We're excited to have Judythe Morgan with us today talking about her book When Love Blooms, a novel about the Fitzpatrick Family. To learn more about this award winning author and her book, read on!

Please tell us five random things we might not know about you.

~I like to sing Sacred Harp. It’s also called fa so la singing and been around since the 1840s. Check it out, depending upon where you live, there might be a singing near you.

~I’m addicted to having an afternoon cup of Brewley’s Irish tea. It’s a habit I picked up on my many trips to Ireland.

~I taught computer literacy for seven years. Looking back, I’m still amazed we covered word processing, databases, spreadsheets, programming, telecommunications, technology futures, and ethics in an eighteen-week semester.

 ~I love snow. The ice that follows a beautiful snowfall, on the other hand, is not my friend.

~I’m a fifth generation Texan, back home after living in ten different states and South Korea.

Why did you choose to write this book?

This book grew from a contest I entered in 2009. Sadly, it didn’t win. I shelved Andy and Darcy’s story. Years later, in talking about the story concept, writer friends suggested it would make a great series. I dug out the old contest entry, worked with a story editor, and the Fitzpatrick Family series was born. Two of the eight Fitzpatrick siblings, Andy and Becca, have had their stories published. The others’ stories will be coming.

What one thing about writing do you wish non-writers would understand? 

I do wish friends understood why I sometimes say “no” when asked to do something or go somewhere, especially if I’m on deadline.

What is the toughest test you've faced as a writer?

It’s not exactly a test, though it does challenge me. Marketing and self-promotion is so hard for me. I’m very, very thankful for people like K. Dawn Bryd who make it so easy.

What do you hope readers take away from your novel?

I hope Darcy and Andy’s story will encourage readers to see that forgiveness can lead to happy endings.

What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of, writing-related or not?

I feel so proud when readers stop and talk to me about how much they enjoy my books.

What do you do for fun when not writing?

I love to play contract bridge and cook. Not at the same time, of course.

What are you working on now?

I’m plotting the next Fitzpatrick story for Joshua -When Love Trusts.   

Where else can readers find you online?   

Visit Judythe’s website to learn more about her.

Read her award-winning blog View from the Front Porc

Friend her on Facebook and Goodreads

Follow her on Twitter

Please give us the first page of the book.

Darcy Clark tightened her grip on the teetering wheelbarrow piled high with bags of black peat mulch for flowerbeds and focused on the four Goth-attired boys with spiked hair who watched her approach. The two girls standing beside them sported raccoon-eye mascara and brassy makeup. Mingling in the garden area of her high school alma mater, the group looked more like escapees from county juvie than students.

One of the boys, a rail-thin kid in a dirty heavy-metal band tee shirt with the logo so badly faded as to be unrecognizable, stomped on a row of dianthus. The others snickered.

“Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”

Darcy raced down the sidewalk heaving from roots of the massive oaks planted with the building construction in the 1950s when the small town of Burton finally had the population to warrant its own school district. For weeks, she’d landscaped the grounds for her upcoming ten-year reunion. Those hooligans were not going to destroy all her hard work. She cringed at the shredded flower petals and plucked foliage.

“What’s it to you, lady?” A different teenager with a defiant smirk plucked a primrose and crushed the tiny crimson blooms between his thumb and fingers.

“Yeah. It’s our school. We can pick flowers if we want.” The girl with a fuchsia streak in her midnight black hair pinched a white bloom from the bush, sniffed, and placed the flower behind her ear Hawaiian-style.

The ribbing escalated, each taunt becoming a little cruder than the last.

“I’m calling security.” Darcy reached in her pocket only to discover she had left her cell phone in the truck.

“No need for that.” A bearded man came from behind her and joined them. He shifted a black book under his arm and extended his hand. “Andrew Fitzpatrick. I apologize for my students. Everyone out of the flowerbeds. Now.”

Darcy pulled off her dirty glove and reluctantly shook his hand. Matthew Fitzpatrick’s younger brother had been a pimply-faced tween the first time she met him. Wanting to believe she could have handled the situation, at the same time thankful for his presence, she shot a suspicious glance at the students.

“Darcy Clark. If they’re your students, why aren’t you paying attention to what they’re doing? On second thought, how do I know you’re a teacher? I’ve heard the stories about drugs on campus. Maybe that book is your accounts book and you’re checking on your pushers.”

A stocky kid with an acute case of acne jumped off the flowerbed edging and gave a toothy grin. “Mr. Fitz a pusher? Nah, he’s too soft.”

Andrew Fitzpatrick whipped the black leather book out and flashed the title, Selected Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “See? Poetry.” Meeting Darcy’s gaze, he said, “I should have been paying more attention. English poetry is not a teenager’s favorite subject. I do apologize.”

Back cover blurb

After a hit-and-run accident leaves her mother confined to a special care facility, Darcy Clark abandons her dream of an art career to focus on the family’s struggling landscape business.

At-risk students from her old high school become the labor force on a city park project, and their teacher, Andy Fitzpatrick shows up to supervise his students. The chemistry between Darcy and Andy is instant.

But will a secret link between Andy and her mother’s accident kill the attraction before love can bloom?

Bio

Award-winning author Judythe Morgan was an Air Force daughter then an Army wife and a one time-Department of Army Civilian employee. She's seen a lot of this big world.

She's also a mother/grandmother, antiques dealer, teacher, former mayor's wife, and sometimes-church pianist. Recently, she's ventured into Sacred Harp singing and playing bridge. And she always finds time to love on her Old English sheepdog Finnegan MacCool and his Maltese brother, Buster.

Her diverse experiences have made her life full, her stories authentic, and her characters vivid and that, in turn, has earned her fiction numerous writing awards. She writes from a Christian worldview and there’s always an emotionally satisfying ending.

With her husband, a preacher’s kid, and her son, a preacher, she has a wealth of material for her Fitzpatrick Family series about eight preacher kids and their sweet romance stories. When Love Blooms is Andy’s story and first of the series.

Judythe is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and Romance Writers of America (RWA).