#WednesdayWordswithFriends Welcomes Sandra Byrd!

Good Morning Dear Friends,

I pray you're having a BLESSED week so far and that the blessings continue until they chase you down and run you over! Yesterday I shared some Good News/Bad News with my newletter readers. If you haven't subscribed please do so now. Meanwhile, you can check out the news HERE. 

Enough about me.

Today's guest was introduced to you back in July when we spotlighted her book Heirlooms, so please welcome Sandra Byrd back as she some Unforgetable Do's and Don'ts of a Second Chance Romance.....Take it away, Sandra!

My first novel—written as a young teenager—was about two people who had fallen in love but realized they could never be together. Why not? They were both from the North Pole and, like magnets, would always repel each other. Instead of trying to “connect” again, they went their separate ways to find a “South Pole” romance partner to whom they could attach instead.

But sometimes, in life and books, a second chance romance with an old love is a good thing. Reunited, the couple finds they click in ways they never could before. So what, then, are some of the dos and don’ts to consider before trying once more?

Let’s try again if

o We both have open hearts and are willing to discuss what went wrong before.

o Both of us are willing to forgive and rekindle.

o Both of us have grown in maturity—and maybe faith—from our first time around.

o Respect and the desire to see one another grow and be fulfilled mark our interactions. We’re growing together and growing, together.

o We feel like we’re better together than apart.

We need to stay apart if

o Trust was broken in any way.

o One of us feels owed a second chance.

o The first breakup would be a relationship weapon from now on.

o One of us is trying to control the other.

o The chemistry is gone—we’re just attracted to familiarity, not each other.

GREAT advice Sandra, thank you for sharing!

Sandra Byrd is the author of more than fifty published books, including the historical novels To Die For, Mist of Midnight, and her most recent, Lady of a Thousand Treasures. She has received many awards, nominations, and accolades for her work, including the Historical Novel Society’s Editor’s Choice award, two Christy Award nominations, Library Journal Best Book selections, and inclusion on Booklist’s Top Ten Inspirational Books of the Year list. Sandra lives in Seattle with her husband and with her grown children nearby. Heirlooms along with Sandra's other books can be found at Amazon and other places where great Christian fiction is available.

Find out more by visiting Sandra's Website and following her on Social Media.

Hope you enjoyed today's post friends and that you're looking forward to Saturday Spotlight with Kathy Bailey this weekend!

Until next time take care and God Bless.

PamT

#SaturdaySpotlight is on Sandra Byrd & Heirlooms!

Good Morning!

Can you believe July is half over already?!

Me either.

Alas, time marches on and we're in the middle of "Christmas in July" so please be sure and visit NN Light's Book Heaven's "Christmas in July Fete" and enter the rafflecopter giveaway for your chance to win a $75.00 Amazon gift card!

I'm off to Bayou Writers Group meeting so let me introduce to you, brand new-to-me-our-blog guest Sandra Byrd. Please give her a huge W-E-L-C-O-M-E as she gives us sneak peek into her brand new book, Heirlooms!

Answering a woman’s desperate call for help, young Navy widow Helen Devries opens her Whidbey Island home as a refuge to Choi Eunhee. As they bond over common losses and a delicate, potentially devastating secret, their friendship spans the remainder of their lives.

After losing her mother, Cassidy Quinn spent her childhood summers with her gran, Helen, at her farmhouse. Nourished by her grandmother’s love and encouragement, Cassidy discovers a passion that she hopes will bloom into a career. But after Helen passes, Cassidy learns that her home and garden have fallen into serious disrepair. Worse, a looming tax debt threatens her inheritance. Facing the loss of her legacy and in need of allies and ideas, Cassidy reaches out to Nick, her former love, despite the complicated emotions brought by having him back in her life.

Cassidy inherits not only the family home but a task, spoken with her grandmother’s final breaths: ask Grace Kim—Eunhee’s granddaughter—to help sort through the contents of the locked hope chest in the attic. As she and Grace dig into the past, they unearth their grandmothers’ long-held secret and more. Each startling revelation reshapes their understanding of their grandmothers and ultimately inspires the courage to take risks and make changes to own their lives.

Set in both modern-day and midcentury Whidbey Island, Washington, this dual-narrative story of four women—grandmothers and granddaughters—intertwines across generations to explore the secrets we keep, the love we pass down, and the heirlooms we inherit from a well-lived life.

In Heirlooms, Sandra Byrd . . .

• Tells a dual-narrative story of four women—grandmothers and granddaughters— intertwining across generations and cultures to explore the secrets we keep, the love we pass down, and the heirlooms we inherit.

• Encourages us to change views and responses to neurodiverse people in a world built for the neurotypical.

• Explores the American dream, the costs for the first generation, and the challenges of the generations that follow.

• Acknowledges that making a life is more important than making a living.

• Inspires the courage to take risks and make changes in a world built upon not disappointing others. 

Excerpt:  Two long rings, three short.

Helen hesitantly moved toward the phone. It sat upon a small table next to the window overlooking the unused canning shed, set in a field sleepy with wet weeds splayed against the ground like closed eyelashes. Licorice rope phone lines stretched toward the farmhouse. Four birds convened on the line, silhouetted by the outdoor lights she’d had installed for safety.

Two long rings, three short.

One bird cocked his head and looked directly at her. Are you going to answer?

Helen reached for the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Mrs. Helen Devries?” a lady’s voice queried, her tone undergirded by strain and slightly nasal, as if spoken by someone who’d been crying. “The wife of Lieutenant Bob Devries?”

“Yes, this is Mrs. Helen Devries.”

