warm welcome to Author RL Merrill who is joining us today to talk about the Summer Fair Anthology!
Check out the guestpost, the excerpt of Marie Piper and the giveaway!
Welcome 🙂
Summer festivals bring the aroma of popcorn, the excitement of rides, and the promise of real-life enchantment. Seven authors bring you original love stories, each set at a different summer celebration. You’ll experience the thrill of the Chicago World’s fair through the eyes of a plucky girl reporter and the quiet desperation of a teen working a summer job at a traveling carnival. Get whisked away on romantic journeys around the world from a sweet Texas Dewberry Festival to a lantern-filled temple celebration to a surprisingly rowdy New England Founders Day. Whether it’s the magic of a Renaissance Fair, the excitement of a Theater Retreat, or the pulse of a Music Festival, you’re sure to get geared up for all things summer with this delightful new collection.
Note: Most stories are fantasy, but this anthology also includes historical, paranormal and contemporary works.
Including:
- Riding the Wave by Annabeth Leong
- Amaryllis and New Lace by Gregory L. Norris
- Salty and Sweet by R.L. Merrill
- Dewberry Kisses by CM Peters
- All the World by Marie Piper
- Carnie by Sienna Saint-Cyr
- The Storyteller’s Side by Harley Easton
- With Stars in His Eyes by Arden de Winter
Author Harley Easton and I worked together a year or so ago on an anthology with the theme of “Gone With The Wind meets The Walking Dead” for the RT2017 convention in Atlanta and she was awesome. When we met in person, she was super sweet and we left on the note that if we ever had projects we were involved in, we’d let each other know. Fast forward several months and she sent me a message asking me if I’d like to join this project and I jumped all over it! Initially I wrote a story about a metal band on the final summer of Warped Tour, but that story began growing out of control, way beyond the word count for this project, and in my mind it was already a whole series. So, I thought about the other things that I love about the summer, other experiences I’ve had and I recalled the fond memories I had the summer I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined the theater. I’d been a dancer my whole life to that point, but I’d never acted other than classroom skits, and I’d never done any singing outside of the car or the shower or that one time in the recording booth at Great America with my cousin. But we don’t talk about that.
California State University Hayward, at least that’s what it was called back in the summer of 1996, used to run a summer theater program for anyone high school-aged and up. I’d just finished my second year of teaching high school, and (it’s a long story) I needed more units before I could clear my credential. I spoke to the person at the admissions office and she shared with me information about this special program they had. I signed up, why the heck not, and ended up performing in my very first musical, Kiss Me, Kate. I was asked to choreograph the tap section as our choreographer was strictly a jazz dancer, and I had so much fun! I even had to sing in front of people for the first time, which was scary as hell, but I survived!
I also remember that summer was rife with change in my personal life. I was in and out of one relationship, had a visit from a long-lost love, and moved from a solo apartment in with a roommate, during which I hurt my back. Just my dad and I moved all of my furniture from the second floor to the new place, in which I had just a bedroom, and I managed to injure my back between my shoulder blades. That injury, combined with scoliosis, has caused me pain my entire adult life. It sidelined my continued dance career, made swimming difficult, and has turned into arthritis that bothers me every day. But you know? I can still do most of the things I love, and with stretching I keep the pain to a minimum, but it’s also a constant reminder to be more careful with myself.
I’m happy to share this story with you and hope you’ll enjoy a little summer fun with me! Thank you for joining me today. For more about my stories of Love, Hope and Rock ‘n’ Roll, please check out my website at www.rlmerrillauthor.com. Stay Tuned for more Rock ‘n’ Romance.
The authors are giving away a $75 Amazon gift card – for a chance to win, enter via Rafflecopter.
From All the World by Marie Piper
She decided to do something bold. “Come up in the wheel with me.”
“I’ve been up in the wheel,” but Cathleen didn’t say no. “You don’t have to buy me a ticket.”
“But I want to,” Anna said. “I want to go up there with you. The line is long. It may be the last thing I get to do today, and though I’m terrified I can’t pass up the chance to do something that is once-in-a-lifetime.”
“No, I imagine you can’t.” Wiping her face, Cathleen finished her hot dog. Anna did the same, and they returned their glasses to the Pabst booth and then got into the long line for the wheel. Children bounced in line, excited to go up but bored with waiting. Men smoked and sent the wafts of smoke across all the people in line, and more than one person looked nervous about going into the sky in the steel contraption.
Anna and Cathleen bought tickets and, by virtue of space, were shoved together as they shuffled slowly to the front.
“Mercy, but it’s high.” Anna felt as if she might be sick.
“You don’t have to do it, you know.”
“But I’ve already bought a ticket.”
“Someone’d pay you for it.”
“But I’ve come all this way and I’m here standing underneath it. Besides, what’ll I do if I don’t—go look at the Fisheries?”
She felt a warm hand take hers and nearly fainted. Cathleen had taken her hand. “Don’t be afraid. It’s fun. It really is.”
“Thank you.”
“And if it collapses and we die, at least we’ll die together.”
Anna groaned but did not take her hand away. Hand in hand, they reached the front of the line and waited with a group of thirty others for the next car to come down and to board. Cathleen pulled them to a windowed corner where they could both press against the glass.
Still, they held hands.
And when the car started to move, Anna squeezed hard from nerves without thinking. Cathleen ducked her head in and put her lips to Anna’s. It was brief, just a momentary touch, but then she whispered into Anna’s ear. “Don’t be afraid.”
Anna wasn’t. Cathleen’s lips against hers had taken away all the fear she had felt about the Ferris Wheel, and then some. With Cathleen beside her, their fingers entwined, she rode the car that rose into the air and beheld the entire fair in all directions before her. She saw the Coliseum of the Wild West show, and the balloon in the sky, and all the trains, and all the people, and all the way back to the basin where she’d first entered the fair off the Lake. The sun was just beginning to go down in the sky. Soon, it would be evening, and Anna would need to get on her way—but with the incredible views and the hand of the lovely girl in hers, and Anna’s heart swelled about to bursting. She could have wept at it all, at this perfect day.
The car started to descent.
“We get one more loop,” Cathleen said.
“I wish it was a hundred,” Anna replied, turning to her friend. “I wish we could stay here forever.” It was an honest confession.
Cathleen smiled, but sadly. With the displays below, Anna felt as if she could see all the world ahead of her. And all the world seemed so small and unimportant.
The brain child of Chicago romance author Marie Piper, the StoryPenners is a collection of fiction and romance authors dedicated to producing independent anthologies to support charitable causes. The StoryPenners has members from the Midwest, the West Coast, New England, Canada, England, and Australia.
Original Members: Marie Piper, Harley Easton, CM Peters, S.B. Roark, and Sienna Saint-Cyr
Contributing StoryPenners: Randi Perrin, Annabeth Leong, Gregory L. Norris, R.L. Merrill, Katey Tattrie, R. Diamond, Arden de Winter
Previous Anthologies:
Melt
Haunt
Author Websites:
http://annabethleong.blogspot.com/
http://www.rlmerrillauthor.com
http://www.mariepiper.com/contact/
https://siennasaintcyr.wordpress.com/
http://gregorylnorris.blogspot.com/
