CONFESSIONS OF A LADY RUINED by Karen Lingefelt

I never dreamed I’d say this twice in one year . . . but I am published again!

This is another romantic comedy set in Regency England:

Julia Bassett can’t bear living in the household of the handsome lord who once charmed and then ruined her—especially while he prowls London’s ballrooms for a wife! Forced to act as his sister’s chaperone, Julia will do anything to be sent packing—even if it means engaging in the same scandalous behavior that years earlier got her banished to the country and separated from this dashing earl she still secretly loves.

Colin Everett, Earl of Danforth, enjoys seeing how far Julia will go to jeopardize her position—even to brazenly seducing him. He regrets breaking her heart so long ago, and now he’d like to win her back. But when several attempts are made on his life, he must find out if this bold vixen is seeking love…or vengeance.

Can Colin and Julia learn to trust each other—and their own hearts?



CONFESSIONS OF A LADY RUINED is one of those “second chance at love” stories—a tale of two people who fell in love years earlier, only to be separated by mutual misunderstandings and the machinations of scheming, manipulative relatives. (Yes, a lot of M words there.) Those misunderstandings and machinations are still in force when Colin and Julia meet again, but this time they have—here comes another M word—the maturity and hindsight to face and ultimately fight those obstacles.

As a result, Julia is one of my oldest romance heroines at age twenty-seven, which may seem not so old by today’s standards, but in the year 1815, she was practically today’s forty, with almost no hope of ever marrying.

Yet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet’s best friend, Charlotte Lucas, was also twenty-seven years old, and thus considered herself very lucky to land the cringeworthy Mr. Collins. At her age, Charlotte didn’t think she could afford to be picky.

Julia Bassett, however, refuses to surrender to convention, in spite of her seemingly advanced age and status as a lady ruined.

Julia does not give up. And that’s why she’s one of my favorite heroines.

Buy it here: http://www.bookstrand.com/confessions-of-a-lady-ruined

There's a reason they're called Wal-Mart Greeters and not Wal-Mart Small Talk Makers

This is the sort of thing for which I tend to have a very unique gift, yet being on the receiving end made me feel just as dumb.

The person who did The Sort Of Thing I Usually Do was the Wal-Mart Greeter. My relationship with this particular greeter has never progressed beyond greetings either coming or going: “Welcome to Wal-Mart” and “Have a nice day.” She sees me at least once a week.

But the other day, as I was leaving with my purchases, she called out something to me that didn’t sound anything like “have a nice day.” It sounded more like, “I hear [garbled] is doing really well in school.”

Maybe I should’ve kept pushing my cart out the door and acted like I didn’t hear. But no, I had to stop and acknowledge what she said. There was no one else around, so she must have been talking to me.

She’d heard Baby Bear was doing really well in school? But how did she know about him? I’d never mentioned him to her, and he hadn’t been to Wal-Mart in a very long time. What to do? I thought of replying, “Thank you—school’s been in session for over a month now, and we have yet to get a summons from the principal, or a petition from his classmates’ parents, or another resolution from the school board. We’re very proud of him.”

But that garbled proper noun she’d used didn’t sound anything like his name. So instead I cupped a hand behind my ear, leaned forward, and asked, “Pardon me?”

She replied, a bit more loudly and distinctly, “I hear Gabby is doing really well in school this year.”

Gabby? I don’t have a child named Gabby. I didn’t know what horrified me more—this very awkward situation, or the notion that she had me confused with another Wal-Mart shopper when I pride myself on being the best dressed patron here, even if it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort.

I suppose I could have just said, “Thank you,” and moved on with my cart and my life, but my mind raced with the ramifications of that. I was reminded of that episode of Seinfeld where a co-worker called Elaine “Susie” and what happened when she didn’t bother to correct the co-worker. What if the greeter started asking about Gabby every time I came to Wal-Mart hereafter? I’d have to make up a new story about Gabby with each visit. This could go on for years, and who’s to say it wouldn’t contradict anything Gabby’s real mother might say?

What if I told the greeter, for instance, that Gabby went to jail, just to get her out of the picture and end the whole Gabby saga? Imagine the look on Gabby’s mother’s face (or even my face, since apparently I look just like her), should the perpetually confused greeter happen to ask her if Gabby’s up for parole yet?

