LOVE IS PATIENT - Release Day - 3 Free Books

Dear Readers, today is release day for Love Is Patient, a novella collection from Barbour publishing. I'm one of the authors, and there are seven more authors. I'm featuring a few of them today.

Enjoy the slow dance through the courtship of nine historical couples in the American west, including the territories of Arizona and Wyoming. Just at a time in life when they have nearly given up on finding love, romance enters their lives. But will it be true love, and will it be worth the wait? Find out in this delightful collection written by eight bestselling authors of inspirational romances.

Bio: Bestselling author Vickie McDonough grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams penning romance stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. Vickie is an award-winning author of 40 published books and novellas. Her novels include the fun and feisty Texas Boardinghouse Brides series, and End of the Trail, which was the OWFI 2013 Best Fiction Novel winner. Whispers on the Prairie was a Romantic Times Recommended Inspirational Book for July 2013. Song of the Prairie won the 2015 Inspirational Readers Choice Award. Her latest series, Land Rush Dreams, focuses on the Oklahoma land runs.

Blurb The Spinster and the Tycoon: Jody McMillan is determined to raise enough money to expand Cactus Corner’s overcrowded orphanage, but before she does a wealthy stranger buys the property she wants. Jody stages a strike on the land where Aaron Garrett plans to build a hotel, and she won’t listen to reason. Can they come to an agreement? Or will Jody and the orphans lose out to the wealthy businessman?

Here's a link to the book:
Love Is Patient Romance Collection: True Love Takes Time in Nine Historical Novellas

Bio: Best-selling author Darlene Franklin’s greatest claim to fame is that she writes full-time from a nursing home. She is an active member of Oklahoma City Christian Fiction Writers, American Christian Fiction Writers, and the Christian Authors Network. She has written over fifty books and more than 250 devotionals.

Website and blog

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Blurb A Birthday Wish: Gladys Polson is determined to help a crotchety widower who is wealthy in material things but poor in spirit. When Haydn, the man’s grandson, appears, an heir-raising adventure begins.

First page:

Gladys checked the baskets on her kitchen table. Red calico bows she’d festooned with small white flowers peeked out between juniper branches. Such cheerful decorations should improve even crotchety widower Norman Keller’s spirits in the middle of the miserable Kansas winter.

            

Ma carried a couple of baskets to the family wagon, together with garlands of fragrant juniper branches. “Maybe it would be good if I came with you.”

Gladys came close to agreeing when she remembered the last time she had knocked on Mr. Keller’s door. The growl with which he had greeted carolers could have passed for Ebenezer Scrooge’s. “I’ll see how it goes today. I’d like to do this on my own, if I can. I’ll be back in time to help with supper.”

            

Grateful for the January thaw weather which made an outdoor project possible, Gladys buttoned up her winter coat and drew on her mittens. When she’d decided to reach out to Norman Keller, she hadn’t considered how to keep her activities a secret. To avoid attention, she kept her wagon off of Main Street.

            

A few minutes later she came to a stop in front of the imposing three-story structure that Norman Keller called home. As far as Gladys knew, only one man lived there. His wife had died and his children, if he had any, never visited. Rather than knocking on the front door and risking Mr. Keller’s rejection before she even started, Gladys approached the house from the back. She tied the horse to the railing and carried the baskets to the wrap-around porch. A closer inspection of the once-magnificent structure revealed sagging boards and peeling paint. Such neglect by the richest man in town befuddled her. She hoped he would feel better after she’d hung enough baskets for him to see one no matter which window he looked through.

            

As she walked down the porch, she realized she had miscalculated the number of baskets needed to adorn the rafters. She’d start from the front and work her way back. Grabbing a basket in each hand, she tiptoed to the corner and left them there. She returned for her stepladder, and as she carried it to the front, it bumped along the floorboards. She froze, expecting Mr. Keller to shuffle out the door to check on the noise. When he didn’t appear, she continued until she had unloaded everything in the wagon.

From the corner, she studied the overhang. With a hammer in one hand and two nails in the other, she climbed the stepstool reached high overhead, and tapped a nail into the roof. A thin crack appeared. Would a section of the overhang split and fall? Mr. Keller wouldn’t appreciate it if she destroyed his property in the process of decorating it.

