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Welcome Back to Cupid Falls, PA!!
Holly Jacobs


A Simple Heart
A Cupid Falls Novella


Paisley Jones moves to Cupid Falls, Pennsylvania to start a new life for herself and for her orphaned niece. She buys Simple Treasures craft store and hires Gideon Byler to help with some renovations.


Gideon's not sure what he makes of this woman who sweeps into town and starts changing things.  But slowly he begins to realize that this stranger just might have more in common with him than the people he's known all his life.

 

Excerpt:

Copyright 2016 Holly Jacobs

The Legend of Cupid Falls, Pennsylvania


THE TOWNSPEOPLE of Cupid Falls have a legend that surrounds their waterfall. 


It’s a small waterfall…less than six feet high.  It tumbles over a rocky ledge into Falls Creek.  

It is the waterfall that gave the town its name.  

Generation after generation of men and women met at the falls and fell in love.

That is the legend most of the town knows and even brags about.

But there is more to the story…to the legend.

A small community of Lancaster Amish moved west, across Pennsylvania to the verdant farmland thirty miles from Lake Erie’s shore.  They were a people who chose to live simply.  But choosing a plain life doesn’t mean they found love any simpler. 

They were a people who didn’t believe in magic but they recognized the beauty of the falls.  When a man and woman in the Falls Creek community courted, they went to edge of the creek, where the water fell over that rocky ledge.  There, they’d discuss their hopes and dreams.  They’d talk about the family they planned to build.

And there, countless members of the community pledged their troth.

Most went on to build happy lives together.

But for the lucky few, the magic of the falls didn’t require their belief.  It brought them together, helped them overcome their difficulties and in the end, those plain couples built their life together based on Cupid’s Falls only true magic…

Love.

Chapter One

It is important to soak your reed before using it to make a basket.  Dry reed is too brittle and breaks easily. ~Paisley Jones, author of Amish Baskets and Other Crafts

“BOOPA, BOOP, Boop, de Doop...” 

Paisley Jones drove over a well paved road that was lined with sparsely spaced homes, trees with tired green leaves, and an occasional farmer’s field.  She sang the Boop Song to her niece.  Loudly.  If she said boopa one more time, she might loose her mind, but the alternative was worse.

She had tried the radio and her iPod, but not even her Raffi mix could soothe the one-year-old in the back of the car.  Paisley’s options were limited to singing or listening to Boop’s screams.

Paisley chose singing.

Boop wanted out of her car seat…and she wanted out now.  For whatever reason, the Boop Song was keeping the baby’s screams at bay.  According to Paisley’s GPS, they’d arrive in less than five minutes.  She could stand another round or two of the Boop Song.

She started again as she took in the late summer landscape.  She dreaded the upcoming change of seasons.  It was seven o’clock on an August evening and still light out.  Soon it would be dark by now.  The thought was depressing.

Usually she loved autumn but this year, she dreaded it because on its heels would be winter.  Images of snowy, slippery country roads flashed through her mind.  She pushed them aside. 

It was still summer.  There was no use borrowing trouble.

The baby gave her pre-scream squeal again.

“Almost there, Boop,” Paisley called.  “We’re almost home.” 

She started singing the nonsense song again.

She glanced at the GPS screen.  The small flag that indicated their destination was finally visible.

A new start.

A new beginning.

She’d left the past in Ohio and had driven east to her future in Cupid Falls, Pennsylvania.  The small town sat in Crawford County, just south of the lakeside city of Erie.

“Destination on the right,” the cheeky male Australian voice she’d programed into her GPS called.

“Thanks, Gary,” she said without thinking. 

She was suddenly reminded how Tommy used to laugh at the way she humanized machines.  When he’d teased, she’d countered that everything deserved a name.  She’d reminded him that he’d been a plain Thomas before they’d met.  She’d taken one look at him and known that he was really a Tommy. 

He said the first time she called him Tommy and he wasn’t annoyed he’d known he was going to be with her the rest of his life.

She fought back tears, knowing they would do no good.  She’d cried until she was dry and brittle, but it hadn’t changed anything. 

This wasn’t like a basket.  When she was weaving, if there was a mistake, she could simply backtrack and fix it. 

There was no backtracking in life. 

She couldn’t go back and fix the past for herself or for Boop.  There was only moving forward and trying to start over.

She drove through the small town of Cupid Falls.  City Hall, a florist shop, a restaurant, an antique store… 

At the edge of the town sat a huge, two-story building.  Its sign declared it was Simple Treasures. White clapboard, a huge porch with a half dozen rocking chairs that invited guests to sit back and relax.
“Come on, Boop, we’re home...”

 

Book, Reviews, Excerpt

From the book: A Simple Heart
By: Holly Jacobs
Imprint and Series: Harlequin Duet
Publication Date: 5/16
ISBN:  
Copyright © 2016
By: Holly Jacobs
 

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