Sweet Saturday Sample: Oh, I Know!

I know Christmas is over, but I'm still reading the Christmas books I bought, so maybe you are too.  Why not?  The story is still good.  So, I'm sharing an excerpt from my Christmas release The Table in the Window.  Table is a long short story.

The minute they left the building the wind assaulted them. “My teeth are ch…ch…chattering,” Marley stutterered.

Mentally crossing his fingers for luck, Rob put his arm around her and hugged her close. “It’s only a little way to the theater.”

Marley was either too cold to mind, or she really didn’t mind, because she didn’t move away from him. By the time they reached the theater, Rob felt as warm as toast, and it didn’t have a thing to do with the weather. She felt so small, so feminine, snuggled into his side. His arm tightened around her as he breathed in her warm female scent.

Thanks for stopping by!

Buy link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_15?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=the+table+in+the+window+by+elaine+cantrell&sprefix=the+table+in+th%2Caps%2C307

Friday Thirteenth Blog Hop

When I was a small child my mother taught me to love reading. Every Friday afternoon she took my sister and me to the public library, a one room building about the size of a large living room. We would choose several books, and then she would take us to the discount store to spend our allowance. Afterwards, she would take us to dinner. This was a great Friday treat.  

So, from an early age books were associated with something good. Both my sister and I became avid readers. I remember thinking how incredible it would be to put words on paper and tell a story that people would enjoy reading. I daydreamed about becoming a writer, but it never occurred to me that I could really do it.

It was my younger son who showed me the way. He called me one day a couple of years ago and told me that he had written a book. I wasn’t surprised. I knew he had a lot of talent because he had won a prize for a short story he had written when he was in college. I liked his story, and it made me think. If he could do it, why couldn’t I?

While I was thinking about it, I had dinner with several of the teachers from the school where I teach. One of them suggested that each of us should write a book and critique each other’s work.

Well, that did it. I sat down to write my masterpiece. The problem was, I couldn’t think of how to begin. There were umpteen dozen ways to do it. Finally, I realized that it didn’t matter. Pick one way and get started. I typed my first sentence, and from that point the words seemed to fly from my fingers to the computer screen. It was absolutely exhilarating!

I finished my first story in record time. Nobody but me liked it much, but I didn’t care.  I wrote another book right away.  It was almost finished when I found out about a small publisher who sponsored a yearly writing contest. The first prize was publication of your novel. I decided to try it, and several months later I received a call from the publisher telling me that I was one of two grand prize winners.

Since that day, I’ve been published 8 times and have 3 signed contracts.  Talk about dreams coming true!

Matt McCallum, my hero in my last full length novel A New Dream, also knows a lot about dreams coming true.  He was an NFL player who kicked the winning field goal in the Super Bowl before he had an accident that destroyed his career forever.  Here’s the first part of the prologue in A New Dream which is available at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+new+dream+by+elaine+cantrell&sprefix=a+new+dream%2Caps%2C338   or at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/a-new-dream-by-elaine-cantrell?keyword=a+new+dream+by+elaine+cantrell&store=allproducts

The red convertible cut a path through the moonlight, its headlights dancing along the arched limbs of the trees above the road.

“Oh, Matt, it’s such a beautiful night,” Stacey declared with a sigh. “I’m going to miss you when you leave tomorrow.”

Matt reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ll miss you too, but if I don’t report on time, I’m in trouble with the coach.”

“That’s what I get for falling in love with a pro football player,” Stacey teased, her blonde hair turned to frosted silver by the light of the full moon above them.

Matt squeezed her hand that wore his engagement ring. “It’s too late to back out now,” he teased. “You’re mine.”

“Mmm, do I like the sound of that!”

The car rounded a curve, and without warning a deer bounded across the road.

“Look out!” Stacey screamed.

Matt braked sharply to avoid the animal. The tires slid on patch of loose gravel in the road, and he lost control of the convertible. It fishtailed and started to spin in the road.