“I am sorry to bother you at this hour. I am Choi Eunhee. Wife of Chief James Roy.”

Helen shuffled through her memories. “Hello, Mrs. Roy. Am I right to think that your husband served with my husband?”

“Yes. In South Korea, where I am from and where we married. My husband told me that he served many years with your husband and that if I were ever in trouble, I should contact him, as he would help me.”

Helen’s fatigue lifted and the sound of the news in the background faded. “Are you in trouble?”

“Yes.”

Helen steadied herself. “I’m honored that Chief Roy thinks so highly of my husband. But my husband can’t help you. He was killed two years ago.”

“My husband is also dead.” Silence bled into the white space of the moment, and then she continued, “They whisper that I helped kill him. That I might help kill them, too.”

Taken from Heirlooms by Sandra Byrd. Copyright © 2022. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.  All rights reserved.

Sandra Byrd is the author of more than fifty published books, including the historical novels To Die For, Mist of Midnight, and her most recent, Lady of a Thousand Treasures. She has received many awards, nominations, and accolades for her work, including the Historical Novel Society’s Editor’s Choice award, two Christy Award nominations, Library Journal Best Book selections, and inclusion on Booklist’s Top Ten Inspirational Books of the Year list. Sandra lives in Seattle with her husband and with her grown children nearby.

Find out more by visiting Sandra's Website and following her on Social Media.

Heirlooms sounds like a lovely novel, Sandra. Thank you for sharing with us today. We certainly wish you the best of luck and God's blessings.

Until next week friends, take care and God Bless you Also!

PamT

#TuesdayTreasures with Pam Hillman

Pam Hillman is new to our blog so please give her a great, big.....Good Morning and Welcome as she shares some treasures with us!


What is an heirloom?

Webster’s defines an heirloom as, “Something of special value handed down from one generation to another.”

As I ponder the meaning of heirlooms, I turn to the battered antique trunk at the foot of my bed. Its domed top and shiny brass accents shimmer in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through my bedroom window.

My husband bought the trunk at his great aunt’s estate sale several years ago. It is a beautiful old trunk. Battered, but sturdy, it cradles heirlooms handed down through five generations.

I flip the clasps open and lift the lid, letting the smell of old leather, musty books, and time gone by waft around me. For a moment, my gaze lingers on my treasures, old and new, before I reach for the baby clothes stacked on top.

I pull out dainty smocked suits that my children wore home from the hospital; a pair of tiny, hand crocheted booties; soft white and powdery blue blankets used to wrap my newborn sons in. Memories of those precious days parade through my head as I touch each object. I shake my head as I finger the baby clothes. It is hard to believe either of my young men were ever small enough to wear the tiny garments I hold in my hands.

Underneath a soft baby blanket, I spot a baseball glove, its brittle leather over thirty years old. The glove brings back memories of a brother whose life was cut way to short. Memories of the time he threw a baseball straight up in the air because I had decided I couldn’t miss it if the ball fell on me. I missed—and got a busted nose for my effort. But it really wasn’t my brother’s fault. The whole thing had been my idea.

As I dig deeper, the keepsakes grow older. I pick up a hymnal, dated 1907, a relic inherited from my husband’s great-great aunt. Its care-worn pages are a testimony to the many times Aunt Mary Ann lifted her voice in song. I can just see a dozen or so stout country women dressed in their Sunday best, hats perched just so, sturdy shoes dusty from their trek to church, lifting their voices in song. The song in my head fades away as the hymnal is placed carefully to the side.

In the bottom, I find a quilt. Not just an ordinary quilt—a special quilt—a quilt hand-stitched by my mother’s mother. I’m not sure how old it is. My mother doesn’t know, and Mamaw wouldn’t be able to tell us if she were alive.

I do know that it is old, and worn, the fabric stiff and shiny in places, the binding threadbare, the lining torn. It isn’t beautiful. Its pieces aren’t mirror images of each other, intent on showing off some delicate pattern. It’s a hodgepodge of color, shapes, and sizes. Some pieces of fabric are long and narrow, brown. Others tan, triangular. I spot a few pieces of dull green here and there. But even now, it has a thick sturdiness that guarantees a cozy night’s sleep on a frigid winter night.

As my fingers glide across the surface of the quilt, an image of my mother as a little girl, snuggling under the quilt, flashes like a movie clip before my eyes. As quickly as it appears, it’s gone. I sigh and lean over the edge of the trunk once again.

The afternoon shadows deepen as I examine each and every precious item in the trunk. I marvel at the black velvet pillbox hat with grosgrain ribbon Mamaw wore to church back in the 1940’s. I touch the cool metal of Papaw’s pocket watch, the stiff softness of his brown felt hat. The label inside says Adam, Fifth Avenue Quality, long oval, and I wonder how many hats he tried on, how long he stood in the store, before he picked just the right hat, just the right style, to suit him.

When I’m done, I carefully pack everything away, my trip down memory lane creating more and more memories, expanding, like sweet rolls set out to rise. I gaze out the window, enjoying a quiet afternoon reminiscing.

These heirlooms speak to me somewhere down deep inside. Their value is special, just like Webster declared. I knew the man who wore the hat, the woman who hand-stitched the quilt, and the young girl who grew up to be my mother.

I have the memories to prove it.

And that’s what makes an heirloom special.

Do you have a special heirloom handed down from your parents or grandparents? We'd love to hear all about it!!!

The Road to Magnolia Glen

CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com

Purchase links for The Road to Magnolia Glen: http://www.pamhillman.com/books/the-road-to-magnolia-glen