I’m up early to get ready for the Christmas craft sale today! I’ll post this blog and go jump in the shower. Even if it rains, and that puts a damper on folks turning out for the sale, it will be fun! I always shop the other vendors, and the venue feeds us really, really well. I can’t wait for the homemade chili!
In the meantime, solve the puzzle! Then tell me whether you have any homemade holiday decorations you treasure for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
Psst! And don’t forget to head over to my Friends page on Facebook to enter the Advent contest!
The Devlins are big on Christmas. Today, the Elves on the Shelf made their appearance in our house, bringing coloring books and individual advent calendar gift boxes for the girls. So, every morning, they’ll be opening the doors of their little boxes to claim their prizes. On the night of the 5th, they’ll leave out their shoes for Santa to let them know whether they’ve been naughty or nice by leaving gifts or pieces of coal in their shoes for them the next morning. We’ll have weekend Christmas movie nights. Our decorations are all over the house. I think we have six trees, large and small, all over the place. Yeah, we go all out. Every day’s a celebration.
So, I thought it might be fun to spread the joy to you, too.
Every day, counting down to the 24th, I’ll give away a small prize on my Friends page on Facebook. If you aren’t already a friend, you can head over here to join: Delilah’s Friend Page. Be sure to comment on my daily advent posts there because I’ll be picking one commenter to receive a small simple prize. It could be one of my hand painted bookmarks, postcards, some other small artists’ card, a handmade snowman ornament, or a free book.
Be looking for those notices and be sure to comment! Good luck, and ‘Tis the Season, y’all! Let me know here if you like this idea for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
I compiled all three Triplehorn Brand books into a single volume and published the box set on November 20th! Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy!
I completed writing my standalone small-town/sci-fi/romantic comedy, Little Green Dreams (follow the link to pre-order!)! Something I’ve been thinking about writing for years. And I finally have a cover!
I began work on Malcolm (Book #10 of Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT).
I completed 4 editing projects for other authors in November.
I completed NaNoWriMo 2023!
Health-related:
I have not been exercising enough. I’ve gained weight—not saying how much! (Thanksgiving is a blessing and curse!)
Through medicines and some diet tweaking, I’ve managed to keep my blood pressure down to 135-155.
Happiness-related:
I worked on making items to sell alongside my daughter at the local Christmas craft fair!
Despite the heavy writing workload, I have managed to do some painting. Here are some examples…
December
For work-related, I plan:
To make one more pass through Little Green Dreams to find any errors I may have missed, then release it on December 12th!
To write, and hopefully publish, my next Stepbrothers Stepping Out short story—With His Fire Crew.
To complete writing Malcolm, my next Montana Bounty Hunters book!
To complete 4 editing projects in December!
For health related, I plan:
To not make promises about counting points for my Weight Watchers diet, because it’s that time of year and I know I’d be setting myself up for failure. However, I will try to make healthier choices—emphasizing no late-night snacking!
To continue to reduce salt, processed food, and incorporate foods good for blood pressure (spinach, broccoli, bananas).
To pay attention to my daily steps, trips up and down the stairs, and to incorporate some chair exercises.
To do more housework because my art room isn’t finished! Cleaning is exercise, too.
For happiness-related, I plan:
To participate in a local arts and crafts event December 2nd!
To make some last pieces of jewelry and cards for Christmas gifts!
Contest
Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier, or tell me what you plan to read in December… Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
Robert Browning wrote, “Ah, but a man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” Frances Watkins Harper’s list of accomplishments, author, poet, teacher, suffragist, reformer, and abolitionist, shows she believed that about women, too.
Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1825, Frances’ parents died when she was three. She was raised by her aunt and minister abolitionist uncle, Henrietta and William J. Watkins who had been teaching free children to read and write since 1820. No wonder activism came naturally to Frances. By the age of twenty-one, she published Forest Leaves, her first book of poetry. She produced no less than 80 poems and four novels, all of which touched on the issues of oppression she would fight against for the rest of her life.
At age twenty-six, she taught domestic science at Union Seminary in Ohio for a year then moved to Pennsylvania where she taught as well. A Maryland law threatened enslavement to any free African American who returned to the state from the North, so she remained in Pennsylvania with Mary Still and her husband William, the father of the Underground Railroad. While with them, Frances began writing poetry for anti-slavery newspapers. In 1858, she wrote one of her most celebrated poems, “Bury Me In A Free Land.” That same year, she refused to give up her seat and move to the colored section of a Philadelphia trolley.
