Dear Reader,
Please welcome today's guest author Amelia Grey. She has published 18 Regency romances. Amelia's books are most frequently described as witty and delightful with heart-stealing characters. She's currently finishing a trilogy about three young widows who made their own way in life without husbands, until they meet that special man. The current release Gone with the Rogue is the second book in her First Comes Love series.
Amelia is giving away three signed, print copies of her first book The Earl Next Door. Email her at ameliagrey@comcast.net for a chance to win a copy.
Growing up, I always wanted my own room. I come from a family of seven siblings. A true middle child, I like to say. Two sisters and a brother older, and two sisters and a brother younger than me. Add my parents to that number and a three-bedroom house with one bath and it equals enough life experiences to fill a book--or several.
One of the documented and accepted traits of a middle child is that they feel left out. You would think that in a family with nine people one of us would get lost, but not in our brood. There was always someone who knew where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing. No secrets in our family. Seven kids shared two bedrooms with bunkbeds, so if you wanted to be alone, you had to be the first one up in the morning or the last one to go to bed at night. Other than those times, you were out of luck.
It wasn't all bad. Having no time to yourself meant there was always someone to play with, talk to, or argue with. We never had to walk to school or church by ourselves or sleep alone after watching a scary movie. We had someone to help with homework, housework, a bully at school, or our first broken heart. We had fun together playing outside, spraying each other with the water hose in the heat of summer, romping through a pile of colorful leaves in autumn, and skidding on traces of icy frost in the chill of winter.
Another middle child trait is that they are never the favorite. Life was too busy for my parents to have darlings, but they had rules and discipline for those of us who broke them. Which we did. Occasionally. But punishment was never that we had to eat everything on our plates. If we didn't want it, no problem. Someone around the dinner table was happy to finish it for us--except maybe boiled okra.
On Saturdays our parents would load us in the car, putting two kids between them on the bench seat up front and stuffing the other five of us in the rear. Seatbelt laws weren't enforced back then. In an hour, we'd be having a picnic of fried chicken and potato salad, and frolicking in the emerald-tinged waters of the Gulf Coast.
I never felt the angst of a middle child growing up, and now I'm glad I didn't have a room of my own. I enjoy memories of my childhood. That must be the reason I write children, and brothers and sisters in most of my books. I know a lot about them, and I have a lot of stories to tell.
-- Amelia Grey
Email me to be entered in the drawing to win a copy of my book, The Earl Next Door, ameliagrey@comcast.net.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
AUTHORBUZZ: Click here to discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.
THE HEIRLOOM GARDEN (Fiction) by Viola Shipman
Does your garden tell a story? Mine does. And it's the inspiration behind my new novel which explores the unlikely relationship between two very different women brought together by the pain of war, but bonded by hope, purpose--and flowers. If you love gardening, multi-generational sagas filled with hope and history, or just adore books and flowers, my new novel is the spring "pick" for you!
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on THE HEIRLOOM GARDEN to read more and to email author Viola Shipman, you'll get a reply.
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