Mr. Right In Her Backyard

Ugly Duckling Turns Swan!

When Tenley Trent comes back to Maple Grove, Vermont, her transformation is so dramatic, her old friends barely recognize her. While lasers took the birthmark from her face, no procedure can remove the scars from her heart, and she considers her looks average at best. Besides, her small hometown symbolizes everything she ran from. All she wants to do is convince her ailing mom to sell her nearly bankrupt inn and return to New York and her career as a bridal gown designer.

But sexy, mysterious Chase Chandler, her mom's new handyman, counters her plan. Why? Chase has no financial stake in the business--and no say in it either! The fact that he makes Tenley's pulse leap only adds to tensions over the inn. Besides, she's been hurt by a handsome, sexy man before, and she's wary.

A former advertising executive, Chase finds the work at the inn allays his survivor guilt. After almost dying in Afghanistan, he has vowed never again to work at a desk job he hates. Still, he knows he can save the business. While he's at it, he also wants to convince Tenley she's found Mr. Right In Her Back Yard.

Available at http://www.fionaneal.com/ and on Kindle

Gaelic Magic

Hi, Gaelic Magic is a free short fantasy available at www.newconceptspublishing.com. It is about a six-foot, four inch, blue eyed, black haired leprechaun who is sexier than sin on Sunday.

Fiona

Esther Howland--Mother of the American Valentine

Esther Howland was born in 1828 in Worcester, Massachussetts. Her father owned the largest book and stationery store in Worcester. When Esther was nineteen years old, she graduated from the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and received a valentine from England.

Enchanted with the valentine, Esther felt she could create something akin to it. She asked her father to order the lace paper and other supplies from England and New York. He obliged, and Esther set to work. Her brother added the valentines to his inventory on his next sales trip. Esther hoped to make a modest profit from her venture, but when her brother returned, he had orders for valentines in the amount of five thousand dollars.

Esther knew she couldn't possibly meet the demand by herself, so she asked her friends to help and set up an assembly line to meet production. She used brightly colored paper against the white lace paper to create lovely, artist designs. The business grew and resulted in a gross income of one hundred tihousand dollars a year!

Esther Howland semi-retired due to bad knees. Later, she had to care for her ailing father, so she sold the business.

Esther Howland wasn't the first individual in America to creat the American valentine. However, she can take credit for launching it into a major industry. Today Americans spend one billion dollars a year on valentine cards, not counting the postage. The amount is second only to the amount spend on Christmas Cards, which is over two billion dollars.

Books Reissued

I am very excited about the reissue of two of my books. The first is Holiday Heat, a contemporary. The second is Beauty And The Beast, a fantasy.

Holiday Heat takes place in the mountains of western North Carolina. It is about a vet who reconnects with her one true love when she treats his dog.

Beauty And The Beast is my Scottish version of the old fairytale.

You can purchase these novels at www.fionaneal.com

A working woman in the Eighteen Century

The inspiration for my novel, The Magic of Moonlight, was a French female aritist, Madame Vigee-Le Brun. Marie Elisabeth Louis Vigee-LeBrun was born in Paris in 1755. Her father, Louis Vigee was a portrait painter and also painted fans.

At age six, Elisabeth was sent to a convent where she stayed for five years. Her father died when she was twelve. Her widowed mother then married a wealthy jeweler.

By the time Elisabeth was a teenager, she was already painting professionally. She applied to the Academie de Saint Luc, which reluctantly allowed her to exhibit her work, and she became a member of that august body.

I have to wonder if they would have been so reluctant if Elizabeth had been a woman.

At age twenty, she married, Jean-Baptiste-Pierr Le Brun, also a painter and and art dealer.

Elisabeth painted many portraits of the nobility, and she was invited to paint the queen, Maire Antoinette. Vigee Le-Brun painted over thirty portraits of the French Queen.

Vigee-Lebrun gave birth to a daughter, Julie, and painted a charming self portrait of herself and Julie in 1786. The portrait reveal how lovely young mother and beautiful child. Vigee Le Brun did another self portrait in 1790, in which she is wearing a white hat and a lovely lace collar on her dress.

The French Revolution caused Elisabeth to flee from France, but because of her talent and connections to the European aristocracy, her career continued to flourish. She painted in Austria, Russia, and Italy. She was admitted to the Roman Accademia de San Luca. While in Russia, she painted many portraits of Catherine the Great's family.

She returned to France when Napoleon became emperor.

Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun died in Paris in 1842 at the age of 86. Her legacy includes over six hundred portraits and two hundred landscapes.

Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun had a successful international career in a time when most women stayed home and took cared for their families.

I used her as the inspiration for my heroine, Charlotte Purcell, in my novel, The Magic of Moonlight. It couldn't have been easy for Elisabeth to compete in a man's world, and I admire her.

The Magic of Moonlight

I'm so happy to announce the release of my new novel, The Magic of Moonlight. This story is set in Regency England, but my heroine, Miss Charlotte Purcell, is not looking for a rich husband, although, being penniless, she could certainly use the security a match like that would offer. More than anything in the world, Charlotte wants to become a famous artist.

So when an old gypsy predicts that The Magic of Moonlight will unleash it's power on her at midnight, and Charlotte will see the face of her future husband in a mirror at midnight, Charlotte is unimpressed. Even when she sees the dashing Lord Knollton's face reflected next to hers, she doesn't believe in Magic. She believes in perseverance and hard work.

But The Magic of Moonlight believes in Charlotte, and she finds herself attracted to the handsome earl. Still, her passion to paint never wavers. Fighting her attraction to Lord Knollton, and against all odds, she sets out to pursue her goals. Moonlight, for Charlotte forgets that the second part of the Gypsy's prediction, which warns of terrible danger.

But dangers exist.

Why did I put these paranormal elements into a Regency set novel?

Okay, let me say right here that this is definitely not a paranormal story. It just has a few paranormal elements. But I put them in because I think life definitely has some paranormal aspects. Why do I believe that? I've had some things happen to me that were quite unexplainable.

A friend of mine predicted that I would marry a tall, fair-haired man who would be slightly younger than I was. Three months later, my husband asked me out. And yes, he is tall, with light hair, blue eyes, and he is two years younger than I.
I also had two very strange experiences, which I won't go into now, when I visited Scotland and England.

I don't think everything in life has a rational explanation.

Anyway, I hope you'll check out The Magic of Moonlight at www.fionaneal.com.