What could make more sense one month from the publication of a new book than a preview for my faithful blog readers?  So today Fiction Friday begins.  For the next six weeks stop by to read the first chapter and a half of One Mountain Away, the first book of my Godesses Anonymous series, one blog’s worth at a time.

Meet Charlotte Hale and Analiese Wagner, whose lives will intertwine in the weeks that unfold. Charlotte has secrets and Analiese, her minister, has a duty to help her, despite every inclination to run in the other direction. But, of course, the story is both richer and more complex. There’s Maddie and Ethan, Taylor, Samantha, Harmony, Georgia. So many people whose lives will intersect with Charlotte’s, and everybody’s lives will change because of it.

With further preface, enjoy the opening chapters of One Mountain Away,  from Mira Books, which goes on sale at bookstores everywhere on July 31st.

CHAPTER ONE

First Day Journal: April 28th

Today Maddie is wearing blue the color of a summer sky. The choice is a good one. Any shade of blue probably suits her, but, of course, in the years before adolescence, most children look wonderful in every shade of the rainbow. At Maddie’s age skin is flawless and radiant, and hair is glossy. I think her eyes are probably blue. This is an educated guess, based on the light brown of her hair, the rose tint of her cheeks, and her preferences for every shade from royal to periwinkle. I bet somebody’s told her how pretty she looks when she wears it. I remember how susceptible girls of ten are to compliments. Her mother certainly was.

This park is always filled with children. I come here to watch them play, while at the same time I worry they make learning personal facts too easy. I feel absurdly protective, so I make it my job to watch out for strangers who show too much interest or approach them to start conversations.
This is absurd, of course, because to the children, I’m a stranger, too. A stranger enjoying a glimpse back in time to a childhood she never experienced. A stranger scribbling in a journal she resisted for weeks until the lure became too great.

I’m calling this my First Day journal because of a quote from the 1970s. When I first arrived in Asheville the words radiated in psychedelic colors from posters in every store downtown.

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Ironically during the time the saying was wildly popular, I was too busy to think about it. For me a day was just something to get through to make way for another. But now every time I sit down to record my past and my thoughts, I’ll need the reminder that every day brings a new start, whether we need one or not.

A shriek draws my attention. The boy swinging up the spokes of the metal dome with Maddie is named Porter. Apparently his mop of black hair makes it hard to see because he continually shakes his head in frustration, or maybe just in hopes the strands will fly out of his eyes for the time it takes to lumber to the top. I know his name because the other children shout it loudly and often. Porter’s something of a bully. Overweight, a little shabbier than the others, a little clumsy.

It’s that last that makes the boy pick on Maddie, I think. Porter’s figured out an eternal truth. If he makes fun of someone else, no one will look quite so hard at him. While this makes me angry, I understand. The world’s filled with bullies, but at birth, not a one of them glanced at the next cradle and plotted how to steal the pacifier out of a baby-neighbor’s mouth. It’s only later they learn that knocking down other people may help them stand taller.

So while Porter’s behavior upsets me, I feel sorry for him, as well. He’s still just a boy. I want to take him in hand and teach him the manners he’ll need to get by in the world, but Porter’s neither my son nor grandson. I’m just a stranger on a park bench watching children make mistakes and enemies, decisions and friends.

***Congratulations to Tracey DeAdder who won the second package of 5 books in my Seventy Books Giveaway.  If you haven’t entered, the rules are here.    Tracey said: “I love to read about the people and the places and the roads those people travel. Your books bring make me feel like home.”  Thank you, Tracey.

My best novels happen when ideas collide.  Take two seemingly unrelated but interesting situations, then watch them tango warily around each other until suddenly they’re dancing cheek to cheek, and the plot for a book has begun to form.

Today, as I was handling papers and packing books for my move to somewhere this week, the same thing occurred.  As I filed the book list my assistant had made for me, I decided to count the books I’ve written.  I discovered that One Mountain Away will be book number 70!

