Valentines Treasures… WIN an absolute gem!

Now that the holidays are behind us, love is in the air!

I couldn’t be more excited about my Valentines release,
the third book my my Mimosa Lane trilogy, coming January 21st: Love on Mimosa Lane.

Library Journal is already raving about, “this affecting, sweet story.” You’re going to fall in love with Law Beaumont and Kristen Hemming’s romance, as well as how determined they are to help two amazing kids.

You’ve met Kristen in Three Days on Mimosa Lane, and prepare to meet the foster family that will become the backdrop for future Chandlerville novels–including this November’s Where the Heart Is!

To celebrate, check out this month’s Writerspace prize:

DeStefano_Heart Prize

It’s a much sought-after, vintange Crown Trifari heart pin.
The first letters of its pave stones spell out “dearest”–stones the color of Diamond, Emerald, Amethyst,
Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire and Topaz.
How amazing is that?

So link over and sign up for your chance to win it or a signed copy of the novel!

And don’t forget to pre-order your Valentine’s copy of Love on Mimosa Lane…
Here’s a bit more to tease you ;o)

FINAL LoML Front LowRes

Law Beaumont and Kristen Hemmings have watched each other from a distance for years. But Law, a bartender with a bad-boy past, and Kristen, an assistant principal devoted to helping her community, couldn’t seem more different. When they unite to mentor a young foster child and to help Law’s troubled daughter through the aftermath of her parents’ ugly divorce, their attraction deepens. They face the undeniable connection between them, and a whirlwind of challenges they can only conquer together.

A stirring love story and a candid look at the complexities of divorce, substance abuse, and our country’s foster care system, Love on Mimosa Lane is a love song to an entire community, and a novel about the power of family—the family you’ve been given, the one you’ve chosen, and the one that can lift you up, even when the world is tearing you down.

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14 Responses to “Valentines Treasures… WIN an absolute gem!”

  1. patricia wright says:

    i love christmas with the lights and presents besides family gets together to eat and play games or jamming. this year it will be not so good for me since i lost my sister last year my parents are gone also but my daughter and son in law besides his brother we will be having dinner and give out what we have as presents

    • I understand entirely, Patricia. Memories of losing my father just before the holidays still linger, after 20+ years. But I’ve also learned to cherish the moments I have now, with friends and loved one, s,no matter whether they’re perfect or not.

      It doesn’t have to be perfect for me. I just want closeness and love and belonging. And the sparkly tree and presents, too! ;o)

      Have a wonderful end of your year, and make a special memory to honor your sister with. (((HUGS))) ~~Anna

  2. Clauda Thompson says:

    wonderful idea

  3. Cynthia E. Blain says:

    Christmas is special due to all the family things that we all do together. Our grandchildren love to come and decorate our tree, and we also love to bake Christmas cookies and gingerbread men together one entire day a week or so before Christmas. Our granddaughter who is now ten, loves to help me wrap and bag gifts for others and all the kids love to help in the kitchen with cutting apples, stirring the popping cranberries that are cooking for sauce, and doing all kinds of other Christmas food preparation. Our grandson helped his Grampy hang up the mini outdoor lights and the kids love helping to make wreaths too. All this and more makes our holidays special.

    • Sigh… Your holiday plans sound AMAZING, Cynthia. It’s the small memories that come back to me the most. Smelling my grandmother’s house when my family walked in and she’d been baking and cooking all day. The way the lights looked on my grandparents’ tree. The farm house, out in the country, and how warm it was cuddling by the fireplace…

      • Rorong says:

        hm, jag kf6pte se5pbubblor ff6r ett par veckor sedan och hade kul med dom. Men det var ute pe5 ladent bland en massa grf6nska. Kanske skulle ta fram burken igen.

  4. Julie Comins says:

    I love the faces of the little children who still believe, and my neice who still loves to dress up in pretty christmas dresses.
    Julie c
    Iread2xs at yahoo dot com
    Ps that tree pin reminds me of my childhood for some reason, i must have had something similar or knew someone who did

  5. Julie Vogt Carroll says:

    Every year, my sons and I, make springerle cookies. They are rolled out with a hand-carved, antique, rolling pin that came from Germany. We like to make our cookies very strong with Oil of Anise so you get a delicious licorice taste. It is a tradition that my mother taught us until her death in 2012.

