Spotlight: SATURDAY IN SERENDIPITY by Margo Hoornstra

A twenty year high school reunion changes the lives of former classmates and leads to unexpected futures.

Three Strikes Thursday
Barry Carlson, a pro baseball success, could have any woman he wanted. Except one. Twenty years before, Barry won Amanda Marsh’s love, only to crush her heart. He’s returned to Serendipity, determined to win her back. Recently divorced, Amanda is happy—until Barry slides back into her life. Can they put aside old wounds and new misunderstandings to find a forever love?


Two On Tuesday
Blane Weston’s construction company needs the venture capital Matt Durand has. With his reputation for hostile takeovers, she wants no part of him. Mixing business with pleasure, she’s off to Serendipity to hook up with a former flame. Not used to being denied, Matt follows. How can Blane enjoy a journey to her past when Matt is determined to dictate her future?

One Fateful Friday
His high school reunion in Serendipity over, hospital CEO Jake Holbrook regrets his single state. When a special woman from his past tumbles back into his life—and his bed—he’s determined to keep her there. Family practitioner Bethany Thomas avoids an entanglement with her new boss, but unknowingly betrays him. As the holidays approach, can they overcome a lack of trust to find their Christmas miracle?

About Margo Hoornstra

Like many writers, it’s hard to determine exactly when my fiction writing career began. I remember composing a short story in grade school (I have no idea about what) which was chosen for publication in an all school anthology. A journalism class taken in junior high school led to a job on the school newspaper and a weekly column.

I always loved reading. I loved writing too. Someday, I thought, maybe when I grew up and received the right training, I could actually write a book. After all, I was often told, laughingly most times, I had an extremely vivid imagination.

Through the years, the desire to write was always there. I had so many ideas and characters roaming around in my head, so many stories. But the business of living—going to college, getting married then raising a family—took precedence over something as frivolous as writing a book.

Then one day out of the blue I was downsized—effective immediately—from a job I’d held for over thirty years. What seemed so unfair at the time, I now recognize the tremendous gift I was given that day. As I’m now able to spend more and more time doing what I love—writing romantic fiction—I find I really do have an abundance of stories to share.

Margo’s Website | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Goodreads | Amazon
Buy Link: Amazon
Genre: Contemporary Romance – Anthology
Release Date: August 11, 2014
Length: 427 Pages

Excerpt from Three Strikes Thursday

The solution was simple. Get out of the car, walk up to the house and ring the bell. Apologize for the intrusion when her father came to the door, and ask to see Amanda.

Only for a couple of minutes. Please.

Then he could fall all over himself telling her how sorry he was.

“Yeah that’s gonna fly.” His whisper filled the emptiness around him, and he dropped his head. “Face it, asshole. You blew it.”

In an odd way, talking to himself, he didn’t feel quite so alone.

He turned his gaze back to stare at Amanda’s window. The shade was still down. Her light was out.

So that was it.

Moving like a rigid, soulless robot, Barry put the car in gear and drove slowly away. Picking up speed as he left Amanda’s subdivision, he floored it once he hit the highway. With the windows down, the warm night air cooled as it roared around him.

He flicked the headlights on high. Their beams lit up the trees, telephone poles and bushes as they whizzed by. Nothing could stop him as long as he kept his foot down hard on the gas pedal. Then something did.

Pulling to one side of the deserted road, he jammed the gear shift into park, jumped out, ran around to the back bumper, bent over.

And puked his guts out onto the warm asphalt.

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Blog Tour: A Life Less Ordinary by Victoria Bernadine

Today is a break from mystery and into chick lit/contemporary fiction.  I'd like to welcome Victoria Bernadine who has provided a guest post on editing and how hard it is for an author...

The Cutting Room Floor

Good morning!  Thanks for hosting me today!

One of the hardest things I have to do is edit a book I’ve written.  Other people’s work – no problem!  I love telling other people what to do – LOL.  My own work, though?  A wee bit of a struggle.

Of course, the editing I’m talking about here isn’t the basic stuff:  spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  I’m talking about that edit where you read the book as a reader and not as a creator.

This is the point in the process when I read the book with an extremely critical eye, and assess each scene and character to determine if they actually serve a purpose in the story.  It’s the point where I have to determine the story I really want to tell, and let everything else go.

The end result is, I hope, a better story, but the number of things I’ve had to leave on the cutting room floor over the years is rather heartbreaking, and proof I’m far too easily distracted by shiny things.

A Life Less Ordinary is a prime example of this.

In my first (still incomplete) draft of the book, every person Manny and Zeke meet on their trip had a backstory that was explored in some depth.  They all had their own hopes, dreams and purposes in life.  I was passionately in love with all of them.  They made me laugh, they made me cry, and they made me want to hug them and tell them everything was going to be okay.

But then I put on my Reader Hat, and realized the story I really wanted to tell came to a screeching halt every time I delved too deeply into these minor characters.

I struggled against it, but in the end, I had no choice but to take out my editing scissors and leave these mini-plots on the cutting room floor.  I know the story is better for it, and the characters are still in the book, although not as extensively, and I continue to love them passionately…but I do still mourn those scenes.  Just a little.

How about you and your readers?  Are there scenes or characters you wish you’d kept?  Are there books you’ve read where a Reader Hat edit would have been helpful?

About Victoria:
Victoria Bernadine (a pseudonym) is, as the saying goes, a “woman of a certain age”. After twenty-something years of writer’s block, she began writing again in 2008. Victoria enjoys reading all genres and particularly loves writing romantic comedy and post-apocalyptic science fiction. What those two have in common is anybody’s guess. She lives in Edmonton with her two cats (The Grunt and The Runt). A Life Less Ordinary is the first novel she felt was good enough to be released into the wild.




Review:
This is Bernadine's first book and she is off to a great start.  A story of a woman deciding to change her life, Bernadine has created complicated characters with unique personalities.  Manny is likable, a little naive, and the road trip she designs is definitely outside her comfort zone.  Zeke, the blogger who forgets to mention to Manny that he is blogging the whole trip and her reactions, is quite the opposite. While they are the focus of the trip, along with Harvey, many other subplots add to the story.


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