When Cardinals Appear (The Love Birds) Women's Romance Fiction by Katie Eagan Schenck ➱ Book Tour with Guest Post & Giveaway
She has a promise to keep. But when her plans are thrown into a tailspin, will a persistent red bird show her how to let her dreams take flight?
When Cardinals Appear
The Love Birds Book 1
by Katie Eagan Schenck
Genre: Women's Romance Fiction
She has a promise to keep. But when her plans are thrown into a tailspin, will a persistent red bird show her how to let her dreams take flight?
Lanie McAllister is ready to move on. Wrestling with her mom’s death, the young woman just wants to settle the estate and soar off for good to her boyfriend in California—far away from painful memories. But she suspects the lucky cardinal she keeps seeing is trying to send a message when a flat tire puts her back in the path of the man who broke her heart.
With fate constantly throwing the man her mother always hated in her way, Lanie can’t seem to shake the wounds of the past. And when her current love makes a serious misstep and she discovers her ex harbors a secret, she starts to rethink what will make her truly happy.
Questioning her vow to her mother to never look back, is the cardinal a clue Lanie’s true happiness is hiding in plain sight?
When Cardinals Appear is the emotional first book in The Love Birds women’s romantic fiction series. If you like heroines who grow, overcoming loss, and second chances, then you’ll adore Katie Eagan Schenck’s bittersweet tale.
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“I
can’t believe you still have this car,” I finally said as I strolled over to
him.
“She’s
in mint condition,” Nate confirmed, a hint of pride in his voice.
I
grinned as I climbed in and set my bags on the floor, feeling like I was
stepping back in time. I recalled many evenings with Nate, cruising down back roads
and stopping to take in the sunset over the water. It made me wish for a
simpler time, before a broken heart and Mom’s death completely altered my life.
He
slid in, a warm smile pulling on his lips. He had always loved that car, and
the change in his mood was palpable. We pulled out onto the road, and I
relished the vibration of the rumbling engine as he switched gears. Something
about that moment felt more like coming home than anything I’d experienced
since my plane landed.
Within
a few minutes, we pulled up in front of an unfamiliar building with a sign
outside that said McAllister and Associates. What? We’d already arrived?
I bit my lip and tried to get control of myself. Get a grip, Lanie.
The man was giving me a ride, not taking me on a date. I pulled the bag into my
lap.
“Well,
thanks for the ride.” I turned toward Nate with a forced smile. “And the
rescue.”
“No
problem.” He nodded toward the bag. “What’s all that?”
“My
mother’s life, essentially.” I opened the bag and gestured to one pile. “This
is to put her house on the market. The rest is her will and other related
documents.”
“How
long will you be in town?”
“Not
long, I hope!” I met his gaze and realized a moment too late I’d suffered from
foot-in-mouth syndrome for the second time that morning. The warmth he’d had
moments ago disappeared in an instant.
“I
hope it all works out for you,” he said, his voice hard and cold.
“Nate,
I didn’t mean—”
“I’ll
call you when the car is ready.” He stared at the road, and I took that as my
dismissal.
“Thanks.”
I snuck one last glance at him, but he refused to look at me. As soon as I
climbed out and closed the door, he merged onto the highway, leaving me alone
on the sidewalk.
“Welcome
home, Lanie,” I whispered to myself.
When Cardinals Appear came into being a few months after my maternal grandmother
died. I had heard the saying “a cardinal appears when angels are near”
throughout my life, but never so often as I did after we lost my grandmother. I
have a lot of Southern Baptist relatives, and whenever one of my mom’s siblings
would post on Facebook about seeing a cardinal, inevitably someone would leave
a comment that it was my grandmother checking in.
The idea fascinated me. I knew I was
going to write another romance novel, and I found the cardinal belief
inspirational. I started thinking, what if a person who had passed on was
desperately trying to get a message to a loved one they’d left behind? What if
these two people had a complicated relationship? Maybe one of them had a secret
of something they had done to the other in the past that they regretted. How
would the person left behind cope when they learned the truth? What would
happen if they ignored the message their loved one was trying to convey?
All of these questions led me to
write When Cardinals Appear. What
started as a simple sweet romance eventually morphed into a coming of age
women’s fiction with a second chance romance subplot. I originally wrote the
novel from both Lanie and Nate’s points of view, but came to realize that just
wasn’t working. It was always more Lanie’s story, and eventually I decided it
was high time I allowed her to tell it.
Katie Eagan Schenck writes sweet romance and women’s fiction that warms the heart and gives all the feels. She has an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte and her debut novel, A Home for Christmas, was released in October of 2022. When she's not writing she's either drafting regulations for the federal government, baking delicious treats, or binging Hallmark movies. She lives in Maryland with her husband, daughter, and their three cats.
The cover is really pretty. Sounds like a good book.
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