ThrowBACKLIST Thursday: THE GRAND HOTEL

Next up in my Mackinac Island contemporary series is THE GRAND HOTEL, book 3.

A family legend brings Aimee Mikkelson to the Grand Hotel on Michigans Mackinac Island. As she seeks to uncover a hidden inheritance, Aimees carefree nature hits a wall of organization - Mr. Dillon Thurough. Now her mission is two-fold: Recover the treasure and help Dillon break out of his routine. Dillon Thurough hates surprises. As one of the Grand Hotels assistant managers, he has a one-, five-, and ten-year plan, and the free-spirited Ms. Mikkelson doesn’t fit into any of them. Yet somehow, her ways are getting to him. As they work together to follow the antiquated clues, could Aimee and Dillon also be following the Lords map to romance?

I wrote this story because it was the next in this series. I decided to pit a free-spirit with a hard-core planner. They were fun to play off each other. When writing this Mackinac Island series, I wanted to show different aspects of the island. This one featured the Grand Hotel. I fell in love with Mackinac Island and the Grand Hotel while watching Somewhere In Time. I love that movie.

The head scratcher with that movie is the watch.  Who bought the watch? The heroine got the watch from the hero when he traveled back in time. When he got sucked back to his time, the watch got left behind. Then years later, when the heroine was an old lady, she gave the watch that he had left in past, but not yet in his current timeline. So she got it from him, and he got it from her, but no one actually bought it.

Hmm?

The initial building of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island was built in three short months and opened on July 10, 1887. Since then, many additions have been made to the hotel. The lumber for constructing the hotel was brought over during the winter and slid across on the ice bridge.

When the hotel opened, the rates were $3-$5 per night. The price skyrocketed to $6 per day per person in 1919.

In 1947, another movie was filmed, in part, at the Grand Hotel called This Time For Keeps, starring Jimmy Durante and Esther Williams. The Grand Hotel pool was built for Esther Williams for that movie.

The Grand Hotel’s front porch is the longest in the world at 660 feet.

Fun note about the cover for this book. I took the picture of the Grand Hotel that was used. Where the lilac bush is was a tree. I said I’d love it if they could put in lilacs instead of the green tree. And they did! Of course, they did some other doctoring, but I love the result.

Once all four books in this series had come out through the book club they were written for, Barbour combined the the first three into one volume. LAKESIDE, THE ISLAND, & THE GRAND HOTEL are included in MICHIGAN WEDDINGS: Contemporary Romance: Michigan's Mackinac Island offers a safe harbor for wounded hearts seeking retreat. Lorelei returns to the island carrying a secret that has stolen her joy, but an old acquaintance is waiting to try to restore it. Haley's job on the island hides her from family conflict and the fear of being used by others until a handsome customer arrives asking for her help. Aimee seeks family treasure and adventure at the Grand Hotel, but one of the assistant manager's adherences to routine threatens her goals. Will God's guidance lead these women down the path of forgiveness and romance?

Next month, book 4 in this series, HERITAGE.

COMING SOON

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.
Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
     Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
     Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT is now available for pre-order at only $2.99--the low price for pre-orders...later it will go up. A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This book releases in ebook on July 1, and will be out in paperback by mid-June.

NEW RELEASES
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger.  #BouquetOfBrides

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub

Wordy Wednesday: ROCHAMBEAU

A French army officer who fought against the British during the American Revolutionary War.

What's he doing on Wordy Wednesday?

Because ROCHAMBEAU is also the name given to the popular game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. One theory is that it was named after this officer because it was used by him and others during said war. But not likely. Another theory is that when this game was included in the Children's Bureau handbook in the 1930s, we had growing tensions with Japan where the game likely originated, so they didn't want to use the Japanese name. In the early 1930s, there had been a celebration in connection with the ROCHAMBEAU statue, so that could have been on the minds of those creating this handbook. But who really knows? Not me. 

It's also spelled Roshambo.

