Season’s Greetings
December 30, 2025 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as holidays, short fiction, writing
Just one week until Christmas. This is my last craft fair for the season—thank god! I have been selling my hand-crafted greeting cards every weekend since early October, and let me tell you, I’m burned out. I’ve done okay, made my table fees back at most events, but it’s a grind. Today, I’m set up in a community center near Reading, along with what must be forty other vendors.
This is your last chance, people, to find the perfect gift! My perfect gift would be a medical miracle for my dad. He’s been unconscious for two weeks, since the car wreck on I-80. The doctors say he should recover—if he wakes up. But he’s pushing eighty. It may not happen.
That would make a good card theme, right? A get-well wish made for people whose loved one is in a coma. May they snap out of it. Or, how about: Wake up, sleepy Jean. But that’s my dark humor bubbling up. Damn it, now my eyes are blurry.
The crowd today has been steady, and there’s plenty of buying going on, judging by the packed bags people are toting around. Most of the merchandise has no appeal for me; I’m not into ninety-dollar stone reindeer, or fat crocheted cats, or ceramic tabletop Christmas trees, or polished plaques that say “What-cha cookin’.” To be fair, my stuff doesn’t appeal to everyone either. I’ve had window shoppers tell me point-blank, “I don’t send cards.”
Still, I have my regulars and I love ‘em. They buy from me every year, oohing and ahhing over my new designs. But the nonbuyers are right: Who sends greeting cards anymore? Especially when you can zap out an e-card or text an emoji or even write a general Insta post—that takes care of a lot of people in one sweep.
Greeting cards are special to me, though. I used to do a bit of calligraphy, fancy addresses on envelopes, cool name tags, that sort of thing. Then I discovered watercolors, and the people at work said I had talent, and here we are.
But you can’t please everybody. Some folks don’t like my designs. Not religious enough, they say. I say, my cards touch people’s souls; do you? Other folks want a poem inside—they’re the Hallmark crowd. I don’t do poetry, not that kind anyway. Make me write a poem, and I’ll give you Macbeth: Foul is fair and fair is foul.
And some people even expect me to mail the cards for them. If you pay for postage, I’ll think about it.
It’s about a half hour before this craft event is over and I can stuff my wares into my SUV and head home. Later, I’ll stop by the hospital and sit with Dad for a while. And keep my fingers crossed, hoping. Mom passed six years ago, and he’s all I’ve got left. My brother lives across the country and can’t be bothered.
I reach for a box beneath my table to start packing up. The place is emptying out; I doubt I’ll get many more customers at this hour. Then I see him, one of my regulars. He’s heading my way, his eyes roving my displays and finally finding my gaze.
“Hi, Roy,” I say. “It’s about time you showed up.” I rib him gently; he always buys a handful of cards.
“What’s new this year?” He stands about my height, stocky with a beard. His watch cap in Eagles green has slid up his forehead, revealing the worry lines that come with life. I know nothing about him beyond his first name. He’s friendly enough, but he’s never revealed anything personal in our interactions. Married? Loner? I have no idea.
I spin the rack to a new design, a swirl of deep indigo tinged with a hint of orange along one edge. The dark of the storm before the dawn. Before I can pick it up, he has his hand on it.
“Yes,” he says. “This’ll do.” He selects a half-dozen other designs, then stares at me briefly. “The storm clouds are thinning, I think.”
I record his purchase and place the cards and their envelopes in a slim paper bag. He hands over the cash. Without thinking, I blurt, “Peace be with you.” Where that came from, I have no idea. I’m not devout about anything but my cards.
He nods once. “Best wishes for your father,” he says, and strides away.
“What?” I murmur. I must have misunderstood. When I open my hand to count the money, mixed in with the bills is a Patriots key chain. My dad’s favorite team, even years after he left New England. “Wait,” I call out, but when I look up, Roy has merged into the trickle of customers. I no longer see him.
Odd. He must had carried the key chain in his pocket and pulled it out without realizing it. I run a thumb over the raised logo. A Patriots symbol deep in Eagles country, just like Dad. He’ll chuckle at the irony—. I stop my thoughts before I lose my composure. How did Roy know about Dad?
As I box up inventory and break down my racks, my phone lights up. It’s the hospital. Suddenly lightheaded, I sit on my folding stool, gripping the phone so hard my fingers ache.