I couldn’t have that on my conscience, and I didn’t have the energy for it, anyway. Feeling very sheepish—and why I should have felt sheepish, I have no idea—I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a child named Gabby.”

She didn’t say a word. She just stared at me, as if I were the one who’d said something wrong. (Well? I really don’t have a child named Gabby!) Meanwhile, a line was forming behind me. People wanted to leave the store, and I was blocking them. I hastily added, “But that’s okay—have a nice day,” which was supposed to be HER line.

Then I got the hell out of there and have been using the other Wal-Mart entrance ever since.

These Are Not My Grandmother's Magazines

I remember when I was a young girl, my paternal grandmother subscribed to just about every women’s magazine save Cosmopolitan. She once spoke of picking up a copy of Cosmo in the beauty parlor one day, only to fling it from her hands in shock because the contents were too burning hot for her old-fashioned sensibilities.

But she enjoyed all the other magazines, and after reading them she’d bring them to our house, in thick stacks.

I read them voraciously. I learned household hints and etiquette. I informed myself of matters gynecological. I pored over tales of marriages that might not be saved, yet somehow they always were. At the risk of dating myself, I must have read a story about the Kennedy family, in particular Jackie, in just about every issue; back in those pre-Diana days, stories about royalty were rare, except for the occasional article about Princess Grace.

I always enjoyed what I read, and learned a lot about marriage and family and relationships.

Fast forward to today—this morning, to be exact, when I found myself sitting in a very crowded waiting room and hadn’t brought my Nook.

Until this morning, I hadn’t read any of those women’s magazines in years. And I mean years, for which I can either blame or credit the Internet and less time and curiosity than I had as a young girl.

The magazines I read this morning had the same titles as those my grandmother once subscribed to—yet these were not my grandmother’s magazines. There wasn’t a single Cosmo in the stack, yet I still nearly flung them from my hands in shock.

I’m not a prude, for crying out loud—I write historical romance novels with steamy love scenes in them, and I occasionally bought Cosmopolitan in the days when I was a twenty-something globetrotting playgirl—but I must admit I was stunned by how much my grandmother’s favorite magazines have changed over the years, and become quite indistinguishable from the once very unique Cosmo.

No, I think my real problem was that I couldn’t actually read the magazines, or stay on one page for very long, because I had two men wedged on either side of me in that packed waiting room, and being the paranoid neurotic that I am, I didn’t feel comfortable sandwiched between them with the magazine open to a page with words printed so big, they could easily be read from the far side of the room, blaring at me about “rejuvenating” a very explicitly identified part of the female anatomy. I don’t think I’ve ever turned a page so fast, only to find a collection of humorous anecdotes from readers about the time their little darlings walked in on them while they were otherwise amorously engaged; and oh, looky here! A list of helpful tips if you get a hankerin’ to do it in public.

But no handy household hints, or answers to etiquette questions, or accounts of marriages saved when it seemed all was lost. And no articles on Kennedys or Royals, even though the latter have been very much in the news this year.

If my very proper grandmother were still alive today, I don’t know if she’d still enjoy reading these women’s magazines.

But I’ll bet the men would . . . if only they knew.

BRIDE IN HIDING by Karen Lingefelt

I am published again!

While Bride in Hiding is my second book to be published, it’s the tenth book out of the seventeen which, by my reckoning, I have written in my lifetime. (Nearly half of those books will never see the light of day unless the temperature in hell drops even lower.) That number doesn’t include books started and then abandoned for whatever reason.

I have heard authors say that they link certain books they’ve written to events in their lives; that such-and-such a book was the one they were writing when they were pregnant with their first or tenth child, or when their husband was laid off, or when their house disappeared into a sinkhole.

For instance, I’d just started writing True Pretenses when our daughter Fiona passed away, only three days after I’d completed Chapter Two, where I left Kit standing on the doorstep of Serena’s cottage, staring at the door and wondering if his next voyage would be to Australia. He stood out there shivering on that doorstep for many months before I finally brought myself to start work on Chapter Three.

Bride in Hiding is the book I was writing when I sold True Pretenses. I even remember what chapter was I was working on at the time—Chapter Twelve. It was accepted for publication on the very same day our firstborn graduated.

That was an unusually good day for me.

