Maybe This Time Happy Birthday#Giveaway

July 12 is my book birthday. Maybe This Time is now available on Amazon.

To celebrate I’m giving away seventeen 3.99 Amazon Gift cards. Why 3.99, you ask? Because that is what it would cost you to buy the book. Naturally I will be thrilled if you rush right out and click that Amazon buy button. But I also feel I want to give back to my readers.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
In Maybe This Time I decided to follow a secondary character in Time and Forever, Jeremy’s sister, Jennifer. I knew from the epilogue who Jen was in the present. I thought it might be fun to figure out how she got there.

Now I am one of those writers who starts with a glimmer of an idea and assumes the story will flow from that point. I knew Jennifer had three husbands because she remarks in the epilogue of Time and Forever, “Third time lucky.”

That sounded good to me. I know that in real life happily- ever-after doesn’t have to start in your twenties. And it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around. I love second chances.

Katharine Ross had four failed marriages before she met and married Sam Elliot at age 44. They are still beautifully in love today in their seventies.

My character, Jen had two failed marriages and had stopped looking for love.

I started the story with Jen’s forty-ninth birthday, a turning point for many women. I assumed she would be meeting her third husband—the happy-ever-after one.

But my characters kidnapped my story. I had no idea that Jen’s third marriage would be to her first husband and that they would take me on a ride through time to places I never dreamed of revisiting. When I realized one of those places was to the morning of 9/11, I almost stopped writing. I didn’t think I would ever want to revisit that memory.

But I couldn’t say no to the story. The characters in Maybe This Time spoke to my heart and I had to follow. Believe me, I was delighted when I made it through to the happily- ever-after.

I hope you will say yes and sample my story. Here’s the blurb and an excerpt.

Maybe This Time
A Second Chance Romance

Their Happily-Ever-After is over before it begins unless they can change time.

London 2001

Forty-nine-year-actress Jennifer Knight would rather eat worms than face her first husband. But when her niece Kat accidentally time travels them to 1988, she needs his help.

Computer guru, Lance Davies is more comfortable with machines than people. He never knew how to handle his beloved, mercurial Jen. But now her future self is here in front of him and he wants another chance.
Jen’s torn. Her traitorous body insists that home is in Lance’s arms, but her heart has trust issues

Can two people whose timelines are thirteen years apart find a future where they can be together?

Excerpt

Jen looked into the face of the man she’d adored since she was nine, and actively avoided for the last twenty years. Lance looked almost the same as the day they’d parted. A few more lines framed his hazel eyes, now sea-dark with concern. His brown hair showed no trace of gray. It was still too long, with the same stupid lock falling over his forehead. She automatically reached to brush it back. Stopped herself. Her throat was so dry. Where was a cough drop when you needed one? “You’ve aged well.” Jen’s knees buckled.

Lance kicked out a chair and sat, pulling her into his lap. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, we can fix it.”

His warm, strong hands sent shock waves shivering through her body. She shook her head mutely.

Lance’s voice sharpened. “Is it Jeremy? Kathryn? Has something happened to them?”

“Uncle Lance!” Kathryn stopped in the living room archway, eyes child-solemn. “Why are you hugging Aunty Jen?”

Jen slipped out of Lance’s arms and landed on the floor. Could this get any worse?

“Aunty Jen says you are a stupid head with a big brain and no feelings.”

Jen rose with all the dignity she could muster. “You shouldn’t repeat things grownups say, Kitty-Kat. It’s not polite.” She reached for the packet Mrs. Flannery left behind, willing her hands not to tremble. “Here are the papers, you came for. Nice to see you. Goodbye.”

Lance glanced from Kathryn to Jen. “Where’s Jeremy? I know he and Kitty-Kat went to Sussex. Why is she back without him, and what are you doing here?”

“We couldn’t get home, Uncle Lance. So we came here.” Kathryn scuffed her foot, now shod in a plastic Jelly shoe, against the wood floor. “I thought Jen would like the machine, but I don’t like being young again. My brain is too small. I want to go home.”

Lance’s hand tightened on the papers he held. “Kathryn,” he said carefully. “How old are you?”

“I’m nineteen and I want to go home.”

Lance catapulted out of the chair. “It worked. By all that’s good and beautiful, it worked. I didn’t think he could do it.”

“You knew? You knew what he was working on?”

Lance’s grin changed to the expressionless mask she used to hate so much. “Of course, I knew. I divorced you. Not your brother. I was helping him with the theory. He probably would have told you about it, had you been interested in anyone but yourself and your career.”

Jen resisted the urge to punch him. One of them reverting to childhood was enough. Too bad. Her boxing trainer said she had a fantastic right hook. She kept her tone smooth and even. “I don’t know when we are, but I turned forty-nine yesterday, Lancelot, and you don’t know half as much about me as you think you do. I am very interested in my niece, and she’s standing there listening to every word we say.”

Lance turned to Kathryn. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Your aunty and I won’t fight anymore.” He crooked his little finger at Jen the way they used to do when they were children. “Pax?”

Resisting the temptation to break it, Jen hooked her little finger in his. “Pax,”

Kathryn curved her little finger around theirs. “Pax. Now can we get ice cream?”

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