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I’m an eclectic writer, and in my short career, I have written a story in almost every Christian Fiction genre. Most are in the draft stages, but always with the themes of grace, forgiveness, and God’s amazing love. But life isn’t easy, and I write about real-life challenges and real-life faith. I hope to encourage my readers to trust and follow Him more deeply while enjoying the faith journey through my characters. I pray our journeys will be richer for the grace we learn to receive and extend while on this earth. Please let me know how God has inspired you. I would be greatly encouraged to give Him all glory!
Bay Town Books
I write primarily Romantic Suspense, although more than one person has commented that the rich characters remind them of Women’s Fiction with a Romantic Suspense element. Either way, I hope you’ll enjoy my Bay Town Series.
I’m excited to continue bringing you a five-book series set in a small town on the Mississippi coast. The Prequel, Book One, Book Two, and Book Three are now available. Books One and Two deal with human trafficking, and Book Three brings back a younger character who’s faced more challenges than many her age. I’ve just finalized Book Four, Renewed Joy ( 2024), about a woman who fights to escape domestic violence, returning home to find hope in Bay Town.
I’ve also begun writing Shaded Goodness, Book Five (2025), where a young girl hopes for her parent’s reconciliation against the backdrop of jail and drug abuse complications. All the stories are about delightful characters facing challenging situations in and around the quaint city of Bay Town on the coast of Mississippi. You’ll find those with a strong faith and many with flawed lives. You may be surprised by the outcomes, but I promise our Lord’s precious hope is laced throughout all my stories.
The books are stand-alone, and you may read them in any order, but you might enjoy them more if you read them in the order written. You’ll get to grow and fall in love with the characters like I have. Enjoy!
Sweet Holiday Romance Books
For those who love sweet romance (I do, too,) I’ve written a few Cozy Holiday Stories with a little bit of romance, a hint of suspense, and a whole lot of faith. Mistletoe Village, Let Them Eat Fruitcake, a Bay Town Christmas Romance, and The Cross at Morioka Castle, a romance set in Japan, are now available on Amazon. The latter was written in collaboration with a group of talented authors with the common thread of Christmas and Castles, and we won the Christian Indie Award for it! Scroll down to read more.
Coming Soon!
My first historical romance mystery will be released in 2024. The Welsh Songbird takes place in …you guessed it, Wales. My Grandmother-in-law was born and raised there, and I have visited that lovely country. It inspired me! This book is another collaboration with Celebrate Lit authors. The Welsh Songbird is part of the Happily Ever After Mysteries, retellings of Fairy Tales set in the 40s. I love the 1940s setting and have fallen in love with my characters…seriously! My husband said it’s his favorite story yet. Watch for hints in my blog of what fairy tale.
My Books
Essential Ingredients
Available in paperback on Amazon or as a free ebook. Here’s the link.
https://www.subscribepage.com/essentialingredients
The heartache of one’s past seasons the flavor of one’s future.
A Healthy Cooking Influencer on her way to catch a red-eye flight to New York for a TV interview is leaving her former career as a Child Protective Services Worker behind. She thinks maybe God is moving her forward when her hobby as a blogger and YouTuber hit the 100K mark. Rhea hopes that she has reached a point in her life where she can bury past hurts, leaving behind the burnout from trying to protect helpless children and the loss of a serious relationship years before. An unplanned stop at a gas station brings her face to face with both heartaches. A chance reunion with her former love is interrupted by a distraught young family and their screaming toddler. As the scene escalates with police and paramedics, lives are at stake, and Rhea has a choice. What’s essential? Can she trust God with the right decision?
Revived Hope, Prequel to Bay Town Series (BTS)
Melanie Thompson is on the verge of making it big. The best wedding consultant in Southern California, or so she’d hoped. Her underlying motivation is proving to herself and her father that she can do it all. But can she? Doubts creep in, and her dream begins to unravel when her life is threatened, her shop vandalized, and tragedy strikes home. Realizing that her trust was in the wrong place, her decisions will change the course of her future and her faith. Who will she trust?