She thought hiding in plain sight would be the perfect plan—but alas! Susannah Kirk hopes to escape an unwanted marriage by posing as a lady’s companion in the bridegroom’s ancestral home. Surely it’s the last place anyone would look for her—but as Susannah’s luck would have it, a surprise visitor from London isn’t just anyone. He’s Trevor Dalton, one of her reclusive lady’s grandsons—and he may or may not be the very rogue she’s trying to flee.

After learning his wastrel cousin plans to satisfy gambling debts by taking a bride he’s never met, Trevor races to Derbyshire to avert scandal. But his efforts are hampered at every turn by his grandmother’s strong-willed, mysterious companion. Suspicious as well as charmed, he’s determined to uncover Susannah’s secrets—even if he has to seduce them out of her...and risk losing his heart.

Available now: http://www.bookstrand.com/bride-in-hiding

The Saga of Baby Bear's Keyboard

Once upon a time, Baby Bear received a battery-powered Yamaha keyboard for Christmas 2008:

He played it constantly. How often? Well, let’s just say that before that year was out—a mere sennight—we learned that it might be more economical to use rechargeable batteries, unless we wanted to buy a fresh pack of regulars every week.

The batteries had to be recharged almost every day.

The keyboard was lightweight enough that he carried it all over the house, from room to room, so it would always be with him. He even took it to bed with him, and went to sleep while it repetitiously played some rhythm that we found absolutely annoying, yet somehow it mysteriously lulled him to sleep. At that point I would turn it off for the night. If I didn’t remove it from his room, I might be awakened at three in the morning by the sound of his playing. (See previous blog entry for my position on this issue.)

He made up his own tunes and melodies, many of which have become as familiar to me as any classics or old standards or songs by the Beatles.

He even plays with two hands. All this on his own.

But sometimes he could really pound on that keyboard, with the result that this finally happened:

As time went by, more teeth were knocked out, and the keyboard was on the verge of losing a fifth when it finally died.

Of course, it had to die the day before the start of a three-day holiday weekend. I had only a few hours to find a replacement before Baby Bear came home from summer school. I didn't want to think of what kind of weekend I might have if that kid didn't have a keyboard to plunk on. His passion for it was that profound.

Being pinched for time and money (not that we didn't have the money for it, but I didn't want to spend that much without first consulting Mr. Lucky, who wouldn't be home until after the Bear), I found this cheap $25.00 model at Wal-Mart:

Baby Bear played with it for just a bit, and then abandoned it. It simply did not meet his high quality standards.

But I couldn't bear to see him give up playing, especially his own tunes, no matter how annoying it is when I'm trying to watch the evening news--a great deal of which tends to annoy me more than his piano-playing, anyway.

The Yamaha keyboard got him doing something constructive. It lit a fire in him, and I didn't want that fire to go out.

So we shopped around and bought him another Yamaha keyboard:

It's not the same one as his original--that model has apparently been discontinued--but it's very much like it, just as lightweight, and it takes the same six AA batteries that I've gone back to recharging every day.

Most importantly, he's gone back to playing his tunes.

The Boom Box on the Shelf is Always Repeating Itself

Baby Bear has a boom box, and he likes to play CD’s by ABBA while he sits on his bed and rocks back and forth. His favorite song—at least for this week—is “Waterloo.”

How do I know this? Recently he’s taken to playing that particular song over and over and over. But oddly enough, not the whole song. He plays it only as far as the part about the history book on the shelf. Then he stops and goes back and starts the song again.

Over . . . and over . . . and over. I have no idea why. If I weren’t already familiar with this song that dates back to when I was almost his age (and there’s a scary thought), I might drive myself insane wondering what that history book is always doing that he keeps censoring. Ironically, it’s exactly what Baby Bear is doing with the song.

But why he’s repeating it, only he knows.

Yet it reminds me of an incident early in my Air Force career. I was stationed at Keesler AFB near Biloxi, Mississippi to receive training in my particular career field of administration. I had to live in the barracks where the dorm chief had one of them newfangled boom boxes (yes, it was that many years ago). So powerful were its speakers that it could be heard all over the barracks of World War II vintage.

One morning, at around 3:30 am, she woke up me and probably a lot of other people by repeatedly playing the opening notes of “When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman” by Doctor Hook. She’d play it all the way up until the good Doctor started singing, then she’d rewind it back to the beginning and play those opening notes again.