My question is, why couldn't they just call it Rock-Paper-Scissors? I guess ROCHAMBEAU has more flare to it.

If you've not heard of ROCHAMBEAU (Rock-Paper-Scissors), it's simple. Played with two or more people. Everyone playing starts with one hand fisted and chooses one of three options. Can you guess what those three options are? You guessed it; rock (fist), paper (flat hand), or scissors (first two fingers extended like a pair of scissors).

Rock beats scissors because a rock can crush scissors. Scissors beats paper because scissors cuts paper. And paper beats rock because paper covers rock.

I never got how paper beat rock by covering. If anything, wouldn't it protect it from the rain and such?

Back to the game. On the count of three, each person puts their hand in the shape of one of these objects and see who wins.

Some people will use this to make decisions. If it's a decision of low consequences, this could be a good option. Things like what to have for dinner or which movie to watch. But I wouldn't leave who to marry or a job choice up to Rock-Paper-Scissors. But that's me. If you're comfortable with ROCHAMBEAU being your sole decision maker, that's your choice.

So if you're going to play, is there a way to increase your chances of winning? Here's a video that might help.


But now if a lot of people know this, won't that skew the effectiveness of this approach? If you play with the character of the TV show Friends, all bets are off.

My favorite Rock-Paper-Scissors scene. (From Friends)



Fire? Water Balloon? LOL!!!

"Well played Phoebe Buffay . . . and Joey too!"

I love their creativity!

COMING SOON

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.

Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
     Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
     Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT is now available for pre-order at only $2.99--the low price for pre-orders...later it will go up. A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This book releases in ebook on July 1, and will be out in paperback by mid-June.

NEW RELEASES
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger.  #BouquetOfBrides

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub

Tuesday Tidbit: “NOTHING” CAN MEAN SO MUCH

We think of NOTHINGNESS as being a lack of anything and everything. But NOTHING can have tremendous meaning.

We joke around our house about having NOTHING. “I have nothing!” How can you have NOTHING? Isn’t NOTHING the lack of having anything? So how can you have something that isn’t there? Hmm?

THIS IS NOTHING

Or what about, “She said nothing.”? Does this mean the person didn’t speak? Or did the person say the word, “Nothing.”? It all depends on how you punctuate it.

“Janey, what’s in your hand?”
Janey said nothing.

“Janey, what’s in your hand?”
Janey said, “Nothing.”

The first example makes me thing that Janey, indeed, has something in her hand but doesn’t want to tell me.

The second one is less clear. It would depend on how she said it. If she says it in a chipper voice and opens her hand, then NOTHING is accurate. But if she says it in a low voice and hides her hand behind her back, she’s got something.

So this brings me to to this question, how can NOTHING have meaning?

A blank space in writing is the absence of a letter or some other writing symbol. So if having a space has meaning, does having no space—or rather taking away the NOTHING—do you have more NOTHING? Either can make a world of difference. If you have NOTHING, can you have more of it? That’s kind of like taking zero and multiplying it by any number. You still have zero. It didn’t change. Or did it?

Lets consider NOWHERE. I don’t know how a person can actually be NOWHERE. We are each somewhere, even if we don’t know where that is. We call that lost. But we are somewhere, aren’t we?

This is NOWHERE

Apparently, a person CAN be NOWHERE. NOWHERE, OK. So if a person ever tells you that they are NOWHERE, you know where to find them.

If we put a space in NOWHERE, it becomes NOW HERE. So we go from not being anywhere to being somewhere with the addition of NOTHING (the blank space).

When nothing is taken away, does that make it more of NOTHING?

That hurts my brain.

Let’s consider another one.

BEWILDER or BE WILDER? BIG difference.

What are some other major word changes with the removal or addiction of NOTHING?

COMING SOON

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.

Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
     Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
     Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT is now available for pre-order at only $2.99--the low price for pre-orders...later it will go up. A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This book releases in ebook on July 1, and will be out in paperback by mid-June.