What a great way to inaugurate a new series.  My 70th novel.  If you’re tuning in a bit late, then you need to know that a number of those books were series romances, shorter than the single title women’s fiction I write now. Some were even novellas, of the 25,000 word variety. Some were cozy mysteries, again a bit shorter.

But 70 books is still a cause for celebration.

As I packed up what books are left in my study and wondered why I still had so many, I pondered exactly how I should celebrate this milestone. Then, of course, it hit me.

I should give away 70 of my backlist novels as a thank-you to all the readers who have through the years supported me, as well as to introduce newer readers to my older books.

I should give away the books beginning in July, leading up to the publication of number 70 itself, One Mountain Away.

See what I mean about good ideas?

So, today I’m announcing my latest and greatest book giveaway.

Beginning Monday, July 2, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday through August 2nd I will give away a package of 5 books. That’s fourteen packages of 5 books each to fourteen lucky winners. Each package will contain two of my “longer” series romances, two of my single title women’s fiction novels, and one novella in an anthology with other authors. Some of the books have been on my shelves for years, but they were all my author copies and never sold or read.

All books will be signed and one in each envelope will be personalized to the winner.  Add it all up?  70 books total.

How do you enter? 

1. Comment on ANY blog here at Southern Exposure beginning today and tell us at least one reason you read my books or WANT to read my books.  One full sentence or more, please.  
2. I will log only one original entry per reader, although you can comment as frequently as you like.  
3. Your opportunity to comment extends from today through midnight July 31, but remember you can comment on ANY Southern Exposure blog during that time.  Just be sure your comment explains why you read my books or want to.  Other types of comments are always welcome, but won’t be considered entries.
4. When notified by email that you’ve won, you must provide me with an address within ten days, or another winner will be chosen to replace you.
5. Only one win per reader.   That means fourteen unique winners.
6. North American addresses only this time.

Simple, simple.  And I’ll remind you to comment on every blog between now and then.

By the way, this will be my final blog from Virginia, and I’ll be on hiatus for a little while as we settle for the summer in Western New York.  But I’ll be back soon, relaxed and eager.  You can count on it.

Blessed is the Busybody at Amazon

Some people can not be ignored.  Even if you hope they’ll just go away if you send them a smile and a nod, in your heart you know better.   They’ll still be hanging around at the end of the day, until finally, they can slip right in and ask a question or, in this case, questions.

Aggie Sloan-Wilcox is one such person.  She’s not impolite, and she’s not pushy–at least not very.  She’s just, well, nosy.  Aggie wants answers to all of life’s questions, and she doesn’t accept the easy ones.  She wants to find them for herself, and so she, well, investigates.  Everything.

Recently, when Aggie learned that my personal sojourn as the wife of an actively employed minister was ending, she zeroed right in on the questions that come along with any life changing event.

She promises my answers might help when Ed, her minister husband, decides to pursue another profession, or even when he is pursued by a red-eyed, fire-breathing posse of vigilante church members who didn’t like a sermon or his decision about where to hold the annual church picnic. (It happens.)

So without further adieu, here’s Aggie. . .

Aggie Sloan-Wilcox:  This is a momentous event in your life, Emilie. You’ve been the spouse of a minister for several decades, and no matter how carefully you’ve distanced part of yourself from your husband’s career, the church has still been a big part of your life. How do you feel?  My friend Hildy Dorchester (A Truth for a Truth) had a lot of trouble letting go after her husband’s retirement (and murder).  Will you?

Emilie:  I’ve loved being part of the five churches my husband has served, particularly watching him conduct services, but he’ll still be doing that from time to time. We’ll always be involved in churches in one way or the other, only now the pace will be less frantic. And you know what I like best? Now I can sit with him during church services, something I’ve never been able to do.

Aggie Sloan-Wilcox: Being part of a minister’s family is the definition of life in a fishbowl. Good/bad memories?

Emilie: Trying to explain to teenagers why they have to go to church when they would rather sleep in like their friends. Cringing when a small child throws a tantrum during social hour–my small child, alias the minister’s son. Keeping my opinions to myself, because no matter how I qualify them, whatever I say is attributed to the minister and comes back to haunt him.

