Small Town Secrets Spicy Rom Com Bundle

Welcome to Mudville... Within these stories you’ll find nosy neighbors and runaway livestock, big Victorians and a small-town coffee shop, contentious village meetings and a muddy river that tends to flood, a vintage diner and a local bar that serves the best wings around, a resale shop run by a feisty redhead where you can get anything from chainsaws to Chanel, a family-owned farm known for its corn (and the brothers who run it), and finally, one misplaced author who came for a visit and never left.

And now, the complete series collection is available in one volume. That's 6 full-length novels, 2 novellas, and 2 FREE bonus short stories.

There is mystery and humor, history and love, so get your binge on today!

From "KISSING BOOKS"

The black cursor blinked against the white screen. Steady. Relentless. Winking on and off. On and off.
It might as well have been chanting, "loser, loser." 
That’s what I felt like.


I huffed out a sigh.
This was ridiculous. This wasn’t my first book. Far from it.
I had nine novels published. I’d earned those New York Times and USA Today bestseller letters after my name. Or at least author Harper Lowry had.


Harper Lowinsky—thanks, Dad, for that winner of a last name—was available as a website domain if I’d wanted it. No surprise there. But I decided it was too long and too hard to spell correctly. Hence I made my choice to go with a simpler pen name and Harper Lowry was born.


But the point was, though this book wasn’t my first, it might be my last if I didn’t get something—anything—down on paper and get it to the editor by the deadline.


Yes, the procrastination was my fault. I didn’t have to listen to that audiobook by that productivity coach instead of writing, but it might have helped me. It was productivity I was having trouble with. Obviously.


And cleaning my apartment before I sat down to write couldn’t really be considered procrastinating. Right? It needed to be done eventually. Maybe not right then but . . .


I was willing to take a certain amount of the blame for not putting my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard, but the writer’s block I was experiencing—that was not my fault.


It might have taken me awhile to get here but now, I had my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. Ready.
Yet still there were no words. Not in my brain. Certainly not on the blank screen.


So whom could I blame this on?
My editor seemed like a good choice. She wanted a brand new three-book series and the thought of that, starting at zero, was daunting. Paralyzing.


Happy with that excuse, I waited for an idea to strike, like it always had during my writing career.


And I waited.


Blink-blink. Blink-blink.
Lo-ser. Lo-ser.


Ugh! 


“Crud.” I said the word aloud even though there was no one to hear me. Not a cat. Not a goldfish. Not even a houseplant. But saying it made me feel better.


The four walls of my apartment didn’t care if I talked to myself. It still didn’t help the current word count situation though.


Oh, there were lots more words running through my brain at the moment. Unfortunately, none of them were appropriate for the page.


I let a few of those choice words out, in a long colorful string of obscenities worthy of a celebrity caught by the paparazzi on TMZ.


Was it crazy if no one actually heard me talking to myself? I could probably find the answer to that online . . . 


Maybe there was a plot line in there somewhere. I opened a new browser window and was about to dive head first into the rabbit hole that was the internet when the cell phone on the desk next to my laptop lit with an incoming call. 


I watched the name that appeared on screen with mixed emotions—anticipation and annoyance. At this point any distraction—any excuse to not face that blank page—felt welcome. 


On the other hand, there’d be no written words forthcoming once I answered that call. Maybe not for the rest of the morning. Because I’d be stuck on the phone chatting for at least a solid half an hour if I answered.
Then, even after I hung up, I’d be too distracted and out of sorts to settle in to write. The mushroom cloud of emotional fallout from my mother’s calls tended to hang around.


Resigned, I hit the icon to answer and put the call on speaker. “Hello, Mother.”


“Are you home?” she asked.


“Yes. Of course, I’m home,” I said, annoyed. Honestly, where else would I be this early in the morning?


“I don’t know. You could be anywhere as far as I know since you never tell me anything. Aren’t you going on a trip soon?”


“No. I’m not.”


She acted like I routinely snuck away without telling her. My damn travel schedule was public. It had its own webpage on my site.


I consciously pressed my lips together in an effort not to grind my teeth. I couldn’t afford it. I’m self-employed. I don’t have dental insurance.


“Oh. Well anyway, since you’re home and not busy, you can come with me. I have to drive upstate for the reading of Aunt Agnes’s will today and your father is working.”


There were so many parts of that one sentence that disturbed me I didn’t know where to start.
First and foremost, my mother still didn’t get that if I was awake and I was home, it meant I was working. Just because I didn’t put on a business suit and drive to an office to sit at a desk in a cubicle for my job, didn’t mean I wasn’t busy.
But I’d tilted at that windmill too many times with no results. I knew how it would end so I moved on to my next concern.


“Great Aunt Agnes died?” I asked.


“Apparently. Her lawyer called me and asked if I could meet her at her office today. What else could it be about?”


“Wow. Shouldn’t one of our relatives have told you she died?”


“Who? She’s got no one. She’s never been married. She has no kids. You should let that serve as a lesson to you, Harper. This is what happens when you die unmarried with no children. The lawyer calls your grieving relatives.”


Relatives, yes. I’d give my mother that one. But grieving? Yeah, no. I called bull on that.


I ignored the routine slam against my current relationship status. I’d heard that broken record too many times since I’d had the audacity to turn thirty while single.

Instead, I moved on to yet another concern.
“Where is this lawyer’s office located?” I asked.


“It’s about three hours away. Maybe a little less if we don’t stop.”


“Three hours? Each way?” My eyes widened.


“Yes, of course. Aunt Agnes lived way upstate. Remember?”


Six hours. In the car. With my mother. A trip to Hell held less trepidation for me than this road trip.


“What’s the name of her town again?” I asked.


“Mudville.”


Mudville. I sighed.

Lovely.