Promo Post: I'll Be Gone For Christmas by Georgia K. Boone

 

For fans of The Holiday comes a heartwarming Christmas house-swap rom-com debut in which finding yourself and finding love come hand in hand.

Bee Tyler needs a break. In the bustling San Francisco tech community, no one ever seems to stand still—especially her perfect sister and business partner, Beth. So when her best friend suggests a getaway on the wildly popular house-swap app, Vacate, Bee decides a countryside retreat might be exactly what she needs.

Clover Mills has had a year. Between losing her mother and making the complicated decision to leave her fiancé, sticking around the idyllic Christmas obsessed town of Salem, Ohio, just doesn’t feel right. So when she hears about Vacate, she jumps at the chance to spend the holidays in the unfamiliar city of San Francisco.

Soon enough, Bee is living in Clover’s cozy Salem cottage, and Clover is living in Bee’s sleek San Francisco apartment. As Clover can’t seem to stop running into Bee’s frustratingly gorgeous sister, Beth, and Bee finds herself spending more and more time with Clover’s ultra charming ex-fiancé, Knox, the two women realize that this Christmas they may find just what they were looking for and more…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Georgia K. Boone is a writer, a poet, and the daughter of storytellers. Sometimes, she writes songs she may one day share. Once, in a Brooklyn community center, she read James Baldwin’s quote “You can’t tell the children there’s no hope,” and she carries those words from the city to the desert and beyond. She lives on the West Coast with her family.

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Promo Post: Scandalous Women by Gill Paul

Mad Men meets the world of publishing in international bestselling author Gill Paul’s new novel about Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann, two dynamic, groundbreaking writers renowned for their scandalous and controversial novels, and the beleaguered young editorial assistant who introduces them.

1966, NYC: Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls hits the bookstores and she is desperate for a bestseller. It’s steamy, it’s a page-turner, but will it make the big money she needs? In London, Jackie Collins’s racy The World Is Full of Married Men launches her career. But neither author is prepared for the price they will pay for being women who dare to write about sex.

Jacqueline and Jackie are lambasted by the literary establishment, deluged with hate mail, and even condemned by feminists. In public, both women shoulder the outcry with dignity; in private, they are crumbling—particularly since they have secrets they don’t want splashed across the front pages.

1965, NYC: College graduate Nancy White is excited to take up her dream job at a Manhattan publishing house, but she could never be prepared for the rampant sexism she will encounter. While working on Valley of the Dolls, she becomes friends with Jacqueline Susann, and, after reaching out to Jackie Collins about a US deal, she is responsible for the two authors meeting.

Will the two Jackies clash as they race to top the charts? Will Nancy achieve her ambition of becoming an editor, despite all the men determined to hold her back? Three women struggle to succeed in a man’s world, while desperately trying to protect those they love the most.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo Credit: Gill Paul's Website

Gill Paul has written thirteen historical novels, many of them re-evaluating extraordinary 20th-century women whom she thinks have been marginalized or misjudged by historians. Her books have reached the top of the US, Canadian, and UK charts, and have been translated into twenty-three languages.

Gill was born and raised in Scotland, apart from an eventful year at school in the US when she was ten. She worked as an editor in nonfiction publishing, then as a ghostwriter, before giving up the “day job” to write fiction full-time. She is also an events organizer for the Historical Writers Association.

Gill loves wild swimming year-round, arranging parties, and traveling whenever and wherever she can.

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Promo Post: The Ride of Her Life by Jennifer Dugan

Molly has always loved weddings, ever since she was a little girl, and for nearly as long she’s dreamed of starting her own wedding planning company. But that dream has remained stubbornly out of reach, and between Molly’s first job as a barista, her second at a call center, and her crushing student loans, it seems farther away than ever. The absolute last thing she needs is to inherit a run-down, struggling horse barn, courtesy of her estranged late aunt.

Molly is so ill-equipped to run the barn, it’s laughable. She certainly doesn’t know how to save it, no matter how much faith everyone who loved her aunt has that she will. But maybe her aunt left Molly a blessing in disguise—if she can sell the land, the profits could be the small-business seed money miracle she’s been waiting for. Doesn’t matter if she’s starting to love the mismatched family this barn brought together, and feeling closer to the aunt she never got a chance to know.

The real snag in her plan is the woman who took care of Molly’s aunt in her last days, and still lives and works on the property as a farrier: Shani. Judgmental, grouchy Shani, who thinks she’s so morally superior because she hasn’t given up on the crumbling barn while Molly wants to “destroy” everything her aunt built; who’s really good with the horses, and always comes whenever Molly calls her in a panic; and is actually kind of thoughtful, and obnoxiously hot, and unfailingly loyal…and oh no, has Shani become an entirely different kind of problem? One Molly can’t possibly solve, no matter how much her heart wants to?

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About the Author

Credit: Amber Hooper Photography

Jennifer Dugan is the author of the young adult novels Melt With You, Some Girls Do, Verona Comics, and Hot Dog Girl, and the adult romance Love at First Set. She is also the author of the YA graphic novel Coven. She lives in upstate New York with her family.

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Promo Post: You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season—set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.

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About the Author

Photo Credit: Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian writes queer historical romance. Her books have received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and she’s been featured in the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly,
and Jezebel.