In this prelude novelette to the Bay Town Series, single mom Melanie Thompson overcomes the foolish mistakes of her past, seeking to build a better life for her teenage daughter. Complications with her ex-husband, the new business, and a threatening landlord prove to be a challenge she can face. But when tragic heartache hits home, it’s not her own strength that gets her through.
Her store is vandalized, her life is threatened, and tragedy strikes home. A new strength arises.
Revived Hope, set in California, paves the path for Melanie and Lacey’s move to the gulf coast of Mississippi.
Shattered Guilt, BTS Book 1
When they told her about Southern hospitality, no one mentioned human trafficking.
The move to Bay Town, Mississippi, was supposed to be a fresh start for single-mom Melanie and her daughter, Lacey. The quiet Southern town offers a nice relief after the frenetic-paced life of Los Angeles, but something sinister lurks beneath the surface.
Her bridal business struggles to take off, and instead of turning to the Lord, Melanie makes a desperate plea for help–from her ex-husband. Lacey is attacked, and while she is hospitalized, her friend goes missing—a victim of human trafficking out of New Orleans.
With her ex-husband showing true signs of repentance, the pastor she’d begun to fall for taking a step back, and her daughter’s friend lost to the animals who stole her, Melanie goes on a desperate, dangerous mission to rescue the girl and gets their lives back.
And she’ll do it with or without the Lord’s help.
How can Melanie find the girls and rescue them without getting caught herself? Why can’t she trust the Lord to keep them all safe, and which man in her life is the right one–if either?
Read this heart-gripping, pulse-racing novel and see how the Lord’s hand is on us, even when He seems so very far away.
Restored Grace, BTS Book Two
They promised Jesus would be with her through everything, but is that enough?
The free-spirited vintage thrift shop owner, Carol Scape, wallowed in grief after her boyfriend’s murder. However, with newfound faith, she’s discovering what it means to die to herself and put others first, even if it could cost her life.
Carol is on a mission to save a runaway teen and an at-risk girl from Will Boudreaux, the man just released from jail for running a prostitution ring. The same man who previously terrorized Bay Town residents. Can’t the town get a break? Can’t she?
She’s up for the challenge, but when sparks ignite between her and the town mayor, it muddles things. Having sworn off men, he’s getting in the way of what she feels she must do. Or is he?
Restored Grace is the second book of the Bay Town Series, continuing one year after Shattered Guilt. It’s a stand-alone, amped-up, romantic suspense. Buckle your seat belt. You’re in for a ride.
Shadowed Doubt
Is street smart enough to save a life and protect a family?
Finally recovering after the abduction of her mother by a human trafficking ring and the mysterious death of her father years ago, Lacey Thompson wants to live again. But things aren’t panning out. Exclusion from Fashion Design School leaves Lacey nursing rejection when a young stranger shows up in Bay Town. He’s brash but beautiful, and Lacey senses she shouldn’t get involved, but she can’t help it.
Wade Bodine Gardner is heir to Gardner Hotel Enterprises. As a long-lost family member discovered on the streets of New Orleans, Wade is living a second chance. Life is good, especially when he meets Lacey Thompson. But his past comes back to haunt him. The man who raised him is released from jail…the man who killed his mother. Beau Bodine wants a piece of the action and will stop at nothing to get Wade’s inheritance. Stalking Lacey is his first plan of action. How far will Beau go?
Instead of fighting their battles together, Lacey and Wade battle each other. Will Lacey draw on what got her through before? Can Wade learn to trust God and Lacey? It’s a race against time to save those whom he loves.
Mistletoe Village, A Christmas Romance
Two broken women, two defeated children. Can Grace offer what they’re looking for?
When the city holds nothing but painful memories for sisters Rence and Sandy, they pack it up and head out for Grace and the promises it holds.
