A Holiday Story About Reconciliation #FridayFunReads #Book Reviews #Inspiration

Mountain Laurel Christmas

by Jan Sikes

 

What Amazon Says

 

Orphaned, his family torn apart by tragedy, Cole Knight has come a long way from a ramshackle miner’s cabin on the side of the Cumberland Mountain.

Daring to follow an impossible dream, he’s made it big in the music business. Now, he’s a country music sensation with a huge house, fancy cars, plenty of willing women, money, and adoring fans. He should be on top of the world. Instead, he’s drowning in a swirling pool of self-contempt and relentless guilt.

It’s easier to lose himself in a bottle than face the hard truth…he hasn’t delivered on a promise he made to his father.

It’s almost Christmas, and the sting of failure drives him back to that tiny cabin in the mountains. But has he waited too late to put the shattered pieces back together—to find himself and restore a lost family?

 

My Thoughts

 

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a singer like Olivia Newton-John and Debbie Boon. So, I always find stories about musicians fascinating, whether they’re fictional or true. Mountain Laurel Christmas didn’t disappoint me.

In fact, I was amazed at how quickly the story moved. Some might say it moves too fast, but for me, it was just right. Instead of being left to wonder about the outcome for days, I found myself finishing the book in about an hour. Jan Sikes drew me into Cole’s story with her first words, and my attention never faltered from that moment on.

Others might say Mountain Laurel Christmas isn’t realistic. If that’s the case, so what? During these uncertain times, I don’t see the harm in escaping to a world where it’s that easy to keep a promise. This is a sweet, feel-good holiday story I recommend to everyone.

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You’re invited to my state poetry society’s virtual open mic poetry reading on Sunday, December 12^th at 5 p.m. mountain time. You can share some poetry or just listen. See below for details.

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WyoPoets is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

 

This event is open to anyone who wants to share or listen to poetry. You
don’t have to be a member of WyoPoets, you don’t even have to be in Wyoming
to participate. So, feel free to invite your friends!

 

Please sign up to read using this Google Form:
https://forms.gle/aRFLvfXSxJn3FF5F8
The first 20 poets to sign up will get to read, additional poets will be
allowed based on time.

Topic: Poetry Night
Time: Dec 12, 2021 05:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81527317416?pwd=VDZyTENmQ1VZM2pZaWowbUovc21GUT09

Meeting ID: 815 2731 7416
Passcode: 813443
One tap mobile
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Dial by your location
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Meeting ID: 815 2731 7416
Passcode: 813443
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbpMPXDmU0

 

New! Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me

Copyright 2021 by Abbie Johnson Taylor.

Independently published with the help of DLD Books.

Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s grandmother, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair, lives in a nursing home and rarely recognizes Natalie. But one Halloween night, she tells her a shocking secret that only she and Natalie’s mother know. Natalie is the product of a one-night stand between her mother, who is a college English teacher, and another professor.

After some research, Natalie learns that people with dementia often have vivid memories of past events. Still not wanting to believe what her grandmother has told her, she finds her biological father online. The resemblance between them is undeniable. Not knowing what else to do, she shows his photo and website to her parents.

Natalie realizes she has some growing up to do. Scared and confused, she reaches out to her biological father, and they start corresponding.

Her younger sister, Sarah, senses their parents’ marital difficulties. At Thanksgiving, when she has an opportunity to see Santa Claus, she asks him to bring them together again. Can the jolly old elf grant her request?

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No Alternatives #It’sSix-SentenceStoryThursdayLinkUp

“What do you mean you don’t have biscuits and gravy?” Beth said, trying not to yell or cry, as she sat on the king-sized bed in her hotel room, clutching the phone to her ear. “This is the second day in a row that you haven’t had biscuits and gravy, even though it’s on the menu, and you know, it’s bad enough that I’m separated from my family, and now, I can’t have biscuits and gravy, my favorite breakfast, a meal I don’t have very often because my husband and kids don’t like it, and now, you’re out of biscuits and gravy again!”

As tears rolled down Beth’s cheeks, the room service operator said, “Well, is there something else I can get you?”

In disgust, Beth slammed down the receiver and gave in to her guilt-ridden grief, head in hands, sobbing.

The bathroom door opened, and the man who wasn’t her husband appeared, bent, and took her into his arms. “Babe, if you really want biscuits and gravy, let’s get dressed and go find a place that serves that, okay?”

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How about you? What’s your favorite breakfast? I don’t have a favorite food I like to eat for what they call the most important meal of the day, but if you do, I’d love to read about that in the comment field.

Thanks to Girlie on the Edge for inspiring the above work of flash fiction with her six-story prompt for this week. If you’re a blogger and would like to participate in this week’s hop, click here.

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And now, I’m pleased to announce that on Wednesday, July 7^th, I’ll be playing the piano and singing in the dining room at The Hub on Smith, here in Sheridan, Wyoming. If you live in my neck of the woods, the facility is located at 211 Smith Street, and you can come and eat lunch while listening. The event will be broadcast live and recorded. You can click here to visit the event’s Facebook page.

