A special excerpt from When the Heart Brings You Home by Robin Maderich and a giftcard giveaway

When the Heart Brings You Home
Robin Maderich
Publication date: November 1st 2022
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance

When the Heart Brings You Home, A Connor Falls Christmas Collection, is a heartwarming collection of three holiday novellas, all set in the small town of Connor Falls, Pennsylvania during the Christmas season, and each a story of family and love with a touch of romance.

Winter Light – a troubled little girl brings the Christmas Spirit back to her struggling single father and the woman he once kissed many years ago.

Light the Heart Home – two sisters with secrets reunite at Christmas, prodding old wounds and finding healing love.

Home for the Holidays – all Susan Hardwick wants is to find her way back home.

Comfort. Joy. Romance. Welcome to Connor Falls.

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Home for the Holidays Excerpt

My phone trilled in the cup holder. I glanced down at the text from Mom and away. She could wait because a) I was driving, and b) I was almost there. Another five minutes and I’d be pulling into the driveway. A very long driveway, leading up to the expanded farmhouse she and Dad had purchased ten years earlier after selling the house nearby where we’d grown up. The house stood on about twenty acres a couple miles outside Connor Falls, bought with a dedicated plan to follow her midlife crisis dream. She’d not been wrong.

I spotted the sign for Hummingbird Farm. A new one, it looked like. Mom had been talking about a replacement and it seemed she’d taken care of getting one over the summer. I hadn’t been to see Mom and Dad since springtime. I had a silent bet with myself this would be the first thing she mentioned. Not my haircut, not my new car, not the fact my brother only lived ten miles away and he probably hadn’t been there since springtime either.

 Turning into the driveway, I noticed the fields to either side pocked with cornstalk stubble. She and Dad didn’t grow corn. They rented the fields by the road to a local farmer. Those closer to the house were strategically planted each year with various sunflowers, zinnias, mums and other hardy flowers for cutting, as well as pumpkins and summer vegetables, the sorts Mom used in her business. What didn’t get used she sold elsewhere or sometimes gave away. I caught sight of the ornamentals as I got closer to the house. Fall blooms in pots dotted the walkway together with white gourds that had somehow avoided damage from the recent freeze. At intervals between, small evergreen trees with burlap-wrapped root balls had been settled into metal buckets. Wreaths decorated the front windows on both floors as well as the front door, and a huge one had been affixed to the barn. Every year my dad climbed up on a ladder and hung the fresh greens. Every year I got pains in my chest thinking about him doing it. He wasn’t getting any younger.

He’d get downright surly if he ever heard me say those words out loud, though, so I didn’t. One day I’d have to. My brother darned well better make the ten-mile trek to join me for that conversation. Better still, he should come and hang the wreaths instead.

And maybe he did these days. We’d never talked about it.

Frowning, I pulled the car over into a “family” spot. Parking spots were designated for us, for customers and for those utilizing the venue. Quaint little metal signs on black posts advertised these spaces clearly, pointing out who went where and how to get there. The signs for ours read Hardwick Family Only. Someone obviously couldn’t read. I parked my car next to a dusty black Jeep with Delaware plates. Whoever they were, they hadn’t come half as far as I had.

I eyed my short ‘do in the visor mirror, spot-checked my teeth from force of habit since I hadn’t eaten, then turned off the ignition before grabbing my purse and shoving my phone back into it. I’d leave my luggage in the trunk until later. The plan was for a longer than usual visit, up to the day after Christmas, so I’d brought two bags with me. No need to walk to the door encumbered since I anticipated hugs before being chastised for having stayed away since spring.

My boots crunched on the gravel, echoing off the beautiful red barn where events were held, from family reunions to weddings. The upcoming weekend’s affair happened to be a wedding, holiday-themed and all. Mom had sent pictures of the planned décor, the bride’s and bridesmaid’s gowns. You always wanted a winter wedding, she’d written in her email. Yeah, when I was twelve and thought the whole thing would be terribly romantic and beautiful.

Despite my cynicism, I still carried around the image in my head. The bridesmaids wore cranberry, the men ivory, long-tail tuxes. The flower girl I’d pictured with a delicate floral wreath on her head, skipping along the carpeted aisle in a leaf-green dress, tossing flowers here and there (what did I know? I’d been just a kid myself), while I dressed in a gown over which a forest green velvet cloak draped to the floor. The wide hood took a veil’s place, my face hidden demurely within its folds. Poinsettias lined the aisle and evergreen draped each pew. I remembered there were lights, too, in my imaginings, warm white lights like on old-fashioned Christmas trees.

Egads. Really? I must have been watching too many Disney movies.

Author Bio:

First published by Warner Books’ Popular Library, Robin Maderich has written numerous romance novels, from historical to contemporary paranormal, as Robin Maderich, Celia Ashley and Alyssa Deane. Ms. Maderich resides in Pennsylvania, the locale and inspiration for many of her stories. She is an avid fan of historical fact and fiction, as well as the infinite realm of possibilities.

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