Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors !
The Widow Wore Plaid has released!
This week I’m continuing snippets from The Widow Wore Plaid. It’s the sixth and final book of The Widows’ Club series and I’m truly very excited to share it with you again.
BLURB:
The Battle of Waterloo made them widows, but each has found new happiness. And Jane, Lady John Tarkington, intends to keep her freedom, even if love—and one particular gentleman—are determined to claim her heart . . .
It is a truth rarely acknowledged—at least in public—that a wealthy widow is free to pursue a great many adventures. For two years, Jane has privately enjoyed her independence. Why should she remarry, even when the gentleman proposing is as wonderful as Gareth, Lord Kinellan? She entreats him never to ask her again. But as her Widows’ Club friends—now all joyfully remarried—gather at Castle Kinellan, Jane begins to wonder if stubbornness has led her to make a terrible mistake . . .
Kinellan needs a wife to give him an heir, and he wants that wife to be Jane. They are perfect together in every way, yet she continually refuses him. Just as he is on the point of convincing her, a series of accidents befall Gareth and point to an enemy in their midst. He has promised Jane a passionate future filled with devotion, but can he keep them both alive long enough to secure it?
I’m continuing on from last week’s snippet, where Kinellan has tried to allay Jane’s fears. Enjoy!
EXCERPT:
“Jane . . . come.” He put his arm around her and steered her toward the sofa.
Mopping her streaming eyes with the sleeve of her robe, she tried not to think of the muddle she’d made of her life. Despite his words just now, Kinellan must, of course, ask her to leave. If she wouldn’t budge on the marriage question, she would have to leave. He needed a wife and a legitimate heir. Two things he could not obtain if she were still underfoot.
They sat and he took her hands.
At his touch, tears pricked her eyes once more. Why did she choose this very moment to become a watering pot?
And a little more for good measure…
“Jane, I love you.”
The warmth and conviction in his voice, the loving look in his eyes completely undid her. Weeping outright for what she’d thought she’d lost, she covered her face with the folds of her robe to stem the tide. Oh, why could she not have brought a handkerchief?
Fortunately, he didn’t attempt to interfere, but waited with the patience of Job until she, with hitching sobs, could get herself in hand again.
“Better now, love?” Smiling kindly, he rubbed her back, his warm touch soothing her body and spirit.
She nodded, even though truthfully, she felt absolutely wretched.
“My love, despite what you thought you heard, I was not and would never voluntarily ask you to leave me.” He squeezed her hands, his smile broadening. “Before my fool cousin interrupted me, I believe I was about to say, I think you should give me another chance to change your mind about marrying me.”
The Widow Wore Plaid is available on Amazon, Kobo, Apple, B&N, and Google Play.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Warriors here. There’s some fantastic snippets to be read.
The Widows’ Club series
I have to admit I was surprised to discover that Alex and I met only a little over ten years ago. It really feels as though I knew her all my life, and it has been all my writing life. We both joined Chesapeake Romance Writers on the same day. I remember clearly she was sitting to my right side and when she introduced herself she said she’d been a writer twenty years before, stopped, and now wanted to restart her career as a writer. She had about ten or fifteen books that she’d written and now wanted to revise. I remember being terribly impressed by that, and I have continued to be impressed by Alex’s prowess as a writer ever since.
proud (with good reason), Between Nowhere and Lost and –. In 2018, Between Nowhere and Lost won the prestigious Maggie Award from the Georgia Romance Writers chapter of Romance Writers of America in the category Contemporary Romance (Long). And in 2019 won the James River Writers’ Best Self-Published Novel for Hitchin’.
I’m not exactly sure how or why we gravitated toward one another. We seemed to be opposite in almost every way. And maybe that’s what attracted us. That and our quirky sense of humor, one of the things we did share. I could always make her laugh and she could do the same for me. Both of our senses of humor were offbeat and dark at times, and so we naturally seemed drawn to one another. We roomed together at many conferences and writing retreats. Several years ago we began doing mini-writing retreats in January to get away and write and just enjoy one another’s company.
After this last horrific year, during which she became less and less able to do the things she loved to do, I have to be glad she is now free of pain and at peace. I have to find comfort in the thought that she’s at the Rainbow Bridge now, reunited with two of the dogs she loved most, Tucker and Digger—about whom she’d started a book called Hounded, a murder mystery that the ghosts of the two dogs solve. It is cold comfort, but it’s the best I can manage. And Alex herself would probably say, “Get over it,” with her characteristic smirk. She was one to face things head on, and I will take a page from that book of hers. Her last gift to me. But no matter what I do, for the rest of my life, Alex will be in my heart, always.
UPDATE: I’ve just put my new contemporary Christmas novella, The Present, ON SALE for .99! It’s available on 
On November 17, the Nine Ladies Dancing: Christmas Miracles anthology of Christmas novellas released and is now available on Amazon. My Christmas novella, It Happened at Christmas, is part of that nine author anthology, so you should check it out! Here’s the 
Jenna Jaxon Romance--because passion is timeless. 