A Home for Christmas

I am pleased to annouce that I am geering up for the November 2009 release of A Home for Christmas. I have heard from a number of readers who enjoyed Only You who are as anxious as I am for this book's release.

The cover is gorgeous. My fabulous cover designer, Debra Dixon at Belle Books, once again did an amazing job! I just proofed the gallies and sent them off to my editors, so everything is on schedule.

Also, I just updated my website. I change the color to match with the cover for A Home for Christmas. So, be sure to stop by and let me know what you think about the new look. I posted an excerpt from Chapter One which I will post here as well. To further whet your appetite, if you email a request to dgracestaley@aol.com, I will send you a look at the rest of the first chapter:)

Here's the excerpt for Chapter 1 of A Home for Christmas:

Available November 2009
in Trade Paperback and in E-Format***ISBN 978-0-9821756-7-5

A Home for Christmas

The Second Angel Ridge Novel

by Deborah Grace Staley

© 2009 Deborah Grace StaleyAll Rights Reserved

Chapter One

They say you can never go home.

Janice Thornton glided up to the curb in front of the old two-story Victorian and killed the engine. It looked much the same—gingerbread trim in the eaves, wide wraparound porch with wicker furniture. The house was huge, but in the short time she spent here as a child, it had felt cozy to her.

Sitting here looking at it through adult eyes, she realized the appeal had never been the house itself, but the home her grandparents had made in it. Their house had been her ideal of what a home should be. A home she'd longed for as a child. A home she'd never had with her own parents.

Janice slid her sunglasses off and laid them in the empty passenger seat next to her. She always got sentimental around the holidays. She didn't know why. Her formative years had been spent at exclusive boarding schools. Christmases always involved a trip, either with her parents, or more often, with school friends. Each year, her grandmother had invited her to spend Christmas break in Angel Ridge, but her mother wouldn't hear of such a thing. She'd always been embarrassed by her humble roots and didn't want her daughter revisiting them.

Janice hadn't been in Angel Ridge, Tennessee since she'd gone behind her parents' backs and borrowed a friend's car when she was sixteen to come during her spring break. It hadn't changed much. Tall, old houses lined one side of a street that ran high above the Tellassee River, with church steeples just visible a few blocks over. It was a sleepy little town that time seemed to have forgotten, but for some reason, it burned in Janice's memory like a warm, inviting fire on a cold winter morning.

A movement in her peripheral vision made her refocus on the old Victorian. She noticed that a man had appeared from behind the house carrying a ladder. The sun glinted off a pile of tangled Christmas lights, bunched near the steps of the porch, drawing her attention. Janice smiled. She was glad to see that this man, whoever he was, continued her grandfather's tradition of decking the house out in grand style for Christmas.

The man leaned the ladder against the house. As he turned toward the mound of lights, he noticed her and smiled. Her breath caught and hung inside her chest. It was an easy smile, full of good humor that enticed a person to come sit a spell on the porch and enjoy the unseasonably warm, late autumn sunshine.

Tall and lean with whipcord muscles, he wore faded and well-worn jeans with a T-shirt that looked like it had once been black, but now was more a soft charcoal dotted with paint stains. A tan leather tool belt slung low across his narrow hips. A lock of thick, dark hair fell across his tanned forehead as he bent to retrieve the lights.

Janice shifted and the leather seat creaked. A sheen of sweat misted her forehead, and she cracked the window.

What must the home's owner be thinking? But he acted as if seeing a strange woman in a new silver BMW parked outside his home was an every Saturday morning occurrence. He turned, and without giving her a second glance, started up the ladder. Stopping about eight rungs up, he leaned to his right, toward one of the bay windows on the ground floor. Shifting the lights to his other hand, he reached out to pull at something above the window. He teetered. One foot went up in the air as he tried to shift back to find his balance. But the ladder tipped sideways with the movement, and Janice watched in horrified disbelief as he began to fall.

