Please help me welcome today’s guest, Denise Flint…
1) Meeting my husband. He transferred to my high school from another school across town and I immediately developed a huge crush on him. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me out. That was so many years ago but here we still are – high school sweethearts who have spent their entire adult lives together.
2) My first trip to Europe. After two months tooling around Britain I was terrified on the ferry to France, knowing I would be in a foreign country where the people around me didn’t automatically speak English. Guess what? It was fine. With good will and a willingness to learn you can go anywhere and do anything. I learned to never be afraid of something simply because I haven’t experienced it yet. That was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to seeing as much of the world as possible.
3) Hearing a Leonard Cohen song being played in the distance and following the sound to a taverna on a Greek island where we sat at a table on the dock drinking retsina, watching the sun dip into the sea and feeling right at home. I still love Greece and the Greeks passionately and will always drop everything to visit that magical place.
4) Finding out I was pregnant with my daughter. That’s the moment when you realize with blinding clarity that from now on everything in your life will be different. And everything was. 4a) (if I can be allowed a little indulgence) would be when she was actually born. Wow.
5) Attending my first ballet. I discovered that you could actually be brought to tears by a beautiful performance.
6) On the other end of the equation from my daughter’s birth, when my mother died. Realizing that that person is gone and will never, ever be back is a huge loss. Many, many years later she still inhabits my world in many ways.
7) When my father died three years later. It doesn’t matter how old you are when you become an orphan. It still hurts.
8) Looking a whale in the eye. I’ve seen many whales over the years, but this was the most incredible. On a small boat in the north Atlantic with only six passengers on board a humpback came right up beside us and turned on its side. I looked down at it from about six feet above and it looked back up at me. Our eyes met and we really saw each other. Amazing.
9) The publication of Recompromising Amanda, my first book. I spent so many years wanting to be an author and not actually becoming one (except for a mass of half finished manuscripts) so to finally get a publisher and get a story out there was an incredible accomplishment.
10) My daughter leaving home for a life of her own. Another huge adjustment, but I’m so proud of her.
Four cozy tales of love, hope and holiday magic unfold on the snow-kissed shores of Newfoundland and Labrador
Blurb
The Keeper (1919) Returning to Battle Harbour, Labrador after The Great War to find her fiance engaged to another woman is not the homecoming Bary Butler expected. But as she realizes it’s her pride, not her heart, that’s bruised, she finds herself drawn to serious, war-worn lighthouse keeper Allan Beennett – her fiance’s brother.
Kitty Hawk Flies Home (1948) Jack Williams is supposed to be dead. That’s Kate Goudie’s first thought when she sees him serving drinks in a Gander bar, years after he broke his promise to meet her in Marseilles. With the war behind them and secrets to be revealed, can they learn to trust and love again?
The Christmas Tree Wish (1978) Maureen O’Connor doesn’t have time to fall in love with Nick Williams: she’s grieving, has a niece to raise, and a career to figure out. Besides, he dated her twin sister for a hot minute back in university. But when old feelings bubble up and the pair discover they share a bond neither of them ever imagined, Christmas takes a romantic turn.
The Next Big Thing (2010) Julia Wells is done with Newfoundland Christmas traditions. Simon Taylor can’t wait to soak them up on his short visit to St. John’s. Covering one holiday event after another, the two journalists find themselves sparking in more ways than one. Will romance bloom in the glow of the season’s lights or will distance snuff out the bergeoning flame of love?
Excerpt:
The moon had risen and was shining through a crack in the curtains, casting a swath of light across the heavy handmade quilts that covered the bed and gently lighting the sharp planes of Jack’s sleeping face. Kate, lying in his arms, a place she never thought she’d ever be again, felt the rise and fall of his silent breathing through the hand that rested on his chest as she drank in the sight of him. She knew she was going to have to pay for this night. And it was going to be one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Maybe the hardest. She couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Not after all the times she’d wished for just one more night with him. After the bargains she’d attempted to make with a deity she no longer believed existed. Besides, she was Kate Goudie and Kate Goudie never regretted anything. She told herself so repeatedly as she ignored the feel of a tear trickling down her cheek.
Buy links:
https://www.amazon.ca/Home-Christmas-Collection-Newfoundland-Labrador/dp/1738353656/ref=sr_1_4
About the Author:
Denise Flint has been a freelance journalist for more than 25 years. During that time she’s written about pretty much everything from aliens to zinnias. On the one hand she has won numerous awards. On the other, a magazine once folded because she had the cover story – or at least that’s what the publisher told her.
She’s lived across Canada and travelled around the world. During that time she has written several romances under her pen name, Barbara Burke. Home For Christmas is the first romance she has published under her own name.
She is currently working on a new romance and an ever-growing to-be-read pile. She hopes to someday finish at least one of them.