Matt hauled the steering wheel to correct the slide, but it was useless. The car turned around once more and skidded backwards for a short distance before it charged off the road. It jumped a steep ditch and went airborne. All Matt could see was a blur of trees and darkness as the car careened into the woods. It made a lazy turn in the air and came to rest bottom side up.

The last thing he remembered was the sound of Stacey’s screams.

Leave me a comment to be entered in a drawing for a PDF copy of A New Dream. Become a blog follower and tell me so, and I'll enter your name twice.

 Thanks so much for stopping by.  Your next stop is Sharon Hamilton.

You'll Like This

It's raining in SC today.  It's raining so hard I can't imagine anyone besides a fish wanting to go outside.  Weather like this makes me want to cook something warm to take the chill off.  What do you think about this chicken pie?  Come by my house around 6:30, and I'll have it ready.

Chicken Pot Pie 

1 chicken stewed, debone, and chopped

1 can mixed vegetables drained

sage to taste

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 stick butter

1 cup self rising flour

1 cup buttermilk

Place chicken in the bottom of a casserole dish.  Layer mixed vegetables on top.  Sprinkle sage over vegetables.  Mix soup and broth.  Heat until smooth on low heat.  Pour on top of vegetables.  Mix melted butter, flour, and buttermilk until smooth and pour on top of casserole.  Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes until brown.

Matt Gets Jilted.

What do you do when you lose everything?

After an auto accident destroys his NFL career, Matt McCallum struggles to find a new dream for his life, but nothing engages him the way football did. After a stint in rehab, he takes a job managing a grocery store where he meets Violet Emerson.

Violet works in the bakery department, but her dreams carry her far beyond the doors of Chef’s Pantry. As soon as she can save the money, she plans to open a catering business. And she thinks the new manager’s broad shoulders and blue eyes are simply divine.

Thrown together at work, Matt and Violet find a common dream for their lives, but a loose end from Matt’s past returns to jeopardize their future. Will love be enough to save their new dream before it turns into a nightmare?

Of course, before Matt meets Violet he had a fiancée, Stacey Thomas.  In this excerpt from A New Dream Stacey agonizes over the accident that took Matt’s football career away.

Stacey shuddered and splashed some more water on her face. The nausea had passed now. She staggered back into her bedroom and threw herself across her bed. Matt’s legs looked horrible! She’d give anything not to have been at the hospital when the bandages came off. It had been bad enough when a sheet covered Matt, but to actually see his mutilated legs turned her stomach and made her feel faint.

She knew one thing, though. Until this afternoon she hadn’t really understood that Matt’s football career had ended. Oh, she realized he had lost a leg, but somehow it hadn’t been real to her until she saw it for herself. Rolling over, she curled into a tight, little ball. She had had such fun going places with Matt. People always recognized him and wanted his autograph. He had plenty of money too, and he wasn’t stingy with it. The fame and money had thrilled her, but it was all over and done with now. No more autographs or big money.

Her stomach lurched again. She had more than just fame and money to worry about. Matt had wanted to kiss her this afternoon. In fact, when the doctor came in to take off Matt’s bandages he had caught her sitting on the edge of the bed kissing Matt. The doctor had kidded him about it, but she hadn’t minded being interrupted at all. She…didn’t like to touch him too much now.

Her thoughts drifted to the afternoon of their accident. Their parents wouldn’t approve, but she and Matt had gone to Greenville and checked into a luxury hotel that morning. They had spent his last day of freedom in bed together. She drew a deep, shaky breath.

The day had been everything she’d dreamed it could be. Her body tightened with the faint echo of passion. Matt was a good lover.

Oh, why did they have to have such a terrible accident? What would happen to Matt now? Her engagement ring winked and twinkled as it caught the light. She stared at it for a moment and began to cry.

Pretty bad, huh?  Yeah, she jilted him the next day.  She didn’t have the nerve to do it face-to-face.  She returned her engagement ring by messenger.  What a witch!  Oh, well.  If she hadn’t jilted Matt, he never would have met Violet.  I guess there can be an up side to getting jilted. 

