Nothing But Heart...Free on Amazon

Free today and tomorrow! This is book 2 in the Nothing But... short story trilogy. And while the series has featured mainly dogs, this one showcases the fact that a lot of cats need to find their forever homes...and some have very specific thoughts on who it should be with!

Nothing But Heart

Monday Glee: Dual Flush...or how my reality impacts my fiction

A couple years back, we renovated the back bathroom.  Gone is white counter top with it's speckles of gold.  Gone is the brown sink and toilet.  Here are pictures of the results:

 All the artwork on the walls is Erie inspired.  One day my niece told her mother that Lou Tullio was Erie's only 5 term mayor.  Her mom asked how she knew that.  "Aunt Holly's bathroom."  My sister-in-law was amused and I was proud that using my bathroom is so educational!  LOL

But beyond the art and the lack of gold sparkles, the thing that delights me most about the back bathroom is the toilet.  It's a dual flush.  You press one button for "little" jobs and .6 gallons of water flush it.  You press the other button for...uh, larger jobs.  More than twice the water flushes it.

I spent months talking about my toilet to friends, who indulged me.  It's a little green thing, but so many of the changes I make in the house are just small changes (LED lightbulbs, water barrels...).  Easy changes.  I keep adding them on, one by one, and slowly, our costs have crept down, and our environmental impact goes down with it.

I'm just finishing up my November '13 book, A Valley Ridge Christmas.  It's a follow-up to the April's You are Invited, May's April Showers and June's A Walk Down the Aisle, my Valley Ridge Wedding trilogy.  And here's where my reality impacted the story...

The hero and heroine are renovating a house.  And there's a scene where she's trying to unbolt the old toilet from the floor in order to put in her new...dual flushed toilet.  The hero falls a little more in love with her as she rhapsodizes about that toilet.  Yes, my first Harlequin book, I Waxed My Legs for This? dealt with a heroine who discovered waxing hurts...a lot.  Now, my 35 book for Harlequin  (Yes, you read that right...my 35th Harlequin book...my 50th book overall!) will have a toilet scene.  Unless my editor asks me to cut it.  I can almost hear her saying, "Holly, dual flushed toilets are not romantic."  All I know is it gave me glee to write that scene.  Basically, my reality has impacted my fiction from book one to book 50!

Things that give me glee on a personal level frequently end up in my books.  I have a huge fondness for Erwin Schrodinger and his Cat-in-the-Box theory.  So, when I gave my scientist geek hero a cat in How To Catch a Groom, of course, he named his cat Schrodinger.  I told my editor how hysterically funny it was that the cat's name was Schrodinger.  I'm not sure she laughed about it, but she didn't ask me to cut it!  And when that book went to Japan and was turned into Manga, Schrodinger the cat made the cut!  (That's the Manga cover. I didn't get an author's copy of it, so I had to order it myself from a Japanese site to the tune of $40...but it was worth it!! I asked my son if the fact I had a Manga book made me cool...he said no.  SIGH.)

In that new Valley Ridge Wedding trilogy, I have a character whose parents own a CSA (community supported agriculture) in Ohio.  It was inspired by my reading A Dirty Life, by Kristin Kimball.  I loved including my love of local produce in the book.  We've been getting a lot of our local produce and eggs from a local farmer, Liz and George's Farms.

 And by now you all know that I love my dogs...well, all dogs.  My Everything But a Dog book and the three short stories (Nothing But Love, Nothing But Heart and Nothing But Luck) all deal with animal rescue and romance.  And of all the stories that deal with my glee, the fact that my dogs inspired the cover for Everything But a Dog makes me so overwhelmingly happy!  (That's Ethel and Ella on the right with me, and then the cover on the right.)

Nothing But Luck

Nothing But Love

Nothing but Heart

People who know me tell me that they see a lot of me in my books.  I think there's a chance that means that people who don't know me in real life know a little more about me after reading my books.  To be honest, some of my characters do things that do not give me glee at all, but you'll find little bits of my reality embedded in all of my fiction.

Now, as for my dual flush toilet, it works great, and although sometimes people need a brief explanation of how it works before they use it, I love it enough that when we renovate the front bathroom, I'll be installing another one!

Holly

Confession of a Cookbook Addict

I've got a confession, I'm addicted to cookbooks, cooking magazines, recipes on Pinterest and I've recently started following a few cooking blogs.  And I've got a shopping cart full of cookbooks.  Yep, I think I've got an addiction.

See the folders on the top left of the picture?  Those are filled with recipes I've cut out of my Cooking Light Magazine and other sources.  (Speaking of Cooking Light,  I get a bit giddy when a new issue arrives.  I can't wait to dive into it!)

