Skip to main content

Lady Wynwood #7 early release Kickstarter

I worked on my first Kickstarter and it got approved! It’s for the Special Edition Hardcover of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 1: Archer and the release of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, volume 7: Spinster. I contacted my graphic designer about the Special Edition Hardcover of vol. 1: Archer—it’s going to be SO beautiful! The Kickstarter focuses on the Special Edition Hardcover, but it’ll also include vol. 7: Spinster so that it’ll sort of be like a launch day for vol. 7, too. A third special thing that’ll be in the Kickstarter is Special Edition Paperbacks of all the books in the series. They won’t be available in stores, just in the Kickstarter (and later, from my website, and also in my Patreon book box tiers if I decide to do them). The Kickstarter is not live yet, but you can follow it to be alerted when it has launched. (You may need to create a free Kickstarter account.) Follow Camy’s Kickstarter

Prints Charming by Rebeca Seitz - chapter excerpt

Rebeca Seitz

and her book:

PRINTS CHARMING

(Thomas Nelson Publishers, March 15, 2007)



Does Jane Sandburg's future lie between the pages of her scrapbook?

With the help of her scrapbooking girlfriends, Jane is putting the pieces of her life back together since her divorce from a cheating husband. Her non-profit publicity firm is doing well and her new neighbor, Jake, is causing all kinds of sparks.

But when the Ex returns with a sorrowful heart begging for one more chance, Jane pulls her wedding scrapbook out of the closet to decide if her future lies in the past. With her friends going through trials of their own--adoption, run-ins with the law, and marital trouble--Jane and the girls come together over the scrapping table to make sense of their crazy lives.

Through the diverse and connected lives of four women, Rebeca Seitz creates an engaging story that celebrates the power of friendship and the uncertain-but-exciting world of starting anew.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rebeca Seitz is Founder and President of Glass Road Public Relations. An author for several years, Rebeca cut her publicity teeth as the first dedicated publicist for the fiction division of
Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 2005, Rebeca resigned from WestBow and opened the doors of GRPR, the only publicity firm of its kind in the country dedicated solely to representing novelists writing from a Christian worldview. Rebeca has worked with such esteemed authors as Robin Jones Gunn, Ted Dekker, Frank Peretti, Walter Wangerin, Jr., DiAnn Mills, Brandilyn Collins, Colleen Coble, Melody Carlson, and numerous others. She has secured coverage for novelists in a variety of media outlets, including The Today Show, USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Publishers Weekly, Christian Retailing, Aspiring Retail, Southern Living, Daystar Television, HarvestTV, WAY-FM, K-LOVE, and others. Rebeca makes her home in Kentucky with her husband, Charles, and their son, Anderson.


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Chapter One

"Girl, where are you?" Lydia tightened her grip on the cell phone as she wondered anew how any woman could be late to every single thing in her life. She had thought Jane might’ve changed in the two years they’d been apart, but Jane was evidently still living up to her old high school nickname of Late Jane. The woman would get to her own funeral about an hour after they started the music.

"I’m coming, I’m coming." Jane kept one hand on the steering wheel while frantically sifting through the things in the passenger seat of her Blazer. There was a brush somewhere, she just knew it, but finding anything at seven in the morning was difficult at best. Why in the world she’d allowed herself to be talked into attending a sale that started at seven a.m. was beyond her ability to fathom. Finding her shoes had been a reason for cheering. A brush might just be asking too much.

"Do I need to grab anything for you? This stuff is going fast." Lydia watched a woman stretch for the last package of Times-style foam alphabet letters and readjusted her own heavy shopping basket. In the five minutes she’d been in the store, it had already begun biting into the skin on her arm.

"Nope, I don’t think so. I’ll be there in about two minutes," Jane said, still searching for the brush while trying not to drop the cell phone from her shoulder.

"Okay, but hurry. I’ll be over in the baby girl section. I need to find something for Olivia’s first bath pages and get ribbon for Mac."

"Got it. Baby girl. Be there in a flash."

***

Jane snapped the phone together and slammed to a stop at the red light. Turning her attention to her still searching hand, she finally grasped the elusive hairbrush and quickly raked it through her long black hair. She had been looking forward to this sale all week but, of course, Mr. Wonderful had chosen to make his appearance a mere thirty minutes before she walked out the door. They had fought over Wilson. Again. When would the man get it through his head that Wilson was in her life forever?

She pushed thoughts of her soon-to-be ex-husband out of her mind as the green arrow finally appeared. Squealing her tires, she tore into the parking lot of The Savvy Scrapper. Tossing the hairbrush back into the passenger seat, she threw the car into Park, grabbed her purse, and flung open the door.

"Ouch!"

Jane looked up just as her door collided with the midsection of one very tall man.

"Ohmigosh. I am so, so sorry. I’m just in a rush. The sale is happening and I’m late and—"

"It’s okay."
Mr. Tall held his hands up as if to ward off any other car doors she might be hiding somewhere and she noticed the coffee cup in one hand and bagel bag in the other. Bagels would be so heavenly right now.

