Thursday, October 30, 2014

Fight "Love's Great War" along with Linda Andrews

I love Halloween. And not just because it celebrates my favorite food group: chocolate. In Phoenix, Arizona, it symbolizes the end of the 100+ F heat. Even the air smells different. So when I start out writing my World War 1 era romances, I couldn't wait to write on Halloween. But then, my mother said something that nearly caused my heart to stop.

She didn't celebrate her first Halloween until she was in her teens, in the 1950s. Ack! That was 36 years too late.

But then I remembered my favorite Halloween story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and I felt for sure somewhere, someone in America was celebrating this important holiday.

I lucked out while reading a schoolteacher's diary during World War 1. Not too far in the narrative, she mentioned celebrating the holiday with presentations of poems, dialogues and readings by her students
followed by a dance and refreshments of cake and cookies provided by the mothers.

Halloween was saved! Yay! 

To celebrate the release of my new Halloween historical, I'm giving away these earrings to someone who leaves a comment and tells me their favorite Halloween memory.

Now, a word from our sponsor, er, here's an excerpt:

Phoebe ducked inside. A shriek quickly followed.
Gabe's heart stopped. She was in trouble. The lantern handle bit into his palm. He burst through the door, fist raised.
A stooped figure stirred the ashes to life in the fireplace at the end of the room. Phoebe's leaf collection carpeted the floor. Flames licked the neat stack of wood in the hearth. The light blazed enough so he could see Phoebe in the arms of a copper-skin Indian. Then she rose on tiptoe and kissed the stranger's cheek.
No wonder she hadn't wanted to hear his stupid stories. Setting his branches and pins on the counter, he rushed out of the house and back into the woods.
Phoebe Monpetit had already given away her heart.

Blurb:

Her heart can't give him up. Her head can't trust him.

Everyone Phoebe Monpetit has ever loved eventually abandoned her. Even Gabriel Stephens, the man she thought she'd marry. For the last twelve years, she's muddled through alone, cobbling a life together.

Gabriel took the first opportunity to escape his family's constant fighting and rarely looked back. When war explodes across Europe, he learns what his cowardice has really cost him.

This Halloween, he'll use every trick he can to win back Phoebe's heart.

Will she keep her true feelings covered, or will she let Gabe unmask her heart?


Only on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Unmask-Heart-Halloween-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B00ODALVOC/

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for dropping by, Linda :)

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  2. Okay, that snippet has piqued my interest in your story.

    I do know that my parents who would have still been kids at the time of your story celebrated Halloween. Not the way it was done when I was growing up, and they both did different things. My mom was a city girl, but my dad who grew up on a farm, actually did more that resembles today's Halloween (except for the trick or treating).

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  3. How weird. I had thought that the difference was because my mother lived on farms all her life way out in the boonies, but they didn't even celebrate it in schools:D She later embraced the holiday quite thoroughly to make up for lost time

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