I recently received a 5-star Recommended Read from Coffee Pot Book Club for Burning Bridges! I’m so excited and grateful!
Blurb:
Consider the role of strangers in our lives. An unknown postman in Virginia hides a bag of mail one day. His simple action set in motion untold consequences for many others—strangers—all over the country. How many bridges were burned in that forgotten mail pouch?
Sara Richards’s world is rocked when three love letters from 1970 are delivered decades late. The letters were written by Paul Steinert, a young sailor who took her innocence with whispered words of love and promises of forever before leaving for Vietnam. Sara is left behind, broken hearted and secretly pregnant, yearning for letters she never received.
Then Paul died.
Now, years later, she discovers the betrayal wasn’t Paul’s, when her mother confesses to a sin that changed their lives forever. How can Sara reveal to Paul’s parents that they have a granddaughter they’ve missed the chance to know? Even worse, how will she find the words to tell her daughter that she’s lived her life in the shadow of a lie?
Picking her way through the minefields of secrets, distrust, and betrayal, Sara finds that putting her life together again while crossing burning bridges will be the hardest thing she’s ever done.
Buy link: KU
Excerpt:
Sara stared at the letters arranged before her in numerical order. The moment in time she and Paul shared was long ago, yet her dream had conjured his presence as though she’d just seen him. In her mind, his blue eyes darkened with passion before his lips captured hers, and he moaned his appreciation when their tongues met. She tasted his sweetness and knew the steel of his arms as he held her. How many nights had she put herself through hell reliving those memories? Too damn many.
After the concert, they’d met clandestinely on weekends, mostly at Sandbridge, where they could walk and talk undisturbed. With each meeting, stirrings built deep in Sara that pushed her to want more, but Paul insisted they restrain themselves because of her age.
Then the weekend before he shipped out, she’d planned a surprise and her life changed forever.
The kettle screeched, bringing her back to the present. Sara prepared a cup of tea and then picked up the envelope marked twenty-eight. At one time, she would have given her right arm to hold this letter. Now, curiosity and the desire for a brief escape drove her more than the passion of youth. Blind love had faded when she’d had no word to bolster her during the long weeks after the ship left.
First had come the waiting. No letters arrived, even though she wrote him daily. There were no phone calls, no notes, no anything, for days that dragged into weeks then crept into months.
Anticipation morphed into anxiety. She worried he was sick or hurt and unable to write.
One day she admitted that Paul must be afraid to write for some reason, and she feared what he would say if she did receive a letter. That their time together had been a mistake, that she was too young to be in love. That he really loved someone else and Sara had been only a stand-in while he was in Virginia. Perversely, she began to sigh with relief when she arrived home and found no word.
Now, knowing why she hadn’t received mail, what would she feel if she opened this letter and her old fears proved to be true?
“Nothing,” she murmured. “Paul’s dead. He can’t hurt me anymore.” At the very least, his letters might allow her to put his ghost to rest. For that reason alone, she had to read them.
She slid her thumb under the flap and ripped the envelope open. A single sheet held his hurried scrawl.
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Lyrical Embrace, Book 4 of the Deerbourne Inn series
Amber Daulton is the author of the romantic-suspense series Arresting Onyx and several standalone novellas. Her books are published through The Wild Rose Press and Books to Go Now, and are available in ebook, print on demand, audio, and foreign language formats.
I might be one of those few people who really things the great outdoors is overrated. I don’t particularly enjoy being in the bright sunshine (I have to worry about a lady’s fair complexion), I’ve never been one for sports or strenuous activities, picnics only attract insects, and sitting out in the late evening with a cup (or glass) of an adult beverage has me swatting mosquitoes and wishing I were inside on my recliner. In other words, having an extra hour of afternoon sunlight has never been important to me.
Or one that doesn’t backup, only changes by going forward and you have to go through a whole day’s worth of hours in order to get it set properly. One year I forgot how to change the time on my car’s clock and had to keep the correct time in my head by mentally adjusting it back until I was relieved by the fall’s change. Such a pain!
While Australia is no stranger to bushfires, this season was unprecedented with out of control fires in every state and territory from September 2019 to February 2020. When our fireys were stretched to the limit, their brothers-in-arms from America, Canada, Singapore and New Zealand arrived to help. We were overwhelmed by the support, donations and prayers from around the world but what we needed was rain. And we got it when Mother Nature decided to turn on all her taps. Some drought-stricken areas received more rain in a few days than they’d had in two years. Sydney had flash flooding after weeks of being shrouded in smoke.
some other places received. The huge Warragamba Dam which supplies 5.2 million people in the Greater Sydney Area rose from just 43% to over 60% in 24 hours, and the rain didn’t stop. We watched the news showing ecstatic farmers splashing in water streaming through their properties and the faces of little children who’d never seen puddles. A man holding a glass under his overflowing water tank and gleefully drinking the contents with, “bloody good, mate.”
Jan Selbourne was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and her love of literature and history began as soon as she learned to read and hold a pen. After graduating from a Melbourne Business College her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, working in Victoria, Queensland and the United Kingdom. On the point of retiring, she changed course to work as secretary of a large NSW historical society. Now retired Jan is enjoying her love of travelling and literature. She has two children, a stray live in cat and lives near Maitland, New South Wales.
Recently, I read an article by One Love Foundation titled, 5 Requirements for a Strong Friendship.
A common question that authors are asked is what inspires them to write and where do they come up with their ideas. A lot of my ideas come from my experience. Let’s take Tara, for example, in 
And finally, I will talk about the cat shelter. This is where Evie and Jesse meet. Rescue cats are close to my heart as I am a foster carer for homeless kittens. These cute bundles of fur bring so much joy into our home, and sometimes a little trouble. I have taken inspiration from the kittens I have fostered and my own cats to help build Mike, the shelter cat’s personality. Kimmy my twelve-year-old cat is exactly like Mike at meal times. While Possum, is like all the
others.
Cynthia Terelst is a project officer by day and a writer by night. She is a contemporary romance writer who likes to share a little bit of history, some Australian scenery and a whole lotta love. Cynthia does not shy away from difficult topics, as she feels that they should not be ignored.
aren’t so many changes marked by editors now. Impatient Passion was the first time I’d ever been edited, excluding school where “editing” meant being graded. I didn’t view it as a fun experience then. Since then I’ve come to accept that it’s a part of the writing process—a good part!
