Blog posts

A Retro Summer Album

Posted on May 27, 2016May 27, 2016 by judyhudson@shaw.ca

Memories of vacations at the lake were a big inspiration for my Fortune Bay series.

On the first long weekends of the summer season – 24th of May in Canada (the Queen’s birthday, I know, how quaint) and Memorial Day in the U.S. – it’s time to celebrate the return of carefree summer days.

The vignetting and scratches of these family photos captured from old 8 mm film have the nostalgic feel of silent films. Memories you can hold in your hand, they will be familiar to family and friends who spent childhood summers in Ontario’s Muskoka, and I hope will resonate with other readers as well.

I’d love to hear your summer vacation memories. 🙂

P.S. – Don’t forget to check out Monday’s post for this week’s Small-town Romance Giveaway.

Jenny Andersen’s Western Heroes

Posted on May 23, 2016May 23, 2016 by judyhudson@shaw.ca

Today we are kicking off the Small-town Romance Guest Author series with Jenny Andersen. I recently read Jenny’s Calendar Girl, Book I of her Western Heroes series and loved it. A crazy cast of characters, great desert setting, a nice dose of mystery and, of course, the romance. What more could you want?

But, before I forget –

Each week of the series I’ll be picking a name from the comments for our weekly giveaway. This week, a free eBook copy of Stalking Bel, one of Jenny’s Western Heroes books. Check out the short excerpt at the end of this post, then leave Jenny a comment to enter.

Winner will be announced next Monday when Lee McKenzie will be my guest on the Small-town Authors series.

So Jenny, What can you tell us about your latest book in the Western Heroes series?

Well, this one’s a no-brainer, Judy. My mind is always so full of the latest book! It’s a reissue, but since it involved a fair amount of rewriting and rethinking, it’s still on my mind, competing with the new book I’m supposed to be writing. ☺ Also, I stepped back to write my usual short story prequel to the book. [The short stories are a perk I send to the people on my mailing list.] In the case of Reckless Promise, the setting is a dude ranch in Montana. Its name is The Montana Blue, which is kind of a strange name for a ranch, so I had to explain it. [Since I’m a gemologist when I’m not writing, the answer is…sapphires.]

Sapphires! I’m already intrigued. But what attracted you to the small-town romance genre?

Does anyone need to explain the attraction of the romance genre? I didn’t think so. As for the small town part, it’s a direct result of my very schizophrenic upbringing. I spent half of each year in a large city, being as urban and sophisticated as a small child can be. The other months were pure liberation, spent on a farm in an area that can only be considered hillbilly. Horses, dogs, cats, chickens, other kids…a creek to play in, wild persimmons in the woods… I loved it! And the nearest town had a population of about 400. So of course I wanted to write about rural places and small towns. Of course there were also chores, yellow jacket nests to step on, and rattlesnakes, but hey, conflict is necessary, right?

Right! How would you describe your writing process?

Chaos. That’s the short answer. I yearn to be one of the truly dedicated and disciplined who sit down at the keyboard at—what, 9:02 and 30 seconds?—every day. And turn out at least 10 pages of deathless prose in that time. The wretched truth is that while I do write [almost] every day, it happens whenever that day allows it to happen. And as for deathless prose…no. Fortunately, I like to revise. And I’m really lucky when I can write scenes that follow each other in order, a la the incomparable Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Some writers are plotters [Suzanne Brockmann], some are fly-into-the-mist pantsers [SEP]. Corrina Lawson described my natural writing style as patchwork quilt. And it’s fine, but stitching the disparate pieces together to make a coherent story is a lotta work.

What sets your town apart?

This series is made up of stand-alone books with different settings but cross-over characters.

Are you self-publishing?

I’m a hybrid. I like the idea of a foot in each camp since the publishing industry is so crazy.

Can we look for more books in the series?

You bet. Glitter and Gold is coming up next. A successful and ultra-urban jewelry designer inherits a Victorian house in a small town. She also inherits three crazy old miners, a drydocked Navy Seal, and a lost gold mine. Along with someone who’s ready to kill to get it.

Sounds like another winner. Now for the serious question – Coffee or tea? Wine, whiskey, or beer?

Sigh. I’m a wine girl at heart, but my doctor interfered, so it’s pretty much coffee or water.

Thanks for starting us off Jenny.

Keep reading for an except from Stalking Bel, Book II in the Western Heroes series.

