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📚 National Read a Book Day 2025 📚
It’s the first Saturday in September and whether or not the 🌞 Summer heat 🔥 is simmering down where you are, it’s a perfect time for it to be National Read a Book Day. It might be a bit early for Christmas cheer, but you can certainly read some of mine… 📚
📖 Treasure 📚
There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island. ~Walt Disney
If you’ve seen some of my library book sale posts, you know that Kelly and I really love books.
Going to library clearance sales, used book stores, book shelves at thrift stores, spinning racks at discount stores (and let’s not even talk about B&N, schwing!!!), is a major dopamine experience for me.
Just seeing a display of books is an uplifting experience for me.
It takes a massive feat of willpower not to buy at least one.
On top of this, I feel the need to contribute books of my own to these shelves.
Which ones? These…
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Bryce and Veronica are a very unlikely couple who find themselves bonding over a traumatic experience. No love at first sight for these oddballs! It’s a rocky road and there’s no guarantee that they’ll wind up together forever.
Bryce Wescott is an enterprising art photographer and online purveyor of photographic equipment. He is a nice, well-mannered young man who is catching up with old friends over the holidays. At 5’5″, Bryce is often the butt of short jokes among his friends but he proves that good things come in small packages. Veronica Montes is an aspiring dancer who has moved to the big city to seek a position in a dance company. She is a slightly naive newcomer with the dogged determination to chase her dream. At 6’1″, Veronica is secretly self-conscious about her uncommon height despite the fact that she is graceful, lithe and beautiful. |
| Jeb Powell is a stoic, solitary man with simple needs. All he wants for Christmas is a decent plate of cookies like Mom used to make. He’s pining for a bit of the magic and miracles that came with the holiday seasons of his childhood.
Trilby Hughes is an assistant librarian at the local university. She’s as timid as she is intelligent, but she’s head over heels in love with Jeb. She’d love to be able to bake a batch of Christmas cookies for him but she can literally burn water. Will she overcome her fear of human interaction in order to make her feelings for Jeb known to him? Will he love her in return? Aundrea Pritchard is the Chief Pastry Chef and Proprietor of Angel Kakes. She is an accomplished businesswoman and her baked goods are sublime. She’s much too busy for romance and who could possibly measure up to her expectations anyway? |
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Holly Hannon has everything a woman could want: a big house in the suburbs, a hard-working husband, two beautiful daughters and a son on the way. So, why isn’t she happy?
Ivy Donegan is Holly’s younger sister. She’s staying over for the holidays. She’s got everything a woman could want: a fulfilling career as a freelance artist, a place of her own, the freedom to do what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. So, why isn’t she happy? Ian Woodard is a self-employed landscaper, hustling through the holiday season to put up Christmas lights for people who can’t or don’t want to do it themselves. He’s making money and keeping busy, but what’s it all for without someone to come home to? |
| Meredith Blake has come to Wyoming Pass to serve as one of Ivy Donegan’s bridesmaids. This cautious lady is well outside of her comfort zone, but Ian and Ivy enticed her with the prospect of meeting another Sentinels superfan. Will she give him a chance to win her heart or will she remain a prisoner to her fear of being hurt again?
Toby Belzer is an old friend of Ian Woodard’s who is serving as one of his groomsmen. Despite his tremendous heart, he’s been unlucky in love. Will he finally find the girl of his dreams? |
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In the enchanting town of Laurel Ridge, event planner Carol Snyder takes on a significant task: making the Jingle Bell Jubilee truly special, all while entangled in a complex love quadrangle.
Ryan, her past flame, Nathan, the charismatic businessman, and Paul, the endearing superhero, vie for her heart. Supported by friends and family, Carol faces a life-altering choice amidst the enchantment of a holiday celebration. This heartwarming story underscores the potent force of love and the sheer joy of seizing the present moment. |
| The sleepy little town of Pine Hollow is best known for their annual Christmas Light Fight. The mayor’s trophy often crosses the bulb at the end of Unity Court.