Tucking her tongue behind her teeth, Gladys waited and the nail held. Next she centered the basket handle on the nail. She stepped back to study the effect. Good. Setting another arrangement on the railing, she climbed the stepstool to hammer the second set of nails in place.

As she adjusted a couple of ribbons around the ferns, she wondered what else she could do for Mr. Keller. Fashioning a few bows hardly qualified as a mission project. She tapped the nail in and reached for the basket.

Behind her, the front door banged. “What are you doing?”

           

The edge of the door caught the stepstool, throwing Gladys off balance. Her arms windmilled, her feet slipped, and she fell backward.

           

Into two strong arms.

           

“Oomph.”

           

The arms lifted her and held her steady while she regained her footing. The basket had fallen, crushing the bows and scattering the juniper branches across the floor.

            

Falling into Mr. Keller’s arms wasn’t the introduction Gladys had hoped for.

            

Slowly she turned around to meet the man she wanted to help. And looked up. . . .and up. . .and up. Long legs, straight limbs, strong arms . . . Brown hair.

           

Definitely not Norman Keller.

Bio: Jill Stengl is the author of numerous romance novels including Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award- and Carol Award-winning Faithful Traitor. She lives with her husband in the beautiful Northwoods of Wisconsin, where she enjoys spoiling her three cats, teaching high school literature classes, playing keyboard for her church family, and sipping coffee on the deck as she brainstorms for her next novel.

Blurb: The Spinster’s Beau

One summer night in 1823, Jane Douglas, a spinster midwife who keeps house for her officer brother at the American fort on Mackinac Island, receives a summons from the military surgeon Dr. Beaumont: “Come quickly!” Instead of an expectant mother, her patient is a trapper who was gravely injured in a knife fight. Jane’s prayers for “Mad” August Durant begin amazing changes in his life and hers. But Jane requires security as well as love. Will August’s transformation last, or should Jane guard her heart and choose a more dependable man?

First page: The Spinster’s Beau

Mackinac Island, July 1823

Thump-thump-thump! The insistent noise roused Jane from her sleep. Blinking in darkness, she sat up. Someone pounded at the front door. Her brother stirred in the next room, grumbling to himself as his feet hit the floorboards.

As her mind cleared, she remembered—Mrs. Pennyfeather must be in labor! Jane flung on a wrap and poked her head into the hall just in time to hear Jordan say, “At this hour, Sergeant? The good doctor must be losing his sanity. Miss Douglas certainly will not—”

“Jordan, I told you about this days ago,” Jane interrupted from her doorway. “I promised Mrs. Pennyfeather and Dr. Beaumont that I would assist with her delivery.”

Candlelight flickered on Jordan’s frowning features as he turned, but before he could speak, Jane called, “I’ll be out in a moment!”

A voice answered faintly. “Doc says to bring bandages.”

Jane agreed and closed her door. In the square of moonlight on her bedroom floor, she changed into an old work gown. Bandages? She wound her hair into a tight knot and secured it with five perfectly placed pins. Why bandages? An old sheet from the linen press could be torn into strips when needed. She added it to her basket of supplies.

Jordan waited in the entry, lips tight and eyes cool. Even in his nightshirt and bed shoes, Lieutenant Jordan Douglas was an imposing figure.

“Jane, I strongly disapprove. Midwifery is a job for old women, not young ladies, and you have no need of employment—”

“Dr. Beaumont says I’m an excellent midwife. Granny trained me well, and I want to use my skills to help people.”

“Dr. Beaumont.” He snorted.

She hitched her chin higher. “You shouldn’t snort. It’s undignified.”

He growled something incoherent. “At least make an attempt to observe proprieties, Jane.”

“Always I observe proprieties, little brother. In this line of work, I seldom even speak with men. Please don’t worry. I imagine I’ll return home tomorrow.”

The moon cast black shadows across Fort Mackinac’s parade grounds, but its light glowed on the mane and rump of the doctor’s sturdy gelding. Jane climbed up to the carriage seat without help. Sergeant Fallon, Dr. Beaumont’s orderly, snapped the horse into a trot, and the little trap’s wheels crunched on gravel.

Bio: Award-winning author Lena Nelson Dooley has had more than 850,000 copies of her books sold. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and the local chapter, ACFW - DFW. She’s a member of Christian Authors’ Network and Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas.

