What Are Our Authors Working on This Month?

What are our authors working on this month?

By Margaret Daley

Author: Sandra Orchard

Title: yet-to-be-titled, but it’s book 1 in a new Mystery Series

Hero and Heroine: Serena Jones with two potential heroes Tanner Calhoun and Nathan Butler

Line: Revell Publishing

One paragraph from the page you are currently on: 

I swept my gaze over her outfit. “You have a part-time job for wages that are nothing to write home about. I’m struggling to make two and two add up to a fifteen hundred dollar dress."

Something cool learned from research: The heroine is an FBI art crime detective in St. Louis so I learned TONS of cool stuff touring St. Louis and visiting the FBI headquarters, but I want to save the reveals for the book.

Author: Merrillee Whren

Title: No title—The Village of Hope Series, Book #3

Hero and Heroine:  Melody Hammond and Hudson Paine Conrick the Fourth


Line: Love Inspired Romance   


One paragraph from the page you are currently on:
By the time the evening was over, she had a throbbing headache, and she wished she could stop thinking about Hudson Conrick. He was just another man who liked to live on the edge. Even her dad had lived that way, refusing to listen to his doctor who wanted him to eat healthier, get some exercise and quit smoking. He’d rolled the dice and done none of those, and he had paid the price when he died of a heart attack at the age of forty-eight, leaving behind a young widow and four children. Melody didn’t want to have an interest in a man who gambled with life no matter how appealing.



Something cool learned from research: Army paratroopers have 3 weeks of training at Ft. Benning, Georgia. They train from a 34 foot tower and then a 250 foot tower before doing actual jumps.  

Author: Linda Goodnight

Title: Untitled:  Book 2 of The Honey Ridge Novels

Hero and Heroine:  Hayden Winters and Carrie Riley

Line: Welcome to Honey Ridge, Tennessee, and a house that's rich with secrets and brimming with sweet possibilities.

One paragraph from the page you are currently on:

Would the old man be passed out by now? Or would he be waiting with clenched fist and a hankering to take out his hatred of life on the good-for-nothing son of the good-for-less woman who’d left them both so long ago the boy had forgotten her. Mostly. Somehow it was Brody’s fault that his mother had left, and the old man never let him forget it, though he never gave a reason. Brody was pretty much clueless about his absentee mother. His angry father he understood, but thoughts of his mother left him lonely and nursing a guilt he didn’t understand. He must have done something really bad to make her up and leave that way.

Something cool learned from research:  Though I haven't used it, I ran across a home remedy for fever in the 1800s was to wet tobacco leaves and place them on the forehead. This left a brownish orange stain on the skin. Imagine walking around with that on your face!

Author: Dana Mentink

Title: Coronado Christmas Capture (working title)

Hero and Heroine: Donna Gallagher and Brent Mitchell

Line: Love Inspired Suspense

One paragraph from the page you are currently on:

Dark shadows drifted across the tiny office window. Even the lights strung along the ferry boat could not chase away Donna Gallagher's tickle of unease as she gazed out at San Diego Bay. Rain beaded on the glass, a winter storm. The vessel was already crowded in spite of the weather. In the upcoming three weeks, the number of visitors would swell as eager Christmas shoppers came over from the mainland and overnight guests arrived for the Hotel del Coronado's holiday festival. Twinkling white lights, ice skating, fireworks and hot cocoa. The perfect Christmas on the beautiful island town of Coronado.

Something cool learned from research: Coronado Island is home to the North Island Naval Base where 1/3 of the Pacific Fleet is docked! 

Author: Terri Reed

Title: Under the Cover of Mistletoe (working title)

Hero and Heroine: DEA Agent Tyler Griffin and widow and mom Heather Larson-Randall

Line: Love Inspired Suspense

One paragraph from the page you are currently on: For a long moment she stared at him, her eyes so forlorn and vulnerable. He fought the need to take her in his arms and assure her all would be well.  But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Letting this assignment become anymore personal than it already was equaled a bad idea. His boss commanded him to stick close to the widow and her son, to protect them. Not so he could fall for the beautiful lady and her adorable kid.  He ignored the little whisper inside his head that told him he was fast on his way to falling and there wasn’t a safety net to catch him. 

Something cool learned from research: I’ve been learning about the Christmas tree industry. I’d never thought about the work done with the trees off-season and that the US exports thousands of trees each year to other countries.

