Hanging With Holly...Views of my Garden and Series

Susan just got home and we'll be posting the next Trippin' video tomorrow or Wednesday.  In the meantime, come hang with me in my garden! I'm spending the week talking about my book series. 
I had so many people ask for series in order, I put up a page on my website. I really try to write the books in a series so they all stand alone. So if you start mid-series, you should be fine, though you'll probably have an inkling you missed something. LOL

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The first series I'm going to talk about is...you guessed it, my Maid in LA Mysteries.  When I put up the first book, Steamed, it was just for fun.  A lark. I'd never written a cozy mystery, but the main character, Quincy Mac, had been niggling at me.  She worried about her kids, her business and after she cleans a murder scene, she worries about going to jail and being forced to get a tattoo.

One book led to another.  Quincy's kids got older, she fell in love and built a new career for herself.  I thought I was done with her series after book 4, Swept Up.  I even wrote a nice little Where Are They Now post at the end of the book to give everyone a real sense of ending.  And yet...last month, the 5th book, Polished Off came out.  I know. Either I wasn't done with Quincy yet, or she wasn't done with me.  It's been ten years since the last book. Her life has continued to change and evolve.

Change and evolve.  That is the fun of writing series for me.  Like I said in the video, they're the same but different.  Characters and even settings evolve and change.  That's the fun of writing series.

Here are all five books in order:
Steamed: Amazon & BN
Dusted: Amazon & BN
Spruced Up: Amazon & BN
Swept Up: Amazon & BN
Polished Off: Amazon & BN

If you're reading on Kindle, you can get the first four books in one bundle: Maid in LA Mysteries. It's a lot cheaper that way.

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Another series is my Word of the Heart series.  Each book was written as a total stand alone.  The first book, Carry Her Heart, is about a mother who gives her child up for adoption, then builds her life around that child.  Pip is a character who is near and dear to my heart.  I love that she worked as a kindergarten story lady.  I did that for years and years.  I still adore children's literature.  Classics like, The Wild Baby, (I did a YouTube video of that one), Wolf Story (we just finished reading here again) and newer books like the Knuffle Bunny books, The Book with No Pictures and Andrea Beatty's STEM series of stories.

Carry Her Heart in Turkey

Okay, back to Carry Her Heart...It's truly a Romance+ story.  What's that you ask?  A book that at it's heart is a woman's journey...a journey that includes a romance, but that romance isn't the point of the journey.  Does that make sense?

I argued with my editor about the ending.  I can't really tell you how it ends, but know that I won.

The second book in the series is These Three Words.  I use the tagline Sometimes the Greatest Loves aren't Discovered, They're Rediscovered a lot for it because it truly sums up the story.  A couple who's marriage is on the rocks rediscovers each other.  Two things that stand out for me in this book.  First, it was my Forest Gump book.  The heroine has a number of strangers who come into her life and force her to look at her relationship in a new way.  The second thing is I used They're Playing Our Song in it (check it out).  I lost my mom a year ago, and I love that she got to read this homage to her.  She loved that musical.  And because she did, I did.  (Dear Broadway, please bring back a revival!!)  Toward the end, you get a bit of a clue about what is happening in Pip's life.
Finally, Hold Her Heart, is Pip's daughter's story.  Yes, Amanda (Siobhan) has come home.  It's not exactly how Pip imagined it.  But it is a true homecoming story.  These books are all first person in the heroines' points-of-view, so Pip's better half doesn't get much from his point-of-view moments.  There's a letter at the end of Carry Her Heart (that makes me cry Every Single Time) and the opening of Hold Her Heart (which also makes me cry Every Single Time).  I know, it's ridiculous.  I wrote the books.  I knew/know how they end (hint...all my books have Happily-Every-Afters) but still, Ned does me in.

Carry Her Heart: Amazon, Audible, BN
These Three Words: Amazon, Audible, BN
Hold Her Heart: Amazon

More series tomorrow!

Holly

PS. The first two books are on sale for another week!!  If you've never read the series, it's a good time to check them out!

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As always, you can find my ebooks, paperbacks, hardbacks, audiobooks and available through Kindle Unlimited.  They're also available in a lot of other languages. I hope there's something for all of you!

Find my books at:

Amazon

Kobo

Radish Fiction

iBooks

B&N

Google Play

Audible

BAM

In Erie, you can find my books on the shelf at Werner Books! Stop in, check them out and tell them I said hi!

Teaser Tuesday, Meet Piper's Garden

I've started using my #ViewsOfMyGarden posts on social media again.  Watching the way it changes as the season goes along gives me glee.  From the first popping of my asparagus, to the fresh tomatoes, to the final burst of squash before the winter hits.  It's always changing.


The garden in next week's (Just 1 week to go!!) CARRY HER HEART becomes almost a character in its own right, so today's teaser is introducing you to Piper's garden:

From the front, my brick house with its big porch and small white dormer jutting out from the roof is as neat and orderly as I can possibly keep it. There are immaculately trimmed hedges along the porch. And on the porch, white wicker furniture, a welcome mat, and an antique milk box that my paperboy leaves the paper in.

But my backyard is not neat in the least. 

It’s overgrown and more than a bit wild looking. In a sea of well-kept lawns, my backyard was the neighborhood anomaly. I’d like to say I felt bad about that, but in truth, my yard is fenced in, so unless my neighbors are standing on something, I don’t think it bothers them. At least no one’s mentioned it to me if it does.
When I first moved in five years ago, there was a six-foot, solid wooden fence around the yard, but very little grass and no trees or bushes. That first spring, I went to a local nursery and went a bit crazy. I spent a week planting everything from serviceberry trees to raspberries bushes. Then I added a couple apple trees and a chestnut tree.

That fall, I put in hundreds of bulbs and added more in the spring, then threw three containers of wildflower seeds into any bare bits of earth that were left. Still, I added. Mints, chicory, milkweed, Queen Anne’s lace . . . 

Sometimes one plant choked out a neighbor, and occasionally something totally unexpected popped up. But five years later, my yard is perfectly imperfect. 

It’s a chaotic jumble of greenery.

If my front porch was my place to work, then my backyard was my place to dream. 

One of the nicest perks about being a professional writer was that daydreaming was part of my job description, and my yard was the perfect place to do that.

You can preorder Carry Her Heart now! It's available as a paperback, Kindle eBook, and audiobook!

Holly