Hello everyone! Happy summer reading to you!

I just wanted to let you know that “Ruthie Deschutes O’Hara Has Ulterior Motives” and “Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid,” are now on Kindle Unlimited in case you need a summer read!

Here’s what they’re about…

RUTHIE DESCHUTES O’HARA HAS ULTERIOR MOTIVES:

A hilarious, touching story about love…at any age.

Ruthie Deschutes O’Hara is 70 years old. Her huge family, eccentric and rebellious, owns a popular tequila business in central Oregon, which they run off “the homestead.”

A retired English teacher who loves books, Ruthie has been widowed for five years. Her beloved late husband and she used to watch a reality TV dating show called “Marry Me,” along with their dignified old dogs, curious cats, snorting pig, and scary rabbit who sometimes screams.

The “grooms” on “Marry Me” had the intellectual capabilities of grunting cavemen, according to Ruthie, as they dated the “brides,” and yet, the show was oddly entertaining.

But Ruthie has a big problem that needs to be solved in a creative way. She decides to do something daring. Something out of character. Something…outrageous.

She will become a contestant on a new “Marry Me” for seniors! She’ll compete for a groom, along with two dozen other “mature” brides.

She has no interest in the groom, that would be ridiculous. She’s not looking to fall in love again, that would be silly. Good heavens, she’s certainly not looking to wed the man, but if she was chosen for “Marry Me,” she could probably solve her perplexing problem. All would then be well again…

Ruthie Deschutes O’Hara has ulterior motives.

She is not going on “Marry Me” for the right reasons.

She is not prepared for what happens next.

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TEN KIDS, TWO LOVEBIRDS, and a SINGING MERMAID:

Set in Huntington Beach, California in 1979, the O’Briens and Rossis become next door neighbors and life is never the same again.

July 2019

Jesse O’Brien receives the phone call she never wanted and never expected. Her frightened sister, Joyce, tells her, “She’s missing.”

June 1979

On the day Jesse’s mother’s marriage fell apart, her face was slathered in snow-white cold cream, everything but her mouth and small circles around her eyes covered. She wore a plastic cap to dye a few gray hairs snaking through her thick brown waves and a pink polyester housedress.

Annie O’Brien, usually calm and cheerful, is livid as her husband tells her he’s leaving her and their five children for a woman who looks like Barbie.

Stunned, Jesse follows her furious parents outside as her father loads his suitcases into his Alfa Romeo and her mother loads a pie into her hand and heaves it at her father then waters his face with a hose.

When the dust settles, the Alfa Romeo roaring down the street, the cold cream now mixed with cherry pie filling, the shattered O’Brien family meets the Rossi family who have just moved in next door: Tommy, a Vietnam vet who looks like a motorcycle gang leader; his sister, Liliana, who believes she’s a mermaid; and Tommy’s five kids. They are mildly surprised at the family drama, but eager to get to know their exciting new neighbors.

Five kids plus five kids equals ten, and the adventures begin with an ending no one saw coming.

Inspired by Cathy Lamb’s childhood, TEN KIDS TWO LOVEBIRDS, AND A SINGING MERMAID is a funny, sweet story about life changing pies and Slip ‘N Slides, swearing parrots and sunny days, and mending aching hearts…together.

BOTH BOOKS ONLY AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.

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