Best memory and most important? Being part of a wonderful community of people whom I love and admire and knowing how much of a difference that community and my husband’s part in it, make in their lives.

Aggie Sloan-Wilcox: What advice do you have for church congregations (regardless of denomination) about the care and feeding of the minister’s family?

Emilie: I am so glad you asked. Having just watched our congregation give my husband a glorious send-off, I’ll tell you what I observed from this extremely fine and healthy congregation.

The following are always welcome:  Thank-yous. Acknowledgement that the minister may have a different but equally valid point of view. Understanding that the minister can’t be everywhere. Realization that each minister has special gifts and needs space and support to use them effectively. Open lines of communication instead of secret phone trees or griping sessions.

Ministry is not an easy job, in fact statistically 50% of all ministers will not last 5 years at the job. 50% of those who do would choose a different job if one were available, and only 1 in every 10 ministers retires as a minister. 80% of spouses believe the minister is overworked, (55 to 75 hours per week) and  80% of spouses feel under-appreciated and wish their partner had chosen another profession. (Pastoral Care Inc.)

Aggie Sloan-Wilcox:  You’ve probably anticipated this final question.  Would you do it again?

Emilie: In a heartbeat. But I have to say, Aggie, that I am delighted I’ve never had to solve a murder while I was sorting clothing for the church rummage sale. I have to hand it to you.  You’ve definitely one-upped me. (For which I am profoundly grateful.)

Olivia from Treasure Beach

Just a few fun tidbits today.

Tidbit One:  Some of you have written to learn the fate of Treasure Beach, the “novellini” I wrote last year for Southern Exposure, set between Fortunate Harbor and Sunset Bridge (books two and three of the Happiness Key series.)  I’m happy to say that while you can no longer read it at my blog, you will be able to read it again.  My publisher bought the rights and is putting it out in July with another novella by author Sheila Roberts.

The anthology will be called Summer in a Small Town and published strictly as an ebook, priced at $1.99.  I’ve seen a cover mock-up.  While the cover isn’t coastal Florida, (Sheila’s setting is on the cover) it feels suitable anyway.

For more information, check my website from time to time.  And as always, if you’re on my newsletter list, (a new one went out this week) you’ll get word directly in your inbox.  (I send updates four times a year, so sign on without fear of being inundated.)

Tidbit Two:  I can’t tell you how nice it was to read all your comments on my recent blog about moving.  I was surprised and honored you took the time to wish me well.  We are sure this adventure will be a good one, but having you tell me so helped.  I read all my mail and much appreciate it.

Tidbit Three:  I’m happy to announce the winner of the May List giveaway, as chosen by Random.org, is Gladys, who asked the eternal question:  ”Will the Leaning Tower of Pisa ever fall?”  I hope it doesn’t, not in my lifetime.  Gladys wins an autographed copy of Rising Tides.  Congratulations, Gladys.

Tidbit Four:  Brenda Novak’s auction closed yesterday and the final total was $306,000 for diabetes research.  See what one woman can accomplish when she pursues her dream? My item, quilt books and a gift certificate for fabric, closed at $70.

Tidbit Five:  And speaking of my Quilt Along with Emilie books?  I’m pleased to announce I  just donated a large stash of brand new copies to the VA Quilt Museum to sell in their bookstore to help raise money for the museum.  They’re all autographed, and if you’re really anxious to have a set, I bet they’d be willing to ship one at cost.  It never hurts to email and ask.  This is a museum you shouldn’t miss visiting if you’re traveling through the Shenandoah Valley.  A wonderful, wonderful place.

This weekend is my husband’s retirement celebration and we have family coming from all over, including our grandchildren, who will be dedicated at my husband’s final service as minister of our church.  It’s a huge milestone for all of us.  I am so proud of him.  He was unanimously voted the minister emeritus of our congregation, a wonderful honor.  We will party hearty.

Off to figure out how to feed twenty family members after the final service. . .

