April Rains Bring Christmas Stories
Rainy day here in Oregon, which means it’s the perfect time for me to continue writing my Christmas book.
I have one character nicknamed Whisky and another named Bellini.
It’s a love story.
Ho ho ho!!
SURPRISE! My New Book is Out TODAY!
Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well!
My new book, Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid is now available, only on Amazon.
If you would like a book that will, hopefully, make you laugh, you can click on this little link right here…
I so hope you like it! It’s a happy, hopeful story about two broken families who heal their hearts together with a lot of laughter and love.
Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid was inspired by my wild, somewhat feral childhood on Deauville Drive, in Huntington Beach, California.
However, the two families are straight out of my imagination. As you know, I daydream a lot. Maybe too much.
Here’s a little more info…
Set on Deauville Drive in Huntington Beach, California in 1979, the O’Briens and Rossis become next door neighbors and life is never the same again.
July 2019
Jesse O’Brien receives the phone call she never wanted and never expected. Her frightened sister, Joyce, tells her, “She’s missing.”
June 1979
On the day Jesse’s mother’s marriage fell apart, her face was slathered in snow-white cold cream, everything but her mouth and small circles around her eyes covered. She wore a plastic cap to dye a few gray hairs snaking through her thick brown waves and a pink polyester housedress.
Annie O’Brien, usually calm and cheerful, is livid as her husband tells her he’s leaving her and their five children for a woman who looks like Barbie.
Stunned, Jesse follows her furious parents outside as her father loads his suitcases into his Alfa Romeo and her mother loads a pie into her hand and heaves it at her father then waters his face with a hose.
When the dust settles, the Alfa Romeo roaring down the street, the cold cream now mixed with cherry pie filling, the shattered O’Brien family meets the Rossi family who have just moved in next door: Tommy, a Vietnam vet who looks like a motorcycle gang leader; his sister, Liliana, who believes she’s a mermaid; and Tommy’s five kids.
They are mildly surprised at the family drama, but eager to get to know their exciting new neighbors.
Five kids plus five kids equals ten, and the adventures begin with an ending no one saw coming.
Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid is a funny, sweet story about life changing pies and Slip ‘N Slides, swearing parrots and sunny days, and mending aching hearts…together.
+++++++++++++++++
This is my first book in four and a half years. I took a break, and a breather, from writing, went back into education, and the break ended up being a little longer than expected.
I am delighted to be writing full time again, my brain crammed with characters talking/laughing/throwing pies/talking to parrots, etc.
Wishing you all well,
Cathy
Crazy First Line for a Christmas Book
I started writing a Christmas book today, as I wait for final proofs for my Huntington Beach book.
This is the first line. How do you like it?
“Honey, my uterus has been stolen and I need you to come home for Christmas. Bring the cats.”
My Old House is the Inspiration for My New Book
This is the house I lived in for the first ten years of my life in Huntington Beach, California, on Deauville Drive, before we moved to Oregon.
It’s the setting of my new book.
It was about two miles from the beach and where I spent some of the happiest years of my life with my parents, brother, sisters and two dogs.
One dog bit people sometimes, one dog bit other dogs whenever he could. They were bad.
The book is being proofed right now…Cover coming soon.
A New Book is Coming Out…Soon
I have been asked when my next book is coming out after a four-year writing break.
Here’s my answer: Soon.
Changing My Books…
The book I’m writing now is quite different from the books I’ve written previously.
Sometimes ya gotta make a change.
I sure hope you all like it.
(We are five Lambs in our house, so I thought I’d toss this photo up.)
Editing Hell, But at Least I’m Writing…
This is a photo of editing hell.
It’s a page out of my new book.
I am trying to work while I have a cat sleeping on my arm.
The cat, a rescue, will now and then bite me.
I don’t know why he has to do that.
Back to Writing After Four Years!!
I’m back to writing after a lonnnng break.
I’m working on a book now about a 70 year old woman who does something very daring.
She had no intention of falling in love.
None.
But she did.
On another note, you can see my faithful writing companion continues to help me by taking a nap.
AUCTION FOR UKRAINE / 4 BOOK GIVEAWAY / AUTHOR CHAT
Hello everyone,
I have joined my publishing house, Kensington Books, and hundreds of other authors, for an online auction where all proceeds benefit relief efforts for Ukraine. The auction is now live!
This is my page of the auction: https://www.32auctions.com/…/121017/auction_items/3635619
I donated four copies of Henry’s Sisters. They’ll be mailed to ONE person. She will give the other three copies to friends/sisters/mom and I’ll schedule a book chat with you all via Zoom.
Come explore all of the amazing offers:
The images of what’s happening in Ukraine are breaking my heart, and I know they’re breaking yours, too. This is one small way we can help.
Wishing you all well.
An Interesting Thanksgiving
Oh, the excitement in my kitchen this Thanksgiving!
Take a look at the batter for my chocolate silk pie. See anything interesting?
Artist Montana Sister said, “Bird then dancing woman.”
Firefighter Brother said, “An alien escaping from a pancake striving to devour you, Cathy.”
Country Farmer Montana sister said, “A woman wearing a shawl and holding cherry blossom branches.”
Also, I burned the marshmallows.
Rebel Dancing Daughter said, “It’s okay, Mom. It wouldn’t feel like Thanksgiving if there wasn’t smoke in the kitchen.”
Sigh…
