Monthly Essays

A Christmas Gift for You—a Free Book

You would think a romance writer had seen a Hallmark movie, but that is not so in my case. I eagerly awaited the showing last night of the Kansas City Chiefs/Hallmark movie. It’s always fun to see a movie filmed in a place you know. That’s one reason why so many shows are set in New York City. A lot of folks have visited and can point to landmarks and exclaim, “I’ve actually been there.”

Well, several times, I’ve walked around that town square in Independence, Missouri, so I recognized it in the movie. I was excited to see the house down the street from my friend’s place all decked out in holiday lights. She said she took her dog outside late one summer night and saw the house a couple blocks away lit up like daylight with spotlights and vans and trucks parked everywhere. The house was festooned with holiday decorations as if for a Hallmark movie—which was exactly what was going on.

My middle son, Morgan, recently treated me to a football game at Arrowhead, so I could identify with the setting in that massive stadium. Seeing it empty and silent for one scene in that movie was not my experience. I found the stadium noisy and fun and the Chiefs’ fans kind and courteous like in the climactic scene in the film. And again, I can say, “I’ve actually been there.”

I wrote this year’s Christmas story because of reading in the newspaper last summer about the movie being filmed in Independence. Of course, I invented complex characters and made up the small town of Jasper, Kansas, and gave the leads (Sam and Candy) plot obstacles to overcome. You can’t say, “I’ve actually been there,” since the town doesn’t exist, but if you’ve been to a small town, you can see it in your mind’s eye, that magical place you go to when you read.

Want to join in the fun as a holiday movie is being filmed? Download The Sheriff’s Christmas Candy to the free Kindle app on your phone or tablet. You can pull it out and read whenever you’re stuck in a line or waiting in the dentist’s office.

Today and tomorrow (December 1 and 2), you can download that novel for free. My gift to you. And if you wish, share the link with your friends.

Happy Holidays!

A made-for-TV movie crew comes to Jasper!

Sam Rockwood, at 33 the youngest-ever sheriff of Jasper County, KS, knows Candy Malone’s parents misnamed her. Oh, she’s a blonde knockout and can probably dance around a pole, but she’s serious-minded, smart, and sensible—and she’s his sister’s best friend. She’s been a pain to him ever since she’s come back to town as a grownup woman, and not the girl-next-door (well, girl-at-the-adjoining-ranch) he’s known most of her 27 years. He shouldn’t be attracted to her in that way, so his solution is to avoid being alone with her.

Between running the sheriff’s office and managing the ranch, now he has to provide crowd control for the filming of the made-for-TV Christmas movie in sweltering July. His sister and Candy sign him up as an extra, and the filming and the chaos begin.

Download your copy today!

Travel back to small town life in 1954 to meet the people who live on the Corner of Pearl & Moffet.

Before 33-year-old Josie Jameson takes the seat reserved for the widow, she glances around the old graveyard. Over three hundred people have gathered to pay their respects to her late husband. That is nearly the population of Ducane, Arkansas.

She had married Orville nine years earlier. That he was 43 years her senior hadn’t really troubled her, but there had been plenty of talk. She was a farm girl when she married and moved to the big white house on the corner of Pearl and Moffet. She didn’t fit the mold of housewife to the richest man in town. Now that he’s dead, she owns the Ducane Savings and Loan, The Station that makes more money from liquor sales than gasoline, his private ledger books with unofficial loans and repayment schedules, and the little brown books written in his tight scrawl that hold the town’s secrets.

When tragedy strikes, the good people of Ducane, who share each other’s joys and sorrows, who celebrate others’ accomplishments with pride, who take food to the bereaved and do chores for those who are sick, these same good people whisper, “This is Josie’s fault!”

Corner of Pearl & Moffet is a gripping tale of one woman’s struggle through sorrow and challenges to find her own life. Download your copy today.

2024 essay