Somewhere during the first trimester of my sophomore year in college, I realized I was signed up for the wrong major.  I was in music education, and observing just one high school music class was like having a bucket of ice water dumped over my head.  Me, standing in front of those kids?  Trying to teach them something about music? 

I changed to music therapy immediately, but I found myself yearning for a wider education.  There were so many things I wanted to know about, and the music program was so extensive we were restricted to few electives.  So, at the end of the year, I transferred to American Studies, a major which by itself is nearly as useless as my Masters degree in Family Development–unless you happen to write novels about families set primarily in the United States, in which case both choices were brilliant. 

In my first trimester of American Studies I immediately registered for Pop Lit 101, fondly known as Trash Lit.  I was enthralled.  What a terrific idea.  Study a society through it’s popular literature.  Find out how morals, beliefs, opinions, are either influenced by popular culture or the force behind it.  I began reading the books on the syllabus and immediately fell in love.  Horatio Alger was a favorite.  All those plucky boys, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.  It’s no wonder that even today, the old copy of Dan the Newsboy on my bookshelf refuses to be given away. 

Fast forward to this morning.  As I was heaving my old edited manuscripts in the recycling bin after carrying them from house to house for years, I realized I just  didn’t feel comfortable.  Surely these were worth something to somebody.  My agent had suggested the Popular Culture Library of Bowling Green State University in Ohio.  My son was a BGSU grad, and I lived in Ohio for a dozen years.  So on a whim I called them.  Yes, not only do they want my manuscripts, but all the research I did, including a box of books I shipped home from Australia that I am particularly loathe to toss.  Some of those books are rare, although probably not valuable, and now they will have a home.  I’m delighted.

The Brown Popular Culture Library is dedicated to the acquisition and preservation of research materials on American popular culture (post 1876), and it is the most comprehensive repository of its kind in the United States.  In addition to their print collection, they have manuscripts in the genres of mystery, romance, science fiction, popular entertainment, history of popular culture, and more.  My manuscripts and everything else I include will go into storage, where I can still access them if need be, and more important, where scholars can access them.

I love the idea of my manuscripts sitting, side by side, in a climate controlled facility for years to come, my characters chatting away in the darkness.  Sometimes things just turn out the way they should.

Do you ever wonder how a novelist chooses a setting?  Me, too.  Really.  Because the entire world is open to us, and sometimes all those choices can be daunting.

When the time came two years ago to begin planning a new series, I had all the usual options.

Should I use a real town (like Toms Brook, Virginia, in my Shenandoah Album series) or a fictional town (like Palmetto Grove, Florida, in my Happiness Key novels.)  Sometimes, of course, what I decide hardly matters.  I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen Whiskey Island (of my book with the same title) referred to as a fictional peninsula in Lake Erie.  For the record, it’s real. 

Should I write about a city I know well, or one that would require constant research?  Not as easy as it sounds.  Someone well acquainted with a place may not notice how fascinating the details he or she takes for granted might be to readers.

Should I write about a place so colorful it almost becomes a character in my novel, or a place that recedes into the background?

Should I choose a place with many different kinds of people, or one whose characters will come from a similar background and outlook?

As you can imagine, I gave this a lot of thought.  One of my brainstorming friends suggested Asheville, North Carolina, and I tussled with myself.  I know Asheville fairly well, but not perfectly.  I have a son there, own a house there, visit there regularly.  I’ve spent many summers in Highlands, not far away, and understand much about mountain culture from those years and an earlier year as a VISTA volunteer in the Arkansas Ozarks. 

On the minus side?  Asheville is so rich in its own unique culture, that I’ll never quite be an insider.  On the plus side, what I witness, I pay close attention to, because it’s new to me, and absorbing because it is.

On the minus side again?  Asheville is easily recognizable.  As a novelist I’ll be forced to change things to suit myself.  Real restaurants will rub up against fictional ones, for instance. If I need a park with certain playground equipment, I’ll need to make it up.  And when we mix fact with fiction, readers sometimes confuse fiction with mistakes. 

