Blurb:
Children’s author Emily Sinclair was supposed to be
the next J.K. Rowling…Until her second book flopped and her imagination went on
the fritz. Like the storybook heroes of her childhood, Emily sets out on an
epic adventure to find inspiration again. Till a dead car lands her in Covington
Falls, a small, Southern town with a healing power of its own. Soon Emily is
taking up her quest, looking for inspiration driving a mobile library van, as a
companion to a crotchety old woman and her insomniac dog, and as a very
ungraceful baker’s assistant. Of course,
what really sparks her romantic fantasies is a valiant hero, though he yields a
paint roller instead of a sword.
Rugged, blue-collar Nate Cooper has spent most of his life
avoiding the printed page. These days he doesn’t have much use for fancy words
and certainly not for a slightly off-center writer on the lam. Not when his
mother is battling cancer, his little brother has morphed into a teenaged ogre,
and God seems to have taken a vacation.
On paper, these two would seem the least likely pairing, and
a happily ever after nothing but fantasy. But with faith and imagination Emily
and Nate are about to write a new chapter that will lead to unexpected love
Growing up Kristin devoured books like bags of Dove
Dark Chocolate. Her first Golden Book led to Laura Ingalls Wilder, Nancy Drew,
Encyclopedia Brown, C.S. Lewis and the Sweet Valley High series. Later, she
discovered romance novels and fell in love all over again. It’s no surprise
then that Kristin would one day try her hand at writing them. She writes
inspirational romance and women’s fiction filled with love, laughter and a leap
of faith. When she’s not writing her next novel, Kristin works as an
advertising copywriter. Over the 15-year career in the ad industry, she has
worked on clients that have included the Miami Marlins, Discovery Networks,
Radisson Seven Seas Cruises, The Peabody Hotel and Sea World. She also enjoys
singing in the church choir and worship team and playing flute in a community
orchestra.
You can connect with Kristin online at:
Website: www.KristinWallaceAuthor.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/KristinWallaceAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KWallaceAuthor
Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/Kristin-Wallace/e/B00G5KX80I
Now available on
Excerpt:
Chapter One
A stomach-churning thunk. A disaster-laden chug. A scary,
threatening gurgle.
Emily Sinclair’s hands clutched the steering wheel as she
guided her how-could-you-give-out-on-me-now convertible to the side of the
road. With a last ominous blunk and splutter, the car gave up the ghost.
She switched off the engine, waited a few seconds, and then
turned the key again. Nothing.
Not surprising. As if anything glug-glugging like an
octogenarian trying to cough up a lung was going to restart with so little
effort.
A cranky yowl went up from the passenger seat. Emily glanced
over at the pet carrier and sent the fat Persian inside a confident smile.
“Don’t worry, Wordsworth. This is why modern man invented cell phones.”
She fished her phone out of her purse. A blank screen stared
back at her. Pressing more buttons did nothing.
Dead.
Dead as her car.
With a sound of disgust, Emily tossed the useless phone aside
and stared out the windshield at the deserted country road in front of her. The
very deserted country road that stretched around a sparkling blue lake and
disappeared into the back of beyond. The kind of road featured in all the best
horror stories. Emily’s mind conjured up every one, along with the opening line
in the newspaper article.
Once-famous children’s author found mangled to death. Quest
to locate her lost imagination and revive faded career ends in disaster… as her
mother predicted.
Muttering an oath, Emily climbed out of the car and slammed
the door as hard as she could. What a fix. And ironic. There were rules about
writing. Not grammar rules, like where to put commas or when to use a
semicolon. No, the unofficial rules for fiction writing. Chief among them is
that an author should never start a novel with the character driving or
thinking. No, readers wanted action right off the top, and the car could never
break down.
In college, Emily had written a short story where the
heroine’s car stalled in a typical these-people-will-murder-you-in-your-sleep
town. Emily’s professor had written cliché in bold, red pen across the page.
Not satisfied, she’d added boring cliché, underlining the boring with three
thick red lines. The critique had stung. The fact that it had come courtesy of
Professor Vanessa Sinclair, Emily’s mother, had been like ripping off an old bandage.
Emily was breaking all three cardinal rules of writing at
once. Though technically the driving rule didn’t apply. Same for the sitting
rule. She was thinking, though. Thinking her entire life had become a cliché,
so what did it matter if she broke her mother’s precious writing rules? She was
a one-hit writing wonder. A flash in the pan. A big-haired eighties’ rock band
that had scored one giant hit and then disappeared into the oblivion of those
nostalgic ‘Where are they now?’ music specials.
Emily sighed. If one had to break down somewhere, one could
do worse than… what had the sign said back there? Covington something.
Covington something, Georgia. Muted afternoon sun shimmered off the surface of
the lake. She lifted a hand to ward off the eye-watering glare and focused on
the water. In her previous life, the golden flecks of sunlight reflecting off
its surface would have transformed into a million different kinds of
fantastical creatures. Or maybe something nightmarish would charge out of that
bank of oak trees across the lake.
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