Every Christmas, the otherwise quiet cul-de-sac becomes ground zero for a rivalry of epic proportions. The Murray and Chmielewski families have been battling for years, their light shows and yard displays growing ever more spectacular. Grace dreads returning home to the annual feud between her family and the Murrays across the way, but who can say no to Mom’s home cooking? Leo Murray is helping to free his uncle’s car from the tangle of Thanksgiving visitors when Grace gets back from college in Empire City. Her return stirs feelings he didn’t know he had. Follow along as Grace and Leo learn lessons of the heart while their families pull out all the stops to win the Pine Hollow Christmas Light Fight trophy live on TV from the mayor’s special celebrity guest. |
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| 💡🎄🌟 Goodness & Lights 🌟🎄💡 | This year’s story picks up with the family who actually won last year’s Pine Hollow Light Fight trophy.
Gary Light’s daughter, Abigail, delivered her baby without incident. Little Teddy is the light of Gary’s life, but the question of who the baby’s father is still lingers like a phantom pain. This Christmas, we’ll see how God makes all things whole in due course. |
Of course, I’m still working on The Sentinels: New Blood.
Yes, it’s been years, but it’s very detailed and I’m trying to do it in my spare time. Work has been very hectic this year.
I still don’t even have The Lights of Pine Hollow set up for print on demand yet, and I have to fix the Carol’s Christmas that’s linked to my Holiday Season Serial Romance listings on Amazon.
Lots to do and no time to do it…
📚 Why & How 📖
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Okay, not only am I obsessed with books wherever they appear for sale, but I was an English major at college.
I have been an avid literary fanatic since at least 6th grade, and I was supercharged by my writing exercises in junior high.
All the classic reading assignments over the years weren’t a bore for me the way they were for the other kids.
I loved Dickens from the first word and still do.
Being fair, decades of screen time have put a serious dent in my former reading capacity.
I used to be able to rip through a book the way I can currently fast-run a season of TV.
It’s something I’d like to get back to.
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📖 Long Enough 📚
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C. S. Lewis
Bwa-ha-ha! If it weren’t for the harsh language, he’d probably love my Sentinels series.
The Holiday Season Serial Romances are necessarily limited by the constraints of the holiday season.
The definition I’ve chosen is based on Thanksgiving through Epiphany.
This year, that span is 41 days. The variability from year to year is based on the date of 🦃 Thanksgiving Day 🥧.
You’ve got all of December + six days in January as a static value, but the variability of the date of Thanksgiving Day makes the holiday season’s duration range from 40-46 days.
With a variation of 40-46 days in the holiday season, my standard pattern is to have an intro on Thanksgiving Day and an outro on Epiphany with 38-44 episodes in between.
As for the Core13 of The Sentinels series, I’m giving myself as much room as I need to tell the story properly. If that puts me in the company of Tolstoy, Clavell, Clancy, Martin and Sanderson then so be it.
On the other hand, I picture the Collateral Impact anthologies falling more along recommended book lengths, but not because I’m falling in line with mass-market paperback word counts.
Kind of, anyway.
These stories are a flip of the mirror. While the Core13 are necessarily focused on the eponymous superheroes, the companion stories are based on “normal” people’s interactions with those superheroes.
Apparently, the recommended length of short stories nowadays ranges from 5000 to 10000 words. So, in that sense, I’m adhering to current publishing norms.
The Collateral Impact anthologies will consist of 13 short stories of approximately 7500 words, resulting in a book of 97500 words.
That’s the ballpark for a standard standalone fiction novel at this point. So, from that perspective, I’m being conventional with these anthologies.
As much as that leaves an icky taste in my mouth, I can at least lean on that as a selling point for anyone who’s leery of picking up one of the Core13 tomes.
The upside is that anyone who does will end these books with bigger biceps and, hopefully, a sense that they’ve experienced a well-conceived and thoughtfully delivered speculative tale.
Whether you choose to read my books or someone else’s, today’s the day for it. So, get cracking and read a book or two…
That’s all for today. See you back on Wednesday for TV dinner…