Before writing, Cat was a lawyer and a teacher and did a variety of other jobs she liked much less than she enjoys writing happy endings for queer people. She was born in New Jersey and lived in New York and Arizona before settling down in a swampy part of the south. When she isn’t writing, she’s probably reading, having one-sided conversations with her dog, or doing the crossword puzzle.

The best way to keep up with Cat’s projects is to subscribe to her newsletter. You can email Cat at CatSebastianWrites [at] gmail [dot] com, visit her on twitter, or check out her instagram.

Cat is represented by Deidre Knight at the Knight Agency.

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Promo Post: A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

In 1878, five-year-old Ellen Lark’s world forever changes when she loses her hearing to scarlet fever. Ellen’s mother, determined for her daughter to have a “normal” life, painstakingly teaches Ellen how to read both written text and the speech on people’s lips. With the help of a wealthy patron, she enrolls Ellen into a school for the deaf where Ellen for the first time meets others like her.

Ellen’s schooling leads her to Boston University where she becomes a student of Alexander Graham Bell and his Visible Speech method. Visible Speech allows deaf people to pronounce words as clearly as a hearing person would—though without having any understanding of what they’re saying. Ellen is initially captivated by Mr. Bell and his many dreams for a variety of inventions, but as he becomes consumed by the race to invent the telephone, Ellen begins to doubt the value of her mentor’s teachings. Her doubts only deepen after she meets Frank McKinney, a charming deaf man who runs a print shop and promotes the value of sign language.

When Mr. Bell and the Western Union both submit patents for a device that carries the human voice over a wire, there is controversy over who has won the race. In their quest for the patent, the Western Union tries to recruit Ellen to spy on Mr. Bell using her lip-reading abilities. Ellen must decide if she’ll remain loyal to Bell – despite her growing realization of his harmful teachings – or if she’ll spy on him to protect someone she loves.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Photo Credit:  Rii Schroer

Sarah Marsh was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers program in 2020. She has an MA in Creative Writing from UEA. She is the daughter of neurosurgeon and author Henry Marsh. A Sign of Her Own is her first novel, inspired by her experiences of growing up deaf and her family’s history of deafness. She lives in London.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West by Sara Ackerman

This extraordinary novel, inspired by real events, tells the story of a female aviator who defies the odds to embark on a daring air race across the Pacific.

1927. Olivia "Livy" West is a fearless young pilot with a love of adventure. She yearns to cross oceans and travel the skies. When she learns of the Dole Air Race—a high-stakes contest to be the first to make the 2,400 mile Pacific crossing from the West Coast to Hawai'i—she sets her sights on qualifying. But it soon becomes clear that only men will make the cut. In a last-ditch effort to take part, Livy manages to be picked as a navigator for one of the pilots, before setting out on a harrowing journey that some will not survive.

1987. Wren Summers is down to her last dime when she learns she has inherited a remote piece of land on the Big Island with nothing on it but a dilapidated barn and an overgrown mac nut grove. She plans on selling it and using the money to live on, but she is drawn in by the mysterious objects kept in the barn by her late great-uncle—clues to a tragic piece of aviation history lost to time. Determined to find out what really happened all those years ago, Wren enlists the help of residents at a nearby retirement home to uncover Olivia’s story piece by piece. What she discovers is more earth-shattering, and closer to home, than she could have ever imagined.

 

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Olivia San Diego, 1920

Livy had been coming to the airfield for months now but still had yet to go up in an airplane. On weekends, when Pa was out fishing, she would offer to wash the planes or do whatever odd jobs she could for a penny, while watching planes go up. Always hoping to get a ride, but so far out of luck. Though not for a lack of trying. She had been pestering Mr. Ryan for months now. “Paying customers only,” was his standard response. “Or students.” But so far, all students were men. A sixteen-year-old girl had no business in a cockpit.

Ryan Flying Company and School of Aviation was on the edge of the Dutch Flats alongside the San Diego Bay and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, a long Spanish-style building with a tall bell tower in the middle. Palm trees neatly lined up in front like green soldiers at attention. When the tide pulled out, you could smell salty brine and decaying sea life. The hangar was modern and clean, but it was plopped on a brown expanse of hard-packed mud that kicked up dust when dry. Of late, the place had become a magnet for all things aviation.

Mr. Ryan had begun letting other people park their planes here free of charge, and customers flocked for the sightseeing tours.

On a warm Sunday in March, after surviving a long sermon at church with her mother, Livy beelined it to the airfield. A new pilot had been hired for the tours and she was hoping he might be a softy, and maybe, just maybe, she could persuade him to take her up. Such a gloomy and gusty day, with dark clouds threatening rain, meant less people taking a tour. It also happened that Mr. Ryan was in Los Angeles for the week, and what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

Livy was hunched over, wiping down the wheels of Mr. Hall’s biplane, when she heard the incoming engine. She stood up to watch the wobbly machine approach. A storm was brewing to the south, you could taste it in the air, and that always made the pilots nervous. She watched the plane make a precarious drop before leveling off, and then come in for a hard landing. As soon as he came to a stop, the new pilot hopped out of the plane, waiting for his customer and holding a hand out when she finally disembarked. A red-haired woman in heels, face white as chalk.

Livy walked over, wiping her hands on her overalls. “How was it up there today?”