Years of medical school, emergency room rotations, residency, and private practice had honed her instincts so that she didn't even give it a conscious thought. She was out of her car and at his side almost before he hit the boxwoods and rolled to the ground.

"Ah, jeez…" he groaned.

Janice had already clicked into professional mode. "Don't worry, I'm a doctor. Try not to move." She ran her hands down his arms, checking for broken bones. "Where does it hurt?"

The man chuckled. It was a low rumble that had a crazy effect on her. And that smile…it should be registered as a lethal weapon.

"If I said everywhere, would you keep doing that?"

Order Now from http://www.bellbridgebooks.com/

FOLLOW MY BLOG!

It saddens me to say that the Angel Ridge Blog has no followers! I promise to post more cool stuff her about the series, but I need followers. So, what are you waiting for? Follow this blog and tell all your friends about it so they can follow, too!

All the best,

Deborah Grace Staley

Re: First Only You Event More to Come

I had the first event for the release of Only You last weekend. I appeared at the Knoxville Christian Center Funfest May 29-31 to promote and autograph Only You, An Angel Ridge Novel.

I met some great people! Lots of fun was had by all. Proceeds went to support KCC's Bible School this week.

Saturday, June 6, we will be celebrating the release of Only You with the Big Hats & Sweet Tea Debut Party at Beech Grove Church, 1519 Topside Rd., Louisville, TN. The event is hosted by Janene Satterfield and Donna Gennoe. This is a southern tea part on the lawn. Guests are encouraged to wear hats! Books will be sold, and I will be available to autograph. There will also be refreshments and giveaways.

Join us! And if you can't, check back next week for pictures.

DGS

Blogging

I have been blogging to promote the release of Only You, an Angel Ridge novel, now available for order form www.bellbridgebooks.com and at www.amazon.com. I had a particularly lively discussion led by Dixie Ferguson, the proprietor of Ferguson's Diner in Angel Ridge last week, so I thought I would post that blog here to see if we can keep the discussion going.

Here it is.

Enjoy!

DGS

Hey, ya’ll! Dixie Ferguson here. I’m sitting in for Deb Staley, aka Deborah Grace Staley, who will likely stop by later today. I run Ferguson’s Diner in Angel Ridge, Tennessee, which is featured in Deb’s new Bell Bridge Books release, Only You.

First, I’ll tell you a little bit about our corner of the world, just to get you acclimated, and then I’ll mostly be talking about what it’s like living in a small southern town like Angel Ridge.
Angel Ridge is a picturesque town in East Tennessee, established in 1785. It overlooks the valley of the Little Tennessee River. This town’s seen a lot over the years. In the early days, its first families staked their claims on hundreds of acres along the banks of the river. Some built their homes along the riverbank, others operated more modest farms on the backside of the ridge, while others were content to build modest homes in the town that developed high up on the ridge where they’d be safe from the river’s flooding.

Long story short, the Flood Control Board came along in the 1970s and built a dam upriver, making a new lake and taking all the homes in the valley. Some called these stately homes relics of a bygone era, but regardless of how you might see it, these folks elbowed their way into our sleepy town and commenced to attempting to take over the running of Angel Ridge. I say “attempting” because some of us up here don’t take to being told how to live our lives. We’re more in favor of moving beyond old hurts to create a new generation in Angel Ridge made strong because of their roots, yet free of its past.

After all the years I've spent behind the counter at Ferguson's, I could probably tell ya'll a story about near everyone in town. In Only You, we’ll focus on Josie Allen and Cole Craig. This is a story about coming home. It's also a story about acceptin' folks for who they are. You could say it's a story about a librarian and a handyman, but I say it's a story about finding love where you'd least expect to. Ya know, those kinds of things always seem to happen when you open up your heart to possibilities. Of course, a little help from our hometown angels and yours truly don't hurt none either!