She was gone.
She had run, but it wouldn’t do her any good. He’d find her.
Too bad she hadn’t died when he’d torched her house. Watching it burn had felt good. No. Not just good. Stupendous. Like being God. Everything flaming, roaring, melting, just the way he’d planned for her. Except she hadn’t died.
Maybe it was better this way. Now he could make sure she’d really suffer. And suffer and suffer some more, until she begged to die. He had destroyed her house and all her belongings, made her homeless. Next, he’d destroy her career, her precious writing, see to it she lost her fame, her success, everything she’d gotten so unfairly. Then…he’d end her life.
He imagined her trapped, shrieking in agony, flames laying waste to her just like they’d done to her house. She’d die. Eventually.
The stalker lifted a glass with one trembling hand and let the rich scent of red wine blend with his anger. The burning had been good, an inferno leaping toward the sky, turning her life to ashes. But not enough. Not nearly enough. Now, he had plans to remedy that.
* * *
She’d never seen a real palm tree before. Palm trees didn’t grow well in Manhattan. Elegant restaurants, chic stores, sophisticated people…yes. Palm trees, no.
And smart people took taxis. Bel Baxter, aka Belinda Beverly, elegant, sophisticated writer of best-selling historical romances, gritted her teeth and jerked the steering wheel to turn into the driveway of a borrowed hacienda in a decidedly not elegant, not sophisticated seaside town in California.
The snappy little BMW that had been waiting for her at the airport whipped past the gate post and embedded its nose in a bush.
“It’s your own fault,” she told the car after she stopped screaming. “No one drives in Manhattan. I’m out of practice.”
New York. She brushed a straggling curl out of her face, smearing a lone tear away, and told herself to suck it up. California lay a continent away from the fruitcake trying to kill her. California equaled safety.
This driving thing, though. Not so safe. She kept a car in the city and had a valid driver’s license, but only drove once a year when she went to the Hamptons. She’d gotten just a tad rusty.
The driver she thought she’d hired had rushed off to his wife’s bedside to hold her hand while she had a baby. Even after years on the NYT list, Bel didn’t have enough diva genes to object to that. Anyway, she’d been sure the dealership could supply another driver. But no. “It’s like riding a bicycle, it’ll come back to you in no time,” the manager said on the phone.
Right.
After she backed out of the rosebush, she parked next to the wide, shady veranda, climbed out onto the gravel driveway, and inspected her new home. White stucco walls and red tile roof, broad-leafed tropical plants…she might as well have landed on an alien planet. No high rises, no doormen, no bustling crowds. The whole neighborhood, the whole town, looked like something out of a surfer-dude movie. And until her stalker was caught, she lived here.
All because of one nutcase.

Be sure to leave a comment to qualify for this week’s giveaway and check back next Monday to meet Lee McKenzie and see the winner of this week’s contest.

Until next time,

A Walk On The Wild Side

Posted on May 21, 2016May 21, 2016 by judyhudson@shaw.ca

Boardwalk in the rainforest of Long Beach Nat. Park, Tofino BC

With all four books in different stages rattling around in my head this week I felt ready to explode. Or maybe melt down is a more appropriate analogy. So we decided to head for the wild west coast of Vancouver Island for a short respite.

How can it be that on an island that is only 30 miles wide, it can take so to get from here to there? It’s the mountains and the inlets. And the road. When we were finally sitting in a restaurant in Tofino, road weary German tourists collapsed into seats nearby and said, as if no explanation was necessary, that they had Just driven up from Victoria. Only 200 miles, it’s all winding roads that get progressively narrower and windier. From 120 km/hr on the Island Highway near Nanaimo, it drops to 90, then 80, then 60 on the curves, which are pretty well non stop, then 50, 40 and finally 30 with the wiggly road signs.

Then you get to Kennedy lake, where the road snakes along the cliff side, and there in the middle of friggin’ NO WHERE is a big overhead sign that’s lit up (where did the power coming from?) that says DRIVE CAREFULLY – NARROW ROAD AHEAD. That’s where they’ve cut right into the rock enough that cars can get under. There is another thoughtful sign that warns that trucks can’t make it and will be swinging out into your lane on the curve up ahead so – you’ve guessed it – drive carefully.

But then suddenly you’re there, and it is worth it. Tofino and Ucluelet at the two ends of the 44 km beach, with Long Beach National Park in between. Both towns are a combination of fishing village and tourist town, Tofino being the more established in the tourism trade. I p

refer to stay in quieter Ucluelet, which is what we did.

Followed were two days of great food, Norwood’s In Uclelet with it’s Asian inspired

decor and presentation and interesting menu of locally sourced produce and seafood, and BC wine’s. In Tofino we ate at Wolf in the Fog, named no doubt for the wolves that have lately started following joggers on the foggy beach. Named best new restaurant in Canada in 2014 by Air Canada’s enroute magazine, it is also famous for serving locally grown, fished and foraged foods on their menu.

But it’s the landscape you come for, so I’ll let a few photos speak for themselves.