Six SentenceSunday.

Welcome to my blog, and thank you for checking out my sentences.  In this excerpt which shows how my hero's accident and the loss of his NFL career took a toll on his entire family, my hero's mother confronts her husband.  Stacy is the hero's old girlfriend, and Chris is the hero's brother.

You’re thinking he’ll be another Matt. Chris doesn’t quite measure up does he, so I’m sure you’re overjoyed.” Her face suffused with color.  “Anyway,” she spat, “you were always hot for Stacey yourself. You couldn’t sit still from the minute she came into the house until the time she left. You panted after her like a dog after a bone.”

A New Dream is on sale for only .99 at http://www.amazon.com/A-New-Dream-ebook/dp/B004TAWHO4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325992976&sr=8-2  Hurry.  The sale ends today.

What's Your Dream?

What’s your dream?  Have you achieved it yet?  As an adolescent most people formulate grand dreams, some of which aren’t based on reality.  And this is a good thing.  During adolescence we should explore all the possibilities before our values and talents dictate what we ultimately become in life.  For some people reality dictates that we settle for something less than what we wanted.  Luckily, most of us find happiness in our new, revised dreams and have a fulfilling life.

Guess what I wanted to be when I was a child?  I wanted to be Miss America.  My family made a big deal out of watching the Miss America pageant every year.  My aunts and girl cousins would all come over, and we’d eat snacks, criticize the talent competition, and try to pick the winner.  Well, I didn’t become Miss America.  Instead, I became a social studies teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, and finally an author.  Am I content?  Yes, I am.  My life is full and happy.

But what would happen if you had a huge dream that came to pass and gave you everything you’ve ever wanted, and then you lost it?  Could a replacement dream ever take the place of the first one?

That’s exactly what happens to Matt McCallum, my hero in A New Dream.  Matt achieves his dream of playing for the NFL.  He was a first round draft pick for the Green Bay Packers, and during his rookie year, he kicked the winning field goal in the Super Bowl.  He has fame, money to burn, and a sexy fiancée.  For Matt, life doesn’t get any better than this.  And then he loses it all when a car wreck takes his career away.  All that self-discipline, focus, and hard work counts for nothing now.

My husband sometimes reads for me, and when he read A New Dream, he threw a fit.  We share a home office so I spun my chair around to see what was wrong when he snarled, “I hate this book.”  

“Buy why?” I asked.  “I like it.”

“You shouldn’t take his career away,” he answered. 

I ignored him.  Matt was going to lose his career no matter what.  My husband didn’t understand that I was tired of perfection.  I mean, come on, how many times have you read that a hero has sculpted abs, craggy features, and makes the heroine’s knees go weak the minute he walks into the room?   Yeah, I hear you.  You like drop dead gorgeous heroes.  Matt McCallum has all of the above qualities, but I wanted do a little something extra, something that would make him stand out from the pack. 

I wanted to show how Matt’s rather superficial life gives way to something deeper, stronger, and more fulfilling, and to do that he had to lose everything.  As one of my readers said, “Sometimes you have to lose everything to make way for something better.”

A New Dream in on sale for .99 at http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+new+dream+by+elaine+cantrell&sprefix=a+new+drea  and also at Barnes and Noble.  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/new-dream-elaine-cantrell/1102710733?ean=2940012395245&itm=1&usri=a+new+dream+by+elaine+cantrell

Fashionista Friday: KISS

What's KISS?  KISS is my fashion philosophy.  It stands for keep it simple, sweetheart.  In my opinoion the following dresses are almost perfect.  They're sexy, but classy, not slutty, and they can be accessorized beautifully. 

Here's choice one, a belted tweed dress from Jason Wu.  Buy it from Nordstrom for $1495.

My next pick is this Michael Kors stretch wool sheath dress.  Buy it at Nordstrom for $1795.

My last choice is super simple.  How do you like this V neck milano knit dress?  Buy it at Nordstrom for $795.