The Reading Frenzy: Once Upon A Friendship Anthology Authors Blog Event to Benefit St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital Week And Challenge

To all my blogger friends I am so excited to be hosting the ten authors from Once Upon a Friendship Anthology from Monday thru Thursday of this week.

This anthology is 10 full length novels for .99 for a limited time and all proceeds go to directly to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. How cool is that!

Now For The Challenge
For every anthology purchased
I will make a matching donation to St. Jude's
Just mention in the comments section
that you bought the anthology and I'll back it up
With a donation of my own!
Thank You!

Monday's authors

Heather Burch, Cindy Kirk and Elizabeth Thompson

Hello!

Thank you so much for hosting the ONCE UPON A FRIENDSHIP authors on the blog! We are so excited to be here through January 27 and tell you about this collection of stories and why this project means so much to us.

Heather Burch, Cindy Kirk and Elizabeth Thompson (who also writes as Nancy Robards Thompson) are thrilled to kick things off.

The ONCE UPON A FRIENDSHIP anthology is a limited-edition collection of ten full-length novels by ten best-selling authors for $0.99. All of the proceeds will benefit St. Jude Children’s Research hospital.

Heather: This project was born when a few other authors I and were talking about how we’d like to do something special for our readers and make it count for a special cause.

Elizabeth: Basically, they had me at St. Jude. I love collaborating with friends and I was happy for the chance to treat our readers to something special at an affordable price, but when I learned the collection would raise money for St. Jude, I was all in.

Cindy: Same here. This project is important to me because St. Jude is a charity where the money actually flows to help the patients and their families. Unlike many others, St. Jude’s administration doesn't take a huge chunk of the money. They use donations to provide a wonderful service. As a mother and grandmother, I can't imagine anything worse than being told the child I love has cancer. St Jude's is there for those patients and their families. No family receives a bill for services rendered.

Heather: The theme of friendship runs deep in all our veins! Reaching out to our writing besties was a quick and simple plan. They all said yes, and we’ve had a blast bringing this to our readers. Simply said, if you love my books, you’ll also love Elizabeth’s. And Cindy’s. And Ashley’s. And Kellie’s. Well, you get the idea! 😊

Elizabeth: Exactly! Being able to work with my friends was an added bonus. The three of us have been friends for a long time. This project has me thinking about how the three of us met.

Cindy: Heather and I first crossed paths in the summer of 2015 in New York at the Romance Writers of America (RWA) national conference. At the time she and I were both writing for Montlake Romance. I was the President of RWA that year and one of the perks was staying in the Presidential Suite at the Marriott Marquis hotel. I decided to host a get-together of fellow Montlake authors in the suite. When Heather showed up, there was an instant connection. We've been friends ever since.

Elizabeth and I met waaaay back in 1997 at my second RWA conference (it was her first). That means this year we’ve been friends for 25 years. At the conference, we kept running into each other. Writers joke that at each conference there is always that one person you would see over and over in this sea of 2,000+ attendees. That year Elizabeth was "that one." There was an instant connection. We talked, kept in touch and have been friends ever since.

Elizabeth: That was back in the dark ages before technology made keeping in touch easy. Cindy and I used to talk on the phone and we always made a point to meet up for a meal at future conferences. Heather and I met through Cindy. At the time, we both lived in Florida and we were represented by the same literary agency and Cindy had a feeling we would hit it off. She was right.

Heather: Yes, she was. Not long after that, we decided to meet for a plotting/writing retreat. I was so overwhelmed. Kind of intimidated, even. This was a group of women who had collectedly written around 125 books! I was just beginning my career and couldn’t fathom why they picked me.

Elizabeth: When people read your work it will be clear why we chose you. Not to mention there was that certain indefinable something that made us fast friends.

Cindy: Writing is such a solitary endeavor, it makes having solid friendships all the more important. Having someone who you know will always be there through the ups and downs, who will encourage you to be your best, who likes and respects the person you are as you do them.

