Osiyo~

It’s TWO WEEKS (Dec 28th) until my debut book, HOME, releases from The Wild Rose Press! Wa-hooo!!!

Today kicks off my “HOME for love” birthday bash for my Vintage historical with The Wild Rose Press!!!!!!! Read on to find out how HOME and other books in the Tales of the Scrimshaw Doll series came about.

Spring 2010, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. One author, an editor for an epublisher, asked the Oklahoma RWA group if anyone would be willing to write in a series to submit to her publisher. Several jumped right in. Some held back. Over the next weeks others joined in and a theme and guidelines were tossed around.

That was the birth of the Tales of the Scrimshaw Doll series to be marketed to The Wild Rose Press.

I was one of those who held back. Unpublished, and as yet, nothing more than hopeful that “someday I would get noticed and sell a book,” I joined this fun project with many other Oklahoma authors.

This would be a project to showcase our state’s writing talents to the world in a single combined effort. Each book written would include the doll with carvings on its whale bone body. Each would be between 10,000 and 60,000 words and each would (hopefully) fit in a different subgenre The Wild Rose Press has to offer its readers.

I have to say our RWA chapter is chock full of talent! From historical to contemporary to paranormal, WE ROCK! Keep a close watch on my blog and The Wild Rose Press as more of these stories are brought to you one by one.

My followers and friends know I write contemporary. It’s my comfort zone. My passion for cowboys is widely-known. 😀 But for this event, and I don’t know why it did, the Vietnam era called to me. I have a respect for that time and the trials the world suffered, the losses the United States withstood, and still endure through the final ramifications from the war referred to as “a police movement.” I was a little tyke in those days so I don’t remember the impact of the moment it happened. But born in the middle of it may be why I feel a heartfelt need to learn, and subsequently, to write about love during that period when romance seemed forgotten. Hope took the back burner and so much was left behind.

But there were great victories at the same time; Elvis Presley, the Beatles and, my heroine’s favorite, The Chiffons, and let’s not forget the era of hot cars- all persevered, rose out of the smoke and strived for decades to follow.

That hope is what brings my hero Sam Callahan and my heroine, Poppy Tippen together. She refuses to let “that damn war” ruin her chance at the only man she’s ever loved. A man that same war destroyed, before spitting him back out into her lap and at the feet of a town that had always been home; but now makes Sam an unwelcome outcast. Poppy has the chance to show Sam where HOME really is, if only he’d open his eyes. 

I try to find inspiration for my characters with each story I write. It just helps picture the person as I write. Poppy was instant recognition from early on in the writing of HOME. Sam- not to easy. After hours of searching, I can’t find him. I have a picture that comes close, but even after a year I haven’t been able to find “him” as hard as I’ve tried. So here is my impression of Sam and Poppy.

My story of hope and love in a time when the world had little of either is my way of sharing what home means to me.

BLURB:

What could a gypsy and a Vietnam veteran have in common?

Silvertown’s outcast, Poppy Tippen, has loved football hero Sam “The Force” Callahan forever. But he never seemed to know she was alive. Now he’s home from the war and she suddenly finds herself comforting him from the demons of “that damn war.” Is his attention merely an escape from the haunting nightmares? Or does she hold the interest of the only man she’s ever truly loved?

Sam Callahan’s only solace from the war nightmares wrecking his life comes in the unlikely form of a gypsy girl with stigmas of her own. He’s known Poppy his entire life, but there’s something different about her now. Something special he desperately wants to hold on to. Can he convince her she’s the only thing he needs to put the past behind him?

EXCERPT:

“I’ll always want you, Poppy.”

Her head shook in automatic denial. “You’ll want a girl who fits your life. Not some gypsy with

no family lineage to brag about. Your momma won’t accept that, either. She’ll make you choose someone like Connie, someone who fits into your world. Not the girl everyone avoids and whispers about behind her back. You’re gonna be the town’s doctor. You need an uppity wife who will make you proud.”

When Sam laughed, his chest shuddered against her back. Deep, husky, real. He turned her in his

arms and looked down at her, smiling. “Poppy, do you honestly think I give a damn what people think? Look at me! I’m the town outcast, the survivor who should have died saving the others, not be here planning a future that includes a wife, a medical practice.

“I shimmy under park benches, run from my mother’s lipstick, for God’s sake. I wake up

screaming and crying over nothing in the middle of the night, crawl under my bed and hide, shaking, until morning. Hell, I can’t even be a doctor because I haven’t finished school yet.”

“I didn’t know. It must be awful for you.” No matter how it hurt Poppy to know he used her, it felt much worse to know how he hurt alone.

“The only time it isn’t awful is when I’m with you. When I think of you.”

                                    ****************************

 I invite you to join me in the release celebration!

I hope you will love HOME as much as I do.

Get your copy of HOME (on December 28^th) at The Wild Rose Press: http://bit.ly/tbYKGl                   

** NOTE: This is currently the ‘coming soon’ link so watch for updates on and after the 28^th.

Small-town country girl Calisa Rhose lives in a semi-remote area of Oklahoma with her husband, five dogs and one horse. All of her three daughters and their families live within throwing distance. She’s a member of RWA and the local chapter OKRWA. She intends to nurture and continue to grow as an author with the help of her family and supporters.

Find Calisa at her website/blog https://calisarhose.wordpress.com

On twitter @Calisa_Rhose and Facebook @Calisa Rhose

She loves to hear from readers so drop her a line at calisa.rhose@gmail.com

I’ll be having a GIVE AWAY BASH on my blog, PEN OF THE DREAMER, on January 1- New Years Day! The tour will continue on, but on this day I’ll be choosing a winner for one copy of HOME.
Comment on all posts from December 26^th through January 1st for more chances to win!

 The day following the New Years Day party I will announce the winner. You can find the full tour schedule on my website at https://calisarhose.wordpress.com/news-promos/blogging/

See you on the tour trail!!!!!

 Dodadagohvi~