Author: Carol Underhill

Good Monday Morning 9-13-21

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment
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Good Monday morning.


Please, Lord, let this week go better than the last two.

Two weeks ago, I locked my key in my car at a client’s house. I only had one key. I had to call a tow company to come and unlock it for me.

I had some spots on my arm that I wasn’t sure what to make of. I went to the doctor and found out it’s a reaction to the sun, a side effect of a medication I recently went on. The spots are ugly and hopefully will fade, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.

I worked the weekend at the deli. I did okay for the first few hours, but as the store got busy, anxiety kicked in so I did only 3-4 hour shifts.

I don’t remember what happened last Monday. It must not have been significant as it doesn’t stick out in my memory.

However, on Tuesday I was at a client’s house when the storm warnings came in. I left early and drove home to beat the storm. A tornado warning came in the town where I’d just left, and I would have been on the road during it. No tornado, fortunately, but a short day for me.

I got an early start to work on Wednesday. I couldn’t find my daughter’s car key. She needed it and I was the last one to use it. I searched for half an hour and no luck. I took my car and started to work. I’d been in a hurry to get home the day before and didn’t put gas in, so I needed it that morning. I drove to the nearest gas station and put my card, but nothing happened. I wasn’t sure what to think, so I went inside. I had to wait in line, and found out that pump was not working right. I had a $10 bill in hand so I prepaid, then got gas.

By that time, I was twenty minutes late for my first appointment. I headed to town, and came upon a road closed, detour sign. Now I was really stressed. By the time I would have taken the long way around, I would have been over 40 minutes late, and that would make me behind all day.

I started to drive toward the detour, and it hit me all of a sudden that I was grieving. A close family friend had passed away the night before. I hadn’t taken it in at the time I got the message, but now the sad news added to the complicated morning.

I pulled into a gas station (a different one) and texted my boss that I needed the day off due to stressful reasons. She’d just mentioned a couple of weeks ago that self-care was important. That comment had come up because I’d had a bad week at work earlier in the month and made a couple of mistakes with clients.

So on Wednesday, I took a mental health day and stayed home from work while someone else took care of my clients.

On Thursday, I went to work and cleaned my first house. The second client was a no-show. She’d gotten the week mixed up (I clean on a biweekly schedule). I moved the third client up and finished early. I was supposed to attend a staff meeting, but it was not required, so I asked my boss if I could pass on it, as I was still experiencing some stress and anxiety.

On Friday, one of my clients had to cancel due to a funeral.

It was a not-good ending to a not-good week.

On the way home, I thought there was no way I could get through the weekend.

However, I did. I didn’t get through everything on my to-do list. I didn’t go to a very special event because I didn’t want to be in a group of people. I did work a few hours at the deli and enjoyed that change of pace.

I did what I needed to do to be able to put the stress of the past couple of weeks behind me.

It’s time to move forward now. This is a good Monday morning, because I am alive and healthy.

So Good Monday morning to you, and I hope you have a great week. May the blessings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ go before you, be with you and keep you in peace.

P.S. The car key was under my son’s lunch box.I had moved the lunchbox but hadn’t picked it up and looked beneath it. He discovered it later that day, but by then I’d already canceled the appointments and someone else was covering them.

Friday Feature: Always With You

/ Carol Underhill / 2 Comments

Today’s featured book is the first in a series by Jessie Gussman. The heroes are “regular men”: truck drivers and mechanics. This is especially endearing to me as my husband was also a truck driver and mechanic. I can easily relate to these heroes.

This first book is my favorite, but the sequels are great reads, also.

Author’s Inspiration:

We own a trucking company and I’ve always loved reading books about regular men and women who do right and fall in love. I also love reading books where life is like real life, so that’s the kind of book I set out to write. Always With You is the first book I self-published and it’s one of my all-time most loved books. 

About the book:

One night changed everything…

Cassidy Kimbell killed a man when she was only nineteen.

Torque Baxter took the blame, serving ten years for her crime.

He told her to flee the scene of the accident. He told her to run. He told her to keep her mouth shut, so that’s what she’d done. She’d let a boy with a crush become an innocent man behind bars.

Today, that man is being released.

Cassidy expects Torque to hate her. She knows nothing she has done to atone all these years can compare to what he’s lost. But she hopes becoming his sponsor on the outside, especially since she’s a lawyer now, might help.

Little does she know, Torque doesn’t want her to owe him.

He wants her to love him.

But to do that Cassidy would have to give up the life she’s built for the last ten years. She’d have to sacrifice it all, just like he did.

Excerpt:

Chapter 1

Cassidy Kimball stood on the cement sidewalk and faced the red brick Pennsylvania state penitentiary building. Hot July sunlight glinted off the razor wire that looped in circles at the top and beside the chain-link fence.  Off to the right, the circular guard house, with its tinted windows, glared down at the parched brown and empty exercise yard.

Her stomach twisted like mangled metal in a car accident.

It could have been her on the inside. Not here, of course. But somewhere.

