My first real Bulgarian midsummer! 💌

Hello, lovely reader!

I hope you and those you love are happy, safe, and well. I'm praying for God's peace and love to rest on the world, and on you, too, especially in these troubled times.

Whew, it’s been such a busy week! As well as supporting hubby back in the UK (PTL, he’s much recovered now after being very unwell!), cat care, and working on the house and yard, it was the biggest event of the village year on Sunday. The village hosts an annual all-day midsummer folklore festival at a nearby lake, and this required a lot of preparation. Frequent singing group rehearsals ready for our performance:

And the day before, we all got together in the cultural centre to make a flower and herb arch for a lovely Bulgarian midsummer tradition, where guests were welcomed to the festival by walking under the arch and then were given a cup of herbal tea made from local summer herbs. Everyone raided their gardens (I brought an armful of lemon balm, matrochina in Bulgarian), and this is what a team of us created:

The festival was a good day, but long and tiring. I am so glad it’s only once a year. Saturday is the lavender harvest festival in the nearby town, and thankfully we don’t need to do anything for that but enjoy it!

And on to the book news! First, last week I linked to my dear friend Alexa Verde new set of previously published mistaken identity romances laced with faith and danger, but said “Don’t buy it yet!” I’m happy to report that her Mistaken Identity Romances set is now reduced to 99c or local equivalent. There are five suspenseful stories in the set and I’m sure you’ll find it’s 99c well spent for hours of reading enjoyment! Plus I’m quite pleased with how the cover turned out, too (I make many of Alexa's covers now).

On a sadder note, today is the anniversary of beloved author friend Marion Ueckermann’s unexpected passing from COVID. She left two completed but unpublished stories, which I’m honored to be publishing on behalf of her family. The Piano, a long and intriguing novel of romance, faith, and mystery is currently available, and later today, God willing, her final story written soon before her death, I Take You, a sweet novella set in New Zealand, should launch. I’ll have that link to share next week.

In More Than Friends, an unusual beach romance set in Scotland, one summer's day could change both a dedicated nurse and her brother’s best friend’s lives! The ebook is f-r-e-e on Amazon until June 29. And if you want to read her three brothers’ stories as well, where God brings their lifetime loves into their lives in ways they never expected, the full-series The Macleans ebook set is reduced to 99c (US and UK only) until July 1.

Here are the new f-r-e-e additions for my to-be-read library this week! No-cost this morning on Amazon but prices do change so be sure to check before hitting the buy button! All should be clean and faith-friendly, but as I haven’t read any of these stories yet, I hope I haven’t missed anything I wouldn’t normally choose to share!

• If you enjoy clean cozy mysteries, try author Nancy McGovern’s Cozy Mystery Sampler, with a complete story from each of her six main series;

• Marrying Miss Marshall by Lacy Williams is a clean historical Western romance;

• Beyond the Setting Sun by Jessie Gussman is a sweet beach romance;

• Roman & Olivia by Natalie Dean is a friends-to-love cowboy romance;

• And of course, just another reminder that my faith-filled beach romance, More than Friends, is f-r-e-e till June 29!

CLEAN BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND ROMANCES

This group promo features a selection of sweet and clean romances, each with a hero who is her brother's best friend! Includes my books More Than Friends (currently no-cost), and A Model Bride from the same series — but don’t pay full price for it when you can get the whole series set for 99c for the next week! Though the organiser specified that all books should be genuinely clean, I can’t say for sure they all are, so please choose carefully!

It's been a busy week with cats as well! Two of the outdoor cats had health problems needing extra care. The top tom had a huge infected fight wound, now well on the way to resolving. And Tiger, one of the junior males, got horrible spear-like grass seeds stuck in an eye two days in a row! I pulled the first one with no problem and his red swollen eye got better. The next day, he arrived with an even more swollen eye, obviously very painful, and it took three days of battling to give him antibiotic eye drops four times a day before the swelling resolved enough that I could remove the seed. His eye is now completely better. Phew! The bad thing about the hot dry weather now summer has arrived are these nasty seeds, but the good thing is there are now no ticks! During tick season I was removing up to eight a day per cat, and daily tick checks for everyone were essential.

