From The Ozarks To The Dust Bowl - my upcoming novels

I write romance.  These days it's a full time occupation, something which remains a delight and a wonder to me.  After all it took years of trying, honing my craft and writing, writing, writing to reach where I am today.  Each time a reader interacts with me, I'm delighted.  Any mention I happen to hear or notice online or the encounters my family or friends have are a pleasure.

It's been a long, dry and hot summer in my region.  A lot of changes are happening in my life large and small but I think in the long run everything will turn out grand.   I hope so because I'm too busy to stop - I have two full-length romances coming out, the first at the end of this week on August 3, a contemporary romance called Heart of the Ozarks.  And on September 17, I have another historical, a sub romance genre many of my readers seem to like.  This one is set in the 1930's in western Oklahoma in another summer even drier and hotter than this year.  It's called Dust Bowl Dreams.

I'd like to share the blurbs and covers for each and then maybe a little sneak peek from Heart of the Ozarks.  So here we go:

Heart of the Ozarks – a contemporary romance coming Friday August 3 from Rebel Ink Press by romance author Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

After St. Louis TV weathercaster Cole Celinksi loses his almost estranged wife and three children in a car crash, his boss orders him to take a leave of absence.  Against his will, Cole leaves the city in late May to find the rest and relaxation everyone else thinks he needs. Without anywhere else to go, Cole heads for Lake Dreams, a resort on the quiet side of Lake Taneycomo in the Ozarks he visited each summer as a child with his grandparents.  Some of his best memories were made in the lakeside vacation haven with his summer friend, Maggie.

Upon his arrival, Cole learns Maggie now runs the place.  Twenty years have passed but from the minute he returns, they reconnect and soon their mutual attraction ignites.  He fishes in the lake, takes Maggie to visit some of the places he remembers and begins to find out who he truly is. Before he can heal, he must learn to deal with his loss and to see if he can create a new family with Maggie and her children. It’s a task he’s not sure he can handle but if he wants to be with Maggie, he must. A near tragedy brings them all together into a close knit unit and afterward, Cole may be able to make his dreams reality.

And coming September 17th, also from Rebel Ink Press, by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy...

Life’s never easy for a good-hearted man who decides crime is the answer to his troubles.

No rain in the summer of 1933 is bad news for Oklahoma farmer Henry Mink. The local banker wants the mortgage on the farm paid and unless Henry comes up with the dough, his widowed mother and four young siblings won’t have a home.  Jobs are scarce so he decides to rob a bank.   His sweetheart, school teacher Mamie Logan, doesn’t like the idea and neither does Henry’s kid brother Eddie but Henry’s out of options.

He leaves home and robs a bank at nearby Ponca City. When he returns home, he pays off the mortgage but new troubles show up. Mamie is his greatest joy and they become engaged but by fall, Henry has no options left but to rob another bank.  If he can pull off one another big job, he figures he’ll be set until the hard times are over but few things in life go as planned.  His desperate efforts will either secure his future or destroy it forever.

If Henry’s family survives and Mamie’s love endures, he’ll need a miracle.

And now a short little excerpt from Heart of the Ozarks....and a link to the book trailer!

            Cole didn’t think, just experienced.  He inhaled the essence of her shampoo, caught a whiff of her perfume, and tasted lingering coffee on her lips.  Her slender body shifted so she stood so close a thin sheet of paper couldn’t pass between them and warmth filled the space. His years, the months of tragic induced agony, the maturity of his third decade, more than halfway to his fourth melted like candy in the rain until Cole felt the wild, heady intoxication of youth.  A carnal yearning rose in him like a wild animal’s need to mate and yet something else tempered, a caring sense of connection.  He wanted to ravish her and yet nurture her, all at once.  He ached to use her like a whore and own her but deeper, Cole longed to become one with her, to twine not just bodies but merge souls.

            He deepened the kiss until his tongue worked into her mouth and Maggie moved the rest of the way until her breasts rubbed his chest.  She made a soft little mew of pleasure and he knew he could have her, take her there on the living room couch, her body supported against the pillows she’d chosen at Wal-Mart or JC Penney’s.   He didn’t doubt it and because he knew, he didn’t.  Cole let the kiss wind down, slow and easy.  He allowed one of his hands to crawl from her back to fondle her full breasts with a gentle caress.  He almost lost control again when she arched her back like a satisfied kitten but he eased back to normal, his breath a little quick and grinned at her.  Maggie smiled back with an unfocused gaze.  She looked the way he felt when he came out of a movie he’d really gotten involved with, dreamy until he walked into the sunlight and a jolt of reality.

            “Oh, Cole,” she breathed, her tone filled with appreciation and what he thought might be affection.

            “I guess you liked it,” he said, without planning. “I’m glad. I thought you might slap my face for that.”

            Maggie laughed with a musical quality so sweet it ramped up his blood pressure a few notches. “I wouldn’t,” she told him, “But, oh, Cole.”

            “What?”

            She shook her head and her hair floated around her shoulders in a cloud. “I’ve been ready for you to kiss me again for twenty years but I don’t know if you are.”

            His scarred heart skipped a beat.  Hell, he wasn’t sure either but he wanted to be and just that alone equaled a miracle.  “If you’d asked me a week ago,” he said, “I’d have said no way.  Yesterday I’d thought maybe in a distant future.”

            “What about now?”

            “I don’t know,” he said, “But I want to find out.”

             She’d always been mercurial, a creature of many moods and faces so he wasn’t surprised when she put her hands against his chest and said, eyes smoldering, “Kiss me again and see what happens.”

            Cole almost did but rational thought stayed him. “If I do,” he told her, without any bullshit, “I won’t be able to stop this time at just a kiss.”

            Maggie’s eyes met his and hers were filled with the naked yearning of a hungry bird and the innocent trust of a pet bunny rabbit. “I don’t care, Cole.  I want you.”

            Everything he longed for in this moment she offered but he shook his head. “I want you, Maggie, in every way a man can want a woman but it’s not the right time.  If we do this now, it’ll end up bad.  You’re vulnerable and the last thing I want to do is hurt you, honey.”

            “You won’t.”

            “I might without meaning to do it,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “We’ve brought something to life so let’s don’t ruin it before it has time to grow.  We’ll be together when its right, I promise.”

             Tears shimmered in her eyes and he thought she’d cry but Maggie didn’t.  She nodded and put her fingers against his cheek. “You’re being sensible, I guess, Cole.  Just tell me it’ll be soon.”

            “God, yes,” he said with feeling, enough she laughed.

Book Trailer:
http://youtu.be/ODVN6JBH-Xo

Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
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