The woman staggered past Livy without even a glance. “Never again.”

The pilot trailed behind his passenger and shrugged. “What can I say? Usually, they’re begging for more.”

Once the woman left, zooming off in a shiny Model T, Livy moseyed over to the hangar and stood in the doorway. The pilot was at the counter drinking a Coke and studying a clipboard. With his goggles pulled up on his head, his thick blond hair stood out in all directions, as though he’d stuck his hand in an electric socket.

Livy cleared her throat.

He looked up. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m Olivia West. I work here.”

More like volunteer and hope that people would pay her, but she could dream.

“Oh, right. Mr. Ryan said you might be here. I’m Heath Hazeltine, new pilot.” He was staring oddly at her, and for a second she wondered if she might have grease on her face, like she often did while working here, but then he said with a shake of his head, “I was expecting something different.”

“I come in on the weekends, wipe down planes and other odd jobs,” she said, for some reason feeling like she had to explain, then added, “I’m learning to fly.”

That was a stretch, too, but she did always listen to the pilots talk, watch how they got the propellers spinning and closely observe the takeoffs and landings. She knew which part of the runway was more rutted with potholes, and which angle was best for approach.

He cocked his head slightly. “That so?”

“It is.”

One side of his mouth turned up, just a hint. “I didn’t know women could fly airplanes, let alone teenage girls.”

Livy felt her whole face go red. “I’ll be seventeen in four months. And I’ll bet I know more about airplanes and weather than you do, especially down here in San Diego.”

All she really knew about him was that he’d come from Los Angeles and had flown in Hollywood some, doing stunts. No one had mentioned anything about him being so young. She had been picturing some old guy with a sun-beaten face and graying hair.

“Feisty. I like it,” he said.

She stood on her tippy toes and straightened up, all five feet three inches. Though her thick curls tucked under the hat added some extra height. “Take me up, and I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

He laughed. “What can you teach me?”

When he smiled, his whole face changed, making him seem even younger and a little less arrogant—and painfully handsome. Livy felt a swoosh in her stomach and her cheeks tingled. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty, and yet there was a certain worldliness about him. She found herself wanting to impress him.

“Like I said, I know everything there is to know about this area. What have you got to lose?” she said.

He looked at his watch. “My new job, for one. And I have another tour in twenty minutes, so even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Want to help me patch that big pothole in the runway?”

None of the other pilots ever offered to fill the potholes, they always figured someone else would do it. The mud stuck to everything and gave off a rank odor, and a lot of them saw it as beneath them.

“How about I go fill those holes for you, and you take me up after your tour,” she said.

She thought he was going to refuse her, like Mr. Ryan always did, but instead he nodded and said, “You’re on.”

Disbelief flooded through her. “Really?”

“Really. Now get out there before my next customer arrives.”

But the passengers never showed up, most likely on account of the weather, and the books were empty after that. Heath helped Livy up onto the wing with a big, rough hand and a rock-solid arm. He moved like a man who was extremely comfortable in his own skin, as though the world rotated on his time. Livy decided that he was the perfect man for the job. You wanted your first time up to be memorable, but also to be survivable. Confidence was an asset.

“Sure you want to do this? Those clouds look formidable,” he said.

Livy had noticed the band of charcoal clouds at sea, heralding the foul weather moving up from Mexico. A sudden chill came over her, and she tried to blot out the memory that always accompanied storms blowing in. The dark thing that would always be with her, always haunt the recesses of her mind. Blinding salt spray, cold waves smashing over the bow and washing everything from the deck, the sound of her name being stolen by the whipping wind. Olivia! The last moments of his chafed hand holding on to hers. Her heart began to squeeze in on itself, but she willed the thoughts away.

This storm was likely to be a bad one, but hell if she was going to blow her only chance to fly. Timed right, they’d be able to outrun it.

“Positive. From the looks of it, we have about thirty-seven minutes before that front hits here. Just head north along the coast and we should be back in time.”

She climbed into her seat, and he leaned in and tightened the belt on her waist. “Thirty-seven, huh? Not thirty-six?” he said, close enough that she caught a whiff of mint and salt water.

When he pulled away, their eyes met. Chocolate brown with flecks of fire. Her first instinct was to look away, but instead, she held his gaze.

“Nope, thirty-seven. Let’s go, we’re wasting time,” she said. “Oh, and you’ll probably want to come in from the east on your approach. The wind will swing around coming in off the ocean when it moves in.”

When he stepped back, he almost fell off the wing, catching himself on the wire. They both laughed, breaking whatever strange thing it was that had just passed between them. Without another word, he hopped in and started up the engine. After a few sputters, it chugged to life. Livy slid her goggles on, and made sure her cap was strapped tight. The whole plane buzzed, sending vibrations from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head. As they bounced down the runway, gathering speed, she could hardly believe her luck.

One, two, three. Liftoff.

The shift from clunky and earthbound to weightlessness was unmistakable. Everything went light and buoyant and yet Livy was pinned to her seat as the plane went up. It was a steep climb and all she could see was sky in front of her. She let her head fall back and closed her eyes, imagining herself as an albatross soaring. The hum from the wires that held the wings together grew louder the faster they went. Heath let out a holler and Livy found herself half laughing, half crying. It was even more wonderful than she’d imagined.

