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Let Your Heart Boom on Mimosa Lane
What wouldn’t you do for the ones you love?
Families are such amazing, inspiring things, and the best of them is what I honor in Three Days on Mimosa Lane. We all have flaws, and parents most of all struggle to do the very best for their children and spouses, despite the baggage and damage and mistakes we often carry around. In my Seasons of the Heart series—my anti-Desperate Housewives series based in a suburban community northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, and on the cul-de-sac of Mimosa Lane—I share my passion for families and loving communities. I also show a slice of “real” life and some of the very real challenges modern families can face.
Parenting is often about sacrifice, because we’d do almost anything to care for our children. Marriage is a journey of great discovery, some difficulty, and coming together to conquer challenges together. Communities are living, breathing things that must be cherished and preserved and nurtured, because we’re all blessed by the lives being lived around us. Showing what I find beautiful about families and loving marriages and friends and neighbors is one of my greatest inspirations. Of course, that also means taking a closer, honest look at the every day and sometimes extraordinary challenges people face as the live their lives—a challenge I’ve reveled in as I bring Seasons of the Heart to life, this month with Three Days on Mimosa Lane.
We met Sam and Brian Perry in Christmas on Mimosa Lane, at a holiday party they were hosting with their two boys, Cade and Joshua. They’re wonderful people, to the casual observer a charming, picture-perfect family. But Sam has been battling for twelve years the PTSD she suffered after working as a pre-school teacher in one of the schools at the base of the Twin Towers on 9/11. At the start of Three Days on Mimosa Lane, she’s determined to fully rejoin the world in time for her oldest son to know what it’s like to have her volunteer at his school… But her resolve, her entire family and the community of Chandlerville, Georgia, are challenged when the unthinkable happens—a school shooting that traumatizes them all.
How will Sam find her way back to her family and help her boys cope? How will Brian fight to win his wife, his love, and his family back? How will Sam and Brian’s friends rally to help this amazing couple stay together, when a more fragile love than theirs would certainly fade away?
How magical would it be, to live somewhere so amazing—where a village unites to heal not just individual wounds, but to re-knit the very fabric of their shared world, so they all emerge from tragedy, stronger and more hopeful and more determined to live abundantly than ever before?
I’m thrilled by the generous author quotes Three Days on Mimosa Lane received, as well as the early reader responses. I keep hearing how deeply people are connecting with these characters and their dilemmas, even though we could never fully understand the challenges a tragedy like 9/11 or a school shooting causes its survivor (adults or children). I’m hearing from teachers and first responders, mothers and fathers, caring people of all ages, about the hope they’ve taken away from this second book in the Seasons of the Heart series—and that means the world to me.
Three Days on Mimosa Lane has already hit #1 on Amazon’s Series Romance and Family Saga best-seller lists, which is another amazing thing I get to enjoy, because there are so many readers out there who love reading about the lives I live to create. To all my readers and fans…thank you. You’re the absolute best!!!
I write about love, in all forms.
Nothing makes me smile wider than creating a community of people who learn how to love deeper and stronger, as they care for others who need even more than they do. Sam finds her way back to her family by helping another mother’s son. Brian finally understands the honesty his wife has needed from him all these years, as he deals with the same type of trauma for the very first time. Reaching out to their sons helps Brian and Sam learn how to hold on tighter to each other. Friendship and community sacrifice is the rich background on which I get to paint these amazing, inter-connected stories.
Anna DeStefano
http://www.annawrites.com
Three Days on Mimosa Lane - Purchase - The Series Continues
One day can change your life forever…Three days change a painful past into a beautiful tomorrow…
Once, Sam Perry had it all. A loving marriage, an amazing job she adored as a preschool teacher, and a beautiful home. She was safe, happy and secure.
Then the unthinkable happened…
Watching his once carefree wife withdraw into herself was almost more than Brian Perry could handle. The only thing that kept him going was knowing that he loved her more than life itself. Moving her out of New York to Chandlerville, a small, quiet suburb of Atlanta, felt right. Anything, to get her away from the memories of the buildings, and her world, crashing around her.
Now, two sons and many years later, Sam cherishes the new life on Mimosa Lane that Brian built for them. Until lightning strikes twice…
Called a hero by her small community, Sam feels more like a coward than ever. Instinct draws her into an altercation at her children’s school—an instinct that also drives her away from the warm cocoon of her family.
Brian refuses to lose his wife again. He agrees to give her the space she asks for, but he soon realizes space isn’t something they and their children can afford. He knows their love can still conquer all. But this time he’ll need their entire community to help him win his wife back.
Christmas on Mimosa Lane - A Seasons of the Heart Novel, #1 - Purchase
Anna DeStefano presents a touching Christmas story about love, loss, and healing—and the joys of coming home.
A childhood spent on the streets leaves Mallory Phillips longing for a normal life and a perfect Christmas. Now an elementary school nurse in Chandlerville, Georgia, Mallory’s dream to blend into the picturesque community isn’t working out. She’s once more living a loner’s existence. Then an emotionally fragile seven-year-old appears in her living room in the middle of the night, and Mallory’s isolated world is turned upside down.
This is Polly Lombard’s first Christmas without her mother, and she won’t utter a word to anyone—except Mallory. She believes Mallory holds the key to helping her father overcome his sadness. Despite Pete Lombard’s lingering grief over his wife’s death and concern for his daughter, his resistance to their mysterious neighbor crumbles as he spends more time with Mallory and falls for her amazing heart. But when her past returns to haunt her, is Mallory strong enough to keep the Lombard family in her life? And can the spirit of Christmas heal these broken souls and bring them all the joyous, loving holiday they deserve?
GRAND PRIZE TOUR GIVEAWAY: Kindle Paperwhite - Ends 9/2/13 - Enter!
Nationally bestselling author Anna DeStefano has searched her entire life for the soul of the matter at the heart of her world's mysteries. Hers is a realistic but optimistic vision, searching for hope and transformation through intense emotional journeys. An author, workshop and keynote speaker, writing coach, and acquiring editor, Anna's creative vision permeates every challenge she undertakes. She speaks and blogs regulary. Join Anna each week for Soul Of The Matter, Dream Theories, Things My Teenager Says, How We Write, Waterfall Challenges, and more. Past President of Georgia Romance Writers (GRW), Anna's also Senior Tech Writer with a GA Tech honors degree an 10 years of experience working in Corporate IT. Her novels have garnered numerous awards including twice winning the RT Reviewers' Choice Award, the Holt Medallion, the Golden Heart, the Maggie Award for Excellence, and finalling in awards such as the National Readers' Choice and Book Seller's Best Awards. She's the author of over 16 novels since 2004 in four different genres, with nearly half a million copies of her books in print in over 5 different languages.
