Boxed set: Invincible Dreams
Participating Authors:
Tamara Ferguson
Jen Talty
Denise Devine
Natalie Ann
Stacy Eaton
Nancy Radke
Jennifer St. Giles
Suzanne Jenkins
INVINCIBLE DREAMS – 99 cents on Kindle and available on KU. Pre-order now!
EIGHT STORIES (3 new) From USA Today Bestselling, Award-Winning Authors!
Freedom has a price, and sometimes the past and present collide. Our heroines are determined to reach the goals they’ve set for themselves and fight for their dreams to come true. It might require them to start over, forge a new path, or even change directions along the way. Sometimes they might get more than they’ve bargained for…
RESTORATION (New): Tamara Ferguson, USA Today Bestselling Author
AFTER THE FIRE (New): Jen Talty, USA Today Bestselling Author
GUARDING THE BOOTLEGGER’S WIDOW (New): Denise Devine, USA Today Bestselling Author
ALL THE WAY: Natalie Ann, USA Today Bestselling Author
YOU’RE NOT ALONE: Stacy Eaton, USA Today Bestselling Author
THE SUNNIEST GAL FROM TENNESSEE: Nancy Radke, USA Today Bestselling Author
THE MISTRESS OF TREVELYAN: Jennifer St. Giles, USA Today Bestselling Author
FRIENDS TO LOVERS: Suzanne Jenkins, USA Today Bestselling Author
Blurb for Denise Devine’s story, Guarding the Bootlegger’s Widow:
It’s 1926 in St. Paul, Minnesota and Prohibition is in full swing. A woman can vote, work full time, show her legs in public and cut her hair but she can’t enter a speakeasy without a man by her side…
Charlotte LeDoux is struggling to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Her late husband, Gus, has left her a lot to deal with—his sprawling business empire, his enemies and an ex-mistress who desperately needs a friend. It’s tough for a woman to compete in a man’s world and even though it’s a never-ending uphill battle, she is determined to succeed.
Char gets a new Model T and is excited when William Van Elsberg offers to give her a driving lesson. She’s attracted to the handsome private detective, who, in many ways, is the polar opposite of Gus. Will takes her out for a spin in the car and instructs her how to drive, but at the same time, teaches her how to love again. She’s never been so happy!
Meanwhile, Gus’ enemies are circling like vultures. An anonymous note threatening Char’s life forces Will to become her personal bodyguard. He’s highly qualified, but Char’s stubborn belief in her own independence makes it the most difficult job he’s ever taken. Can he keep her safe or will he lose her in the most dangerous fight of her life?
Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088C3L5JD
Excerpt:
Prologue
According to the gossip on the streets of St. Paul, my late husband was a man of many secrets. One of the most widely spread stories I found intriguing, but also amusing, involved a secluded hideout where he supposedly had a wall literally lined with stacks of cash. If he did, Gus had taken this information to the grave because he’d never shared it with me.
Gus had been a bootlegger who’d made his fortune running “Minnesota 13,” the Dom Perignon of bootlegged whiskey from two Minnesota counties—Stearns and Morrison—to distributors in the Dakotas and Chicago. Ruthless and powerful, “Lucky” Gus LeDoux had earned an unfathomable amount of money and gained a notorious reputation, but made permanent enemies along the way. I always knew someday he’d die a violent death. I just never envisioned it would be by my hand.
I hadn’t planned to shoot my husband; I’d acted purely in self-defense. It did no good to dwell on it, but the memory of that horrific, life-altering day still haunted me…
Desperate to escape his life of crime, I’d run away from my husband and found refuge working as a domestic servant in the home of a private investigator. Gus eventually found out and stormed my place of work, forcing me to leave with him. As Federal agents surrounded the area, two men tried to apprehend him and he gunned them down—while I helplessly watched. My husband had a reputation for brutality, but to witness it firsthand horrified me and caused me to fear for not only my own safety, but also the well-being of my unborn child. I refused to go on and told Gus I wanted nothing more to do with him. He roared that if he couldn’t have me, no one would, and he tried to choke me.
Determined to save my baby, I grabbed his gun. We struggled. The gun went off. The memory of that deadly, piercing sound still left me numb; a stark reminder that my son, now three and a half months old, would never know his father. And I was to blame.
Only one other person saw what happened, but I knew Will Van Elsberg would never divulge my secret to anyone. To rescue me from the fray, he had lifted me in his arms and carried me to a secure place to keep me safe, proving himself to be the only true hero I’d ever known.
The events of that dark, rainy afternoon altered my life forever. As Gus’ widow, I inherited a fortune and became the sole parent to my newborn son. Though I was on my own for the first time in my life, I felt safe. I was free.
Then fate pulled me back to the dark side of Gus’ world, the most dangerous place I could be.
~*~
Author Questions:
NA; How did you come up with an idea for your book?