When they banked to the right and leveled out some, she saw that she had a bird’s eye view of San Diego Bay, Coronado Island and the city itself—white buildings, red roofs and palm trees. The wind from earlier had died down, leaving an eerie stillness in its wake. They flew toward the cliffs of Point Loma and beyond that, the blue Pacific. There were none of the usual bumps and drops that everyone talked about. It was smooth sailing and she was in awe.

About six minutes out, the nose of the plane suddenly pointed skyward and they began climbing sharply. Pretty soon, they were nearly vertical. Livy knew all her specs of the Curtiss JN 4 “Jenny”—top speed was about eighty miles an hour, she dove well, but when climbing fast, she had a tendency to stall. So, what the heck was Heath doing?


Excerpted from The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West by Sara Ackerman. Copyright © 2024 by Sara Ackerman. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A., a division of HarperCollins

Author Bio:

Photo Credit: Tracy Wright-Corvo

Sara Ackerman is a USA TODAY bestselling author who writes books about love and life, and all of their messy and beautiful imperfections. She believes that the light is just as important as the dark, and that the world is in need of uplifting stories. Born and raised in Hawaii, she studied journalism and later earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese medicine. She blames Hawaii for her addiction to writing and sees no end to its untapped stories. Find out more about Sara and her books at www.ackermanbooks.com and follow her on Instagram @saraackermanbooks and on FB @ackermanbooks.

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Promo Post: The Excitements by CJ Wray

A brilliant and witty drama about two brave female World War II veterans who survived the unthinkable without ever losing their killer instinct…or their joie de vivre.

Meet the Williamson sisters, Britain’s most treasured World War II veterans. Now in their late nineties, Josephine and Penny are in huge demand, popping up at commemorative events and history festivals all over the country. Despite their age, they’re still in great form—perfectly put together, sprightly and sparky, and always in search of their next “excitement.”

This time it’s a trip to Paris to receive the Légion d’honneur for their part in the liberation of France. And as always, they will be accompanied by their devoted great-nephew, Archie.

Keen historian Archie has always been given to understand that his great aunts had relatively minor roles in the Women’s Royal Navy and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, but that’s only half the story. Both sisters are hiding far more than the usual “official secrets”. There’s a reason sweet Auntie Penny can dispatch a would-be mugger with an umbrella.

This trip to Paris is not what it seems either. Scandal and crime have always quietly trailed the Williamson sisters, even in the decades after the war. Now armed with new information about an old adversary, these much decorated (but admittedly ancient) veterans variously intend to settle scores, avenge lost friends, and pull off one last, daring heist before the curtain finally comes down on their illustrious careers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo Credit: Author's Webpage

CJ Wray is the pseudonym of Christine Manby, a Sunday Times bestselling author with more than forty books to her name. Raised in the west of England, she studied psychology before embarking on an entertaining and wide-ranging career that has seen her selling kitchens, editing erotica, interviewing an armed robber, and impersonating a princess.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: The Friendship Club by Robyn Carr

Four women who work on a popular cooking show band together when they discover the youngest member of their group has an abusive boyfriend. The Barefoot Contessa meets Big Little Lies in this drama-filled novel about the power of female friendships.

Marni McGuire is the host of a popular television cooking show and leads a very happy life. Twice married, she has been widowed and divorced and now, in her mid-fifties, she enjoys being a successful single woman. But Marni's daughter Bella, who is pregnant with her first child, is convinced that Marni is lonely and she is determined to find a new man for her mother. To humor her daughter, Marni goes on a series of terrible dates. Marni's best-friend and colleague from the cooking show, Ellen, is a widow who has no interest in meeting anyone new and the two women have discussed the challenges of marriage and the joys of being single. But, while Ellen is adamant she wants nothing to do with men, Marni has to admit to herself that she would like to be with someone but only if he is the right fit.

As Bella's pregnancy progresses she admits to her mother that she has some concerns about the state of her own marriage, and all three women are concerned that the young intern on the cooking show is caught in a toxic relationship.

Marni and Ellen are determined to guide the two younger women to have the strength, confidence and support to improve their situations and the women gather regularly to talk about the important issues in their lives.

When Marni and Ellen each unexpectedly find themselves falling for new men in their lives the younger women help them navigate the dating world.

Together these four women form a strong bond of family and friendship that will anchor all of them as they navigate the challenges and celebrate the joys of life.

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ONE

“And that’s a wrap,” the director said. “I think I have everything I need. I’ll do some editing and you can review it.”

“Thanks, Kevin,” Marni said. “My sister and my daughter are coming by for a glass of wine. Would you like to join us for a drink to celebrate finishing another season?”

“Thanks, no. I’m on the timer. New baby on the way,” he said.

“Of course! How’s Sonja feeling?”

“Huge,” he said with a laugh. “But the baby’s still cooking. The midwife says she has a few more weeks. Sonja cried for an hour after hearing that.”

“I remember that feeling,” Marni said. “Like it was yesterday. You better stay close to her. Thanks for everything this season. I think we got some good stuff.” Then Marni turned to her intern, Sophia Garner. “But you’ll stay, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” she said. “It’s going to be an intervention, I think.”

