Patty Smith Hall

A couple of weeks ago, I was overjoyed to find the November selection of Heartsong Presents at my local Walmart. If you're not familiar with these books, they're romance novels, both contemporary and historical, that can be compared to the Love Inspired line. So today, for your reading pleasure, I'm featuring the first chapter of  The Carpenter's Inheritance,  a November release from Laurie Alice Eakes. If you're not familiar with Laurie Alice's work, you're in for a real treat! The Carpenter's Inheritance by Laurie Alice Eakes Loveland, Massachusetts October 1893 Miss Trudy Perry, Attorney at Law, would not, after all, be joining Miss Lucinda Bell, Attorney at Law, in practice in Loveland, Massachusetts. She had decided to follow her brother to San Francisco and practice law out on the West Coast. "Follow her brother indeed." Lucinda folded the flimsy yellow telegram and glanced around her office. "Follow her heart is mo...

If you’ve ever been to a writing conference and talked to an editor from any of the publishing houses, you’ve probably heard them say that they want ‘the same yet different.’ At first, this whole idea of ‘same but different’ sounded like an oxymoron. How in the world would I ever going to get published it I didn’t have a clear understanding of what it was editors wanted. So being the researcher I am, I began my own investigation. The same Easy enough. Just needed to look at my bookcase. The time period varied--Civil War, American West, World War II, Regency England. Plot, not so much--boy meets girl, boy and girl face conflict, boy and girl live happily ever after. These become the same factor--the ‘comfort zone’ that readers (and writers) have some entanglable connection to or knowledge of. It has a feel of familiarity to it. To confirm my hypothesis, I didn’t have to look any further than one of favorite TV shows, The Big Bang Theory. If you haven't ever seen this...