Give the Woman A Throne by Selena Jones

I'm happy to welcome Selena Jones to the Window. I've always said Mother's Day isn't just one day in May, but a whole bunch of others. This one is for Georgina McClure. Love you, Georgina--but I think Selena probably loves you more. 

As the weather grows colder and I watch the leaves bounce across the yard in the breeze, I start to get a bit reflective.

I think about my mother's slightly burnt and perfectly buttered popcorn and think about all the times I craved it, made it like I had seen her make it a million times before, and it somehow still didn't taste like hers no matter what I did. I search for a book to read, maybe a thriller, maybe a romance, and realize my love for reading also came from my mother. 

When I really think about it, I got a lot from my mother whether hereditary or learned. Aside from my love for reading and my popcorn making skills, I learned how to be strong and independent. I saw her pull herself together and recover from a divorce that not only rocked her world, but mine. I saw her stand up, watched her study constantly, save money like crazy while she worked at Subway or the apple orchard. 

She's a champion in frugality. I watched her go without and never thought anything of it until years later. I watched her hold her head high and be an "adult" while others acted childishly and actively tried to get a rise out of her. I learned honesty, integrity, and class. I learned maturity on a different level, seriously, get this woman a throne, she's a fucking queen for handling some things the way she did. 

I watched her become a nurse and care for others and I learned compassion, understanding, and drive. I saw her go above and beyond for patients. I saw her pick green beans from the garden and buy root beer because she knew someone needed it or it was a nursing home patient's favorite. 

I value family because of my mother. I've learned that you do for family, you show up for family, because they're family and would do the same for you in a heart beat. I think about the times my mother went out of her way to make sure we didn't miss out on family we wouldn't otherwise get to see. I remember family ball games, cook outs, birthday parties, mushroom fries, and time spent eagerly searching for those morels. I've seen her offer countless hours to help, open her home, and give freely to family. 

She's thoughtful, beautiful inside and out, hard working, dedicated, and a role model. As a child, I was quick to blame my mother, give her grief and argue with her just for the sake of arguing, but as I got older things gradually became clearer and I realized that my mother is a treasure who has inevitably shaped me into who I am today.

Weakness: Your Greatest Strength by Laura Drake

Having yet another fangirl moment...give me a minute... Laura Drake is yet another one of my favorite writers. I read the following essay on her blog the other day and begged asked if I could use it on the Window. I love what she says here...the power it gives us if we just take it. So, here you go.

I saw this meme on social media today, and it reminded me of a huge discovery I made that changed how I saw the world.

See, I’ve been an outlier all my life. As a kid, I was a dreamer. My mother told me to get ready for school only to come back five minutes later to find me with one sock halfway pulled up, staring off at nothing. I stayed a kid as long as humanly possible, despite high school graduation. As much as I adore people, I’d rather read. I’m a klutz. Seriously. I broke my foot once, falling upstairs. I’m the one in a party who says things that I should keep inside, only I don’t realize it until I see it on the face of my audience. My way of learning is to ignore advice, discover all the ways that won’t work, until I stumble upon the way that will.

I held these things and more as my secret shame all my life. Until I didn’t.

What changed? I realized that, whereas they are seen as weaknesses by the general public, most of them are exactly what I needed to become a writer.

They’re my strengths.

Dreamer=imagination. Picturing people and worlds that don’t exist, but should.

Staying a kid=perspective. Seeing the world through the eyes of wonder and putting that on a page.

Reading=drive. I’ve read so many books that made me want to be that good. They push me to be better every single day.

Awkward=empathy. You have to get into flawed characters’ backstories and motivation to build empathy for your characters. I understand flaws down to my bones.

Blurting=honesty. Sometimes you feel something so deeply that you want to explain it so others can understand. Okay, so a party may not be the best venue for that, but when it wants out, there is no stopping it.

Failing=persistence. Probably my greatest strength. I once had a boss tell me that I learned slowly, but once I figured it out, I never made a mistake again. I GOT it. I survived 417 rejections before I signed with an agent. I wanted it, and I figured if I kept breathing and learning, I had to get there eventually. It’s science.

It took me many years of struggling before I learned to embrace my weaknesses. Many more to embrace them. Now I see them as my strengths. I just had to find the right career to take advantage of them.

And being me, I had to find all the wrong ways first.

But what an amazing life that’s made! Not to mention the plots…

What are your weaknesses? Try a paradigm shift – how are they your strengths?

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Jacqueline Oliver is an indie perfumer, trying to bury her ravaged childhood by shoveling ground under her own feet. Then she gets a call she dreads—the hippie grandmother she bitterly resents was apprehended when police busted a charlatan shaman's sweat lodge. Others scattered, but Nellie was slowed by her walker, and the fact that she was wearing nothing but a few Mardi-Gras beads. Jacqueline is her only kin, so, like it or not, she's responsible. 