"I’m fine, really." He set the bag down on the ground and brushed the dust off of his olive-green sweater, then looked at her. "I know how women can be when there’s a sale involved." He grinned as he knelt to pick the bag back up.

She tried hard to ignore his sexist statement and not remind him of how many guys camp out at golf stores before a sale or sleep in the parking lot to get tickets to a concert.

"Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, I have insurance and we can call somebody." Jane forcefully tucked her hair behind her ears, willing herself to focus on the problem at hand rather than the sale happening about ten yards away or the way her stomach was now grumbling for coffee and a bagel.

"Really, go ahead. I’m fine."

"Okay, thanks." She turned and made her way around the back of the car. "Really, I appreciate this. It’s just that this only happens once a year and my friend is waiting . . ." She stopped on the far side of the car and looked at him. He could sue if he was really hurt and her luck with men right now meant he would definitely sue and she would surely lose. "You’re absolutely fine?"

"Go." He made a shooing motion with the bag. "Happy shopping."

Her mother always said to never look a gift horse in the mouth and this was one time Jane would be obeying Elizabeth rather than giving in to her own desire to argue. She practically sprinted to the front door of The Savvy Scrapper, yanked it open, and burst inside.

***

"Jane!" Lydia was in the front corner of the store, surrounded by pink, yellow, blue, lilac, and pale green. She waved a die-cut of a bathtub and bubbles above her head. "I found the perfect stuff for Olivia and Oliver’s First Bath page."

"Great." Jane joined her, looking a bit frazzled but otherwise okay.

"Okay, here’s the deal." Lydia turned toward the back of the store and pointed. "All the Times letters are gone, the vellum is quickly going, and the dog section is getting riffled through as we speak. Where do you want to start?"

"Dog section, definitely." Jane stuffed her keys into her purse. "I took great pictures of the ex this morning picking up Wilson’s poop while stepping in another pile."

"You are so gross. What was he doing there?"

"Trying to get me to give him Wilson again." Jane scanned the rest of the store, making a quick plan to get the most stuff. "He’ll get the picture one day, just not today. He’s insane if he thinks I’m letting my puppy come live with him while he’s spending all hours online with his e-mistress."

"Okay, that still sounds so weird." Lydia’s eyebrows rose as she gave Jane a disbelieving look. "E-mistress? Really? That’s what we’re calling her?"

"E-mistress is the only thing I could think of that’s fit for public consumption." Jane grimaced. "Anyway, forget her and him. I’m here to shop, honey."

"Right. Go on over to the dog section. I’ll come over there when I’m finished here. Can you grab me that new paper with the red stripes and dark-brown bones? I’ve got some pictures of Otis with Olivia and Oliver from last week."

"Dale let that pug get near his precious twins? I thought you said the only thing he cared more about than SportsCenter was those babies."

"Dale hasn’t seen the pictures yet. He never comes in my scrapbook studio. Says it’s my workspace and that I spend too much money on all this junk as it is." Lydia waved her hand to encompass the store. "He’s probably right."

"Oh, please. Men are never right," Jane said and turned toward the dog section. "Dogs, on the other hand, are absolutely wonderful companions who never cheat and can’t even turn a computer on."

Lydia laughed and turned back to the wall of baby-themed paper in front of her, leaving Jane to take care of the dog paper. Stripes or flowers? She didn’t want to make the scrapbook too babyish, but she also didn’t want it to look too grownup. The papers were all on sale, so maybe she would just get both. Dale would never know since he didn’t come into her studio anyway, and she could give some of it to Mac for Kesa’s baby book. She took two sheets of the pink-and-lime-green-striped paper, then two of the blue rosebud ones.

"Men are never right," she muttered under her breath. Maybe Jane had a good point.



Prints CharmingRebeca SeitzCopyright © 2006 by Rebeca Seitz.

Comments

M. C. Pearson said…
Thanks for posting! I put your book in for September FIRST. :-)
charmed said…
I put this book on my To Read list sometime last week, now I want to read it even more. Thanks!
Anonymous said…
I like the title, Prints is a good metaphor..and very cute at that.

Popular Posts

Camy's Big News about a new (old) series!

I joined two Christian suspense multi-author anthologies that will release next year in May and October! The May anthology is Danger in the Shadows , and the October anthology is Don’t Blink . I have taken down Year of the Dog from my blog and will instead finish editing/rewriting it for the May anthology, Danger in the Shadows . I decided to do this because I was only working on Year of the Dog sporadically, and I wanted to set a deadline for myself to finish it sooner. To complicate matters, I’ve been unhappy with my decision to leave Sushi and Suspicions as a stand-alone rather than putting it in a series. And I’ve also been unhappy with putting The Lone Rice Ball as a 5th book in the Sushi series when it’s more romantic suspense than the other books in the series. Now that I’ll be writing Year of the Dog for the anthology, and because I haven’t yet released Sushi and Suspicions and The Lone Rice Ball as individual ebooks, I decided to switch things around. I’m rem