“Yes?” I say, afraid to hear whatever news they have to share.
There is a pause as a connection switches and it’s the nursing station.
They say: My father is now awake and alert.
And he’s asking for me.
More of Dianna’s Stories
Adventures in AI
December 28, 2025 by Alina K. Field in category Quarter Days by Alina K. Field tagged as AI, Alina K. Field, historical romance, Marketing, Regency romance, writingHappy holidays, and Happy New Year! I’m back for another Quarter Days post.
A Controversial Subject
First things first: I know that the use of AI is a controversial topic among authors and other creators. I’m not one of the folks who use it to plot, write, edit, or create book covers or audiobooks.
For one thing, the slick, smarmy AI generated prose from scammers that arrives in my inbox is a deterrent–easily identified as machine-made. Here’s one message from November 17th regarding my recent release, Her Impeccable Scoundrel:
As we enter the most uplifting time of the year, I hope this season brings you joy, renewed inspiration, and continued success as you craft elegant, emotionally rich historical romances that captivate devoted readers. After reviewing Her Impeccable Scoundrel, [emphasis mine] I was struck by its refined tension, nuanced character development, and the deeply human struggle between duty, trust, and long-buried emotion. Blythe’s fight to reclaim her reputation and protect her inheritance combined with Graeme’s complex return, carrying both guilt and longing creates an irresistible Regency narrative filled with redemption, vulnerability, and slow-burning romance. It is exactly the kind of elegant, emotionally resonant story our seasonal campaign aims to highlight.
(Note that there is a seasonal campaign coming up, for which payment by author will likely be required.)
Release day for Her Impeccable Scoundrel was November 18th. Hmm, how did the AI bot read it before sending this message?
No doubt you authors reading here have received messages like this from book clubs, famous authors, marketers and unsolicited reviewers. If you haven’t heard of this new scam, Writer Beware has several posts on the topic.
This Quarter’s New Releases
It’s been a busy few months with new releases, two fun projects with the Bluestocking Belles, plus a full length novel in the Wicked Widows League multi-author series.
Love’s Perilous Road, a Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends
Release Day, October 31, 2025
Travel, houseparties, smugglers, spies, a ghost–and a mysterious highwayman. Who is the infamous Captain Moonlight? And how many lives will he change–for good or for ill?
It’s the autumn of 1817 and Sir Peter Somerville and his lady are hosting a house party at their estate near Brighton, while a pesky highwayman plagues the surrounding byways.
Includes my novella, Sir Westcott Steals a Heart.
Purchase link: https://books2read.com/u/mqx0W6
Her Impeccable Scoundrel
Release Day, November 18, 2025
A widowed countess emerges from her year of mourning battling the dark legacy of her husband and dreading the arrival of the straitlaced scoundrel whose interference years earlier led to her unhappy marriage, a young man who was once her friend: her late husband’s heir.
Called back to England to take up his late cousin’s title, diplomat Graeme Blatchfield is eager to see his cousin’s widow and learn for himself whether the rumors about the woman he once held a childish infatuation for are true. Forced by matters of the estate to spend time together, he soon discovers the vulnerable and lonely woman underneath the society mask. Can he get her to forgive him—and more?
Buy Link: https://books2read.com/HerImpeccableScoundrel
Merry Belles, a Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends
Release Day December 20, 2025
Just in time for the holidays, seven charming stories of romance from award-winning and best-selling authors:
- A murder brings a lady and her lost love together, just close enough to heal old wounds.
- A young lady must foil a friend’s betrayal to have her Yuletide wish for love come true.
- A widowed lord’s new housekeeper tames his rowdy boys and pierces his lonely heart.
- A lady determined to find her wayward young son finds herself stranded with the persistent earl trying to woo her out of widowhood.
- Will restoring a family manor together help two people acknowledge a secret attraction and claim a future together?
- A soldier’s wife is determined to find her missing husband, even if she must walk the length and breadth of England with her children in a wheelbarrow.
- Home from the wars, a soldier is shocked to learn that his fiancée plans to wed someone else. Can he reach her in time to prevent the nuptials?
Includes my novella, Lady Loughton’s Last Wager
Buy link: https://books2read.com/u/mvRGPj
Hope your holidays are going well! Wishing you many blessings for the New Year, and I’ll see you at my next Quarter Day post.