Less easily resolved — there are now a total of ELEVEN kittens, after two more mother cats moved their kittens to our yard! Just what we didn’t need, especially as all the adult cats hate kittens who aren’t their own. I have six separate feeding stations spread around the yard to try to reduce mealtime aggression.

One, a ginger and white mother cat hubby calls Cafe Cat, officially lives with a neighbour two doors down. Problem is, this neighbour doesn’t believe in feeding her cats, they’re supposed to catch their own dinner. So it’s no surprise they go looking for food elsewhere! This one spends a lot of time in the village cafe getting everyone’s leftovers and even has her own dedicated seat there. But she obviously doesn’t think that’s the best environment for her five kittens (two ginger, two ginger and white, and one dark tortoiseshell), so they’ve taken over the front porch cat house. It’s a nice set up, with a feeding station and two cat houses, and wouldn’t mind if she’d stay there. But she’s assertive to the point of bullying, wants to take over the entire place, and I admit to at times calling her Mrs Cow because she has such an attitude towards the other cats.

Last year she brought her three kittens here and moved them back home after a month or so, so I’m hoping that will happen this time, too. Because the other mother cat, a tabby who I first noticed in the garden with two small kittens (one grey, one tabby) on Tuesday, seems to be a truly feral cat. Very shy and nervous, hisses if I get within a few feet of her, and genuinely in need of help. I hope we can tame her with time, patience, and food.

Despite all the issues with so many cats, I’ve started getting the four indoor kittens acquainted with life outside, first with carefully supervised short periods keeping them where I could see them, and then gradually letting them venture further. I now feel comfortable leaving the kitchen door open for a few hours morning and evening — after the breakfast and dinner feeding frenzies have ended and the outdoor cats have mostly wandered off — and letting them explore on their own. Often their mother stays nearby watching them, but I still do very frequent head counts. They love playing with Cafe Cat’s kittens, hiding in the patches of long grass I’ve left for them (nasty seeds all removed!), and are learning how to climb on the grapevine nearest the kitchen door. Getting up to the top turned out to be the easy part, getting down was a little more challenging!

I also took a short video of the kittens playing yesterday, and you can see that on my YouTube here! It might auto play when you click the link, but there’s no obnoxious loud music.

This week's randomly chosen ebook winners are Bea, Sandi, Monica, Grace, and Ana. If your first name or the name in your email address matches one of the winners' names in the list above, reply letting me know which of my solo ebooks (sorry, sets are not included) you'd like as a free Bookfunnel download. You can see them all here. His Tender Mercy and Heart in Hiding aren't yet released, so if you opt for one of these, you'll be added to a wait list and get a copy when your choice is finally reader-ready.

This week's give.away — five subscribers who click any link in this email by Sunday, June 28, 2026 will be randomly chosen to win their choice of my ebooks and will be named in next week's newsletter.

Next week’s newsletter may be a day early, as I’ll be travelling back to the UK on Thursday, doing the switcheroo with hubby once again. Until then, I'm praying you and those you love are happy and healthy, with many precious moments of peace and joy to brighten your days.

Blessings, and happy reading,

Lord, I am not proud. I do not think that I am a great person. I do not try to do great things. I do not worry about things that are too hard for me to understand.
Instead, I am quiet and there is peace in my mind. I am like a young child who sits on his mother’s knee. Yes, I have peace in my mind. Israel’s people, trust the Lord to help you, now and for ever.
I’ve found peace and comfort in these verses this week, when I feel as if I’m trying to fix too many problems all at once. I can slow down, take a couple of deep breaths, and rest in God, trusting that He is in control, and He will help me. You can trust Him, too! The work we have to do goes so much easier when we know He’s right there beside us!