Tabi socks, part deux

Captain's Log, Stardate 07.25.2008 (If you're on Ravelry, friend me! I'm camytang.) I made tabi socks again! (At the bottom of the pattern is the calculation for the toe split if you're not using the same weight yarn that I did for this pattern (fingering). I also give an example from when I used worsted weight yarn with this pattern.) I used Opal yarn, Petticoat colorway. It’s a finer yarn than my last pair of tabi socks, so I altered the pattern a bit. Okay, so here’s my first foray into giving a knitting pattern. Camy’s top-down Tabi Socks I’m assuming you already know the basics of knitting socks. If you’re a beginner, here are some great tutorials: Socks 101 How to Knit Socks The Sock Knitter’s Companion A video of turning the heel Sock Knitting Tips Yarn: I have used both fingering weight and worsted weight yarn with this pattern. You just change the number of cast on stitches according to your gauge and the circumference of your ankle. Th

Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And

Jeremiah 33:8

Jeremiah 33:8 I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me. Dear Lord, Thank you that no matter where we go or what we do, you will wash us clean when we turn to you. Thank you for your grace and for loving us even when we are hard to love. Please help us to live for you and for your glory. Amen エレミヤ33:8 わたしに対して犯したすべての罪から彼らを清め、犯した罪と反逆のすべてを赦す。 親愛なる主よ、 私たちがどこへ行こうとも、何をしようとも、私たちがあなたに立ち返るとき、あなたは私たちをきよめてくださることを感謝します。あなたの恵みに感謝し、私たちが愛しがたい者であっても愛してくださることに感謝します。どうか私たちがあなたのために、あなたの栄光のために生きることができますように。 アーメン

Grace Livingston Hill romances free to read online

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci

No Cold Bums toilet seat cover

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.22.2008 I actually wrote out my pattern! I was getting a lot of hits on my infamous toilet seat cover , and I wanted to make a new one with “improvements,” so I paid attention and wrote things down as I made the new one. This was originally based off the Potty Mouth toilet cover , but I altered it to fit over the seat instead of the lid. Yarn: any worsted weight yarn, about 120 yards (this is a really tight number, I used exactly 118 yards. My suggestion is to make sure you have about 130 yards.) I suggest using acrylic yarn because you’re going to be washing this often. Needle: I used US 8, but you can use whatever needle size is recommended by the yarn you’re using. Gauge: Not that important. Mine was 4 sts/1 inch in garter stitch. 6 buttons (I used some leftover shell buttons I had in my stash) tapestry needle Crochet hook (optional) Cover: Using a provisional cast on, cast on 12 stitches. Work in garter st until liner measures

CWO - Stumbling

Captain’s Log, Stardate 08.08.2006 Blog book giveaway: My Thursday book giveaway is THE SIMPLE LIFE by Wanda Brunstetter . My Monday book giveaway is MY SO-CALLED LOVE LIFE by Allie Pleiter . You can still enter both giveaways. Just post a comment on each of those blog posts. On Thursday, I'll draw the winner for THE SIMPLE LIFE and post the title for another book I'm giving away. "Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand." ~ Emily Kimbrough ~ Check out Christian Women Online (click on the button above) to see what other women are blogging about this quote! I have to say that God came through for me in this area. I’m not an extrovert, but He knew I needed sisters in Christ both online and locally in order to continue on this writing career. I didn’t seek these women out, they found me (with the Holy Spirit prodding them). Some of them are listed in my Blogroll to the right. They have held my hand, prayed for me, p

CWO - Reading quickly

Captain’s Log, Supplemental "Those who read fast reap no more advantage than a bee would by only skimming over the surface of the flower, instead of waiting to penetrate into it, and extract its sweets." ~ Madame Jeanne Guyon ~ Update: I rewrote my post when I discovered Madame was talking specifically about Bible reading and not just reading in general. My point is essentially still the same. I admit I’m torn about this quote. I do enjoy meditating on the Bible. Certain passages deserve the time and mental energy to dwell, savor, contemplate, investigate, journal about. Those are some of my closest times with God. But I also started the Bible in 90 Days challenge last year, and it was the most incredible experience I’ve had in a long time. I had never read the entire Bible through before I did the Bible in 90 Days. I always lost interest in the normal books—the Pentateuch, usually around Leviticus somewhere. For the Bible in 90 Days, the point is to just read. Keep reading.

Irish Tea Cozy

Captain’s Log, Stardate 02.16.2007 Blog book giveaway: To enter, go to the blog links below and post a comment there. Along Came Jones by Linda Windsor Two books for moms by Jenn Doucette I knitted a tea cozy! Here’s a picture of the original , and here’s the original pattern . I pretty much followed it, except I used a ribbon instead of a knitted tie at the top. I made it a little too big because I used the wrong size needles, so I also made two squares in garter stitch and sewed them to the inside of the cozy for a bit more insulation and better shaping. I’m so impressed with myself. This was the first time I did any complicated designs like the bobble/bubble/popcorn stitch and the diamond panel. Now when I host our local Christian writers’ group, our ginger peach tea won’t get cold so fast.

Camille's Writing Progress

Join my newsletter to get regular updates in your inbox!