The hopeless romantic believes that a soulmate exists for each of us. That there is one person who makes us feel how good it is to love them. For some couples, things trigger them to push that love away. They find out too late they’ve lost true-love. Sometimes genuine love deserves a second-chance at the happy ending that eluded them the first time.
Desire Me Again is an eclectic assortment of short stories exploring a second-chance at love. The collection is as diverse as the authors who wrote them. Here’s a chance to read the work of talented writers you may not have read before. Within these pages, there are blends of tender, often moving and thought-provoking stories.
Featuring: Annabel Allan, Patricia Elliott, R.M. Olivia, Carol Schoenig, Virginia Wallace, Gibby Campbell, Dee S. Knight, Alice Renaud, Jan Selbourne, Zia Westfield
Second Chance blurb:
Sandy Henderson had been a sweet, wholesome girl in her first year of college, sure of herself and totally in love with her high school sweetheart, Tom Pritchard. Then something happened that shattered her dreams, her confidence, her will to live. When she meets Tom again many years later, she resists taking a chance on love because of her secret, but Tom won’t give up on her. On them. Or will he, once she tells him about her past?
Buy link:
Amazon US https://amzn.to/34NstC7
Second Chance Excerpt:
Cafeterias are big deals in the South–or they used to be. Going out to a good cafeteria was always a treat to my aunts and grandmother.
“Tom,” Mrs. Henderson exclaimed. Like everyone he knew in their town, she stretched the one-syllable word into two. Tah-um. Until he’d joined the Corps he didn’t really know what people meant when they talked about southern accents. Now he considered the soft consonants and extended vowels charming. Part of being home.
Glancing over her shoulder, Tom saw Sandy stick her head around the kitchen wall. “Hey,” he called out to her. Then concentrating on her mother, he held out a bouquet. “These are for you, Mrs. Henderson.”
She flushed like a schoolgirl when she took the flowers. “How did you know that tulips are my favorite?”
He hadn’t. He’d asked the florist to put together something cheerful that an older lady might like. He hoped the brightly colored blooms might bring a smile to Sandy, too.
“Just a guess,” he answered.
“Come in, come in,” Mrs. Henderson backed up and held the door wide.
He stepped into a living room that had seen very little change in the last two decades. It was neat but held a slight whiff of shabbiness. Mrs. Henderson would probably call it comfortable rather than shabby. Tom wondered what Sandy thought of it.
Finally, the woman in question emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. The night was warm and she looked as though she’d just finished doing dishes. Her hair was damp and stuck to her forehead, and a light sheen of sweat clung to her cheeks. His groin tightened when he noticed that her shorts hugged her hips and her sleeveless blouse was slightly dampened, too, showing her white bra through the thin fabric. His mind filled with ways he could make her body slick with sweat, the ways he could make her much more than warm.
“I know I said we should try to get together before I leave, but I didn’t actually mean tonight.”
“I’m sorry to barge in, but I wanted to ask you to dinner tomorrow night.” Before Sandy could form “No, thank you,” as her lips where shaping up to do, he interjected, “And your mom, too.”
Her mother’s eyes widened and she slapped the hand holding the tulips to her chest. “Oh, my! Sandra, we have a beau!”
Sandy smiled. Then she turned to him. “I don’t know. We have so much to do here.”
“Sandra, please. It will be so much fun. I haven’t had dinner out since your father last took me, and that’s been…at least three years.” She turned to Tom. “Could we go to that cafeteria up on the highway?”
Tom laughed. “We can go anywhere you want.”
Mrs. Henderson snapped her head back toward Sandy. He knew the minute Sandy gave in. Her shoulders slumped slightly, but she smiled at her mother. “If Tom is willing to make every other man in town jealous by escorting the lovely Henderson women out to dinner, who am I to stand in his way?”
While I know that eating healthy is best for all of us, and it’s darn hard to eat healthy and not cook the food yourself, I still like food that someone else cooks, serves up, and lets me eat at home without all the hubbub of preparation and clean-up. Plus, timing is always right. There’s no having the potatoes done at one time and the meat done at another. If necessary, I can stick the carry out container in to be zapped and have everything hot and ready at once.
restaurant, and their chicken parmesan is fantastic! For that dish alone, I’d have to say that’s our favorite and most used takeaway restaurant. When things were locked down pretty tightly, we could call in our order and they would bring it out to the car. Yummy!
Award-winning author Linda O’Connor started writing romantic comedies when she needed a creative outlet other than subtly rearranging the displays at a local home décor store. Her books have enjoyed bestseller status. When not writing, she’s a physician at an Urgent Care Clinic. She shares her medical knowledge in fast-paced, well-written, sexy romances – with an unexpected twist. Her favourite prescription to write? Laugh every day. Love every minute.
No, I’m all for comfort now and looking back, I must have been dull and boring because I was a middle of the road person with fashion. Let’s face it, hemlines and hair are the best barometers of social change and the sixties was dramatic. Women were demanding equal rights and hippies were demanding peace and love. Mary Quant, Twiggy, Marianne Faithful and Nancy Sinatra cast aside the prim fifties and the impact was huge. The model Jean Shrimpton sent shockwaves through conservative Melbourne when she wore a mini skirt to the prestigious Melbourne Cup Racing Carnival. Even worse, the outraged matrons huffed, her legs were bare! It didn’t take long for hems to rise and it didn’t matter if we were A-shape or pear shape, miniskirts and boots, black eyeliner and teased hair were in. When the four mop tops from Liverpool hit the music waves, the older generations threw up their hands. Not only were skirts growing shorter, hair teased higher, young men were growing their hair longer!
disco! We were letting it all hang out and the winds of change were not welcome in some Australian boys’ colleges. The threats of detention or expulsion if students refused to cut their hair were met with walls of resistance. Fashion was more important. After dark mutterings on this out of control generation, the schools gave in with dire warnings – keep the hair off your face!
When I was growing up, my mom would come home from work, strip off her hose and bra and get comfy in her bathrobe. I never thought anything of it. But when my dad and she got divorced (20 years later, so it’s not like it was a snap decision), the fact that Mom spent a lot of her home time in a bathrobe might have been mentioned once or twice. So I decided that not using my robe as home fashion might be a prudent idea. However… I have going-out clothes and stay-at-home clothes. One set is decidedly more comfortable than the other. Neither is what I’d call fashionable.
haven’t been to get it cut since COVID struck. Normally, I keep it pretty short, mostly because of ease of care and not because the latest cut says to do so. It’s driving me crazy right now. My pigtails aren’t straight and hair is straggled all over the place. No one would say I was stylish. But then, as long as hubby and I are okay with how I look and what I wear, what do I care?