She has had books on ECPA and CBA Bestseller lists and several Amazon Bestseller lists. Her 2010 release Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico won the 2011 Will Rogers Medallion Award for excellence in publishing Western Fiction. Her next series, McKenna’s Daughters: Maggie’s Journey appeared on a reviewers Top Ten Books of 2011 list. It also won the 2012 Selah award for Historical Novel. The second, Mary’s Blessing, was a Selah Award finalist for Romance novel. Catherine’s Pursuit released in 2013. It was the winner of the NTRWA Carolyn Reader’s Choice contest, took second place in the CAN Golden Scroll Novel of the Year award, and won the Will Rogers Medallion bronze medallion. Her blog, A Christian Writer’s World, received the Readers Choice Blog of the Year Award from the Book Club Network.

In addition to her writing, Lena is a frequent speaker at women’s groups, writers groups, and at both regional and national conferences. She has spoken in six states and internationally. She is also one of the co-hosts of the Along Came a Writer blog radio show. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Higher Films, where she is also a screenwriter.

Lena has an active web presence on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Linkedin and with her internationally connected blog where she interviews other authors and promotes their books.  

Blurb: The Spinster and the Cowboy

India Cunningham is happy running the ranch her father left her when a man she doesn't remember from her childhood arrives to help her. Can she trust Joshua Dillinger or is he there to steal her blind?

Prologue

San Francisco, Spring 1894

When the sharp rap on his closed office door roused him, Joshua Dillinger raised his gaze from the legal document he had been studying with intense concentration. He hated distractions, and Charles Ross, his secretary, knew it. Only something of great urgency would cause this interruption.

            

“Enter.” Joshua realized that his command sounded abrupt, but he wanted to get this interruption over with so he could discern any flaws in the contract that had to be ready for signatures in less than an hour.

            

Brandishing an envelope, the thin man walked briskly across the rug that swallowed the sound of his footsteps. “This was just delivered by messenger, Sir. I have a feeling it’s important.”

            

He handed the missive to Joshua and hurried out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. Joshua studied his father’s scratchy scrawl on the front of the letter. He wondered how the post office even knew where to send it. The older Father became, the worse his handwriting grew. If Joshua hadn’t been used to deciphering the letter he received from his dad, he wouldn’t have been able to tell what the address was.

            

Joshua placed the packet on top of the stack of documents that needed his attention today and went back to his contract. He returned to the place where he held his finger on the paper. Moving to the beginning of the sentence, he and started over. For the next forty-five minutes, he had a hard time keeping his mind on his task. Every few moments, his eyes strayed to the slightly wrinkled envelope. Joshua wondered what it contained, but he had to finish with the contract and send Charles over to the client’s office with it before he had time to peruse its contents.

           

  After his secretary left with the completed document, Joshua stood and stretched. While he concentrated on a hard task, his muscles became more and more knotted. He rubbed his neck with both hands and rotated his shoulders, trying to loosen them, as he stared out across the bay from his perch most of the way up one of San Francisco’s many hills. Joshua chose this office because of its view of the water. Not only could he keep up with the comings and goings of ships, but watching the bay in all kinds of weather proved soothing to him. He loved this city and once again thanked the Lord for the opportunities that led him here.

           

Finally, Joshua turned around and picked up the letter from his father. He hoped it wasn’t bad news. Using the opener with the beautifully carved scrimshaw handle his grandfather gave him when he first opened the law office, he slit the paper and removed the contents–a sheet of paper and an already opened envelope with papers inside. Father had forwarded a letter he received from his best friend Fred Cunningham. In the included note, his father added his own request that Joshua do what Fred asked of him.

           

Now curious, Joshua pulled out the other papers. Before he read the words, his memory revisited a time when he was twelve and his family traveled by coach from Texas to Arizona to visit the Cunninghams. Their ranch spread for hundreds of acres from the base of the Rincon Mountains toward a tiny town, really not much more than a few huddled buildings surrounded by tall cacti with arms that spread toward the sky. What was the name of those plants? Something that started with an s and sounded foreign to his young ears.

Other novellas in the collection:

Lady-in-Waiting by Erika Vetch

Shining Armor by Erika Vetch

The Spinster and the Doctor by Frances Devine

Harvest of Love by Janet Lee Barton

Hope's Dwelling Place by Connie Stevens

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