Swallowing the nerves that clenched her throat, Cassidy twisted the delicate linked gold of her wristwatch. Any minute now. Would she still recognize him? Of course, she would. The question was, would he recognize all that she had done as a tiny down payment on the huge debt she owed him?

When Torque had seen the passengers in the other car, when he’d known what the consequences were going to be, he’d never wavered. His brown eyes had been steady and level as he said, “Get out of here and don’t look back. You don’t know anything about this.” She hadn’t understood at first what he was going to do. Still shaken from the accident, she’d not really been thinking straight. But she hadn’t needed her brain to be fully functioning to know that she was in deep trouble. She’d already been fighting the urge to run. His command had prompted her to do what she subconsciously wanted to. “Hurry, before anyone comes.”

Then, he hadn’t accepted her calls, hadn’t graced her visits with his presence, hadn’t used the money she deposited in his account. Her letters returned unopened, and her emails disappeared into the prison of cyberspace. She didn’t know, couldn’t know, what he thought or felt.

She assumed he hated her.

A bead of sweat trickled down her temple. Her watch chain snapped under her shaking fingers. She shoved the broken links into her clutch.

Her hands stilled as the prison door opened. The jaws of a monster spitting out its prey. Prey she had fed it.

A man, tall and straight, strode out into the sunlight. Her eyes devoured him. Same casual arrogance dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Same confident walk, with only a slight limp. The limp was her fault, too. With his slim build, Torque would never be bulky, but she could see the t-shirt that probably fit him when he first walked into this building as an almost-eighteen-year-old now stretched tight over shoulders that had widened and filled out.

Cassidy bit her lip and lifted her chin, taking a deep breath to calm the cramping of her stomach and disguise the curl of heat that came to life in her chest. Torque had always had that effect on her. She pushed the feeling aside and channeled her inner upper-crust snob—the only defense that had ever come close to working against the elemental pull that Torque exerted on her.

The last words that man had said to her were, “Shut up, Cassidy.” Now, she intended to get one question answered. Then she had to figure out how to pay him back. What did ten years of a man’s life cost?

About the author:

USA Today best-selling author Jessie Gussman writes sweet and inspirational romance from her farm in central Virginia. Having attended, but never graduating from the school of hard knocks, Jessie uses real life on the farm to inspire her cowboy, rural and blue-collar fiction. 

When she’s not chasing kids, cows and the occasional roll-away haybale, Jessie enjoys wading in Naked Creek and not cleaning her house. Most of the time her main goal is to keep from catching herself on fire…again.

If you enjoy fun stories with vivid characters showcasing strong families with a ribbon of faith tying everything together, you might enjoy Jessie’s books. 

Subscribe to her newsletter and find out why readers say, “I eagerly look forward to Tuesday mornings” and “Jessie’s newsletter is the only author newsletter that I read every word.” https://dl.bookfunnel.com/97elto4gwl

Buy link:

Wednesday Pop-Up: Giveaway

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment

Autumn: a season of change

I love the colors and scents of fall. I miss the days of watching my sons play football and listening to my daughter in the marching band. Hot chocolate, nachos, sitting on the bleachers cheering them on.

I love the changing colors of the leaves outside my windows.

I like going to the apple orchard. I especially enjoy apple cider and pumpkin spice donuts.

Do you know what I also love about fall? God’s grace is evident in the changing of seasons. The words, “this too shall pass” brings to mind the fact that we go through seasons in our lives. Childhood, young adulthood, career establishment, weddings, becoming parents—seasons that bring us joy.

Then we might go through seasons that bring us sorrow—loss of a career, a spouse through death or divorce, financial hardships.

God is with us in the good seasons, and He is especially near to us in the seasons of heartache.

I lost my husband in 2010 after only 20 years of marriage. We were in our mid-forties. I thought I would never get past the grief.

However, that season of grief has passed because of the gifts of a loving and supportive family, a network of good friends, a church family who prayed for me, a counselor to help me through the especially dark times.

I will always miss my husband, as if a part of me has been amputated (C.S. Lewis).

But I’ve found joy in life again. As an expression of that joy, I welcome you to participate in a giveaway for a copy of my novella.

What is your favorite part of fall?

A. Color change of leaves

B. Football

C. Marching Band

D. Youth Hunt

E. Pumpkin spice anything

F. Apple orchard

Go to my Facebook author page to post your answer for a chance to win.

https://www.facebook.com/authorcarolunderhill/?ref=pages_you_manage

Prize:

A signed copy of my novella (or outside the continental U.S., a Kindle version of same.)

Friday Feature: Blast from Her Past

/ Carol Underhill / 2 Comments

September’s Theme is Hometown Pride. I’ll be posting a chapter each week of my own sweet romance about the high school quarterback and valedictorian who reconnect at a high school reunion.

Today’s featured book is also about two classmates who end up working together a few years after school. They have both been changed by their life’s circumstances and must find a way to put the past behind them.