Over . . . and over . . . and over. I don’t think she was doing it because she was autistic like my son. She certainly wasn’t doing it because she’d been put in charge of sounding Reveille with the song of her choice. No, she was doing it because she was the Dorm Chief, ergo she could.

I longed to break down her door, seize her blasting boom box, then raise it over my head and smash it like Moses with the Ten Commandments over hers. Or at the very least, scream at her to turn that expletive thing off. But she was the Dorm Chief, so all I could do was suffer. No one dared complain, or maybe all the other women liked it and I was the one with the problem.

Either way, I’ve loathed that song ever since. Anytime I hear those first few notes coming out of the oldies station, I switch stations in disgust. It’s a good thing I’m not a sleeper agent, or it might “activate” me to go out and blow something up.

Yet I’m not tired of “Waterloo” yet. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t play it full blast at 3:30 in the morning, but that’s because I remove it from his room at night.

It’s good to be the Dorm Chief—or just a mom.

Do You Suffer the Outbreak of Sticky Slider Thigh?

Sticky Slider Thigh, or SST, is a rare condition caused when your sliding glass door gets stuck along the track as the result of prolonged rainy weather, and you find yourself having to press your thigh against the back edge of the door to get the damned thing to close after the dogs come in from doing their business.

When these multiple bruises suddenly broke out on my left thigh, I couldn’t figure out where they came from or how I got them. If I’d stumbled into a heavy piece of furniture hard enough to produce such pitiful patches of purple as portrayed in the posted picture, I’m sure I would’ve remembered.

Mr. Lucky hadn’t been beating me. Nor could I pin this on another brouhaha with the Bear. And the bruises aren’t at all painful or tender. They’re just . . . there.

Only how was I supposed to go out among other humans looking like this? Sure, I could wear long pants, but this is Florida in July. My leg looks as if it’s sporting a tattoo of the Shroud of Turin.

I went a-googling under thigh bruises, leg bruises, multiple leg bruises, and read all sorts of unhelpful things till I worked myself into a lather worthy of George Costanza (“Lupus? Is it lupus?!?) at his panic-stricken worst.

Then this afternoon, Mr. Lucky casually said, “Oh, by the way, I oiled the tracks in the back door earlier, so you should find it easier to open and close now.”

I said that was good, because I was having to use both hands and all my weight on the front of my leg to close that door. And that’s when it hit me like a gong: I realized my bruises were the result of something I hadn’t seen in all my Googling and Binging and Dogpiling. Sure enough, when I went to close the sliding glass door, out of habit (it’s been raining a LOT this past week), I assumed my usual rainy weather position along with the standard grumble of “Why can’t we replace these with French doors?” and my left thigh met the door’s back edge right where the bruises are.

So I have dubbed this condition “Sticky Slider Thigh” or SST.

That’s all it is, folks. No need to make a pilgrimage to my house with lighted candles and whatnot, because you think that’s a holy image on my leg and maybe if you touch it, you’ll be healed of whatever ails you.

You may, however, bring me chocolate.

Baby Bear's Hellacious Household Hints

When you try one of Baby Bear’s Hellacious Household Hints, you can be sure that whatever in blazes you think you’re doing has been repeatedly tried and tested for success and/or maximum destruction by none other than Baby Bear himself.

How to check if the dog’s water dish needs refilling: Place as much of your foot as possible into the dish and commence stomping until water is splattered all around it. If there’s still water remaining in the dish, then repeat with other foot. Should water still be observed in the dish, then flip it upside-down on the kitchen counter. At this point you should be able to confirm that the dish needs refilling.

How to check if there’s water in the toilet: Do not flush as that is environmentally incorrect; also the noise causes inconvenience to parental units by prompting them to stop whatever they’re doing to come and see what you’re up to. Instead, place a sock on your foot, dip it in the toilet, then take a walk around the house. If you see wet footprints on the carpet, then there’s water in the toilet bowl.

Is your Playstation controller waterproof? There’s only one way to find out—soak it and see if it still works. Meanwhile, you’ll enjoy the parental units speculating whether you dipped it in the toilet or dropped it into the dog’s water dish.

How to check curtain rods for strength: Push the curtains aside, then grip the rod in both hands and do a chin-up. If the rod rips out of the wall, then a stronger rod and better hardware will be required.