My WW2 Christmas Novella ‘A Soldier’s Italian Christmas’ was inspired by a special Christmas Eve in Italy and me getting kicked out of the convent by Jina Bacarr
December 11, 2025 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as Christmas eve, comics, Italy, World War 2, writing
‘I regret to inform you, but your daughter is no longer enrolled here,’ the Mother Superior announced to my parents on a cold, winter day in Bethlehem, PA. I was thirteen.
I hung my head, sad for my parents, but still not understanding what the hullabaloo was all about. It wasn’t like I was a longtime student at the convent school. I’d only been there a short time. Very short.
When my poor father asked why I wasn’t staying, the stern nun said in a crisp, clear voice: ‘She reads comics.’
Really?
True, the Sisters of Mercy catered to young girls thinking about joining the Order and with my sassy poetry writing and short skirts I was borderline — below borderline — but comics stashed under my hard pillow with my missal and rosary beads was the last straw for the pious woman. She knew I wasn’t nun material. I wanted to travel, meet cute guys, dance, eat chocolates at Ladurée in Paris…
And so I did. I had wild adventures up and down the Continent and spent Christmas with the troops in Italy. Yes, that’s me in the photo reading comics — I was with US Army Special Services on a trip with soldiers and their families to Abetone in the Italian Alps for a skiing trip. I found an Uncle Scrooge comic book in Italian and devoured it. I often read comics in different languages to learn the vernacular, slang, everyday expressions.
Not the catechism required at the convent.
But the good Sisters taught me about humility, giving, discipline. Traits that kept me out of trouble and helped me become a writer. So even though I wasn’t a good ‘fit’ to take the veil, I will always be grateful to the Sisters behind the revolving door of parochial and convent schools I attended. Sometimes the nuns uttered a sigh of relief when I left, others hugged me and cried over me leaving. They ‘got’ me with one nun giving me time during study hall to write my ‘Paris mystery novel’ when I was fourteen.
I often wondered if I should have entered a life of religious service since I have a strong need for detail and strict discipline to finish what I started, along with my fanatical dive into deep research mode for my stories, and my love of teaching children. Qualities needed to take that path and I just didn’t see it. That question prompted me to write a WW2 Christmas novella about a young woman who hides from the Nazis by becoming ‘Sister Angelina’ in charge of a motely group of orphan boys… then she meets Captain Mack O’Casey, an American Army captain who tests her faith…
Add to it a Christmas Eve memory at the service club where I worked in Livorno, Italy (we hosted a Christmas party for orphan boys and the nuns and how the EMs Enlisted Men helped me locate a lost little orphan named Daniele), and you have ‘A Soldier’s Italian Christmas’.
I hope you enjoy my video posted below near the end of this post! Merry Christmas!!
Jina xx
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My time travel back to WW2:
HER LOST LOVE:
Enjoy a trip back to Posey Creek, PA during WW 2 on the home front as Kate Arden prepares for the holidays… until her world comes crashing down when her fiancé ships overseas in ‘Her Lost Love’.
Available at e-tailers everywhere… print and audio book, too.
Find out more in HER LOST LOVE E-book links:
US Amazon https://amzn.to/2pcz2eN
UK Amazon https://amzn.to/31rF4pZ
Follow me on BookBub for new releases and promo deals!
Time travel back to Christmas 1943 on the home front with my holiday Women’s Fiction novel HER LOST LOVE
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On a cold December day in 1955, Kate Arden got on a train to go home for Christmas. This is the story of what happened when she got off that train. In 1943. In 1943 Kate Arden was engaged to the man she loved, Jeffrey Rushbrooke. She was devastated and heartbroken when he was called up for wartime duty and later killed on a secret mission in France.
But what if Kate could change that? What if she could warn him and save his life before Christmas? Or will fate have a bigger surprise in store for her?
Her Lost Love is a sweeping, heartbreakingly romantic novel – it’s one woman’s chance to follow a different path and mend her broken heart…
———–
HER LOST LOVE
Thank you for stopping by! If you like WW 2 romance, check out my holiday novella that takes place in Italy on the road to Rome on Christmas Eve during the cold winter of 1943: A Soldier’s Italian Christmas.
December 1943 Italy
He is a US Army captain, a battle-weary soldier who has lost his faith.
She is a nun, her life dedicated to God.
