury glass owl I found at Hobby Lobby. Then it moved on to owl prints, owl screen savers, and a Pinterest board devoted to owls.

… Then I found the eagle live cams and spent all spring watching the baby eagles grow up.

… Then I put a wild bird feeder in the backyard and have had fun adjusting the various seed mixtures to draw all kinds of birds. Last night we had a family of quail with adorable babies!

… Then I found parrot videos on YouTube. Pebble is my favorite but there’s also Harley, Max, Parrot Playhouse, and Petra Gray.*

… Then I started visiting the exotic bird rescue near my house. Yesterday, I met my first Moluccan cockatoo in person. And I fell in love in 14 seconds…

This beauty has a strange name that I can’t remember and she’s not available for adoption (she was hanging out at the store while her owners were away). But even if she were adoptable, I wouldn’t do it. My family thinks it’s only a matter of time before I come home with a bird, but they can rest easy. I do not have time to care for a bird, especially one as complicated as a cockatoo. Plus, this video doesn’t do it justice, but Moluccans are the loudest parrots in the world and those chirps were unbelievable! My ears were ringing by the time we left.

So I’ll continue to visit and enjoy them outside and probably bug you once in a while with bird posts. And who knows, there might even be a bird rescuer in one of my books someday. May as well put this interest to use, right?

*Just FYI: Pebble was abused and taught bad language by some of her previous owners. Her current owner does not encourage the swearing, but she busts out some very salty language sometimes.

Romance with HEART

With every story, I write, I spend hours brainstorming, researching, outlining, developing characters, drafting, and, inevitably, deleting thousands of words that end up going nowhere.

And eventually … somewhere in that process … something incredible happens and I find the heart of the story. That little bit of magic that makes it come alive and turns it from words on my computer screen into something real. That thing that gives in breath and makes in unique from any other story I’ve written.

Sometimes I find the heart of the story right away, like in The Passionate One. Sometimes it takes longer. I deleted almost thirty thousand words from The Ambitious One and rewrote the entire second half when it just didn’t seem to work.  Sometimes I still haven’t found it. I’ve been promising you the final book in The Billionaire Bride Pact for months. But The Heartbroken One is still sitting in draft form, whispering for me to dig a little deeper, to find the heart of Nikki and Darrin’s story.

Short romances are a quick-turn market. I wish I could write as fast as some of my colleagues and release a book every four or six weeks. But, everyone has their own process and this is mine. I can’t get excited about something until I’ve put my heart into it and in doing so, found it’s heart in return.

So when looking at a little branding tweak, Romance with Heart seemed appropriate to me. What do you think?