“Oh, fabulous, I love those,” Marni said with a hint of panic. “If you and Ellen clean up, I’ll put out some hors d’oeuvres.”

Of course she was prepared; just a little fixing up and presentation required. Marni Jean McGuire worked every day and took very few breaks from cooking, writing, studying, traveling and experimenting with new recipes but they only filmed the segments of her show sixty days a year. But filming was intense. Twice a year they’d film for thirty days over six weeks—enough for two seasons. She hosted one of the most popular cooking shows on a cable network. Today marked the last day of filming and they always celebrated.

Marni’s kitchen was essentially a set; all their filming was done in her home as opposed to a studio. She smiled as she watched her producer, Ellen, who was busy cleaning up with Sophia. Ellen was a bona fide chef but she had no interest being in front of the camera. Sophia loved the camera and the camera loved her; after being caught on camera accidentally a few times, she had become beloved by the viewers for her quick wit and delicious accent.

Marni Cooks was very popular but hosting a TV show had never been her lifelong goal. Far from it. It fell into her lap like a glorious miracle. When she was a young widowed mother, she did whatever she could to make a dollar and raise her little Bella. She took a job handing out food samples for a chain of grocery stores. With her baby in a carrier on her back, she turned out to be a hit. She sold out her product day after day, probably because Bella was so funny and flirtatious and Marni, despite the fact that life hadn’t been easy, was personable and approachable. Almost immediately after she began, shoppers came looking for her, engaging her in conversation. They gave her good reviews and told store managers how much they liked her.

Once she filled in for a product demonstrator for the same grocery chain, showing interested patrons how to slice, dice, shred, spiral and chop vegetables. Again, Bella rode along; childcare was impossibly expensive. Her sense of humor and ease with being in front of a small audience charmed people—including the producer from a television station. Marni was hired to demonstrate a couple recipes every week on a local morning show. Along with that she did cooking demonstrations at fairs or exhibits, published a couple of small cookbooks, helped out at catering services, began writing a short cooking column for the newspaper and filled in when other chefs were unavailable as a guest on various cooking shows. Then she landed a full-time job as the on-air chef for a cable cooking show. She had been thirty-two. Her viewing audience grew quickly and soon after she hired Ellen, who was an expert in her own right. Marni was syndicated to a handful of affiliates and her popularity continued to grow. She knew she owed as much of her success to Ellen as to her own hard work. Ellen had a knack for delectable creation but she was such an introvert she would never agree to join Marni in front of the camera.

But in Ellen’s hands the food became a living, breathing wonder and she had become the associate producer over time, thanks to Marni. She knew what a gift she had in Ellen and took very good care of her. And Ellen knew what a great opportunity she had with Marni; no one else in the business would let her just cook without taking on any management responsibilities and yet pay her so well. But every time Marni’s fortunes improved, Ellen benefited as well.

A little over twenty years ago Marni had met Jeff, a news anchor for the local affiliate. Since she lost her young husband when Bella was only nine months old, she hadn’t been optimistic she’d ever find another forever man but fate shocked her by delivering up Jeff. It was a great love, filled with promise and passion. They were a team from the start, both of them being in TV and very visible in the community. They worked together, shoring each other up and urging each other on. Jeff was a fantastic stepfather for Bella and proudly walked her down the aisle six years ago.

Shortly after that something changed. Marni was concerned that a woman Jeff worked with had ulterior motives. She’d been stalking him for years, texting him, asking his advice, professing to be his friend and protégé and constant supporter. Marni had warned Jeff many times that he needed to be careful not to encourage this woman and he always said he could handle things. But his behavior changed and Marni grew suspicious. She caught them making out in Jeff’s car in the parking lot of a local park that sat in the shadow of the beautiful Sierras.

When she realized what she was witnessing, she drove very slowly up close to Jeff’s car and laid on the horn. They jumped apart like two heart attacks. It was divine.

She knew in that moment that her marriage, which she had enjoyed a great deal, was over. Clearly Jeff had been lying and leading a double life for years. The pain of that was excruciating. She also instinctively knew that Jeff and the woman had both gotten what they deserved—each other. Neither was honest nor faithful. In an instant she knew, she would not go a second further with a man who could look her in the eye and deceive her. She told him to leave. He didn’t argue or try to save their marriage, but he did hire a good lawyer and fought for a healthy settlement. At that time they both had solid careers, but Marni was edging ahead. Jeff went after a big slice of that success; indeed, he took credit, as he’d given her so much wonderful advice. At least that was his perspective.

At Marni’s insistence, they settled and divorced quickly. Marni had asked herself if she should pause and think it over, maybe try marriage counseling, but a gut instinct said end it fast. When he asked for a percentage of her future earnings, she knew she’d been right. It had to be over as swiftly as possible. She gave him half, though he hadn’t earned half. Since there were no minor children or businesses involved, he couldn’t possibly do better. She cut him a big check, waved goodbye and ran for her life. She learned you can still sprint pretty well with a broken heart.

After a couple of years of hating him, things settled down. Marni had handed over more money than seemed fair to her, certainly more than Jeff deserved, and that angered her but the relationship was over in her heart. And Karma being a vicious soul, Jeff was demoted in his job while Marni’s popularity soared.