Together they are going to commit an act the civilized world will not tolerate.
They are about to fall in love.
Winner in the Novella Category in the I Heart Indie contest A Soldier’s Italian Christmas is available on Kindle ~Jina
Also, my Civil War medical drama: LOVE ME FOREVER is available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited Liberty Jordan travels back to 1862 as an re-enactor– I love the Christmas scene with Liberty tending to the wounded from both the North and the South…
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If you love Civil War romance and time travel and TWO hunky military heroes, check out my Kindle Scout winner: LOVE ME FOREVER
She wore gray.
He wore blue.
But their love defied the boundaries of war. And time.
0 1 Read morePlanning for Peace by Kitty Bucholtz
December 9, 2025 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, menopause, organization, Perimenopause, Planning, writing
Everyone who knows me knows I’m big on planning. That’s because my brain gets all stressed out if I don’t know what’s going on, whether I have time to say yes to something, or when I’m afraid I’m missing out on something. That’s why I already know where we’re spending Christmas (with friends a few minutes away), what I’m bringing for dinner (a homemade chocolate pie, homemade cornbread, and drinks), and what I’ll be wearing (embroidered jeans, a lightweight knit shirt, and taking both a sweater and sweatpants for warmth and comfort later). All that in the first week of December! Woohooo!! And now I’m not stressed at all about Christmas. (Yup, Christmas shopping already done!)
But when it comes to still trying to balance the changes menopause is having on my brain and my energy with the goals I want to achieve in 2026…well, planning in a way that will bring me the most peace is critical. One of the things I learned is that cortisol, the stress hormone, can make menopause symptoms worse. So if I’m feeling stressed by how I’m feeling (or by how it’s keeping me from achieving my goals!), the stress actually makes the symptoms worse.
Not to mention the fact that unused cortisol (if there are no tigers to run from or I don’t walk it off quickly) gets stored as fat. Great. Talk about insults and injuries.
I bought a one-year subscription to MasterClass.com last Christmas because Halle Berry hosted a 90-minute “class” with interviews with several doctors and women going through menopause. Here I am two weeks before my subscription expires and I finally finished watching it and taking notes. There was a lot of good information in the class, but let me give you a few bullet points that fit with my topic of planning for peace.
- Decluttering — I knew this was not a time-waster or procrastination technique!! But I’d let people convince me it was, and my mess has been stressing me out all year. It’s gotten to the point, I don’t even like to spend much time in my office. Several items on my to-do list now have to do with sorting papers that are currently piled everywhere, filing the important must-keep stuff in boxes I just bought, and throwing out as much as I can. I need to let go of all the old plays I wrote a million years ago…even though I don’t really want to. I never look at them, won’t use them again, and don’t have room in our small apartment to keep writing only for nostalgia’s sake. (And no, for those about to leave a comment about scanning them or taking photos, it would take me weeks to do that! I have a lot of old writing!)
- Have a “launchpad” where you keep your keys, your wallet, your purse, your phone/charger, etc. I’ve never called it a launchpad, but I get the idea. I have a bowl I made in pottery class in college where I put all those things. It is so stressful when I’m rushing out the door for the train and realize one of those items did not make it to the bowl and now I have to look “everywhere” for it…because right now my brain can’t remember.
- Prioritizing tasks on your list before you begin. Many days I only have a few hours of functioning brain time, so I need to be sure that if I can only get one thing done today, it’s the right thing. And if I can get 2 or 3 things done, they are things I’ll be happy or relieved got done. Much as I want to watch the last episode of The Beast in Me on Netflix to find out how it ends, that is not the best use of my limited brain-time right now! And because limited brain-time has made me perpetually behind in all my goals, when I have a good day (like today!) and can get a dozen things done, I want them to be the things I desperately needed to have done last week and the week before.
- Organizational Skills Therapy — one of the doctors mentioned this and I have no idea what it is, but it sounds awesome!! I’m totally Googling it later!
So those four items are now on my list of tools I want to use to plan for peace in 2026. I have no idea what to expect next year. My brain seems to maybe be working better, but I’ve thought that in the past right before a new wave of menopause hell bowled me over. At least with these tools, I can get a few of the most important items done and choose to be satisfied with it, not stressing about what I can’t control.