In the end, though, how could I resist?  If you need convincing, too, just watch the irresistible video above.  The Spirit of Asheville, produced by exploreasheville.com, says it all.  I think you’ll see the rich potential for background that I did, and beginning in August, I hope you’ll be glad to share and explore with me, this unusual, vibrant city in the heart of the Blue Ridge.

My husband and I are about to start a new adventure.  We are moving, although our destination is undecided, and it’s time to put our house on the market.  If you’ve ever moved, you know the next thing that happens.  Not choosing a realtor, not painting the woodwork. 

Decluttering.

Michael’s plan to declutter is simple.  Dump everything in the trash.  Being something of a hoarder, mine’s a bit more advanced.  Go through the house, weigh carefully the pros and cons of packing or tossing.  Keep almost everything.

Our differences–which I call the Goldilocks System–actually make for a fairly sane strategy, because we’re forced to compromise. This pile is too large, this pile is too small, this pile is just right. 

Last weekend Michael decided to clean out the desk in our living room.  I told you his plan, and he was true to form.  All the papers in the top drawer were dumped into our recycling container on the theory that if we hadn’t looked at them for years, there was nothing worthwhile among them.  I told you my plan, too.  I took them out and began to sort, receipt by receipt, envelope by envelope.

Oddly enough for once, my system made sense.  Half of the older receipts had credit card numbers on them.  So with great pride I carefully piled them for shredding and tried to keep the “I told you sos” to a minimum.

Then I found treasure.  Among unopened envelopes containing pleas for money and credit card applications, were two checks.  Checks!  Written at the end of the twentieth century.  Checks mixed in with mail we had apparently tossed in the drawer as our movers were packing to move us from Ohio to Virginia.  Checks totalling about $200.

Enter my plan once again.  The checks had expired, but I didn’t assume they had been reissued and cashed.  Never look a treasure trove in the mouth.  So I did some research.  As it turns out one check had been referred to a website aptly called missingmoney.com.  All I had to do was do a bit of paperwork and the money will eventually be mine.  The second was as simple as an email. 

As a writer I hoard ideas.  Characters I’ve considered and tossed in one novel show up in another.  Plot fragments I’ve ignored too long work their way into new books.  Themes I forgot to use are reissued in a slightly updated form and valued more for what they can now accomplish.  Either I’m a novelist because I hate to let go of any idea before its fully used, or I’m a hoarder because I’ve seen how worthwhile, how useful, the simplest most inconsequential things can be. 

And in the long run, as long as the house gets cleaned and the books get written, does it matter?

Early in my writing career I grabbed every novel I could find in the series romance genre to get a feel for what authors were writing and publishers were buying.  I remember one in particular.  The novel was charming, the cover was so truly horrific that I kept going back to look at it as I read. 

Could the people depicted right there on the front for all the world to see, actually be the attractive, lovable characters in this book?  Do I remember the story?  Nope.  Do I remember the cover?  Vividly.

Early in my mystery career I remember being grabbed by yet another cover.  Cottage garden flowers adorned the front of a stone house, but the lovely blossoms all had faces, scary faces.  I snatched that one off the bookstore shelf, terrified someone else would reach for it first.  Do I remember the story?  Nope.  Do I remember the cover?  Vividly.

I think of these two books every time I see a new cover for one of my books.  No one will ever convince me covers don’t matter.  If a cover doesn’t represent the story, if the characters look like road kill on the highway of life, if colors jar or a design looks like someone’s first attempt at Photoshop, the book will suffer.

With that in mind I was particularly outspoken about my next cover.  The novel, One Mountain Away, is the first in my new series, Goddesses Anonymous, set in Asheville, North Carolina.  You can imagine that the first book in a series needs to jump off bookshelves into reader’s arms.  I knew the cover needed beautiful mountain views, because Asheville’s the kind of place where you can aim your camera in almost any direction and gasp at your own results.

I didn’t see the cover until my publisher “finished” it.  I wasn’t happy.  The good news is that after lots of negotiation and publisher goodwill, changes were made.  Great changes.  So today I can happily present to you the new cover for One Mountain Away.  I hope you’ll like it as much as I do. 

