I'm so pleased that Sarah agreed to drop in for a visit here at my place. Sarah Ballance is a talented author who amazes me. She juggles a husband, six children, and a writing career while maintaining a killer sense of humor. I read her novella HAWTHORNE last weekend and loved it. Something about it reminded me of Wuthering Heights and all the reasons why I fell in love with romance as a teenager.
So, I'd like for you to meet Sarah Ballance.
Brinda: Sarah, I'd love to know about Hawthorne and how you ended up doing it for charity.
Sarah: It's probably not in a person's best interest to go around making public confessions about things which cast them in an unfavorable light, but I'm a bit of an nonconformist, so why the heck not? Besides, I like the looks of you people. (Well, most of you. I've got my feet on the coffee table and I just used all the creamer in my coffee, which might explain that look on Brinda's face. But I digress.)
Back to my confession. Truth is, I really didn't want to write
HAWTHORNE. And by really, I mean
really. But my pal Elaina Lee—who just so happened to be my cover artist—just kind of stared at me. I blinked first. She won. I was in it for charity.
Sort of. Because while I knew the proceeds from the sale of whatever-the-heck-I-was-gonna-write would benefit Japan earthquake and tsunami victims, I had no earthy idea what I was doing. I'd written precisely two works of fiction in my adult life (I'm 16 years out of high school) and neither of them were short. So what, you say? Shorter equals easier? Nuh-uh. Writing a novella, it turns out, just
reeks of what-was-I-thinking.
You see, in the space of a 10k novella, I needed to create characters readers with whom readers would connect. I needed a plot with substance, but not so much that it couldn't reach a satisfactory conclusion in just forty pages. I needed … a drink. And over said drink, I discussed my plot woes with my husband. "Make it a ghost story," he says. Freaking brilliant. I've only been writing for a couple of years, but I've always been fascinated with ghosts (they, at times, equally fascinated with me.) That idea led to another, and pretty soon the two of us had the entire plot hammered down.
It was a thing of beauty, y'all. The words that would become
HAWTHORNE flew, and I managed to sub just hours before the deadline. It was Memorial Day, in fact, and exactly ten hours and eight minutes after sending off my submission, I had a contract.
Just, wow.
The feeling lingering with those first moments of acceptance and accomplishment have yet to wear off. The praise for
HAWTHORNE keeps coming, and darn if I didn't make up to #51 in paid Kindle ghost stories on Amazon, besting the original Frankenstein for a few precious hours. (Thanks to the power of a screenshot, this moment has been preserved for all eternity.)
Now I feel like a heel for resisting this good deed with such might, but I hope you guys will be an easier "sell." Proceeds from
HAWTHORNE will be forwarded directly to the publisher to benefit disaster relief, so in light of that bit of news I do hope you'll consider grabbing a copy of your own. I hear the story is a good one (*grin*) but here's what's important: Your dollar will go to someone who really needs it. The story is just the gravy.
And don't look now, but I think I just spilled some on Brinda's couch.
HAWTHORNE is a sweet romance / mystery with content suitable for most audiences. HAWTHORNE blurb After a terrifying encounter with the unexplained, it took ten years and the news of her grandmother’s passing for Emma Grace Hawthorne to return to her childhood home. She sought peace in saying a proper goodbye, but what she found was an old love, a sordid family history, and a wrong only she could right.
Living in the shadow of Hawthorne Manor, Noah Garrett never forgot about Emma Grace. In a house full of secrets, his search for missing documents revealed a truth that could cost him everything. What he found gave Emma the freedom to walk away from the mansion, her heart free and clear, but at what price to Noah?
BUY LINK KINDLE NOOK HAWTHORNE excerpt Chapter One The car slowed to a stop and a decade's worth of memories tumbled onto the sun-blanched asphalt.
Hawthorne Manor.
The hand-painted sign hadn't changed in years. In the thick, damp air filling the Louisiana landscape, the wood display remain inexplicably unaffected. There it sat—every meticulously scripted letter as crisp and clean as the stark white walls of the manor it lauded, oblivious to the passage of time.
