Day 8 in the 20 Days of Tabor Heights Countdown

Today is the 8th day in the Tabor Heights countdown -- 8 books until the end!

TRUCK STOP ANGEL, the 20th and last Tabor Heights books (at least, for right now -- who knows? I could dream up another year of Tabor Heights stories and start writing them ...) will come out this week.

Today's book, INVITATION TO A WEDDING launches Year Two of the Tabor Heights books. The germinal idea for this book came from the opening sequence of a TV series that I never really watched, unless I was spending time with friends who wanted to watch it. Anybody remember a show called "Northern Exposure," about a doctor who had to repay his funding by working in an Alaskan town for a few years? I think I watched 4 complete episodes, and the idea for INVITATION came from an episode I never finished.

Essentially, there was a big party everyone looked forward to every year, very fancy, and the implication that if you weren't invited, there was something wrong with you. Well, the doctor's invitation got lost and never reached him. I never watched to see if he would admit to anyone that he wasn't invited, or if he would crash the party or if he would make up excuses for not going, thereby insulting all his friends and the influential people in town -- who he thought had snubbed him. Get the idea?

The idea stayed with me -- what if, by mistake or interference or misunderstanding, someone was left out of the wedding plans for someone she considered her best friend, as close to a sister as she would ever get? And somewhere along the line, it turned into a romance, with the bride's brother turning into Prince Charming and turning the heroine into Cinderella.

As a side note: during the year, as Drake and Stacy exchange emails, you get glimpses into what else is happening in Tabor during that year, so you get an idea of all the other stories taking place.