20160518_8328 — Wild off the Pacific at Long Beach National Park.

20160519_9036 — Photographing a cedar at the Giant Cedars stop on Hwy. 4.

8 Weeks – 8 Guest Bloggers – 8 eBook Giveaways.

Posted on May 15, 2016May 16, 2016 by judyhudson@shaw.ca

I’m happy to announce the beginning of a series of blog posts hosting eight authors from all over North America who write Small Town Romance. And, to add a little spice to the pot,

I’ll be giving away an eBook copy of one of their books each week.

Yes, I’m highlighting in red today because this is exciting! The small town setting is, to me, the perfect crucible in which to mix family and friends, through good times and bad, for better and for worse. And of course, the worse it gets the better we like it!

Relationships are brought under the microscope in a tight knit community, shining a light on things that I think we might prefer to keep hidden. It’s always intriguing because it’s the people and their journey that keeps us reading.

From spicy to sweet, that small town experience is something all these writers have in common and pass along in their books.

Jenny Andersen will be kicking things off with one of her desert westerns, next Monday, May 23.

If you like quirky characters, you’ll love Jenny. As she says on her website:

Should be fun. See you next Monday.

Inspiration for Summer of Fortune

Posted on May 9, 2016May 9, 2016 by judyhudson@shaw.ca

A few weeks ago, in a bold and possibly stupid move, I decided to change my website address, and yes, lost the whole darn thing. So I’ve been rebuilding the site from scratch. But it’s okay. It feels appropriate to start over with the series coming out this summer.

But yesterday I realized I had not put an “About Me” or “My Writing” page on the website yet, so I searched through my old posts and stumbled on this one about how I got started on the series. It seemed appropriate for this new phase of my career, so here it is.

How and Why I Write

In June 2008, I had been writing travel articles for magazines with limited success, when I had a minor operation on my foot and had to keep it up for what turned out to be 6 weeks. At the same time, I got a new laptop and my husband went away for two weeks leaving me alone. Now this does not happen often since we both work at home, so I love it when he goes on a trip without me.

I could hobble for a few minutes at a time, so I was okay on my own. The weather was lovely and I remember thinking, gleefully if slightly timidly, that this was the time.

I started my first novel. Plunged in, working hours each day, foot up on the coffee table, the chairs on the screened-in back porch or further outside, almost unheeding of hummingbirds buzzing by me.

The premise? I didn’t really have one. I work a lot on visuals and that’s where I started. When I lived at Honeymoon Bay on Vancouver Island there was a cabin on the lake around the corner from our house (which was not quite on the lake). Like my heroine, I couldn’t really see the cabin.

“Her foot hit the brake when she saw the cabin by the lake. All that was visible through the trees was a crumbling chimney and broken window, half-hidden by overgrown lilacs . . . A rope hung across the head of the lane that wound through tall fir trees toward the cabin. Nailed to one massive trunk was a faded No Trespassing sign. Squinting to read it, she decided it was so faint, it could almost be considered and invitation …” (From the original version)

The cabin is still there, and I have still not seen all of it, which was probably for the best because for years I had half-heartedly been hanging stories on that chimney. There were other things that sparked stories for me too and I just started rolling them all together. I was a dark room photographer at that point making art prints, and so is my heroine, Maddie. In some ways, she is my alter ego, for instance she is on the brink of becoming a successful photographer – something that never happened to me, not in that way. In other ways, most other ways, we are totally different.

It was amazing to me how the story emerged from somewhere with what felt like no help of my own. Although the place, which I called Fortune Bay, was very like Honeymoon Bay, the people were not based on anyone I knew there. The characters emerged fully formed, and were revealed to me as the story progressed. I would say to people, “And it turns out she was”, or “had been”, or “her mother was”, and they would say, “What do you mean ‘It turns out’!?” So much of it came as a surprise to me. I couldn’t concentrate on other stories I tried to read, I just wanted to know what happened next to my characters. It was out there somewhere, I just had to sit down and type it.

Now this doesn’t mean the story came together quickly. I made every mistake in the book, in all the books. And I did read them all. In fact, I am still reading about how to write. They say to write about what you know, and writers out there have complied. If you are beginning writer and haven’t availed yourself of this fount of information, by all means do, either from the library or buy the books. Most are very inexpensive. In another blog entry I will list a few I found particularly helpful.

So what would I encourage someone else who has been playing with ideas for years to do? Plunge in. If worst comes to worst, there is always the delete key. And who knows, you might get carried away like, I did.

Now, eight years later, in June, I am publishing this first book, originally called The Cabin, now titled Summer of Fortune, along with the three other books that have come along in the Fortune Bay Series. Summer of Fortune will be available for pre-order on amazon on May 17, so stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by.