She spoke for eight years for anti-slavery societies in the US and Canada on the issues she wrote about: racism, women’s rights, and classism. In 1859, she wrote “The Two Offers,” the first short story ever published by an African American woman and the essay “Our Greatest Want” which compared the slavery of African Americans with that of the Hebrews of the Old Testament.
In 1860, she married Fenton Harper and had one daughter, Mary, but unfortunately, became widowed four years later.
At the 1866 National Woman’s Right’s Convention, she spoke urging support for suffrage for African American women who, being Black and female, needed the vote, too. Attendees organized the American Equal Rights Organization, but a split between the members occurred over support of the 15th Amendment, which gave African American men the vote before White women. Siding with those championing the amendment, Frances helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association instead.
She spent the rest of her days working for social reform to better the lives of African Americans. She served as the vice-president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, director of the American Association of Colored Youth, and superintendent of the African American designated sections of the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Women’s Christian Temperance Unions.
The home Frances lived in from 1870 until her death in 1911 is a historic site within the National Park Service.
For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share in the comments your impression of Frances, her accomplishments and/or what you believe women should reach for.
One Breath Away
by Michal Scott
Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. She’s never been courted, cuddled or spooned, and now no man could want her, not when sexual satisfaction comes only with the thought of asphyxiation. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more. Wealthy, freeborn-Black, Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing the mysteriously exotic woman was foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex. Hope ignites along with lust until the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…
Excerpt from One Breath Away…
Arousal—fondly remembered and sorely missed—sizzled between Mary Hamilton’s well-rounded thighs. Moisture coated her nether lips and threatened to stoke the sizzle into a blaze. The sensation surprised her, as did the owner of the gaze that lit the flame.
Eban Thurman stood against an opposite wall of the town’s community hall. Although the room was wide as two barns and filled with revelers, neither the distance nor the presence of the crowd lessened the power of his gaze. He studied her with a curiosity that didn’t grope with disdain, but caressed with approval.
With respect.
This kind of appreciation was never given to women as dark and as large as she. Gratitude heated her face.
Gratitude and embarrassment. Her lavender toilet water couldn’t hide the fragrance of arousal. She shuddered with shame then glanced around. Had anyone else detected the odor? All the merrymakers seemed too caught up in the rhythmic fast fiddling and foot-stomping of Safe Haven’s seventh annual Juneteenth Revel to notice her discomfort.
In 1872 Texas who took note of a black woman who ain’t been asked to wed?
Yet Eban’s perusal said not only did he take note, but he liked what he saw.
In case you didn’t already know, I have new releases coming soon! Little Green Dreams arrives soon on December 12th (I moved the date up a week!); Malcolm on January 16th; and What Happens in Bozeman on February 20th! Malcolm is the next Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT, story, and What Happens in Bozeman is the next We Are Dead Horse, MT book. Little Green Dreams is a standalone title, for now. Depending on how readers enjoy it, there may be more stories that follow. Believe me, I have some ideas…
I hope you’re looking forward to them all and that you’ll take a moment to pre-order each one so you don’t miss them when they release! I promise there’s humor, sexiness, and small-town adventures in each.
The Gurdon Light
Central to my next release, Little Green Dreams, is a local phenomenon that occurs some 20-odd miles down the road from me called The Gurdon Light. The TV show Unsolved Mysteries even did an episode featuring the legend, which I mention in my story because it was a big deal back in the day that lent some legitimacy to the legend since they couldn’t find a scientific cause for the Light. And just so you know, I’ve seen it, too.
The Gurdon Light is Arkansas’s most famous legend. There’s a certain length of old, abandoned railroad track near Gurdon, Arkansas, where a mysterious light can be seen when you walk down the tracks. It’s a bright orb that appears to swing side to side. And it’s not shy. It appears often. Local universities have taken students out there to try to find the source of the Light, but they’ve pretty much ruled out things like swamp gas because the light doesn’t dissipate in the wind.