Emma Hawthorne tensed in the seat of the Mustang convertible, staring at her past with ice sluicing her spine Anywhere else, the view would have been gorgeous. The drive, lined on both sides with live oak laden with Spanish moss, was the South personified. At the end, Hawthorne Manor held court. Pristine, proud, the boastful antebellum home beamed, lording over its acreage.
But it harbored the unspeakable. No amount of time could erase what happened to her on the other side of the expanse of green lawn. Nothing could change what she'd seen there. Some might say she was crazy—that she'd imagined or invented the whole ordeal—but her scars were all the proof she needed. Whether the shadows lurking behind the façade of the picturesque plantation were real or born of an overactive imagination, there was no way she was going back into that house.
Especially not for a dead woman.
Sparing a glance in the rearview, Emma steeled herself against a trembling in her hands that threatened to overtake her body. She released a pent-up breath, her heart settling into a less acrobatic rhythm at the thought of leaving. She didn't have to stay here.
Let the South win this one. She was going home.
A split second after she decided to go, something caught her eye. She blinked, trying to see through the swaying canopy of leaves and moss, certain a figure stood atop the widow's walk straddling the roofline of the house. But no one--
Something brushed the car, rocking it. Swallowing panic, Emma tried to tear her focus from Hawthorne Manor, but fear kept her from looking anywhere else. Time and distance hadn't done her any favors; she was a fool for coming anywhere near this place, much less with the ragtop down.
The car rocked harder. The something refused to be ignored.
Fighting the grip of panic tightening her throat—fighting the ghosts of her past—Emma forced herself to look away from the house, toward the intrusion over her left shoulder.
The first thing she saw was an aged set of gnarled fingers resting on the door, blue automotive paint showing through an ugly translucence.
The second was the face—withered, centurion, and expressionless. Haunting.
Familiar.
Her.
Emma screamed.
****
It couldn't be her. Noah Garrett tore down the drive, slapping through a muggy afternoon haze comprised of mosquitoes and humidity. He
couldn't know that scream, but he felt the connection the moment the sound of her fear pierced the thick air.
Emma Grace. The one reason he allowed himself to stagnate on the old plantation, long after life and reason moved on without him. Long after
she had.
A blue Mustang sat at the end of the driveway. He wondered if it could be hers—even as he knew it impossible—but she was nowhere in sight.
He slowed to a trot. The sprint left him drenched with sweat and not entirely disappointed his imagination had gotten away from him. His dream of one more chance to see Emma Grace had never included himself as a dripping mess. He wiped the moisture from his brow, fast concluding the car must belong to a tourist. They often parked at the end of the drive and took pictures of the condescending mansion most thought beautiful. He assumed the intrusion seemed small to their frequent guests, but the constant ding of the hidden bell announcing a visitor could drive a man to the edge.
As if losing Emma Grace hadn't already accomplished that.
Noah closed in on the convertible, giving the nearby grounds a cursory look. The lawn was meticulous, the beds overflowing with sprays of purple garden phlox which trailed around the bend in the road and disappeared. A riot of white and rust-red irises backed the smaller purple flowers, their leaves deep green and glossy. Overhead, Spanish moss swayed only occasionally atop a maze of live oak, more likely a result of a passing swarm of insects than an actual air current. The land was still. If there were tourists snapping photos of the historic plantation—or doing anything else—he didn't see them. But
someone had been there, the seemingly familiar scream so real.
Wasn't it always?Resigned to another night alone with his memories, Noah pivoted.
And found himself nose to nose with Emma Grace.
Astounded, he opened his mouth, then closed it. He wanted to reach for her, but his arms refused the notion; they hung uselessly by his sides, the effort futile. His mouth wasn't much on cooperation, either. Finally, he found his tongue. "Em—"
Her expression cut him off. Green eyes wide, skin pale, her small frame shaking, she spoke. "I saw her, Noah. She's back." The words, nearly soundless, seemed to catch in the thick air. Lingering. Threatening.
And ripping the heart from his chest.
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