Author: Louise M. Gouge

Title: Not titled yet

Hero and Heroine: Jared Mattson and Emma Sharp

Line: Love Inspired Historical

One paragraph from the page you are currently on:

Emma froze. Jared Mattson. The last person she wanted to see, even at her best. Today, dressed in Pa’s old trousers and faded flannel shirt, she cringed in spite of herself. Even two years after he cruelly played with her affections and then jilted her without any explanation, she still couldn’t bear to be in his presence. She could manage to ignore him in church and at social gatherings, but now, covered from head to toe with soot, she would make an easy target for his teasing wit.

Something cool learned from research: I learned about the New Mexican custom of Las Posadas, which is celebrated in many Spanish speaking countries.

Author: Jolene Navarro

Title: The Pilot & The Single Mom (working title)

Hero and Heroine: Tyler Childress and Karly Kalakona of Clear Water Texas

Line:Love Inspired

One paragraph from the page you are currently on: When she lifted her eyes back to the sky, he could see her profile. Her full lips definitely brought kissing to mind. He shook his head and returned to star gazing. She made him think of early morning kisses. Not the hot burn-out-quick kind, but the kind he used to see his dad give his mother every morning in the kitchen before he left to work. The kind that showed you that the day was good and that home was always waiting for you.

Something cool learned from research: In a small plane you should open the doors in an emergency landing. If door can collapse and trap you inside.

Author: Jean C. Gordon

Title: The Pastor's Christmas Star (working title)

Hero and Heroine: Connor Donnelly and Natalie Delacroix

Line: Love Inspired

One paragraph from the page you are currently on:

For the rest of the afternoon worked beside Connor, welcoming and talking with the open house guests and replenishing the refreshment table. More than once, she had the thought, so this is how it would feel to be the pastor’s wife. And even more often, she wished the crowd would thin and the open house would be over, so she could have a few minutes of alone time with Connor to talk before she lost her nerve.

Something cool learned from research: There are two different Polar

Express train rides on different rail lines in the Adirondack Mountains, one that leaves from Saratoga Springs and one that leaves from Utica.

Author: Barbara Phinney

Title: Cinderella of Minnow Lake

Hero and Heroine: Ellie B and James

Line: Maybe Love Inspired or Independently published. Not sure yet.

One paragraph from the page you are currently on: The book is finished, but this is the blurb:

Ellie B Phillips wants the promotion to rec director in her small town of Minnow Lake, and has the support of the outgoing director, but the sudden arrival of her old flame, researcher James Simcoe, has the town in turmoil, putting her dream promotion at risk.

James has come to Minnow Lake with one agenda, to discover why this lake lives and his has died. Once his testing is done, he's leaving, and none too soon for most in Minnow Lake. But he's driven to resurrect his lake and nothing else matters.

As much as Ellie B wants her promotion, she secretly dreams of her own happily ever after with James. But he is leaving in a few weeks while she is tied to this town. Can there be a happily ever after.

Something cool learned from research: I learned what makes mountain lakes that beautiful blue colour. It's called Rock Flour.

Author: Deb Kastner

Title: A Cowboy Country Christmas Novella

Hero and Heroine: Marcus Ender and Sarah Kendrick

Line: Harlequin Love Inspired

One Paragraph:

Tears pricked the corner of Sarah Kendrick’s eyes but she dashed them away with the back of her hand. No more tears. She was done crying.The Percherons were the last of her livestock to go—well, everything except for Snort and Crash. Trying to sell live reindeer less than a week before Christmas was like trying to pawn penny candy at a gourmet chocolate shop. An added stress to an already bleak season.

Something Cool Learned from Research: I've only just started on this novella and am learning how a Christmas tree farm operates, including shaking, touch-up, trimming, netting and loading.

Author: Lacy Williams

Title: Matty's story (don't have official Harlequin title yet)

Hero and Heroine: Matty White and Catherine Poole

Line: Love Inspired Historical

One paragraph from the page you are currently on:

"You say you don't need a friend," Matty said. "But I don't believe you."

Something cool learned from research: I've been researching soddies/dugouts. The heroine lives in a one-room home built into the ground.

Author:  Mindy Obenhaus

Title:  Healing the Warrior’s Heart (working title)

Hero and Heroine:  Kaleb Palmer and Grace McAllen

Line:  Love Inspired

One paragraph from the page you are currently on: 

As a teenager, he used to dream of the day he’d own his own motorcycle and had planned to purchase that very model as soon as he left the Army. He longed to conquer Colorado’s infamous Million Dollar Highway, leaning the machine into every hairpin curve. Of course, that was back when he had two legs.

Something cool learned from research:  There are small, pop-up trailers made to be pulled behind motorcycles.