Jeff had used his settlement to open a restaurant, hoping to capitalize on Marni’s notoriety as a television chef. But Gretchen, the other woman, was his business partner and Marni refused to endorse the restaurant. While he was busy trying to cash in on her success, Marni just put her head down, worked hard and became even more popular.

Then there was a sea change. Jeff had not married Gretchen, but he had spent a lot of money on her, found her cheating, and she unceremoniously dumped him, leaving Jeff a broken, much poorer man…with a struggling restaurant. Of course he brought his tons of regret to Marni, begging her forgiveness. Telling her that letting her go was the biggest mistake of his life!

“No doubt about it,” Ellen had said.

“Too little, too late,” Bella said. Bella was, if possible, angrier than Marni about Jeff’s betrayal.

“Men are so stupid,” said Sophia when she heard the story.

Marni had long since stopped complaining to her friends. To Jeff she said, “You broke my heart and tore my family to pieces. Don’t expect any sympathy from me.”

“You don’t understand, Marni,” he said. “I think she used me and turned me against you, the only woman who truly loved me.”

“Oh, I believe I understand completely,” she had said. The story was as old as time. He’d succumbed to flattery and been thinking with his dick. No amount of his regret would change the fact that she’d be an idiot to ever trust him again. She was no idiot.

But she did soften her anger slightly and they were now cordial. Every now and then Jeff would call her or text her or stop by, though the locks on the house had long since been changed. Over the past couple of years he had suggested a few times that they go out for dinner and she always declined. He clumsily proposed she might cook something for him. “One of your favorite new recipes… I would love that.”

“Not in your wildest dreams,” she had replied.

Marni heard the dishwasher start and snapped out of her thoughts of the past. She pulled her pesto canapés from the oven, the artichoke dip from the refrigerator and heard Kevin depart.

The door opened again. “Mama?” Bella called.

“Right in here,” Marni said. “How is the bump?” Bella was five months pregnant and cute as a button. It was a pregnancy hard won through wildly expensive in vitro fertilization.

“A little feisty,” she said with a very proud smile.

The door opened again and Marni’s sister, Nettie, came in from the garage.

Marni put down her hors d’oeuvres and transferred the centerpiece from the kitchen island to the long rectangular coffee table in the great room just as Ellen was bringing in a tray of wineglasses. Sophia followed with a large oval-shaped bucket filled with ice and two opened bottles of white wine. She went back for a chilled bottle of sparkling cider in an ice bucket on a tripod stand for Bella since she was off alcohol.

Marni loved watching them enter the room, her colleagues and loved ones. Ellen came into a room with shy demeanor, standing nearly six feet tall, lithe and graceful. She wore her her once blond and now white-gray hair in a simple pageboy. She always bent her head slightly and Marni wasn’t sure if her height made her uncomfortable or if it was her shy nature.

Nettie, ten years younger than Marni and the mother of two sons, was an English professor at the university in Reno.

Marni brought out a couple more plates of hors d’oeuvres, Sophia placed napkins all around, Ellen pushed over an ottoman for Bella to rest her feet upon, and they settled in. First was a toast. “A very good season, I think,” Marni said. “One of our best. I’m sleeping in tomorrow.”

Glasses were clinked in agreement, small plates were filled, napkins unfolded. And Marni looked around with a feeling of warm satisfaction. This was her happy place. This great room with her closest friends and family. And outside, through the patio doors, reflected in the backyard infinity pool was the sight of the Sierra Nevada mountains, still covered with snow, though it was May. They all lived in Breckenridge, Nevada, a picturesque little town nestled into the base of the mountain range just south of Reno and Lake Tahoe. There was a winding road, not exactly a secret but little known, that went switchback up over the mountains and then down into Lake Tahoe. People who grew up in Breckenridge knew it well.

This was an agricultural and ski town, with the mountains so close, and it was beautiful with its million-dollar views of nature at her best. To Marni, it looked similar to Austria.

Marni had overseen every aspect of the construction of this house, the kitchen being the focal point. She and Jeff were married at the time and while he helped by sharing advice and supervising construction, it was her house. She approved the plans and made it part of her business. And she loved it. Knowing it would be caught on camera, it was beautifully decorated in beiges, browns, pinks and mauves. It was redecorated almost annually for the same reason—updating for the viewers. But the most important thing to Marni was that the house felt like a hug to her, making her feel safe and protected.

When Jeff moved out, she filled the empty space he left in no time at all. Filling the empty space in her heart had taken longer. Even though she had stopped loving him and stopped hating him, there was still a hole there. A black cold hole. It frequently reminded her that she had no talent for love.


Excerpted from The Friendship Club by Robyn Carr. Copyright © 2024 by Robyn Carr. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Michael Alberstat

Robyn Carr is an award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than sixty novels, including highly praised women's fiction such as Four Friends and The View From Alameda Island and the critically acclaimed Virgin River, Thunder Point and Sullivan's Crossing series. Virgin River is now a Netflix Original series. Robyn lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Visit her website at www.RobynCarr.com.

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HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: Principles of E(motion) by Sara Read

A brilliant mind needs a strong heart.

Mathematical genius Dr. Meg Brightwood has just completed her life’s work—a proof of a problem so impenetrable it’s nicknamed the Impossible Theorem.