DD: I grew up listening to my grandmother talk about the 1920s. She was born in 1902 so she was eighteen at the time the Roaring Twenties began. She wore a flapper haircut with Marcel waves all her life and favored jewelry from the twenties. When the 20s trend started to become popular in the romance and mystery genres, I decided it was time to write my story.
NA; What sort of research did you do to write this book?
DD: The book takes place in Minnesota in the mid-twenties, so I wanted to write about Prohibition and the Roaring 20s from a local perspective. The Minnesota Historical Society had a number of really good books on the subject by local historians. Interestingly, I found that moonshiners in Minnesota made a high-grade bootlegged whiskey called “Minnesota 13” that was better quality than many of the commercial brands at the time!
NA; A fun fact about writing your book.
DD: The names of the two main characters—Charlotte Esther LeDoux and William Charles Van Elsberg are my grandparents’ names. LeDoux is Charlotte’s married name in the book (and her maiden name is Johnson). My grandmother’s correct maiden name was Charlotte Esther Smith before she married Will Van Elsberg. And if you’re wondering—the personalities of these characters are my own creation.
NA; What started you on the path to writing?
DD: As I indicated in my bio, I’ve had a passion for books since I learned to read. Little House in the Big Woods was the first book I read that I couldn’t put down. Growing up, I always thought you had to be rich and connected to publish books (got this impression from TV), but when I was thirteen, my family took a train trip out to Oregon and I found out that my cousin was writing a mystery with her friend. That gave me a new perspective on the idea and I wrote my first story in a notebook on the train on the way home. I still have that story locked away in my hope chest.
NA; What do your friends and family think about your being a writer?
DD: My non-writing friends think it’s fascinating. My family is so used to it, they pretty much ignore it. One of my brothers, however, reads every book I write and is always asking when the next one will be finished. I dedicated one of my books to him.
NA; The biggest surprise you had after becoming a writer.
DD: I had no idea there were so many people writing books—especially romance. I didn’t learn this until my husband showed me an article in the Sunday paper (back in the late 80s) about Romance Writers of America holding a conference in Minnesota at the Mall of America. Unfortunately, this was after the conference happened. The internet wasn’t available yet and the journalist who wrote the article didn’t give any contact information for how to join. I didn’t find a local chapter of RWA in Minnesota until 1991. I found so many new friends through that chapter that I still hang out with today.
NA; Do you outline books ahead of time or are you more of a by-the-seat-of-your-pants writer?
DD: Yes, I do! I need to know what my main characters want, why, and what’s keeping them from it otherwise I find myself in a corner eventually and don’t know how to get out of it. I start every book the old-fashioned way with a pencil and a cheap wire-bound notebook. I start scribbling pages of notes until I get so many I have to reorganize them in a Word doc. That’s when the outline starts to take shape and I can see what’s missing. I always know the beginning and end of every story before I start plotting.
NA; What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
DD: My husband is a travel agent so you know what I like to do best! I’ve been all over the world. When I’m home I love to garden, sew, read, go to movies and have lunch with writing friends.
NA; A pet peeve.
DD: People who think writing is easy. Everybody wants to write a book but very few people have a clue what that entails. My biggest pet peeve are self-published authors who don’t research the market at all and don’t have a single clue how to market their books because they don’t bother to find out.
NA; What errand/chore do you despise the most?
DD: Making supper every night! I hate having to stop what I’m doing and figure out what to cook.
NA; Strangest place you’ve brushed your teeth?
DD: Not really strange but totally fascinating. I stayed in a hotel in Egypt that was nearly walking distance of the pyramids at Giza and it used to be the hunting lodge of a former Arab prince. The architecture absolutely blew me away.
NA; What are you working on now?
DD: I’m starting a new small-town series called West Loon Bay and book one is called Small Town Girl. Growing up, I lived in small Minnesota towns for 5 years. My husband was born and raised in a small town and his family still lives there so I have a pretty good handle on the daily life of rural Minnesota. West Loon Bay is a tourist town on Lake Tremolo (resorts, golf and fishing) so there is always a lot going on.
NA; What question didn’t we ask that you’d like to answer?
DD: What I write specifically. I write sweet books, and by “sweet” I mean no profanity or onscreen sex, but there is plenty of conflict in the relationship. I also write romance, romantic comedy, romantic suspense, historical suspense and cozy mystery. I also have one inspirational romance. I have a private group on Facebook that I host with Raine English called Happily Ever After Stories – Sweet Romance. It’s a fun group with no controversial stuff ever, but we do have fun FB parties
About the Author
Denise Devine is a USA Today bestselling author who has had a passion for books since the second grade when she discovered Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She wrote her first book, a mystery, at age thirteen and has been writing ever since. She loves all animals, especially dogs, cats and horses, and they often find their way into her books.
She has written twelve books, including books in the Beach Brides Series, The Perfect Match Series and the Hawaiian Holiday Series. Her books have hit the Top 100 Bestseller list on Amazon and she has been listed on Amazon’s Top 100 Authors.
If you’d like to know more about her, visit her website at:
https://www.deniseannettedevine.com
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