Also, throughout the month of July, My Ideal Partner and The Red Dress are available from Smashwords ABSOLUTELY FREE as part of its annual summer/winter sale. You can visit my Smashwords author page to download these books. Happy reading!

By the way, for those of you who use the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, The Red Dress is available for download from their site here. No matter how you read it, please be sure to review it wherever you can. That goes for all my books. Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe, happy, and healthy.

 

New! The Red Dress

Copyright July 2019 by DLD Books

When Eve went to her high school senior prom, she wore a red dress that her mother had made for her. That night, after dancing with the boy of her dreams, she caught him in the act with her best friend. Months later, Eve, a freshman in college, is bullied into giving the dress to her roommate. After her mother finds out, their relationship is never the same again.

Twenty-five years later, Eve, a bestselling author, is happily married with three children. Although her mother suffers from dementia, she still remembers, and Eve still harbors the guilt for giving the dress away. When she receives a Facebook friend request from her old college roommate and an invitation to her twenty-five-year high school class reunion, then meets her former best friend by chance, she must confront the past in order to face the future.

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Books

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I Will Always Love You #Monday Musical Memories

In 2005, when my late husband Bill proposed to me, he was living in Fowler, Colorado, and I, here in Sheridan, Wyoming. He sent me a cassette of love songs he’d downloaded from the Internet. If he could have given me another cassette containing more songs related to his eminent death in 2012, this would have been one of them.

With his declining health and paralysis, Bill thought that if he hung around, he’d only be in the way. He thought he wasn’t what I needed. If I’d spent more time with him after he moved to the nursing home, maybe he would have understood how much I valued his love and support.

The nursing home was only a temporary placement until he could get into a facility where he would have a room to himself with plenty of space for his recliner and computer. With a laptop, I could have easily worked away from home. If he’d waited, we both might have been happy for many years to come.

But what’s done is done and can’t be undone, according to Shakespeare. So, I can only hope that wherever he is, he still loves me after seven years apart. I will always love him.

By the way, you can learn more about Bill and me by reading My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds. This book, along with my latest, The Red Dress, is available absolutely free this week as part of the Smashwords 11^th Annual Read an eBook Week. Click here for more information and to download the books. Happy reading and thank you for stopping by today.

 

New! The Red Dress

Copyright July 2019 by DLD Books

When Eve went to her high school senior prom, she wore a red dress that her mother had made for her. That night, after dancing with the boy of her dreams, she caught him in the act with her best friend. Months later, Eve, a freshman in college, is bullied into giving the dress to her roommate. After her mother finds out, their relationship is never the same again.

Twenty-five years later, Eve, a bestselling author, is happily married with three children. Although her mother suffers from dementia, she still remembers, and Eve still harbors the guilt for giving the dress away. When she receives a Facebook friend request from her old college roommate and an invitation to her twenty-five-year high school class reunion, then meets her former best friend by chance, she must confront the past in order to face the future.

***

My Books

My Amazon Author Page

Facebook

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Review: The Sins of the Mother

 

 

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The Sins of the Mother

by Danielle Steel

Copyright 2012.

 

At age seventy, Olivia, a successful CEO of a hardware and furniture company, is still going strong. However, after her husband passed away years earlier, she feels guilty for working when she should have been around for her four children, now grown with lives of their own. She tries to make up for her neglect every year by scheduling an elaborate family vacation.

The book opens with such a vacation, a cruise in the south of France on a luxurious chartered yacht. Everyone has a great time and then returns to their separate lives. The book ends a year later with another family vacation in a rented chateau in France. In between time, Olivia’s older son’s marriage falls apart, and he falls in love with a younger woman. Her younger son is forced to come to terms with his son’s homosexuality. One of her daughters, a struggling writer, finally gets a book and movie deal and falls in love with her agent. The other daughter, a music producer in England, having been estranged from the family for years, finally comes home when tragedy strikes. Then there’s Olivia’s affair with her company’s attorney, a married man.

The Sins of the Mother was featured on BookDaily a few days ago, and I decided to splurge and buy it from audible now instead of waiting for my next credit. I’m glad I did. The narrator did an excellent job of giving each character a different voice. It’s always fun listening to an audiobook with a good narrator.

This book reminded me of Dallas, a primetime soap opera I watched as a teen. However, there’s no wheeling and dealing or deception or betrayal, no one accused of murder or other serious crimes. That’s one thing I liked about it. Another is that everything gets resolved in the end, and everyone’s happy. In the last episode of Dallas, J.R. Ewing, evil CEO of a powerful oil company, kills himself, convinced the world would be a better place without him. There’s none of that here. If you just want to read a heartwarming story about a family whose members put aside their differences and come together, The Sins of the Mother is just such a book.

I must admit this isn’t the kind of book my late husband Bill would have enjoyed. He was into mysteries, thrillers, westerns, and science fiction. The more blood and guts, the better, as far as he was concerned. To learn more about our recreational activities and how I cared for Bill at home for six years after two strokes paralyzed his left side, read My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds.

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Author Abbie Johnson Taylor

We Shall Overcome

How to Build a Better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver

That’s Life: New and Selected Poems

My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds

Click to hear an audio trailer.