Goddess Fish Presents: Cross the Ocean by Holly Bush

 

1  Reasons to Write by Holly Bush

I’ve been writing for about fifteen years on and off and before that I wrote a little for pleasure in high school and college when I wasn’t writing papers for classes. I’ve written eight novel length books, like my historical romance, Cross the Ocean, a few essays and an occasional family story or recollection. I have found writing to be the most rewarding undertaking I have ever attempted. 

I’ve talked to lots of writers over the years, some who wrote lengthy pieces and were trying to get published and many, many more that wrote memoirs or short stories and universally all have said how satisfying writing can be. There are days, quite a few sometimes, when I want to break my laptop into a million pieces when I’m in the middle of writing a novel and I just can’t see what the next scene is or I’ve been away from writing for a month or so and have trouble getting back in the mood of the book. It is a uniquely irritating dilemma when the words just won’t come. But when I’m writing short pieces, two or three pages, or when I’m really in my groove writing a longer piece or a novel and things are really working, that mojo is an unbeatable feeling. 

We don’t write lengthy letters or keep diaries or journals so much anymore mostly, I think, because of the internet. But does a blog piece get to the real emotions that a diary entry would, or recount a family meal or holiday as letter to a relative could? I don’t think so. Writing can be very personal. The intent of a blog is for the entire world to see what you’ve written, making us second guess our feelings and reactions and filter them for public consumption.  Writing freely and privately can be good for us. Sometimes anger and hurt and misery can lessen as we describe whatever agony we’re in. Writing forces us to organize our thoughts as well.

If writing isn’t something you do often or at all, take a chance on it. Write about how you feel when your daughter gets on the school bus for the very first time. Describe Christmas dinner including whatever terrible vegetable Aunt Mildred brought or if Cousin Filbert had a little too much wine. Record a particularly wonderful day spent with your husband or wife or a friend. Write down what you were thinking as you stood at a graveside. Maybe a paragraph is all there is to write or maybe ten pages aren’t enough. It doesn’t matter if the grammar’s correct or if everything is spelled perfectly. You’ll know what you meant. Print out what you wrote and stick it in a file. What a treat it will be to find in a month or a year.  Take a chance and write.

BLURB:  

1871 . . . Worlds collide when American Suffragette, Gertrude Finch, and titled Brit Blake Sanders meet in an explosive encounter that may forever bind them together. Gertrude Finch escorts a young relative to London and encounters the stuffy Duke of Wexford at his worst. Cross the Ocean is the story of an undesired, yet undeniable attraction that takes Blake and Gertrude across an ocean and into each other’s arms.

EXCERPT:  

Blake found his guests in the music room listening to Melinda play the pianoforte. “Miss Finch, may I beg a moment of your time?” he asked as he touched her elbow.

The two of them retreated out of hearing distance from the rest.

“Yes?” Miss Finch clipped off and folded her hands at her waist.

“I find I do owe you an apology,” Blake began.

“And every other woman in the room as well,” she replied.

“I am not concerned with every other female in the room.” Blake stood tall. “I have many faults, but hurting a guest’s feelings cannot be one of them.”

“I agree with you there,” Miss Finch said and clapped politely.

“Agree with what?” he asked.

“You have many faults. The least of which are poor manners.”

“Yes, well, in any case, I apologize for what I said.” Blake looked away ashamed. “I was wrong. You are really quite attractive.”

Gertrude Finch put her hands on her hips, and her voice rose with each word. “I could care less what you think of me.”

“Now, now, no need to call attention our way,” Blake said and glanced at the assembly listening to Melinda. “No need to be defensive, either. I am aware of the tender sensibilities women associate with how attractive they are. My own mother made us all kiss and coo over Aunt Constance, and she had whiskers longer than . . .”

“Listen to me, Sanders. I meant what I said. I couldn’t care less whether you think I’m attractive or not. You dismiss ideas and brains for the lack of a pretty face. I think you’re a pompous idiot. What do you think of them apples, Your Highness?” she said.

Blake held his hands behind his back, and a muscle twitched below his eye. “Miss Finch, the title ‘Your Highness’ is reserved for the royal family. You Americans bandy about titles as if a one of you could trace a history further back than the last mule you shoed.”

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Itunes

 

AUTHOR INFORMATION:

Holly Bush was born in western Pennsylvania to two avid readers. There was not a room in her home that did not hold a full bookcase. She worked in the hospitality industry, owning a restaurant for twenty years and recently worked as the sales and marketing director in the hospitality/tourism industry and is credited with building traffic to capacity for a local farm tour, bringing guests from twenty-two states, booked two years out.  Holly has been a marketing consultant to start-up businesses and has done public speaking on the subject.

Holly has been writing all of her life and is a voracious reader of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, particularly political and historical works. She has written four romance novels, all set in the U.S. West in the mid 1800’s. She frequently attends writing conferences, and has always been a member of a writer’s group.

Holly is a gardener, a news junkie, has been an active member of her local library board and loves to spend time near the ocean. She is the proud mother of two daughters and the wife of a man more than a few years her junior.

Find Holly Bush on the internet:

Twitter: @hollybushbooks

Website

Facebook

One randomly chosen commenter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card. Please follow the tour and comment often to better your chances of winning. Tour dates can be found here. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway