HOME FOR THE SUMMER — Book 5 in The Chesapeake Diaries —
will be available May 29th!!!!!

Happy Spring, everyone!

Though I have to say that, for some of us, spring arrived a lot sooner than expected. At the risk of sounding like an old lady who’s obsessed with the weather, we had practically no winter here in Southeastern Pennsylvania. That was not a complaint, by the way. We were just as happy to not have to navigate icy roads as we have in the past. I read somewhere that this was the warmest — or the second warmest — winter on record, and I believe it.

Everything seems to have bloomed at the same time here. The peach tree bloomed several weeks ago, and we’re hoping the frost we had last week didn’t kill the buds (and our dreams of eating our own peaches this summer). The apple trees are in blossom right now, including the honey crisp we planted two years ago. Both sour cherry trees are totally covered with flowers, so we’re looking forward to lots of sour cherry pies and cobblers later on (and hopefully enough to freeze for baking around the holidays). The Asian pears are in bloom, the blueberry bushes are budding out and even the fig tree has a touch of green.

I should note here that last year, a late frost killed off most of the peaches, the apples did very poorly (the honey crisp did nothing. Nada. Zip.), the deer ate ALL of the Asian pears, the pear tree became infected with something and we had to take it down, and I think we had ONE fig from two trees. Doesn’t say much about our gardening/nursery skills, but we’re ever hopeful and are trying again.

With the return of spring and the eventual summer, my thoughts turn to spring and summer reading. So of course I want to remind you that HOME FOR THE SUMMER — book number five in my Chesapeake Diaries series, will go on sale on May 29! Yippee skippy!!!! This is the book that will answer those two questions that so many readers have been emailing to ask: Why won’t Lucy Sinclair come home? And — What’s up with Robert Magellan and Susanna Jones (who are well-known to you readers of the Mercy Street trilogy)?

Lucy Sinclair is a celebrity event planner who, with her partner, Bonnie Schafer, owns a very successful West Coast business. Gazillionaire Robert Magellan and his fiancé have chosen Lucy’s family’s inn, The Inn at Sinclair’s Point in St. Dennis, Maryland, for their wedding — on the condition that Lucy will be their wedding planner. With the financial stakes high for the inn, Lucy of course agrees, though being in St. Dennis, staying at the inn with her family, makes Lucy very uncomfortable. Why? Well, that’s the question her mother and her one-time best friend, Clay Madison, are asking. Clay and Lucy were once inseparable, but something happened the summer between their freshman and sophomore year in high school that caused Lucy to drop their friendship and retreat. Clay’s always blamed himself, though he’s never known what it was that made her turn away from him.

The one thing that Clay has always known was that Lucy was the only girl for him. He’s hoping that having her in St. Dennis for a while will give him time to make her see what he’s known since they were kids — and to find out what led to the break up of their friendship so long ago.

HOME FOR THE SUMMER — my 31st book! — will go on sale on May 29. If you’ve been enjoying the series, I think you’ll love this book. It’s one of my favorites.

Click here to read an excerpt from HOME FOR THE SUMMER.

And now for some good news: I’ve signed a contract to write three more in the Chesapeake Diaries series. Yay!!!! I just started book six — THE LONG WAY HOME — and I’m so loving it. It’s the story of two people who are guarding deep secrets, both of whom need to find their way after terrible betrayal and to learn to believe in all those things they’d lost faith in. I have to say the book is coming along nicely. Look for it early in 2013 — the exact date yet to be determined.

In the meantime, of course, there’s HOME FOR THE SUMMER. My inner wedding planner had a BALL with this one — I do love to plan parties, and what are wedding receptions if not big parties?

And if you’re a UK reader — have I got exciting news for you! The first five books in the Chesapeake Diaries are being made available as e-books published by Piatkus’s new imprint, Entice. The books are being published in order, starting with COMING HOME which launched on March 1, followed by HOME AGAIN (April 1), ALMOST HOME (May 1), HOMETOWN GIRL (June 1), right on through till July, with the publication of HOME FOR THE SUMMER. The titles — mine and those of other superbly talented writers — and their availability can be found on the publisher’s website: http://www.piatkusentice.co.uk/

Then, come September, all five of the Chesapeake Diaries will be available as print editions (how cool is that?!).

As always, if you’d like to be on my mailing list to receive an e-postcard before new books are published, click on “SEND EMAIL” above and tell me to add your name to the list.

Don’t forget to “friend” me on Facebook — we have give-aways for books every now and then, so you might want to get in on those — and we often talk about books (and occasionally post pictures of our adorable grandboy, Cole).

Until next time ~

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