Author: Dora Hiers

Excited about Reading ~ No Other Love by Bella Andre writing as Lucy Kevin

/ Dora Hiers
Purchase Link
The cover story:
Come for a visit to Walker Island where you’ll find stunning Pacific Northwest ocean views, men too intriguing to resist…and five close-knit sisters who are each about to find their one true love. 

Morgan Walker, makeup artist to the stars, never thought she’d leave New York City to come back to Walker Island. But when she is tapped to headline her own TV makeover show, she decides it’s the perfect time to launch her organic makeup line made from flowers and plants grown on the Walker family plot of land. While she’s really excited about getting to spend a few weeks with the sisters and grandmother she doesn’t see nearly often enough, she’s equally worried about the possibility of seeing Brian Russell again. Because even though they broke up seven years ago, she’s never been able to forget him. Not for one single day… 

When Brian gets the opportunity to work with Morgan on planting her new garden, he immediately jumps at it. Seven years ago, he thought he was doing the right thing by letting her go to pursue her dreams and see the world. But he’s never stopped loving her, and now that she’s finally back, he’s determined to do whatever it takes to convince her that they belong together…forever this time. 

My takeaway:

NY makeup artist Morgan Walker finally has the career she’s always dreamt of, but fame and money aren’t as exciting anymore. She misses her family, Walker Island, and…Brian. With the offer of a new network show, she heads home to cultivate the ingredients for a brand new line of makeup, and discovers that her feelings for Brian are still very much alive. Science teacher slash football coach, Brian let Morgan walk away once, but vows not to let her leave again without fighting for their love. He didn’t want to be the one who held her back from success, didn’t want her to resent him.

Brian was more than willing to roll up his sleeves and dig in although his role was primarily to supervise the two interns who volunteered to help with the garden, Natalie, a girl who excelled in science and could make it into any college she applied to, and Tad, a football jock. It was sweet to watch their budding romance and how it parallels Morgan and Brian’s, with some of the same issues and questions.

I enjoyed my return visit to Walker Island and getting reacquainted with the Walker sisters. I liked everything about this book, especially the romance and the uber sweet ending. It’s a fast read, perfect for a lazy weekend afternoon in a hammock or squeezing in while waiting in the car pool line. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I purchased this copy of No Other Love. This review is strictly my opinion, and I received no compensation.

Excited about Reading ~ Secretly Yours by Valerie Comer

/ Dora Hiers / 4 Comments
Purchase Link~Amazon

The Cover Story ~ Chef Lindsey Solberg agrees to cater the church’s Valentine’s Day fundraising banquet as a favor to her teen sister, but she’s shocked to discover the bad boy from her high school days is now Riverbend’s youth pastor. Seriously? How could he have changed that much? Nick Harrison has prayed for years for an opportunity to make amends. Now Lindsey’s back in Riverbend and won’t give him the time of day. What’s a guy to do except leave a trail of gifts from a secret admirer?

Lindsey’s heart takes a beating when she realizes the boy who was never good enough is now a far better man than she deserves.


My takeaway ~ Food, faith and romance? How could I resist, especially when this little gem was offered free on Amazon. lol.

Overall, I enjoyed the story especially how Nick wooed Lindsey even after she was rather rude to him in the beginning. I admit having a hard time believing that Nick wanted to pursue her, but then I realized that it was the perfect picture of how Christ romances us even after we reject Him. 

Weighing in at only 91 pages, I breezed through this novella rather quickly. There were some light moments, but it also packed a powerful message.

“Love isn’t something we deserve. Any of us. But God gave us an example. He loved us when we didn’t deserve it at all. When we were mean to Him and hurled our filth in His face. Still He gave us His greatest treasure, His only Son, because He loved us that much.” ~ Nick


If you like romances with a strong faith message, you will enjoy Secretly Yours. I would definitely read more books by Valerie Comer.

Disclaimer: I received my copy of Secretly Yours while it was offered free on Amazon. This review is my opinion, and I received no compensation.

Crazy about Writing: Twitter 101

/ Dora Hiers / 7 Comments
A few weeks ago, I shared What Happened to All My Peoples?, and a friend suggested that I offer a brief introduction to Twitter. While I definitely don’t claim to be a Twitter expert, my experience might help someone find value in the social media site that I use most, even over Facebook and Pinterest. Twitter doesn’t absorb much time and has the potential to be far reaching.
 

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Unlike Facebook which promotes lengthy posts, Twitter embraces brevity with tweets limited to 140 characters or less. Less, if you’d like people to share your posts or retweet (RT). To share, you just click RT (the two arrows that form a square) or modify it and type MT in front of the original tweet. Generally, if someone RT’s something of mine, I pay it forward and RT something of theirs versus replying with a “thanks.”
RT = Retweet
MT = Modified Tweet
So that you’re not wasting valuable real estate, you can shorten links by using tools like bitly or ow.ly. And just like with every other social media site, pictures play a big role here as well. A favorite (star) means someone likes your tweet or they’re saving it to read later.
Much like Instagram, hashtags are popular on Twitter. I joke around that I think in #hashtags. See? lol. A hashtag is just a conversation, topic or phrase such as #amwriting or #amediting. Google to find hashtags, check to see what’s trending, or jump right in with something fun and unique!
When possible, be strategic in your tweets and include names and hashtags. For example, when I presented a workshop at a local library, I tagged the library system. They retweeted along with a reader’s group, and that day my name and profile was put in front of 61k tweeters. Not a bad return for the one minute it took to compose the tweet, right?
Twitter users follow other tweeters, rather than friend them. Following someone doesn’t obligate them to follow you back, unlike Facebook. Twitter prompts you with suggestions of who to follow. I recommend clicking on a profile first and checking their tweets. Who wants to follow someone who tweets the daily max of 2400? (I can’t even imagine!) Those tweeters would inundate your feed. And why bother to follow someone whose only interaction is through Facebook or whose tweets are all “buy my product?” Also, once you follow 2k, you will be restrained by a follower to following ratio, which you can learn more about here. TMI?
Be aware of eggheads and tweets by someone with no followers, and if you get a message like “somebody’s spreading nasty rumors about you,” don’t open the link.
As your Twitter account grows, lists are helpful to manage the people you follow, and lists can be public or private. Some ideas for lists might be friends, family, news, celebrities, etc. If you pull those special people into a list, you will always catch their updates.
Sound off. Did I miss a topic you’d like to see covered?

Did this post give you the courage to give Twitter a try?