The legend the locals tie the Light to is a sad story. This is a snippet from the book where I explain the supposed origin of the Light:
“William McClain was a foreman working for the Missouri-Pacific railroad. Late one evening, he was finishing up when he was approached by one of his workers, Louis McBride. It was during the Depression…1931, as I recall. Times were hard, and Mr. McBride, although he had a job, wanted more hours because he needed money. The railroad had strict rules about how many hours a man could work, so Mr. McClain said he couldn’t give him any more. They got into an argument, and McBride raised his shovel and struck McClain in the head. Then he beat him to death with a spike maul—it’s a tool a railroad man uses, like a sledgehammer. It was an awful thing.”
Ever since Mr. McClain’s murder, the light appears on the tracks. Locals say it’s the railroad lantern he carried.
So, that’s the legend I piggybacked my book on. Although, I have a very different explanation for the phenomenon because, hey, I’m a storyteller and that’s what I do—I make stuff up. 🙂
Watch this very short episode from a local newscast, interviewing someone who has seen the Light.
Contest
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me about a legend from your “neck of the woods!”
Hello Delilah! Thank you for inviting me to share my new release!
When I signed up to join a box set of Christmas Market stories, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I just knew I hadn’t written anything for this Christmas this year (busy with Single Dads and Rockstars). This box set provided me with the opportunity, also, to delve back into my Love in Mission City world that I love so much. The imaginary small town is located in Southwestern British Columbia — just an hour outside Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest, although not on the Pacific directly. I love immersing myself in this small town where tolerance is the norm and people love who they love. I also adore the opportunity to bring in characters from my Love in Cedar Valley series, written under my pen name Gabbi Powell.
In my mind, these characters are real people. So, when I created Johnson and Henry, I imagined two men I would want to be friends with. The shy Henry, who makes fairy figurines, and the gregarious Johnson, who runs an apple farm and is still nursing a broken heart over his longtime partner abandoning him. I took these two men — complete opposites — and found a way to make the relationship work. This is about as close to a sweet romance as I’ve ever written (except the sex scene at the end). I wanted something soft and sweet — no angst or drama. I think I’ve delivered that with this story, and I was so thrilled to be included in the box set.
I would love to give one lucky commenter a $5 Amazon Gift Card. What’s your favorite part of the holiday season? I admit walking my dogs on a crisp night air down the main street in town and enjoying the lights. Oh, and spending time with my nieces and nephews. One randomly chose comment will win the prize.
Thanks, Delilah, for letting me visit.
Mistletoe & Markets
‘Tis the season to find trinkets, treats, and love at your favorite Christmas Market.
Will you meet someone special under the mistletoe? Is that a candy cane in Santa’s pocket or is he just happy to see you? Whether it’s the traditional markets of Europe or a small-town winter festival out of a television movie, the holiday market is the place to come together to shop, drink, and make merry. Will you find the perfect gift or the love of your life?
Grab your eggnog and cookies and join USA Today best-selling and award-winning romance authors curated by The New Romance Café as we celebrate all the things that make this a holly jolly season.
Authors: Linda G. Hill
Alexa Santi
Renee Dahlia
Sharon Michalove
Bella Paige
Jill Brashear
Lily Kindall
H. D’Agostino
Sera Taino
Harper Michaels
L.A. Remenicky
K McEvern Lestrade
Jackie Paxson
Sofia Aves
Gabbi Grey
Jewelz Baxter
Juliet Martini
Élodie Garroway
Chele MacCabe
Annee Jones
Hannah McKee
The anthology will only be available for a limited time.
Three days before Christmas last year, my husband of ten years walked out on me. It’s been a rough year picking up the pieces but now I’m selling fresh cider I make on my farm at the local Christmas Market. I’ve been welcomed into the community, and a shy man who makes the most exquisite fairy figurines catches my attention. I want to ask Henry more about his talent. Something about his artwork speaks to me and I think we might become friends. As Christmas nears, though, and we spend more time together, my feelings are growing. Can a guy with a battered heart and a shy craftsman find new hope this holiday season?
This is a 12k gay holiday romance short story with a quiet artist, a boisterous cider-maker, some nosy matchmakers, the magic of Christmas, and a zany border collie named Zeus.
About Gabbi Grey
USA Today Bestselling author Gabbi Grey lives in beautiful British Columbia where her fur baby chin-poo keeps her safe from the nasty neighborhood squirrels. Working for the government by day, she spends her early mornings writing contemporary, gay, sweet, and dark erotic BDSM romances. While she firmly believes in happy endings, she also believes in making her characters suffer before finding their true love. She also writes m/f romances as Gabbi Black and Gabbi Powell.
