Cathy Lamb's Blog, page 2

Editing my Christmas book, today. It’s going to be a loooong few months.

I shall need some magic from Mrs. Claus, help from Rudolph, and an elf or too.

Wishing you a Merry Summer.

Greetings! I’M NOT YOURS is out in a few days, I think, probably, hoping…Here’s what the two novellas, The Apple Orchard and June’s Lace, are about…

The Apple Orchard

Allie Pelletier was fired from her executive position at a fancy clothing chain after her boss, a difficult and deranged woman, threw her Manolo Blahnik shoes at her head. Allie was relieved as her seventy-hour work weeks were exhausting. She caught the shoes and headed out. She sold her condo in a flash and moved to the old farmhouse and apple orchard that her estranged late father left her, along with a menagerie of funny pets. When Spunky Joe the horse accidentally kicks her, Allie lands in the emergency room. When Dr. Jace Rios, the love of her life she pushed away years ago, walks in, she ingloriously faints at his feet. And there we begin. Two people must overcome a painful history and buried secrets to be together again. With a little apple pie, it just might work.

June’s Lace

June MacKenzie is a wedding dress designer living in a charming blue cottage on a cliff above the Oregon Coast. Her dresses are eccentric and daring – a black leather and white lace dress for a motorcycle enthusiast, a dress filled with tiny white lights for a bride who loves fireflies. June is positive she will never design her own wedding dress because she’s going through a mind-numbing divorce. Her soon to be ex-husband is a controlling vermin-man who has decided he wants part of her business. She would rather be hit by lightning. But when June is knocked over by a sneaker wave and rescued by a sincere and steamy-hot country music song writer, she knows she’s been knocked over by more than just water. Alas, she can’t “do” love again, even though Reece likes to dance with her on the sand…

*** Eons ago, almost in the time of castles, knights, and yore, “June’s Lace” was printed in “Beach Season” and “The Apple Orchard” was printed in “You’re Still the One.”

Coming soon….one brand new Christmas novel, one three-novella Christmas collection, and one two-novella romance. Links to follow.

**** Eons ago, almost in the time of castles, knights, and yore, the stories in “WANTED: Christmas Miracles” and “I’m Not Yours” were printed in different anthologies. Hear ye, hear ye, you probably didn’t read them.

Happy Sunday! I’m reading / writing / sitting in my garden. See the clematis? That was my late mother’s.

She’s been gone 23 years and every summer when it blooms I just smile, and get a little teary, and remember what a beautiful, amazing, strong woman she was.

We both love books, we both love gardening, we both love reading books in a garden.

I’m Not Yours is coming out soon! Two happy-ending, funny love stories set in Oregon: The Apple Orchard and June’s Lace. Perfect for summer and for those who need to read cheerful books to counter the mess and stress of real life. Links to follow.

++ Both stories published eons ago in 2012 and 2013 in anthologies. If ya don’t remember reading them then, they’ll be NEW TO YOU.

If you need a summer read, I have two short stories coming out soon, June’s Lace and The Apple Orchard. The title of the book is I’m Not Yours. Cover and link will be available when the moon is full and a small rainbow shines overhead.

(Previously published in You’re Still the One and Beach Season eons ago…in a far away galaxy…in a time when buggies were pulled by horses and bonnets were worn…)

Some people have a bird bath. I, however, have a cat bath.

 

Two Things.One: I did not expect all the blood.Two: I knew it was too late to go running.But I need to run four times a week or my brain sizzles and fizzles in a really bad way and I’d been too busy to run earlier.Running and sweating cleans my brain out. I have no medical or scientific data to back that up, it’s just how I, as a writer with too many troublesome characters in my head, and a person prone to irrational worry, sees it.The night was quiet except for an off-key gang of geese as I huffed and puffed through the neighborhood wishing I was a lazy sloth in the bath eating cookies while watching reality TV. I am quite talented at being a lazy sloth.I don’t know why the devious curb all of the sudden decided to wiggle and trip me up. I don’t know why the evil sidewalk extended a bit of cement with a cackle. I don’t know why the criminal cracks in the concrete widened deliberately at that exact moment, but I’m quite sure they did.I tripped. Hard. I may have halfway twirled in the air before crashing and bashing up my knees, my elbow, and my hands. My right hand did not want to move anymore, I noted, as blood dripped from all of the other aforementioned places. I lay there for awhile, closely examining from mere inches, the sidewalk.My phone, which I use to listen to books or music, had gone flying into the night sky so when I could speak I barked out a whole litany of very bad swear words and crept around on my bloodied up knees to find it.I was only mildly embarrassed about those swear words as I briefly hoped I did not end on You Tube with a caption like, “Old Woman Swears Wildly as she Crawls Around the Ground,” or “This is the Kind of Crazy – Ass Woman You Don’t Want to Become,” or “When Seniors Talk and Swear to Imaginary Friends and Enemies: What to do.”Read the rest here on my FREE Substack newsletter… https://open.substack.com/pub/cathyla...

Greetings from Oregon!I have two books coming out – one for summer with two short stories, and one for Christmas with three short stories.They’re stories I wrote for anthologies years ago with other authors so my guess is that they may be new to most of you. This is the first time my stories are packaged together.I wrote them with hope, laughter, and entertainment in mind. Yes, they’re all happy endings, which we desperately need right now, and yes, there’s a little romance, but more than that they’re about women whose lives have become a s***storm and they’re putting them back together. You may be familiar with your life becoming a s***storm, as I am.So, PLEASE, save some room in your summer / Christmas book lists for these Cover for the beach book stories coming soon.This is a cool “secret passageway” that Innocent Husband and I saw this weekend on a hike at the Oregon coast. It has nothing to do with my books, but that “secret passageway” made me think of time travel books and magical mysteries and enchantments.Yes, this is where a writer’s mind goes…anything can trigger a storyline.Wishing you some magical enchantments.

The glamor in my life continues.

This is me after I finished using a pressure washer on our trellis.

As you can see I am wearing dirt for make up. But AT LEAST the patio is clean, and my flowers are planted, helping to make my garden pretty and peaceful for writing books.

Dirt is good for you, just try not to eat it.