Now, let’s see . . . Where was I? Oh, yes. Life in a small southern town. Some believe a woman should be seen and not heard. That comes from our Baptist roots, but I say that’s a bunch of hooey. After all, the first folks to preach the gospel were Mary and Margaret who went to the tomb and found Jesus had risen. If they’d kept quiet, the disciples would have gone right on crying in their grape juice in the upper room. So, following in that tradition, you can always count on me or any other good southern woman who’s worth her salt to speak their mind!

Case in point, a woman should wear a hat to church, particularly on high holy days like Easter and Christmas. I sing in the choir down to the Baptist church in town. I point that out because there is one other church sitting at the end of Main Street, and that’s First Presbyterian. They have dances and socials in their fellowship hall where folks have been known to share a glass of wine. Of course, at the Baptist church, there’s none of that foolishness going on, but we have been know to get a little charismatic in church services saying, “Amen,” when Preacher Strong makes a good point that someone in the congregation needs to take to heart (and they know who they are), or the raising of hands when the choir sings a good song that touches you.

But I digress. One Easter Sunday morning a few years back, I busted up into the choir room of the First Baptist church sporting a mighty fine Easter hat as is my habit on Easter Sunday Morning because Jesus don’t like it when ladies don’t wear a hat on Easter Sunday! I put on my choir robe and sat down as we waited to have Brother Sam, our fine music minister, take us through a rousing rendition of “He Arose” which we were starting the service with.
I was sitting there chatting with Ella Clayman, minding my own business, when Sadie Watts, God love her, called to me from the back of the room, “Dixie!” in that clipped little voice of hers that sets your teeth on edge. “Dixie!” she said, “You are wearing a hat!”

I turned, smiled, and said, “Yeah,” because it was clear for anyone to see that I was indeed wearing a hat, and it was fabulous if I do say so myself, and I do. Peacock blue with yellow flowers to match my yellow dress. The shoes, of course, were also peacock blue. But again, I digress.

“Dixie!” Sadie called again from the back of the room. “You are not wearing that hat!”
To which I replied, “Yeah,” because I most certainly was wearing that hat, and very well I might add. Jesus was very pleased.

“Dix-ie!” Sadie called, a little louder this time. “You-are-NOT-wearing-that-hat!”
To which I replied, once again, “Yeah,” because I most certainly was wearing that hat, as I had previously stated.

I turned back to continue my pleasant conversation with Ella. Well, about that time, there was a commotion in the back of the choir room. Everybody turned to see Sadie huffing and puffing out of the choir room, her robe flapping the breeze. Well, I say good riddance.

I proceeded to Easter Sunday morning service wearing my hat with my choir robe. I looked fabulous and the choir sounded even better. I think we always sound better on Resurrection Day and Jesus' Birthday, but you know that wasn’t the end of it. No. Sadie called a meeting on Monday morning with the pastor, the music minister, and the chairman of the deacons, who just happened to be her husband.

Next thing I knew, I was called into a meeting with the music minister and told that henceforth and forever more, ladies would not be permitted to wear hats with their choir robes. To which I replied, “You know, Jesus don’t like it when ladies aren’t permitted to wear hats in his house on Resurrection Day. And besides, how can a person be expected to properly hoop and holler if they can’t throw their hat in the air?” One never knows in a good Baptist church when such an occasion might arise.

But to no avail. Brother Sam was out-voted 2-1. So, I guess I’ll have to sing in the choir without my choir robe when I choose to wear a hat, which I might add, is often because I do love how a fine hat sets off a fabulous outfit!

Which brings me to my next point. Southern women are born with steel in their spines. They may look and speak like the soft, snowy white, sweet-smellin’ magnolia blossoms growing on our centuries old trees, but looks are deceivin’.

Thank you for visiting with us on the High Hats and Sweet Tea Blog tour. We’ll be here all day talking about Deborah Grace Staley’s novel, Only You, and dispensin’ southern wisdom.
Ya’ll take care now!

Dixie Ferguson