Heather: It’s a bond of trust, a bond of loyalty, and a bond of understanding. We may go months without speaking to each other and it's okay. We may hop on the phone once a week for several months for a quick update on what’s happening in our lives, and that’s okay too. We are all so busy, so we don’t feel slighted if one or another is silent for a while, but at the same time, we all three know we can lean on each other when writing is hard, when life is crazy and when we need a friend. We celebrate each other’s successes as if they were our own.

Cindy: If you’d like to read ten wonderful full-length novels about friendship and love written by ten best-selling authors for only $0.99…AND get the satisfaction of supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, be sure tp pick up your copy of ONCE UPON A FRIENDSHIP. It’s up for pre-order today, but it will be available tomorrow. Don’t wait too long because it will only be available until the end of the month.

Elizabeth: Please keep checking back on The Reading Frenzy because between now and Thursday, the blog will spotlight each book in the collection. Here’s more about Cindy, Heather and my stories:

One & Only You by Cindy Kirk

What’s the fun in playing it safe?

Rachel Grabinski is no stranger to setbacks, but she never stays down for long. When she catches her boyfriend in bed with another woman, her sunny and optimistic nature is sorely tried. Jumping into another relationship is the last thing on her mind.

On the surface, successful, smooth-talking Dixon Carlyle is every woman’s dream man. But Dixon’s past holds secrets, ones that could derail the life he’s been building in Hazel Green. For years he’s kept his heart safe…but that was before Rachel’s sweet nature crept under his defenses.

It’s not the right time for love for two people with wounded hearts. And trust doesn’t come easy when you’ve been burned before. The safest thing for Rachel and Dixon would be to walk away now… But what's the fun in playing it safe?

You can learn more about Cindy’s work here:
https://www.cindykirk.com/

Wishing Beach by Heather Burch

Her world is shattered, but a poignant love story from the past gives her the will to love again in this feel good must read from Amazon's #1 bestselling author of One Lavender Ribbon and In the Light of the Garden.

After a painful divorce from a narcissist, Angela Reed-Baker has taken up residence on the famous Wishing Beach Island, a destination known for granted wishes beneath the mysterious Banyan tree near her beachfront estate.

Just as Angela begins to settle in, her life takes an unlikely turn when she discovers a tattered photograph of a young woman among her groundskeeper’s belongings.

Intrigued, she asks him about the picture. With time weathered fingers and an underlying sadness in his eyes, he slips the photo from Angela and admits the girl was, “The One.”

When he refuses to reveal more, Angela digs into his past. What happened to the young woman he loved? And why does there seem to be a judicial cover-up shrouding the story of the two star-crossed lovers, a cover-up that may reach all the way to the Florida Senate.

But Angela’s journey is also one of self-reinvention as she navigates life free from the bonds of her controlling ex-husband. With her handsome neighbor and new friend, mystery novelist Ryan North by her side, Angela embarks on a voyage of discovery but the trail quickly runs cold until she's whisked away to the romantic streets of Paris, France. She realizes the bonds of love shared by her groundskeeper and the young woman run as deep as the brooding Atlantic Ocean. Along with that love are dark secrets, long hidden, but with the power to threaten life as she knows it.

You can learn more about Heather’s work here: https://www.heatherburchbooks.com/

Promise Me Provence by Elizabeth Thompson

Rita Brooks has a talent for making life beautiful for her clients in Savannah, Georgia. Never mind that her personal world is in disarray. She’s so busy she barely has time to notice…especially now that she’s landed a dream project transforming an eighteenth-century rectory in Avignon, France into an artists’ retreat. The farther away from her heartache this young widow can get, the better. The only problem is the silent partner in the venture is world-famous furniture artisan Philippe Beaulieu—young, eccentric, irritatingly… French. Their sensibilities clash from the first bonjour, but, as the saying goes, vive la différence!

Working closely in the magical Provençal countryside, Rita discovers they have a lot more in common than she first realized. As she faces her fears, she begins to believe a second chance at love might be in the picture. But can she find the courage to design a perfect life for herself?