This picture is from Chicago’s GRL. It was taken the night I spent exploring with my friend, author Heidi Belleau. Heidi is a multi-talented, wonderful woman, mother, and author, who didn’t tell me she was pregnant while we were running from the Navy Pier to catch our architectural tour boat… I think I fainted when I found out, because as you can see from the picture, I was in pretty good shape at the time but whenever I was pregnant, the only way I could get out of a paper bag was to dampen it with my pitiful, hormone soaked tears… They’re making some pretty awesome women these days. Just Sayin’

Heidi’s way, way younger than me and her badassery that night was the stuff of legends. The only thing I regret is we can’t all get together twenty-five times a year.

The reason I mention this is three-fold. First, all the Bluewater Bay series books are interconnected, so when Healey Holly realizes he can’t stay in the apartment over the garage anymore, he has to go to the Burnt Toast B & B…and you can find out more about the place in Heidi and Rachel Haimowitz’s book, The Burnt Toast B&B!

“After breaking his arm on set, Wolf’s Landing stuntman Ginsberg Sloan finds himself temporarily out of work. Luckily, Bluewater Bay’s worst B&B has cheap long-term rates, and Ginsberg’s not too proud to take advantage of them.

Derrick Richards, a grizzled laid-off logger, inherited the B&B after his parents’ untimely deaths. Making beds and cooking sunny-side-up eggs is hardly Derrick’s idea of a man’s way to make a living, but just as he’s decided to shut the place down, Ginsberg shows up on his doorstep, pitiful and soaking wet, and Derrick can hardly send him packing.

Not outright, at least.

The plan? Carry on the B&B’s tradition of terrible customer service and even worse food until the pampered city boy leaves voluntarily. What Derrick doesn’t count on, though, is that the lousier he gets at hosting, the more he convinces bored, busybody Ginsberg to try to get the B&B back on track. And he definitely doesn’t count on the growing attraction between them, or how much more he learns from Ginsberg than how to put out kitchen fires.”

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Bluewater Bay stories can be read in any order — jump in wherever you’d like!

Word count: 62,000; page count: 241