Tuesday, April 7, 2015

She Hates Him. He Loves Her Not.



"Stayed up past midnight to finish it... read all 4 books in 3 days... really enjoyed them... How fast can you finish the next one?"

Readers around the world are singing the theme song from the old Green Acres sit-com. Okay, you might have to remember North American TV in the late 1960s to get the reference.

Listen to the theme song here.

The Farm Fresh Romance series features the adventures—romantic and otherwise—of three young women who buy Green Acres Farm together with the purpose of growing their own food and proving to the world they can live sustainably.

Each of the three original heroines needed her own personality, background, career, and reasons for moving to the farm. This meant that each hero needed to be equally unique.

It can be a temptation for an author to keep recreating his or her favorite combination of characters, but it's more fun to stretch a little. When I expanded the series to six books, I needed three new couples.

Dandelions for Dinner features Allison, a woman who has every reason to distrust and even hate men. She's attracted to Green Acres because of the friendship of the three women who started it all, and is certain that sooner or later all those marriages will fall apart because, in her experience, all men are users and players.

What kind of hero is going to win the heart of a woman like Allison? She's hard. She's paranoid. You could argue that a sweet Christian man could love her and wear her by displaying the love of Jesus over a period of time. I didn't think that was going to cut it for Allison.

Instead, I brought Brent into her life, a contractor to build her house on the farm. Brent has a past of his own he'd rather not remember. A man convinced he'll never marry because he can't inflict his history on a good woman… and he's done with the other kind.

Still, I needed a catalyst. Without some intervention, Allison and Brent were going to keep fighting (oh, I had fun with those fights!) until her house was complete and he'd moved on to his next build. And so I gave her custody of her young nephew when the child's mother was arrested for drug trafficking. It's not beyond Allison's comprehension that a boy will grow up to be a man. And all men are nasty. So even she wonders why she steps in to protect this vulnerable child.

She hates him. He loves her not.

Men are weeds. Allison Hart doesn't need them in her carefully tended life, though her friends at Green Acres seem happy with their guys. Why can't Allison open her heart to anyone but her young nephew? Then again, he'll be a man one day, too. If only the irritating contractor in charge of building her home and farm school wasn't the boy's favorite person.

Fireworks with Brent Callahan's newest client shift from antagonism to the rocky possibility of a relationship. When he comes face to face with a history he'd much rather forget, he realizes hiding his failures isn't the best option for finding forgiveness, let alone love.

Can a little boy help weed out the past before it chokes their future together?



Today is release day for Pinky Promise, my springtime Riverbend Romance novella. Only 99 cents on Amazon, or free to borrow if you have Kindle Unlimited.

I had a lot of fun with this story, and I hope you enjoy it.

Valerie Comer's life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local food movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.

Valerie writes Farm Lit where food meets faith, injecting experience laced with humor into her stories. Her debut novel, Raspberries and Vinegar: A Farm Fresh Romance, was awarded Best Contemporary Romance published in 2013 by The Word Guild.


3 comments:

  1. Hi Valerie,
    I've read half of your great series, and look forward to reading the others. Enjoying the different couples.

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    1. Thank you, Paula! I've had great fun with this series :)

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  2. Hi Valerie, The story premise sounds fascinating and I'm looking forward to reading this one :)

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