Despite being late developing next year's scent, Jacqueline drops everything to travel to Arizona and pick up her free-range grandma. But the Universe conspires to set them on a Route 66 road trip together. What Jacqueline discovers out there could not only heal the scars of her childhood but open her to a brighter future.

Note from Liz - Although The Road to Me is available everywhere, here is the Amazon link. https://www.amazon.com/Road-Me-novel-Laura-Drake-ebook/dp/B09QNVSKFB Don't miss it!

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Laura Drake is a New York and self-published published author of Women's Fiction and Romance. Her debut, The Sweet Spot, was a double-finalist, then won the 2014 Romance Writers of America® RITA® award. She’s since published 12 more books. She is a founding member of Women’s Fiction Writers Assn, Writers in the Storm blog.

Laura is a city girl who never grew out of her tomboy ways, or a serious cowboy crush. She gave up the corporate CFO gig to write full time. She realized a lifelong dream of becoming a Texan and is currently working on her accent. She's a wife, grandmother, and motorcycle chick in the remaining waking hours.

Nan’s World—River’s Edge by Nan Reinhardt

I’ve always been a dreamer. From the time I could hold a pencil, I invented people and places that I could escape to. Sometimes, parents worry about a kid who lives in a make-believe world. Fortunately, my mom didn’t—she allowed me that world because she believed with all her heart that I would be a writer one day. When we were kids, my sisters used to tease me unmercifully about not being in reality, claiming that I lived in “Nan’s world—a nice place to visit, but we certainly wouldn’t want to live there.” Oh, how I wish I could take them River’s Edge! I think they’d sing a different tune.

To begin with, you need to know that River’s Edge is a fictional place. It’s my fictional place. It’s where my stories happen, but it’s inspired by a very real place. Madison, Indiana, is a smallish town on the banks of the Ohio River. Its greatest claims to fame may be that singer Jenny Lind visited in 1851, and every Fourth of July weekend, the Madison Regatta—a hydroplane boat race—happens on the river there. Chautauqua in the fall brings tourists from all over the Midwest as does the Candlelight Tour of Homes at Christmas. The Roostertail Music Festival is a relatively new happening in Madison, but the town is building its reputation as a great place for music. Madison is a laidback town with nice shops and restaurants, a state park just north, several great wineries, and the River Walk along the Ohio. It was the perfect inspiration for River’s Edge.

If there’s anything more fun than creating a make-believe town full of fictional characters, I haven’t found it yet. Every time I sit down to write, I get lost in Nan’s world—River’s Edge. I’m longing to stop by the Riverside Diner and join Harry, Noah, Clyde, and Butch for breakfast—an omelet, three ingredients only, please. I always crave pie if I’ve written about Paula Meadows’s Bread & Butter Bakery or Paris tea if I’ve done a scene in Holly Flaherty’s Tea Leaf Café. Four Irish Brothers Winery, both the vineyard and the in-town tasting room make me want to go wine-tasting with Husband or my bestie, and maybe we could meet up with Sam or Megan or Kitt for a stroll along the River Walk, which looms large as the place to gather in River’s Edge.

In October, I asked a local artist to create a map of River’s Edge based on the stories I’ve told there so far. I sent her the books, and we exchanged several emails where I described the town and the places I wanted to highlight. A few weeks later, she presented me with this watercolor caricature map of River’s Edge. I couldn’t have been more delighted to see my town rendered so perfectly. There was Mac’s and St. Mark’s Hospital, the River Walk and Aidan Flaherty’s River Queen showboat! Even the new Cotton Mill Inn showed up, right there on Warner Drive overlooking the river. What a treat!

I hope you’ll join me in River’s Edge in the Four Irish Brothers Winery series of books and my new Lange Brothers series, beginning with The Valentine Wager. There’s no better place to enjoy sweet small-town romance than in River’s Edge, Indiana.


Talk to Nan at: nan@nanreinhardt.com

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The Valentine Wager, book 1 in the Langes of River’s Edge series

by Nan Reinhardt

He’s a notorious flirt, so she lays down a challenge she’s sure she’ll win.


When playboy police lieutenant Ryker Lange stops Kitt Boynton for driving on the wrong side of the road, his attraction to the feisty Irish lass is immediate. Yet, despite the sizzling chemistry between them, Kitt quickly turns him down.

Kitt has moved to River’s Edge for a fresh start and is ready to focus on her new marketing job at her cousins’ winery. She’s done with players, and vows she won’t let the local sexy cop distract her, but Kitt, a flirt herself, is definitely tempted. To keep her sanity as she prepares for several Valentine-themed winery events, she and Ryker make a bet: for the next three weeks, neither of them can flirt with the other.

The game starts out lighthearted, but when the town takes sides, Ryker and Kitt must choose between winning a wager or finding lasting love.


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