Here’s today’s Friday Feature:

Author’s Inspiration:

I love the “forced proximity” trope, so this book began with my vision for the scene where Sydney and Grant are trapped in a stalled car together in the middle of winter. I enjoyed writing how Sydney’s walls slowly tore down after that experience, and the rest of the story eventually took shape.

About the book:

After a disastrous failed engagement, Sydney Hampson is leaving her past—and her faith—behind to focus on her career instead. However, following through with her new, albeit misguided, resolution proves easier said than done when former classmate, and reformed bully, Grant Williams signs on with her company, and they must work closely together.

Grant Williams gave up his teenage antics years ago, and now he’s looking forward to a future that includes a strong relationship with God. When he realizes he’ll be working with none other than Sydney Hampson—the girl he had a secret crush on throughout high school—he couldn’t be more thrilled. Until he discovers she’s not the same caring, compassionate woman she used to be.

When a business trip gone awry leaves the pair stranded in the middle of a snowstorm, Grant sees his chance to make things right and put their past wrongs behind them…if only Sydney can get over her distrust of men. And with a conniving coworker working to destroy Sydney’s happiness, no matter the cost, can she put her faith back in God and learn to trust in Grant before she loses her chance at happiness?

Excerpt:

They sat on the beat-up couch, with an entire cushion between them. “Sorry. The living room is one of the next things on my to-do list. The kitchen and bathroom were a lot to tackle, so I had to stop and focus on replenishing my funds for a while.”

Sydney laughed. “You don’t need to apologize. I think you’ve done an amazing job with this place. It’s unrecognizable, really.”

“Hmm.” Grant leaned over to put his glass on the coffee table. “Kind of like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Unrecognizable. I mean, I literally didn’t know it was you when I saw you at the Snowball Reunion last month. It took a few minutes for the fog to lift.”

“That’s because I lost some weight and started using a flatiron on my hair,” Sydney said with a playful smirk. “So, what did you think when you realized we’d be working together?”

“Honestly?” Grant asked, and Sydney nodded. “I couldn’t believe my luck. I knew I’d missed my opportunity with you in high school. And I know people change. Clearly, we both did. But I figured our connection might still be there.”

“Our connection?” Sydney asked, her tone incredulous. She almost wondered if she’d heard him right. “What high school did you go to?”

“I know, I know. But you get what I mean, right? If circumstances had been different, I believe we really could have clicked back then. Don’t you?” Grant paused, but Sydney couldn’t give him the validation he was after without it being a bald-faced lie, so she shook her head and gave him an apologetic look.

“Well anyway, I guess I was excited that I might have a second chance to see if something could happen.”

Sydney struggled with how to respond to his confession. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man who was insinuating that they had chemistry. Was she ready to admit the same?

“So, what did you think of me after spending some time with me in the office?” She hoped her question would force him to confess how horrible she had become as a person. Self-sabotage, Sydney. Atta girl.

After a pause, Grant replied, “Well, I knew I was right.”

“In what way? That people change? I guess I wasn’t the person you remembered, was I?” Sydney asked somberly.

“No, I mean I knew I was right that we would have clicked.”

About the author:

Katy Eeten lives in southeast Wisconsin with her husband, Jason, and their two sons. She works full-time crunching numbers and analyzing data, but her true passion is writing. She has four contemporary Christian romances and a Christmas novella due out this winter. When she’s not working or writing, she enjoys taking walks or bike rides, baking goodies, and spending time with her family.

Learn more about Katy at her website — https://katyeeten.wordpress.com/

Author media links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatyEeten/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KatyEeten

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/KatyEeten/

Website: https://katyeeten.wordpress.com/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Katy-Eeten/e/B0796L1CVK

Buy link:

Hello September

/ Carol Underhill / Leave a comment

Back to school, football, hot chocolate and marching band. Those are what I think of when I think of September.

One of my favorite memories is going to the high school football games with my sister, who was older and in marching band. I’d buy hot chocolate and sit in the bleachers. I’d pretend that I was a high schooler. I loved the atmosphere, the chilly weather and hot drink, but it was the atmosphere that I liked the best.

When I got in high school, I hung out with my friends at the games. But none of those games holds the nostalgia that those early football games do.

As a parent, I watched both of my sons play football and my daughter play in the marching band. I went to the home games and enjoyed them. One year all three kids were in the homecoming parade, and that was a joy to watch.

Now that they are all grown and no longer in school or sports, I sometimes long for the days when I can sit in the bleachers and cheer on the games and the band.

Maybe that’s why my Hometown Pride series means so much to me.

The first book in the series is about the high school quarterback and the valedictorian who connect at their 15-year class reunion. Both widowed with children the same ages, they find more in common now than they had back then. And there is an undeniable spark between them.

May I have this Dance is the first book in the Hometown Pride series. Each Saturday, I will publish a chapter here on my blog, as I did the previous book.

You should know that this series is not Christian fiction. However, it is a sweet romance that doesn’t contradict my faith.

I hope you will stop by on Saturday, September 4 for the first chapter in

May I have this Dance.