    • Tradition! Whether it’s a new one or something we’ve inherited, we pay so much more attention to the past this time of year, and how it’s molded us into who and what we are now. I love the traditions around the holidays–and I keep watch for ways to pay them forward all year long.

  6. Skye says:

    I loved Christmas because it was a big deal as a family gathering, both extended and immediate. However, the year I was 16, we moved 1100 miles away from the town, and everyone, I’d known my entire life. At least that Christmas, it was still the four of us. Unfortunately, my Dad died the following May and we stayed where we were. So the Christmas I was 17, there was just my mom, my little brother, and me. Mom wanted to make it something to remember as being different, so that it wouldn’t be a memory of loss — any more than it already was — but a new memory. So the three of us talked about it and decided to have lobster tail for Christmas Eve dinner! Mom had never cooked lobster of any sort before, but she asked the man at the fish counter where she bought the lobster. My brother and i made salad and melted the butter and set the breakfast bar for our feast. And it was fine! It was a nice way to start a new memory.

    In addition, my brother and I were panic-stricken that there was no one to fill Mom’s stocking or give her gifts from Santa, so we did it. We bought small gifts for her stocking, and we went in together on a single gift from Santa. Mom figured out who the “elves” were who had filled her stocking, but the look on her face when she found a package to her from “Santa” was one of surprise and shock. I think she almost believed in Santa for a moment, or that an angel had reached down and given her a gift. Then she saw the smug looks on our faces and realized that her “angels” were the two teenagers who were her anchor in this world.

    My brother died a few years later by his own hand: he never recovered from our father’s death, which occurred when the two were playing catch in the backyard (heart attack). Mom and I grew ever closer over the years, becoming each other’s best friends even before her second husband died and she moved her mom in with her. Grandma died four years ago. The year after that, Mom was diagnosed with cancer and I moved back home to be with her. She didn’t make it, so all my family is gone now.

    But my friends have made themselves my family. One set has me over for Christmas Eve through the 26th. Another has me over for a weekend overnighter before or after. And a third set has given me a home since I returned to Seattle in April of this year — they are helping me keep body and soul together while I look for work.

    So I have many and varied memories about Christmas, happiness and gratitude even in the midst of sorrow. I feel very lucky, especially when my 15-year-old “niece” asks me “You are spending Christmas with us again, aren’t you?”

    • Skye, your story/journey is so much about why I write the kinds of novels I write. Thank you for sharing your holiday and family history and how it’s shaped the kind of world your holiday is for you now.

      We’re all different and come from different places, some of us from darker and more difficult beginnings than most. But the survivor in all of us wants to believe the same things–that life can get better and be brighter and love us back the way we want to be loved and belong. And when we make that new family/life for ourselves, wherever we’ve come from, doors and windows and dreams can open up and be the new beginnings that transform us.

      Pull your loved ones close, love them back, and keep seeing the world bravely, as the never-ending opportunity that it is to make your life all that you want it to be.

      You’re an inspiration, my friend! ~Anna

  7. Carla C says:

    I was very lucky coming from a large Sicilian family. Christmas was at my great grandmother’s. Everyone packed into her home. (Great) Uncles & Aunts lived on the same street, my grandfather dressed as Santa, and bags of big gifts were handed out as the first present. Food, Laughter, Songs, Love filled the air. At midnight we made our way to Mass and then home, only to have Christmas Day filled with more family, more food, more visits.
    I miss those days. I am very lucky to still have my grandparents (who did raise me), a few of my Great Aunts, my cousins have spread out though — I do the traditional baking, the singing (driving my poor children crazy with Dominic the Christmas Donkey), and I go through the pictures and old movies with a sweet love in my heart and tissue in hand.
    Thank you for letting me share this. Have a Merry Christmas!

    • Juan says:

      Thank you.I’ve been thinking about this topic too preesicly because the challenge is coming to an end and I want to keep going. I learned a lot about how I work during this one.One thing I did do was buy a magnetic eraser board that is now mounted on my file cabinet. It’s a calendar. All I have to do is write in the word counts for the day and the plans for the next day. I’m also lucky enough to have a couple of friends who, if I ask them, would not object to getting an e-mail from me saying what I plan to do and would also not object to a short e-mail back saying Congratulations’ or Were you watching NCIS again?? Where’s the word count??? I don’t think the importance of a free write or exercise can be overstated. It’s like stretching before running. You don’t do it, you will cramp up.Again, thank you. Very timely. Mary

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