Promises of a new start, a new job at Grace General for Rence, and a place to begin healing. But most of all, a promise to each of their hurting children that a real Christmas awaits them in Grace, complete with snow on giant evergreens and lots of Mistletoe Magic.
But despite its Christmas card atmosphere, Grace, Oregon, seems to hold a lot of secrets. Who is that giant of a man they encounter in the woods? Why won’t anyone talk about him? What is the hold the past seems to have over the town? Will they be able to break it before history tragically repeats itself? And will Grace be the place where love and forgiveness finally meet?
Let Them Eat Fruitcake, A BTS Christmas Romance
Faith, romance, and fruitcake.
Victoria Randall has it all—a new job in an ideal locale and the eye of Chad, the hunkiest guy in her office building. Christmas is going to be great this year. But when a call from her best guy friend back in Bay Town tells her that her grandmother isn’t doing well, she decides to fly to her grandmother’s rescue.
Art has loved Victoria since they were five, but she keeps him locked in friend zone. When she returns home, leaving her boyfriend back in California, Art lets his hopes go. Easier said than done when he spends so much time with her, making and delivering her grandmother’s fruitcakes. Add to that the legend of love surrounding them, and well… it’s tough.
A horrible accident puts things into perspective for both Art and Victoria, but Art decides it’s too late, and when some guy shows up acting like Victoria’s boyfriend, he’s sure of it. By the time she’s ready to head back to California, all hope of a romance between them seems lost—right up to the moment her grandmother thrusts a piece of fruitcake into her hands.
Are the matchmaking properties of Sally Trotman’s fruitcake their last chance at a happily-ever-after? Find out in Let Them Eat Fruitcake—a story of faith, romance, and of course, fruitcake.
Keeping Christmas: Vol 1 featuring The Cross at Morioka Castle
In castles far and near, long ago and yesterday, find happily-ever-afters wrapped in love and tied with Christmas joy.
The Cross at Morioka Castle (by Kathleen J. Robison): In the ancient land of shoji screens and tatami mats, Ariko finds the stone ruins of Morioka Castle and the mysterious cross that holds the secret of a Christian faith extending far deeper than Ariko ever imagined.
The Lights of Castlebourne (by Cathe Swanson and Chautona Havig): He bowled her over at first sight–his dog, that is. Sydney just wanted a chance to do the landscape design at Castlebourne. She never dreamed the owner’s electrician would light up her heart at Christmas.
The Girl From Dalarna (by Olivia Talbott): She’s the most beautiful woman in Sweden, but she doesn’t want to be. A simple life among milk cows is all she desires. Will a scandal upend her plans and ruin her chances for love?
The Ghost of Christmas… (by Denise L. Barela): Abbigayl needs to get away for Christmas this year. No family, no questions about why she’s still single, no suggestion about being set up with someone’s friend. What will happen when Neuschwanstein Castle’s past converges with Abbigayl’s future?
Crystal Clear (by Marguerite Martin Gray): Rosalind’s muddied past and foggy future crystalize in Château Chenonceau, a refuge from gossip and more. Watch as the château and Christmas work their magic and break the bonds of propriety, and rejoice as Rosalind experiences the crystal-clear hints of peace, joy, and hope all around her.
The Weary World Rejoices (by Naomi Craig): Behind the elaborate furnishings of Herod the Great’s palace, conspiracy and distrust run rampant. Mysterious visitors from the east challenge everything Amal thinks he knows a palace scribe. Will his quest to uncover the Truth free him from the ornate shackles of palace life, or will he be the next victim of King Herod’s maniacal jealousy?
Grab a mug of something hot and delicious and curl up somewhere comfy. Your literary chariots await to take you on a journey from an early twentieth-century castle overlooking the Mississippi all the way back to the Holy Land at the time of Jesus’ birth. These six novellas, all set in castles, real and fictional, celebrate the heart and joy of Christmas.