NEW RELEASES
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger.  #BouquetOfBrides

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub

Wordy Wednesday: QUERULOUS

QUERULOUS

(adjective)

~complaining in a petulant or whining manner.

This is one of those words that kind of sounds like what it means, and a word that my tongue stumbles over. When I say QUERULOUS, it’s as though I’m trying to talk with marbles in my mouth. For that reason, though this word is intriguing and I like the uniqueness of it, I’ll not likely use it in my writing.

The derivatives are just as difficult, if not more so.

QUERULOUSLY (adverb)

QUERULOUSNESS (noun)

So if it’s doubtful I’ll use QUERULOUS, what are good alternatives?

Petulant, peevish, pettish, complaining, fractious, fretful, irritable, testy, tetchy, cross, snappish, crabby, crotchety, cantankerous, miserable, moody, grumpy, bad-tempered, sullen, sulky, sour, churlish, snappy, grouchy, cranky

I like quite a few of these and hope to use them in my writing.

Petulant and peevish are just nice alternatives.

Fractious makes me think of fractured.

Tetchy—oh, this one’s fun. I could see describing a character as tetchy. I had a tetchy neighbor. Very tetchy.

Crotchety, cantankerous, and grumpy are great ones to describe older people. I had a grandpa who could get cantankerous. He was quite sweet and fun so long as you avoided certain subjects.

Churlish means rude in a mean-spirited way. I would have guessed it as something done in a childish way. This is why I look up words that I think I know the definition of. I have been surprised a few times.

Rather than being QUERULOUS about my mouth having difficulty pronouncing this, I’ll opt for one of the many marvelous alternatives.

COMING SOON

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.
Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
     Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
     Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?
THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT is now available for pre-order at only $2.99--the low price for pre-orders...later it will go up. A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This book releases in ebook on July 1, and will be out in paperback by mid-June.

NEW RELEASES
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger.  #BouquetOfBrides

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub

Tuesday Tidbit: GDPR

GDPR, MARKETING, & TECHNOLOGY, OH MY!!!

My brain hurts. I’ve spent a lot of time this month learning about and preparing for the new GDPR regulations that Europe and other countries have adopted and go into effect May 25, 2018.

GDPR stands for General Data Processing Regulations. In a simplified form, it’s to help protect people’s data on the Internet and give subscribers and such more control on how people can use their personal information.

I see GDPR as helping everyone take a bite out of SPAM emails. At least I hope so.

I am NOT a lawyer. I am confused like a lot of people. All this GDPR, marketing, and technology in general fries my brain. With that said, here is how my overworked brain understands why I need to do my best to comply with GDPR.

A lot of people use email lists and other avenues to contact many people at once. Some people believe that because a service collects and holds the information on people who have subscribed to their email lists and such, that this law doesn’t apply to them. But I understand it to be more than that. Though the info on my subscribers is held by another party (MailChimp), by signing up for MailChimp, I have asked them to collect and hold that data for my use. MailChimp is responsible for their part.

GDPR isn’t just about holding the information but USING it as well. If a person uses that information to send out blog posts, newsletters, etc., under GDPR a person is telling their subscribers that they will use their information in the manner in which they said they would when they collected it and nothing else.

So, if a subscriber says that they want to receive my blog posts via email, that’s ALL I can do with their info. I can’t send them an email on a book that is on sale this week even if I know they would be interested. They didn’t give me permission to do that. If someone signs up for my newsletter, I can’t send them my blog posts.

So if a person USES, in anyway, that information collected and being held for them, they MUST be GDPR compliant for any subscribers in those countries under the GDPR law. The U.S. might not be under the law right now, but the day is coming, and I hope it comes real soon.

I have somehow ended up on several email lists that I have no clue how I got there. One day, I just started receiving regular emails. I want control on how others use my information. This law is supposed to help that.

