Bell Bridge Books

Second Chances

by Sandra Hill

How many times in your life have you wished for a do-over?  How many times have you said, “If only…” with regard to some past event, or person?  Does your heart ever ache at the thought of a second chance to do something differently?  If only we could turn back the clock!

Sometimes it involves carelessly spoken words that wounded. Or words not spoken that should have been.   Or a poor choice of career…or even a spouse.  Wasted time, lost years.  Desertion.  Betrayal.  Or lost love.

The heart aches at the finality of some of our actions.  If only…, if only…, if only…

It’s a favorite theme in many books and movies, sometimes with satisfying conclusions, other times the sorrow of lost chances.  The movies “An Affair to Remember,” “The Way We Were,” “The Notebook,” or “Casablanca.”  Or how about Scarlett in GONE WITH THE WIND?  Wouldn’t she have liked to turn back the clock?  One of my favorite examples is Diane Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER.  When Claire returns to the future, she thinks Jamie is dead.  What a fabulous plot angle when Claire discovers twenty-some years later that Jamie never died in the Battle of Culloden, and she goes back to find him.  <sigh>

Second Chances!  That’s what happens in HEART CRAVING.  Poor Nick DiCello, a Trenton cop, has only one week until his divorce from his wife Paula become final.  He loves Paula desperately, but he’s made so many mistakes.  He has to do something, though.  Clueless about where to start, Nick goes to a wacky fortune teller for advice.  She tells him to find his wife’s “heart craving,” but Nick hears only the word “craving” and thinks she refers to sexual fantasies.  What ensues is Nick’s hilarious, but poignant, and dare I say erotic, setup of a series of sexual events to woo Paula back.

I love novels about couples who have a broken relationship and somehow find their way back to each other.  They know how to push each other’s buttons, in all ways.  The hurts are deep; for that reason, the reunions are that much more emotional when they get another chance to change.

In my own personal life, there are so many things I wish I could do over.  How about you?  Well, in books, we get that chance.

Sandra Hill is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 40 romantic humor novels.  Whether they be contemporary, historical, or paranormal, the underlying theme in all of them is humor…and sizzle.  For more information about her books, check out her website at www.sandrahill.net or her Facebook page at Sandra Hill Author.

HEART CRAVING by Sandra Hill is only $1.99 through January 15th! Grab it today!

Mama was a Diva

by Marilee Brothers

If you’re looking for a warm, fuzzy, my-mama-was-the best-mother-ever story, you might want to stop reading now. My mother was a diva long before the word became part of the current vernacular. The only daughter of doting parents, she was clad in frilly dresses, wore a giant bow in her hair, learned to read at four and became a concert pianist in her teens. She was a beauty with an independent streak. In the roaring twenties, she bobbed her hair, visited speakeasies and sneaked cigarettes. At age 23, she married my father, an outstanding athlete whose pitching record for the University of Washington still stands.

My sister Beth came along first. Five years later, I was born. I’m not sure what troubled my mother, but some of my earliest memories are of long, sulky silences where we knew we’d done something wrong, but weren’t sure what it was. She was unable to express anger and disapproval and eventually, turned it inward. For years she was stricken with migraines and depression. One of my jobs was to tiptoe into the darkened bedroom and rub her aching forehead.

As my sister and I blossomed into our teen years, things became more difficult for our mother as her beauty began to fade. It was almost as if she resented the daughters she’d given birth to. At age twelve, I was a tall, gawky, shy kid. I remember crying when she refused to help me fix my hair. Fortunately, I had a big sister.

Years passed. My sister and I married into warm, loving families and had children of our own. Both of us stayed connected to our birth family, especially me since we lived in the same town. Mother was in her late eighties when the miracle happened. She had a slight stroke. Yes, I know. That sounds heartless. But truly, my mother, the former hypochondriac, was transformed into a different person. She was physically unaffected by the stroke, but her mental attitude underwent a cataclysmic change. She became the sweetest little old lady on the face of the planet. In her former life, a hangnail was a good reason to take to her bed. When she was 89, she fell and broke some ribs. I said, “Oh, that must hurt!” Her response? “Nope, not at all.”

On her last birthday, the 94^th, it fell on Mothers’ Day. Her May 13^th birthday often did. I have a picture in my office of the two of us posing with her birthday cake. The day she died, my husband received the call first and got to her bedside before I did. Later, he told me she was restless and uncomfortable until I arrived to hold her hand. She then relaxed, looked at me and smiled. I was with her as her breaths became farther and farther apart and finally stopped altogether. I am so thankful that, in my mother’s later years, I was able to make the mother-daughter connection I’d been longing for. It’s never too late.

Pick up Marilee Brothers’s Bell Bridge titles today: