Monday Moments with Margo and... Saturday in Serendipity

It's Monday again and I'm delighted to welcome Margo Hoornstra who is launching Saturday in Serendipity - a compilation of three novellas. 

Margo's been a great help to me for a long time now - within the group of authors who form MYAHA, a group dedicated to help promote each other's work  - so it's especially lovely to welcome her here today, and she's brought along plenty to keep us going for a great coffee break! There's a fascinating post on an author I'm not sure if I've encountered before -  I've read so many novels that I've forgotten more author names than I remember - yet the name Margo mentions does sound a bit familiar.  We can learn a bit more about Margo's new novellas and she's offering the chance to WIN a $15 Amazon gift Card. So over to Margo...

There Are Authors; And Then There Are Authors

Thank you for having me here today on my Saturday In Serendipity tour. Someone asked me an interesting question once. If I could spend time with any author, living or dead, who would I choose? There are so many storytellers I admire and whose work I enjoy, it was tough to decide on only one. Finally, though, I settled on Phyllis Whitney. My heroine, if you will, when I was younger, and I remain a huge fan. She started out writing short stories, selling well over a hundred, and wrote books for both adults as well as children. The author of more than seventy novels—thirty nine of them with a Gothic twist—she was a true pioneer in the romantic suspense genre so popular today.

 

She was even dubbed by The New York Times, Queen of American Gothics, a title she reportedly hated, saying instead she wrote romantic novels of suspense.

As I understand, her scheduled time to write was from eight to eleven in the morning, sitting at her desk. According to her biography, she was a diligent plotter, creating notebooks full of information about character, plot and setting before she wrote the first actual word of any manuscript.

The major accomplishment of her lifetime, in my humble opinion, was the fact she wrote continually for eighty of her one-hundred and four years. One thing I remember reading about her was she claimed to like writing, but she loved having written. That’s my kind of writer.

I remain in awe of her extraordinary talent and incredible output.

Though I haven’t even come near to achieving the eighty novel mark, my latest, Saturday In Serendipity, is a compilation of three novellas which revolve around a twentieth high school reunion in Serendipity, Vermont. Serendipity is a mid-sized town located on the shores of Lake Champlain.

Three Strikes Thursday, leaves Barry Carlson, professional baseball’s former golden boy, with some serious making up to do. A love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude of his youth has finally caught up with him. Older, maybe wiser, he’s eager to catch up on what’s important in life. A home and family, someone to love who loves him back just as deeply. Amanda Marsh is the one he foolishly pushed away. He has his work cut out for him if he hopes to ever win her back.

Two On Tuesday, has Serendipity High School graduate Blane Weston viewing her upcoming class reunion  as a chance to renew a former, but not forgotten, love. As she gets ready to attend the week-end festivities, enter Matt Durand, someone she’s recently considered then rejected as a potential business partner. Turns out he won’t take no for an answer and has other ideas for her activities at the reunion. Things go from bad to worse in light of his current involvement with some of the people from her past.

One Fateful Friday, a holiday story of forever friends Jake and Bethany, takes place between Halloween and Christmas Eve, after the reunion. Soul mates through high school, Jake and Bethany went their separate ways after graduation. Brought together twenty years later while both are involved with careers in healthcare, they assume they’ll re-establish their relationship with flawless compatibility. Except, they now hold different philosophies that might jeopardize their chance at a happy future.

These three different couples with common pasts take very different passages to find their own happily ever after futures.

A little about Margo:

Like many writers, it’s hard to determine exactly when my fiction writing career began. I remember composing a short story in grade school (I have no idea about what) which was chosen for publication in an all school anthology. A journalism class taken in junior high school led to a job on the school newspaper and a weekly column.
I always loved reading. I loved writing too. Someday, I thought, maybe when I grew up and received the right training, I could actually write a book. After all, I was often told, laughingly most times, I had an extremely vivid imagination.
Through the years, the desire to write was always there. I had so many ideas and characters roaming around in my head, so many stories. But the business of living—going to college, getting married then raising a family—took precedence over something as frivolous as writing a book.

Then one day out of the blue I was downsized—effective immediately—from a job I’d held for over thirty years. What seemed so unfair at the time, I now recognize the tremendous gift I was given that day. As I’m now able to spend more and more time doing what I love—writing romantic fiction—I find I really do have an abundance of stories to share.

Margo’s Website | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Goodreads | Amazon  

Buy Link: Amazon   
 

Here's a little teaser from Two on Tuesday:

…up until a few years ago being alone suited her just fine. Lately though, call it a change in her biological timepiece, she entertained the idea of someone to share her life. Maybe even have a couple of kids.
All that remained was to find the right man for the job.
Car wheels crunched gravel, and she glanced out the window. A shiny black sedan pulled into a parking spot a ways away. Had Malcolm come out to the site for some reason?
She waited a moment to see. It was hardly the slight form of her business partner who emerged from the driver side a few minutes later. The green polo shirt on this man was unbuttoned at the neck and stretched to the limit over large, sturdy shoulders. Her gaze dipped to follow the expanse of a trim male torso then on to the jean covered outline of a noteworthy ass and long legs.
No doubt one of her foreman’s recruits reporting for work. An assessing gaze skimmed over him again. He certainly looked healthy enough for the job. Though she didn’t get why he drove a shiny new car instead of a rugged pick up like most of the others. Edging her head back in the seat, she studied him out the side window. Feet planted wide, something in the way he took in everything around him told her this one knew his way around a construction site. Doing another quick onceover of the man, she let out a sigh. Or life in general.

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Thank you for popping in today, Margo. My best wishes for great success of Saturday in Serendipity. 

Slainthe!