Reclusive and burdened by anxiety, no one took Meg seriously before. Now everyone wants to get their hands on what she alone possesses—especially her own mathematician father. Having grown up a prodigy in a field plagued by sexism and plagiarism, Meg opts for a public presentation so there is no doubt of her authorship. But a panic attack derails her plans. Defeated, Meg returns to the decaying house where she lives alone and locks away the one and only manuscript of her proof.

Then chance sends her the unlikeliest of allies. Isaac Wells—carpenter, high-school dropout, in trouble with the law. And the one love of Meg’s life. Fifteen years ago, they never did more than hold hands. Now adults, they reach toward each other through the minefield of the past and find a tenuous space where they can love and be loved for who they are.

But when Meg goes to retrieve the Impossible Theorem, she finds it missing. Will she fight for the achievement of the century and the love of a lifetime?

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Chapter 1

The night before Lila’s funeral, I rose from my nest on the couch in my study on the third floor of the tower. I had not been sleeping well. Across the room, a damp wind blew through the open window. With both hands, I wrestled it down. The windowpanes and sashes were curved to match the walls of the tower, and they tended to stick. This one wouldn’t shut the last inch, so I gave it up, turned off the lamps and returned to my couch, pulling a throw blanket over my legs. Outside, bluish beams of streetlight illuminated the top limbs of the trees as they swayed in the wind.

Since Lila’s death, I had felt so unmoored that it was almost a physical sense of drift. After spending nearly every hour of every day spooning applesauce off her chin, drawing her ancient arms through threadbare sleeves, bathing and changing her, waking up when she cried out in the night, I felt her absence like a missing a chamber of my own heart. So I went where I always went when I needed an anchor. Back to Frieholdt’s.

My family thought I was in denial, spending the days and nights after her death closed in my study, but it wasn’t denial. It was comfort. As Lila’s needs had increased, I’d had less and less time for Frieholdt’s Conjecture, and now after all that time away, I had new perspective, like seeing it for the first time. I could feel the answer just at the extremity of my understanding.

I was also exhausted. I tugged the blanket toward my chin. Past the rain-rippled windows, the air, water, and trees all moved in apparent entropy—so much turbulence against the unmoving light—and as a mathematician’s mind tends to do, mine searched for patterns. They were always present, and always changing.

I must have slept, because I woke to dark and stillness. The fitful rain had stopped. A single cicada chirped in the top of a tree. As I ascended into a sleep-loosened consciousness, a light glinted—a bright, inner North Star—and in less than an instant I was on my feet, as awake as I had ever been in my life.

Comprehension cannot be predicted. It may come when bidden, one may struggle after it for a lifetime, or it may wait two hundred years to send its bright ray through the darkness. That night, comprehension picked me. It picked four in the morning, after a week of relentless, grief-driven focus. But it found me ready. I knew from a lifetime of training that when the ray of light appeared, I had to keep my eyes on it and not look away, no matter the consequences.

Though the rest of the third floor was a glorified attic with sloping roof and dormer windows, the tower room maintained the grandeur of the rest of the house. I paced the floor, eyes closed, head tilted up.

I forgot the emptiness of the bedroom below my feet where Lila had breathed her last breath. I followed the bright rail of my thoughts as they plunged through the darkness, skimming along, light and swift to the very center of Frieholdt’s Conjecture where I could finally see the last remaining knot. It lay within the Gault function, itself contained within the Wang-Hickman method, a central tool used to predict the motion of noncompressible fluids. The threads grew clear, loosening, almost floating.

From a bent bit of gutter, a single rivulet of water tap-tapped onto the balcony. The pattern began to form.

Turbulence: resistance. Constraint pulling inward. And in parallel, release: spooling out. The opposite of friction. Twin forces, intertwined, dancing.

Math is logic purified to its essence. And logic seeks order and sequence. Deep within that last tangle, I separated the radiant strands. I restrung them and laid them straight, end to end, and at last—at last—they formed a jetway to the center of the universe.

Feet barely touching the floor, I went to my board—five feet tall and twelve feet wide, built to fit the curved wall, with a hand-carved ledge at the bottom—and lifted a cool piece of chalk between my fingers.

Daylight shone through the windows when I woke, still clutching the nub of chalk.

There on my board were a series of functions and shapes in green, white, and yellow. A dimensional representation. A kind of mathematical shorthand.

At that moment, it was not something I could have presented even to another mind such as my own. Still more a small pot holder than a perfectly woven tapestry, but it was all there. So much simpler than I had imaged. As if it had been there all along—which, like all math, it had.

Done.

Twenty-three years of study. Done.

My hands trembled. I blinked, sure that it would disappear or dissolve into nonsense as it had done so many times before. I turned my back, crossed the room, and looked at it from a distance.

Still there.

I opened the window and looked out. Back in the early spring, a work crew had started a renovation on the big house across the street. Men. Trucks. Lumber. The damp smell of oak and grass wafted in. It made me think of Isaac.

I wished I could tell him I did it. I really did it. He always believed I could, if for no other reason than I believed it myself.

There’s a feeling when you meet someone, that somehow you’ve known them all your life. And not even all your life. Like you’ve known them all of some other life where you are completely yourself. Not the one you’re living, where you are who people expect you to be, but some better life. The one you should have been living all along. That’s how it was with Isaac.