Now, if I were following all these recipes, it might be one thing.  But mainly I read them like a book of fiction and then try to incorporate some of their ideas or tips into my cooking.  Or, I try a recipe and tweak it as I go along.

I'd like to tell you that I've examined my cookbook shelf and have decided I have enough recipes housed there that I don't need any more.  Alas, that would be a lie.  One of my new cooking blogs mentioned that they have a new cookbook (Mennonite Girls Can Cook) and it is in my shopping cart, along with their old cookbook.  (Mennonite Girls Can Cook, and their new Celebrations cookbooks.)

I could try to tell you that those were the last new cookbooks for a while, but instead, I'll say if you have any favorite cookbooks you think belong on my shelf...let me know!  Some of my newer additions are the Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook, Griswold Cast Iron Cookbook, Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day...

Holly

PS See the flour sifter on the right hand side of the shelf??  Watch for an upcoming blog on my kitchen gadget addictions! LOL

Act Locally

There's a saying...Think Globally, Act Locally.

I try to put that in action.  I'm not talking big things, but rather a series of little things I do. I have my own bags I take shopping.  I try to shop at local farmer's market's in season.  This year, I made friends with a organic farmer there who said he could still supply my eggs this winter.  I've been driving the extra five minutes to get those eggs there.  Now, you might think that extra drive wastes gas, but I reasoned that I ultimately saved money because those eggs didn't need to be transported from an mega-chicken farm to my store.  And I was supporting local enterprise.

Like most everything in life, it's all about finding a balance.  We have a garden. We've worked at controlling our heating costs by lowering the thermostat, dressing in layers and using the fireplace.  We've worked at controlling our electric consumption with simple things like turning off lights, using energy efficient appliances...  The last few years I've concentrated on water.  We have a dual flush toilet (which still gives me glee!) and last year I put in a water barrel.

But as I shoveled my neighbor's sidewalk the other day, I thought, there, my little corner of the world is clear.  I realized that I put that saying — Think Globally, Act Locally— in action in more than my greening of my life.  I do it around my own neighborhood.  I try to look after older neighbors.  I know the neighborhood kids and pets by name.  I feed the birds.  None of them are huge matters, but I like to think my little corner of the world is nicer for it.

So, maybe while the "act locally" mentality appeals to my green and thrifty side, there's more to it.  Maybe acting locally relates to being a good neighbor.  Helping where you can, offering a smile or friendly hi.

I think that sense of neighborliness comes into play in a lot of my books.  The new trilogy that starts in April (A Valley Ridge Wedding) has that sense of community.  Neighbors don't rely on Twitter or Facebook to know what's going on in town...they go to MarVee's Quarters (which once was the Five and Dime, but when Marilee and Vivienne bought they renamed it because of inflation).  One of my heroes helps an elderly neighbor when her mailbox is vandalized.  Neighbors help clear fallen trees not because they had to, but because they need cleared.  The people in the town comfort those with broken hearts and the cheer for true love to find a happily ever after.

I'm working on the fourth Valley Ridge book now, A Valley Ridge Christmas.  The heroine lives by the motto, I Can't Change The World...But I Can Try.  I think the world would be a nicer place if we tried to live by it, and spent some time acting locally when we can!

Holly

Valentine Gifts!

I couldn't find a way to send you all flowers...or even chocolate, but I wanted to do something to wish you all a Happy Valentine's. I'm so lucky to have such great friends and readers.  So, on Monday and Tuesday, Nothing But Love (a Kindle short story) is free again, and on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Nothing But Heart (also a Kindle short story) is free.

It was so much fun to try to combine my Everything But... series and my WLVH Radio series in this short story trilogy.  I got my start writing short stories and it's been a number of years since I've written one.  It was fun to go back to it.  It's really a very different way to tell a story.  Especially a romance.  In just a few thousand words, I can't give you a believable Happily Ever After, but I try to leave you with a potential HEA.

So Happy Valentine's!

Holly

PS And keep an eye out in March...the last book in the Nothing But... Trilogy, Nothing But Luck, will be out in time for St. Patrick's Day!

PPS The free stories are available at Amazon stores in other countries—Canada, UK, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Brazil...

Looking for Glee

Erie in February

I've built a name for myself looking for glee, but I'll confess, this last week there have been a few moments I haven't found much.  As I bundled up to go out in the frigid weather to snowblow for a third time in day because the snowplow came by right after I finished clearing three drives, I was a bit less than gleeful.

But those moments are fleeting.  I  look at scenes like this and I remember that even at it's worst, winter can be beautiful.  

As I sat in the house yesterday next to a roaring fire watching my cardinal couple at the feeder, I felt not only glee, but contentment.

There are so many moments in an average day when glee is there, just waiting to be found.  I hope you all look for your moment...and find your glee today!

Holly