I hope this is helpful for you as well! Whether you’re in need of this information or know someone you can share it with, it’s always good to have some reliable tools in your author — and life — toolkit. I hope you plan for a peaceful and joyful end of 2025 and that it spills over into all of 2026. God bless you! And Merry Christmas!
0 1 Read moreNary a Clue
November 30, 2025 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic tagged as short fiction, Thanksgiving, writing
Thanksgiving was three days ago, and I’m still reeling at what I witnessed. My sister hosted, as she has for the last twenty years. That was the only thing predictable about the holiday, though. I was there, of course. She assigns me a dessert every year, and as the dutiful sibling, I oblige, although it’s always store bought. Me, bake a pie? For the sixteen others in attendance, it was more or less potluck. By that I mean both the dishes shared and the personalities that came with them.
Will, my brother-in-law, made a mistake by suggesting we try a team effort at cooking. Sister Steph wasn’t buying it. “Out,” she said, when the horde attempted to breach the kitchen walls. Instead, she selected four of us (yes, me, always) to run the prep, allowing Will in only to check on the turkey. The rest dispersed to the family room for football or the basement for games.
That’s when the screaming started. I was the first to react, given that the only thing I was busy with just then was peeling potatoes. The scream pierced the holiday music that Alexa was playing in the kitchen, and I dropped the peeler and sprinted for the door.
There was confusion among the football crowd, most seeming reluctant to abandon the game underway to locate the screamer. I passed them by and pulled open the basement door.
“Auntie Rhea, you’ve got to help.” That was my nephew Shawn, eyes wide as dinner plates. Behind him on the stairs crowded another nephew and a second cousin.
Expecting to mediate a fight over who was winning at a board game, I had to blink several times to take in the scene at the bottom of the stairs: Instead of just a small knot of preteens, the room now included several adults, none of whom I’d seen before.
I walked up to the nearest person, a middle-aged man dressed in clothing straight out of a Victorian era film. “Who are you?” I couldn’t let the children know how alarmed I was. “What are you doing here?”
The man had the look of a vulture—his six-foot-plus stature to my smidge-over-five-feet height. “We have a crime to solve, madam.” His brow furrowed. “We suspect that one of these scamps is the culprit.”
The narrow basement had somehow expanded to include several new doorways, a brick fireplace in which flames crackled, and picture windows that overlooked … a broad, wooded valley. On a suburban street in Doylestown?
“What crime would that be?” I kept up my no-nonsense demeanor even as I struggled to understand what was going on.
He pulled out a small notebook and flipped several pages. “A murder.”
Quickly I counted the youngsters in the room: eight. That seemed correct. “One of the children is dead?” I said, my legs suddenly wobbly.
The man grimaced. “Hardly. It’s someone related to the Colonel. Mustard’s cousin.”
Mustard? The other adults in the now-sumptuous room also wore period clothing, one of them in a khaki military uniform complete with a few medals pinned to his chest.
“Are we talking about the game Clue?”
Shawn tugged at the sleeve of my cardigan. “Auntie?” His lower lip trembled. “We were playing, and Amanda sprinkled what she said was stardust over the board.” He pointed at the adults. “And then they all appeared.”
Miss Scarlett, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, and Chef White nodded curtly at me. Each carried a weapon in their hands.
“As you can see, we are in a dreadful predicament,” the tall man with the small notebook said. He had to be Professor Plum. “They’ve elected me to find out who—”
He was interrupted by the loud clanging of a bell from upstairs, my sister’s way of calling everyone to the table. I’d missed out on the rest of the dinner prep. Too bad.
I patted the professor’s arm, impressed with the high-quality tweed of his sleeve. “The kids and I aren’t going to be able to help you right now. Thanksgiving meal is waiting.” All eyes were on me. “You all are welcome to join us. Cranberry sauce, stuffing, roast turkey—and pumpkin pie.”
The entire group, kids and interloper adults, followed me up the stairs. We added another leaf to Steph’s table and made do with several folding chairs Will found in his garage workshop. The kids sat at their own table, in the kitchen, where they could argue over who got the drumsticks.
The newcomers introduced themselves as everyone settled in at their places.
Will raised an eyebrow at them. “Aren’t you all from—?”
“Shush,” I said, putting a finger to my lips. “Let’s eat.”
More of Dianna’s Books
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THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR
How can a young widow fall in love with the man who denied her justice?
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