Book Stories: The Book

In the interest of truth, every book I write is a story.  I thought we should start there.

I'm starting a new blog series called Book Stories that will be small stories about the way a book came into existence.  Maybe what inspired it.  Maybe something that happened when I was writing it.  Maybe what the story meant to me.

I've found that when I go out to speak, those are things people always ask about.

I'm starting with The Book.  It's a short story.  So this is a short Book Story.

I found a copy of Gene Stratton-Porter's The Harvester at a housesale.  I was so excited because I love her A Girl of the Limberlost and never read The Harvester.  I brought it home and found...

Who does that?  I was steamed, not because of the $1 I'd wasted but because someone messed with a book.  

I stewed about that book for a few days, wondering why someone would ruin a perfectly good book.  What could be so important?  And then voila...I had an idea. And that idea grew into a story.  That's how it normally goes for me.

And that's the short story on how this short story came about.  I also took the pictures for the story.  I wanted to mimic the original illustrations.  So that's my picture on the cover and the rest inside.  It's The Harvester sitting on one of my quilts.  
Now that you know a bit about how it was written, I hope you'll check out the story.  It's at Amazon, Kobo, and B&N.
I hope you enjoy the new Book Stories series!  Some will be current books, and some will be about older books.  If you have a question about a book, feel free to send it to me and I'll see if I can answer it!

Holly

A book...

Some of you know that I collect antiques.  I love going to antique stores and house sales, looking for some neglected treasure. I found a cranberry harvester at one.  (Erie's Presque Isle used to have cranberry bogs...I wish it still did!)  But speaking of harvesters, I went to a house sale recently and found a copy of Gene Stratton-Porter's The Harvester.  (Notice how nicely I segued there...LOL)  I'm a huge fan and loved A Girl of the Limberlost.  I'd never read this one, so I picked it up and when I got home...this is what I found.  I was crushed.

I spent a few days talking about it on Facebook and everyone started guessing what might have been in the cut out.  And as they talked, I started to have an idea.  And a short story was born.

Writers find their inspiration everywhere.  Even in a sad book that someone cut up.  I gave the story to my newsletter subscribers early (I have other special gifts for them this year...you can join here) when I announced my newest release, Not Precisely Pregnant (and the heroine is definitely not precisely pregnant...don't you wonder how that happened?  Check it out here) and have put The Book up for Kindle, Kobo and Nook.  I hope you'll check it out! 

Holly

Teaser Tuesday…Books from Christmas in Cupid Falls

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Christmas in Cupid Falls

#‎TeaserTuesday‬ Christmas in Cupid Falls

Here's another ‪#‎EasterEgg‬ from the new book. I'll confess, the GLH books I mention I remember from grandmother's. They sat on her shelf in the hall. Later, they sat on Mom's shelf. These days, they're on my shelf. They're fragile and brittle with age, but I think of Mom and Nana every time I look at them. 

~Holly

Grace Livingston Hill

Teaser:<<She dusted and couldn’t help but run her fingers along old favorites. They were all old hardbacks. Grace Livingston Hill was Aunt Betty’s favorite. The copies were old and the slipcovers were yellow, but she remembered reading The Spicebox and Miranda. L. M. Montgomery’s Green Gables books. Louisa May Alcott. Gene Stratton-Porter. She pulled out A Girl of the Limberlost. Oh, how she’d loved that book.

Gene Stratton-Porter & LM Montgomery

Yes, the books would stay. She’d found comfort in them when she’d first come to live here. And they felt like old friends on the shelf.>>

Kindle eBook 
Paperback
Audio