I would love to hear your opinion, and as always I’ll value your comments.  In the long run, what I think and what my publisher thinks are immaterial.  What you think, what you reach for at your favorite bookstore in August, will make all the difference.

Several weeks ago my editor made a simple, logical request.  Please come up with reader discussion questions for the back of my next novel, One Mountain Away, which debuts in August.  One Mountain Away is the first book in a new series, Goddesses Anonymous, and centers around issues readers might want to talk about in their book clubs, or even simply think about after they finish the last page.

I always provide discussion questions on my website.  Click on any book cover on my book page and you’ll see a tab for “reading guide” with ten questions.  This time, though, I began to consider all the possibilities.  As one of my Facebook readers pointed out, there’s more than one type of book club.  There’s the club where the book is completely peripheral to chatting and eating.  There’s the academic club where more analysis is better.  There’s the in-between club with an interesting discussion that still leaves time for catching up with friends.

Authors love book clubs of any kind.  After all, each one involves members purchasing our novels and reading them.  What’s not to love about that?  But thinking about the variety this week, I questioned my own questions.  So I asked my Facebook readers this:  “Do you like questions that ask you to relate the book to your own life and experience? Or questions purely about the story/characters?”

My educational and work background (pre-novelist) is in counseling.  So for me, a good question asks the reader to relate something in the book to events in her own life.  It’s a little like group therapy.  “Jennifer’s having problems with her mother this week.  Has anybody here had the same issues?  How did that make you feel?”  Readers, of course, are not counselees, but all of us have lives outside the book club.  And this is a good way to voluntarily share experiences in a non-threatening environment.

For more academically oriented clubs, though, delving into the personal might seem beside the point.  After all, who cares if anybody had the same problem as Jennifer?  It’s all about how well the author portrays Jennifer’s struggles, her language, theme, ability to plot and draw memorable characters.

My Facebook readers split evenly down the middle.  One pointed out that if she couldn’t relate the book to her own life, she’d missed out.  Another said any group of women will relate the book to themselves whether I ask them to or not.  Others thought the questions should be more about me and my thought processes while writing. 

Of course my solution was to give readers some of both, so that’s what I did.  The bonus of doing this exercise?  I was reminded that One Mountain Away has lots to discuss, and lots of ways to relate the story to our lives or the lives of women we know and love.  By the time I’d finished my list, I was glad all over again, that I had written it.

I have a problem.  I hate to throw out books.  You may think this is a non-issue, since it’s easy enough to donate them to church or library sales, throw them on a card table at a garage sale, give them to friends.  But the truth is, I have books most people I know can’t read. 

I have books in Italian, like this truly gorgeous version of Fortunate Harbor.

I have books in Lithuanian (that took me quite a while to figure out) like the lovely version of Endless Chain below right.  And, most startling of all, I have Fox River in Swedish, a two-for-one bargain with Nora Roberts–let’s face it, that can’t hurt sales, right?  In fact I received an entire box of the Swedish Fox River.  Nora and me, sitting in the middle of my study, just waiting to be pitched into my recycling bin.

Only I just can’t quite do it.

Oddly enough this summer I received a small box of my Swedish books at my summer address.  No sooner had I gotten the courage to toss them than I met a woman who was (you can’t make this stuff up) an organizer of a Scandinavian Folk Festival in Jamestown, NY and badly needed door prizes.  How this came up in conversation, I can’t remember, but she was one step ahead of garbage pickup.

So maybe someone will tell me they need a novel to help practice their Italian.  Or quite possibly a Lithuanian family will move into my neighborhood and I’ll have a built-in welcome gift.  Heck, maybe I’ll just drag that entire box of Fox River back to NY for next year’s Scandinavian Festival, where the books will be richly appreciated.

Meantime, while I’m waiting for another miracle, don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a while.  It’s nothing serious.  I just can’t cross the floor to get to my computer.

Just for fun, can you guess the English title of the cover on the right?  I only know which book it is because I recognize the names of the characters, which thankfully weren’t changed.  But without that clue, care to try?   The title in French is: Le temps d’un été.