Takeover Tuesday: Carole Brown – The Heart that Loves is Always Young

Happy Tuesday!

Today we have the lovely Carole Brown visiting for Takeover Tuesday. Be sure to show her some love in the comments!

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The Heart that Loves is Always Young—Greek Proverb

My genre of choice is suspense and/or mystery. BUT, I love including romance within my books. Why? Let’s list a few reasons:

• Readers love it! Romance is the best selling genre of today’s publishing world.
• It brings a warmth to a novel that lures readers to continue their reading.
• It’s a great escape. Readers have a real world. A world filled with problems and heartaches at times, and for them, for a little while they can forget their own lives.
• Encouragement. We know not everything is or ends as a fairy tale story in real life, but it’s an encouragement to strive for that fairy tale—realistically—and hope to improve our own romantic lives.
• Romance brings out emotions. The world calls us to be strong, career driven and the “amazon” woman. But reading romance—included in whatever genre—touches the emotions that are sometimes hidden within ourselves.

Suspense is known as mysterious, dramatic, at times a little scary or intense. But when I create touches of romantic passages (clean!) in my books, I can lighten that heavier scene.

Let’s show you a few examples in my recent release,

A Flute in the Willows:
Chapter 1: Jerry Patterson
Jerry is leaving for overseas service. This brief but touching scene reveals his tenderness toward is wife. Showing this is crucial in light of the physical and mental trials he endures later in the book.

Josie’s face flashed in his mind, and Jerry felt his heart soften. How he loved his tomboy wife. She was a beautiful butterfly dancing on ice, but put her in a social setting, and she was like a wild creature let loose in a maiden aunt’s prim parlor.

Three weeks of marital bliss. It’d been heaven on earth for him. One rapturous day—and night—after another. She’d cried the night before he’d left, but had been strength personified when he’d boarded the train the next morning.

If—no, when—he got home, he’d wrap his arms around her and not let her out of his sight.

Chapter 11
Jerry’s showing his longing for her even though he mistakenly thinks he must give her up. But he can’t help remembering…

He’d always loved her concern. No matter what he was doing, if she hadn’t spoken to him in awhile, he’d hear her pattering footsteps running—never walking—to see what he was up to. She’d stand on tiptoe to kiss…

Chapter 7: Josie Patterson
Josie has learned that Jerry is missing in action. This scene sets the tone for Josie’s anger, desperation and longing for him.

Josie wanted Jerry. And she didn’t think she could bear it if she had to go the rest of her life without him. It was beyond thinking about.

Chapter 7
Josie can only cope with her husband’s absence by imagining him present, skating with her at one of her competitions.

Sulky eyes roved over her face. Lips tipped up in a crooked smile, defying her to deny her love for him. Muscular arms spun her away, then drew her back, close to his chest.

His sinewy arms lifted and tossed her like a light-weight, fuzzy dandelion seed, into the air, floating, floating, floating higher and higher until, as she began drifting back to the ice floor, he caught her, setting her on her skates, guiding her to yet another magical dance move…

The agony and suspense in the these chapters are lightened and warmed by their imaginations and remembrances. Their love is strong and passionate but because of their trials and mistakes, because of the dangers they live through, because they learn to love God, their romance grows solid, no longer blown by the winds of doubt and dissatisfactions of life.

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About the Author

Besides being a member and active participant of many writing groups, Carole Brown enjoys mentoring beginning writers. An author of ten books, she loves to weave suspense and tough topics into her books, along with a touch of romance and whimsy, and is always on the lookout for outstanding titles and catchy ideas. She and her husband reside in SE Ohio but have ministered and counseled nationally and internationally. Together, they enjoy their grandsons, traveling, gardening, good food, the simple life, and did she mention their grandsons?

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About the Book

The Blurb: “Both rebels in their own way, Josie and Jerry Patterson must figure out how to keep the other’s love…and keep the German enemy at bay.

She has two loves—her skating and Jerry, her husband. But when he returns home looking like a skeleton trying to return to life, she’s scared. What happened in Germany to change a man so much? Has another woman captured his heart?

Jerry has vowed to let Josie live her own glamourous life…especially after what happened in Germany. But when his wife’s life is threatened, Jerry realizes he can’t stand by and do nothing. Jerry has to risk all for the very soul and life of himself—Josie.

These two damaged, rebellious people learn the hard way that leaning on God instead of their own selves and abilities is the only true way to love and happiness.”

Links: Amazon, Goodreads