I’m hoping this GDPR and others like it in the future will cut down on the volume of real spam email. I believe GDPR will give authorities the needed laws to prosecute the huge spammers who blast me with dozens of emails daily and to help curb the blatant spam.

On my emailing list provider, I will be merging my two email lists into one with segments for the different areas that people optin to. I hope when I merge them, I don’t lose people who already reconsented. I contemplated whether to merge them first then send the reconsent email or vise versa. But since they were for two different things, I opted for reconsent then I’ll merge.

In gaining reconsent, I and others will lose some of our subscribers, but the ones who find benefit in receiving my emails, will likely stick around. The choice belongs to each person, and I support individuals’ right to choose for themselves.

This whole thing is a huge hassle, but I’m glad for it. I’m hoping that it helps all of us as we use and navigate the Internet so we are all better protected.

Nothing is perfect, but we have to at least try.

COMING SOON

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series.
Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
     Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
     Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT is now available for pre-order at only $2.99--the low price for pre-orders...later it will go up. A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This book releases in ebook on July 1, and will be out in paperback by mid-June.

NEW RELEASES
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger.  #BouquetOfBrides

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub

Wordy Wednesday: DISCURSIVE

DISCURSIVE

DIS- (prefix) ~ expressing negation.

CURSIVE (adjective) ~ written with characters joined.

So, DIS-CURSIVE should be writing that ISN’T joined? Wouldn’t that make it printing?

Nope.

DISCURSIVE is not the opposite of cursive.

It is an adjective.

~ digressing from subject to subject

~ (of a style of speech or writing) fluent and expansive rather than formulaic and abbreviated

A flash fiction story is concentrated, whereas an epic 150,000 word fantasy novel is DISCURSIVE (whether it’s printed or in cursive handwriting).

So, why am I talking about DISCURSIVE? Because I like the sound of the word but was a bit disappointed that it didn’t have anything to do with handwriting.

Just when I think I can figure out unfamiliar words by looking at the prefixes, suffixes, and such, there are all these words that don’t follow the rules. I’m not sure if it’s worth learning the rules in the first place with so many exceptions. How is a dyslexic girl to know which words follow the rules and which don’t?

But back to DISCURSIVE. I can’t decide if I like DISCURSIVE better being expansive or being the opposite of cursive.

Maybe I’ll add another entry in the Mary-Davis-Dictionary where another definition of DISCURSIVE is the opposite of cursive. Then a synonym of “printing” can be DISCURSIVE.

=0)

COMING SOON

THE WIDOW'S PLIGHT ~ A sweet historical romance that will tug at your heart. This is book 1 in the Quilting Circle series. Releases in ebook July 1 and in paperback mid-June.

Washington State, 1893
     When Lily Lexington Bremmer arrives in Kamola with her young son, she’s reluctant to join the social center of her new community, the quilting circle, but the friendly ladies pull her in. She begins piecing a sunshine and shadows quilt because it mirrors her life. She has a secret that lurks in the shadows and hopes it doesn’t come out into the light. Dark places in her past are best forgotten, but her new life is full of sunshine. Will her secrets cast shadows on her bright future?
     Widower Edric Hammond and his father are doing their best to raise his two young daughters. He meets Lily and her son when they arrive in town and helps her find a job and a place to live. Lily resists Edric’s charms at first but finds herself falling in love with this kind, gentle man and his two darling daughters. Lily has stolen his heart with her first warm smile, but he’s cautious about bringing another woman into his girls’ lives due to the harshness of their own mother.
     Can Edric forgive Lily her past to take hold of a promising chance at love?

NEW RELEASES
“Holly & Ivy,”my #HistoricalRomance novella in A BOUQUET OF BRIDES COLLECTION, takes place in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger.  #BouquetOfBrides

COURTING HER AMISH HEART is a contemporary romance, the first in the Prodigal Daughters series.
A doctor or an Amish wife? She can choose to be only one…Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?
#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January, Courting Her Amish Heart in March, The Widow’s Plight in July, Courting Her Secret Heart September, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

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