Hear the Wind Blow, Love @Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy #Guestpost #historicalromance

Hear The Wind Blow, Love

Historical romance
Release date: September 3, 2013
Rebel Ink Press
62,400 word count

Book trailer link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOHAGHH9QL8

Brief blog post from Lee Ann:

History always fascinated me.  Anyone who’s a regular reader of my blog or my historical romances or my local newspaper column, Hindsight, probably knows I was the child who listened to the elders tell stories.  Although I spent plenty of time running, playing, catching fireflies and digging in my sandbox, I loved to hear the old stories.  My grandparents were my first babysitters and from the age of two months, I spent my days (and some of my nights) in their care.  Both Granny and Pop were talkers and storytellers.  From the breakfast table to the front porch in the evening shadows, they talked about both past and present.  Their stories brought earlier times to life and they painted verbal portraits of my ancestors with such skill I felt I knew them.  As readers who enjoyed my first historical romance, Guy’s Angel, know I drew on those old memories to recreate the old neighborhood and the 1920’s.  In Dust Bowl Dreams, I relied on many of the stories of those hard times and the Great Depression.  In both cases, I also did extensive research – I hold a degree in History and in English.

My Granny was a telephone operator back in the days before direct dial.  She told stories about working long shifts when the great influenza epidemic hit just about the time World War I ended.  Other family stories focused around the event because it was a major epidemic, the scale of which people in the United States today have never known.  In the late 1960’s, there was what people called “The Hong Kong Flu” and it created an epidemic although nowhere near the scale of the Spanish flu in 1918.  Around that time, because one of my uncles had a really bad bout of flu, I heard some of the various tales about the time.

When I sat down to write Hear The Wind Blow, Love, I thought about what a hard period it was for those who lived through.  First, a world war which took many lives and then a serious flu epidemic which hit the young hardest with high mortality rates affected the nation.  Then, there were the widows and fiancées.  My grandfather’s aunt, Aunt Mamie, never married and when I knew her she was a very old woman.  But she still wore a small diamond solitaire ring on her left hand and I soon learned why – her fiancée died in the war.  My grandparents’ neighbor, Miss Ella, did the same.  Two of my grandfathers served in World War I, one Army, one Navy, and a number of great-uncles also did.  I had the privilege to know another of my grandmother’s neighbors, a crusty old woman named Miss McBride who had been an Army nurse in both world wars.  So I had a lot of personal stories to fuel my imagination as I wrote my latest historical romance.

Blurb:

When the Armistice ends the Great War in November 1918, the end comes too late to save Maude Whitney’s husband, Jamie.  But Maude realizes her heart still belongs to Harry, her brother-in-law who courted her first.  He’s been her rock in Jamie’s absence while they shared quarters with the grandparents who raised the brothers. But Granpa died and Granny moved to town so when Maude invites him to move back under the same roof, it’s sure to be a scandal in the rural Ozarks.

Before gossiping tongues can spread the news, the Spanish influenza wreaks havoc in the area.  It brings death close to home for Maude and Harry.  As they fall deeper in love and plan to wed, their troubles are just beginning.  Old feuds erupt and the day after Christmas, Harry’s hauled into custody and accused of a murder he didn’t commit.  Harry must prove his innocence and survive a serious bout of flu or there’s no happy ending for the star-crossed couple.

Excerpt #1 (Sexy)

Mark her wanton, but she wanted him to kiss her, needed his lips to touch hers with passion, ached for his arms to hold her tight.  Maude yearned for his work worn hands to caress her body, to reveal to him all of herself.  This isn’t why I wanted him to move back, it isn’t.  I just wanted company.  And I missed him.  Even as she thought it, Maude recognized the lie.  She desired Harry, in every way.

Maude took one step closer.  Her calico housedress touched the bib of his hickory striped overalls as her hand crept up to touch the sleeve of his faded blue chambray shirt.  He drew a sharp breath, almost as if he were in pain, when her fingers stroked his cheek.

“Oh, Maudie,” he said, his voice as reverent as Sunday church. “Girl, you don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

“I do,” she whispered. “Kiss me, Harry, please.”

Time paused and sound stopped.  All around her nothing existed but a black void, night and nothing more until Harry wrapped one arm around her.  He drew her close and bent down.  His lips claimed hers with fierce fury as their mouths met, became united.  The kiss evoked a wild rush of desire as a rhythm older than time sang in through her veins.  Blood rushed through her body and heated quicker than coffee boiled on the cook stove.  With the homing sense of a migratory bird headed south they fused, lips saying without words what both longed to share for far too long.  Instead of the pungent tang of the coal oil from the lamp, the familiar fragrance of wood smoke, Maude swore she inhaled the sweetness of honeysuckle.  Mischief, magic, and something mystical fueled the kiss deeper.  Harry’s fingers undid the dozen buttons down the front of her dress and beneath the camisole her nipples blossomed hard.  He pushed the calico off her shoulders and caressed her, his hands moving with soft surety.  His hand cupped her breast and when he bent to suckle the proud nipple, such wild shivers coursed through Maude she would’ve fallen if he hadn’t held her.

The warmth of his mouth around her tender bud excited her.  She wasn’t the green girl she’d been when they courted but a woman, grown, familiar with pleasures of the flesh.  Thing was, she hadn’t experienced this level of pleasure until now.  A sense of rightness filled Maude as Harry’s hands moved over her body, touching and caressing with a rich combination of need tempered with tenderness.  When he paused, she sighed but he lifted her chin and stared into her face, his eyes bright even in the dimness. “Maudie, I’ll stop if you ask me to,” he said. “I don’t want to but I will.”


“Don’t stop,” she told him, her voice fierce fueled with need. “I want this as much as you, dearest Harry.”

His finger traced the outline of her mouth. “I don’t want you to think we’re doing wrong,” he said. “I won’t have any regrets come mornin’ but I don’t want you to, either.  But if I don’t stop now, I don’t think I can, honey.”

Nothing in so long felt as right as what they did now, she thought.  Her soul stretched out into glorious realms with loving him and Maude’s body needed the physical confirmation of the same.  Becoming one with Harry, intimate in every way, fit somehow, like the proper size buttons matched a buttonhole or how the eternal cycle of seasons yielded nature’s bounty. 

“No regrets,” she replied, her voice husky as it emerged. “I love you, Harry, always have.”

Harry caught up both her hands and held them fast. “Oh, woman,” he said.  He’d never called her so before and quoted a scrap of poetry they’d both learned up at Silver Moon School. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Maude laughed, low and breathless, and said, “Don’t count. Just love me.”




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