How to tell Mom it’s time to clean the chandelier: Hit the chandelier with enough force to make it swing. If possible, hit it in such a way to make it spin. Keep doing this until visible specks of dust rain down on the dining room table. Food on the table optional.

How to open a locked door without a key or similar device: Kick, hit, and do body slams against the door until it finally comes off the hinges. Most effective at five in the morning.

How effective are those drain plugs? Close them, turn on the water, then wait for Mom’s blood-curdling scream.

How to tell her it’s time to recharge the batteries in your electronic keyboard: Before approaching her, first remove all six batteries yourself. Fling five of them to the floor or onto the nearest end table, but always in plain sight. Hide the sixth one. Then go get her.

Our Firstborn, the Graduate

Our firstborn and heir apparent, the Crown Prince, has graduated from school.

He’s mentally retarded and autistic, and has been going to the same school for special needs students for the better part of his life. Indeed, he’d become something of an institution at his school; many members of the faculty remarked on how the place will never be the same without him.

He practically ran the campus, and was proclaimed King of his senior prom. With his stentorian voice, he did all the morning announcements on the P.A. system, and each day he led the whole school in saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

In fact, he could probably do voiceover work. One of his hobbies is parroting commercial slogans from TV and the radio, whether it’s The Home Depot (“You can do it. We can help.”) or a prominent local law firm (“Morgan and Morgan. For the People. Offices Tampa.”)

He knew everyone’s schedules (woe betide anyone who dared to change their plans for whatever reason), the lunch menus, and even the calendar for months in advance, down to what day of the week a particular date fell. If the computers at that school ever crashed, they could still rely on my oldest son to keep them organized.

At the graduation ceremony, when they called out his full name and he marched up the aisle in his cap and gown (my favorite color—royal blue!), I couldn’t help the tears streaming down my cheeks as everyone stood up and applauded him. Later, he and his fellow graduates (two young ladies) presented flowers to the mothers.

We are so very proud of him.

A Day of Waiting . . . and Waiting . . . and Waiting at the Lab

Actually, it was only two hours, but it seemed like all day.

Once a year I’m sent to the lab for routine blood work. This year was no different from last year. Every year it’s the same:

I always manage to go on the day when only one phlebotomist is available, which means a two hour wait. And the only available seat for waiting is always next to the guy who (a) is a heavy smoker who stinks like the bottom of a filthy butt can, and (b) wears a tank top and spends way too much time stretching his arms over and behind his head.

I try to lean over the other way, but there’s a water cooler there and another man keeps drinking from it (I can only assume he must be trying to manufacture a urine sample). While he’s drinking cup after cup of water, he’s hovering over me and I can’t help wondering if he’s trying to read my Nookcolor over my shoulder, or pathetically hoping for a cheap glimpse of cleavage.

More people are called to the back than come out. This could be because the phlebotomist seems to only summon people who aren’t there. Like Ben Stein calling out in vain for Bueller, the phlebotomist will repeat a name several times, and even try different pronunciations of the name, but no one in that crowded waiting room so much as budges, though there might be one or two yawns. Finally she’ll give up and call out the next name on the list. Everyone still remains slumped in their chairs.

Where are these people? Why can’t she call out the names of people who are actually there? Like my name? I’ll spring up for anything that sounds even remotely like “Lingefelt” just to get away from Waterboy and Smelly Guy.

There can only be two reasons for this annoying phenomenon: Either the phlebotomist has today’s roster mixed up with the one from last Wednesday, or those people really are there, but they’ve long since lapsed into boredom-induced comas.

Sometimes it’s tempting to claim to be one of those people who never respond when their name is called, just to get in and out and on with my life. But who’s to say they didn’t sign in for something a lot more intrusive than blood work—which might even explain why they’re no longer there. They lost all nerve and fled after signing in.

I was the only person there who brought something to read. There were no magazines or newspapers lying about, and more than one person grumbled about how there should have been a TV.

Indeed, there was a lot of loud grumbling, mostly from little old ladies, about the long wait and how it was interfering with more important places to go and infinitely more interesting people to see. You’d think after eighty or ninety years on this mortal coil, it might have dawned on them that anytime they go to a lab or doctor’s office, they’re bloody well going to be waiting awhile and should plan accordingly.

I didn’t like the long wait, either, but reading helped pass the time and kept me from getting sucked into that gripefest.

I save my griping for this blog.