No one in my family had known him except Lila, and now the memory was mine alone. And perhaps even Lila didn’t know what we became to one another.

I turned and looked at my board again. It still seemed impossible, but there it was, and the afterglow of epiphany was heaven. Breathless astonishment. A floaty, weightless feeling in my chest. I had done it. At last. And after so many years, it came in such a sudden burst of light.

This would vindicate me. It would prove that Dr. Margaret Brightwood was not a batshit-crazy recluse after all. This would vindicate the little girl who people read about in the news, who had so much power and so much promise.

A soft creak from the third-floor stairs startled me, and I jumped to my feet. No one ever came up here.

“Who is it?” I pressed a hand over my racing heart.

“Meg? Are you all right?”

The door opened, and my panic melted, replaced by that fullness of heart which so often ends in tears. Sweet Lizzie. More sister than cousin. The Sun to my Moon. Her golden hair was tied up, but a fallen strand stuck to her black dress.

I plucked the loose hair off. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you okay?” She looked at me, then scanned the room for—what? “They sent me to look for you.”

“Oh my god.” The funeral. I spun around. “Oh my god. What time is it?”

My clothes. They weren’t even pressed. I had barely slept. I ran past Lizzie and headed for my bedroom. They would all be waiting. My father. My sister. The pastor.

“Meg, you look pale.” Lizzie followed me. “First tell me if you’re okay.”

“Yes, I was—” I stabbed my arms into a black shirt. Legs into slacks. “I was working.”

They would be waiting. Expecting me to drop everything. To run and fulfill my part in this ritual obligation. I sat on the floor to pull on my boots.

But why?

Funerals are for the living. For people who want or need to grieve together. Here’s the truth. As tiny as Lila was, and as hard as she tried not to be a burden, the last years of her life had been a constant struggle, and grief had been my daily companion. I was spent.

My father had visited occasionally. The minister dropped by for a few minutes each week. And my older sister—had she even seen the inside of the house in five years? In the last months, caring for Lila had consumed everything. I slept next to her so she wouldn’t be alone.

My obligations were done. I didn’t need a funeral. I didn’t need to weep and hug a bunch of strangers dressed in black. I only wanted some time to walk the house before the sense of her presence was gone forever.

Lizzie examined me with her gentle eyes. “So…are you done? Working?”

Strong emotions competed for dominance, and extreme exultation was the first to break through.

“Yes, I’m done. I’m finally done.” But laughter gave way quickly to defensiveness. “I have been care-giving twenty-four seven. I swear to god, I haven’t had an uninterrupted hour in I don’t remember how long. And now I finally, finally have the space to think, and you know what? I did it. I did it. And I just want a few fucking minutes to enjoy it.”

By the end I was almost yelling. Then, of course, I wanted to cry. Lizzie didn’t deserve to be yelled at.

She dropped to the floor and put her arms around me. Lizzie was small, slim, and fit. Five years my junior and unfazed by my moods.

“You did what?” she said.

“Frieholdt’s. I solved it.”

“Meg, that’s amazing.”

“I miss her,” I said. “I miss her so much, but it’s been so long since I’ve been able to focus.”

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Lizzie held tighter.

“I’m not going. I can’t.” I leaned into her embrace. “Maybe Dad’s mad that I’m not there, but he’ll see. They’ll all see that my whole fucking life was worth something.”

Lizzie kissed my cheek. “You were already worth something.”

Then she got out her phone and sent a text, leaning her shoulder firmly against mine like a mare to a skittish foal. “They can finish without us.”

“Lila wouldn’t mind. She never wanted a church funeral or a grave.”

“Plus it’s hot, and the pastor is so boring.” Lizzie put her arms around me again. “Remember when he came over and Grandma would be like, ‘Oh here comes Mr. Finkley, bless his heart.’”

I laughed, so grateful they sent Lizzie. With Lila gone, she was the one person on god’s green earth I could be myself with.

We spent the rest of the morning with photo albums, cross-legged on Lila’s big bed.

“Oh, remember this?” Lizzie held up a picture of the two of us. We were maybe eight and thirteen, standing arm in arm on a rock, a broad shining river behind us. Lizzie had been a sturdy reed of a girl, whereas I had grown curves early and stood as if I were trying to hide them. But we were both smiling and squinting in the sun.

“Harpers Ferry,” Lizzie said. “Lila walked that entire trail with us.”

“Dad didn’t want to let me go.” I took the picture and looked at it close. “But Lila made him.”

Lizzie wept, and I held her in my arms feeling only a hollowness in my throat.

I had wept when Lila started struggling after words for everyday things. When she asked me to stop the crying of a baby only she could hear. When she forgot my name.

I had nothing left.

At that moment I grieved not for the old woman, but for the young, strong Lila who hiked with me and Lizzie to the Shenandoah that day. The last and only person who could get my father off my back.




Excerpted from Principles of (E)motion by Sara Read. Copyright © 2024 by Sara Read. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Jen Fariello

SARA READ is cofounder of #momswritersclub. Originally from Washington, DC, she tried the nine-to-five life for about a nanosecond before moving to rural Virginia to become a flute-maker’s apprentice and traditional fiddle player. A cancer survivor herself, Sara now has the distinct privilege of caring for cancer patients as a nurse. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, two teens, a terrier and three snarky cats.

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