Meet Nicodemus Dartmouth

I don't know who to blame: Blogger for not allowing me to post pictures, (although I've done it before) or my lack in keeping up with Blogspot's changes. Either way, this dull explanation is sitting in for the picture of author Phyliss Miranda and the hot cover of her latest book. You can see the pictures that I'm unable to copy at Phyliss Miranda's website: phylissmiranda.com. But first, learn what my guest blogger has to say about her character, Nicodemus Dartmouth.   --  Bernice Simpson

Meet Nicodemus Dartmouth

by

Phyliss Miranda

I’m honored to introduce you to Nicodemus Dartmouth, my hero, in my September 5^th eKensington release The Tycoon and the Texan.

Before we begin with the interview, I’d like to give you the background on both how I selected the plot and Nick’s last name. I truly believe it was a gift from above.

My husband and I have friends who we've know for over forty years and vacationed with since their boys and our girls were young. 

In 2002, my DH and I were on our way to meet them in Florida when we received a call, thank goodness for cell phones, that Harry had emergency heart surgery. He was in a coma, and the future was uncertain.  We immediately turned our car north and headed for Dartmouth Medical Center where he laid critically ill for weeks.  We were determined not to leave until he and Pat were safely home under their own roof.  And, that we did. 

One day while sitting in the waiting room, my attention was drawn to a show on TV, you know the ones up in the corner of the room you have to crane your neck to see and can barely hear, that pertained to a foundation’s auction of bachelors for charity. That seeded the idea for a story about a strong, multi-millionaire who ends up buying an ugly duckling at his own foundation’s charity ball. Of course, she had to be from Texas, and his name had to be as strong and willful as my character, so Nicodemus Dartmouth was born.

Now nearly ten years and many vacations together later, my story The Tycoon and the Texan came out recently and needless to say, I dedicated it to our dearest friends.  

Let’s get on with learning more about Nicodamus Dartmouth. I’m gonna let him tell you about himself first, and then he’ll answer questions if you care to post them.

I don’t really like being referred to as a tycoon because I see myself as just another hardworking man in his 30’s. I have to admit being a product of a wealthy, widowed mother, who I don’t always see eye-to-eye with, did have its benefits. I worked my fingers to the bone to establish one of the largest construction firms on the west coast, while being CEO of Mother’s charity ... the Elliott-Dartmouth foundation.  I own a Double A baseball farm team and love to workout with my players.  Mother is pretty well appalled when I show up at the office with bloody road rash showing threw a tear in my baseball pants.  By the way, Josie, the Foundation Director and mother hen, thinks I belong in the dog pound. I have one supporter in the organization, well most of the time, and that’s McCall Johnson, who used to be my secretary at the construction company until I transferred her over to the foundation when I found myself crawling up twenty stores of red iron thinking about her.

Now back to the charity auction that Phyliss mentioned. Mother thought it was a grand idea to auction off bachelorettes, while I told her from the start is was a bad, really bad idea.  She called me into the office to go over the final arrangements, including the table decorations.  I need to be out at the construction company offices arranging for a shipment of material we don’t need to be shipped to Habitat for Humanity, but no I’m standing here looking at a bunch of flowers stuffed in a vase. I won’t even tell you what I think about them because Mother sure didn't approve of my description.

The auction was a nightmare, just as I had predicted, although it raised a lot of money for the foundation ... a good bit coming from me.

The jinks I apparently put on the event began when one of the bachelorettes called in sick and our resident Texan McCall Johnson was forced to step in. In an unexpected turn of events, and I have to admit a bit of jealousy on my part to boot, I ended up paying what McCall called “a vulgar” amount for a week long date with her.

That began our adventures ... seven days to Texas.

I wanted so badly to show her that our lives weren't that much different, but at every turn, I hit a roadblock.  From nearly cutting my finger off trying to prepare dinner on my private boat for her to seeing a ghost on Harris Grade coming out of Lompoc, California, something got in my way of showing her that I don’t get everything I want, although she thinks I do.

It took me the full seven days, plus some while visiting her Granny’s ranch in Texas, but I finally succeeded at showing the independent, spirited, uprooted Texan that our lives aren't as different as it might seem, only to find that we are more alike than I ever dreamed ... including our secrets.

I hope you’ll go buy The Tycoon and the Texan by native Texan, Phyliss Miranda, so you can learn more about me and Miss McCall Johnson.  By the way, if I have my way, she won’t be a Miss much longer.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Phyliss Miranda is the author of six historical western romance anthologies and her contemporary romance The Tycoon and the Texan is scheduled to be released on September 5, 2013, with her second eBook The Troubled Texan due out early 2014. Phyliss is the 2007 recipient of Panhandle Professional Writers’ Writer of the Year award. She enjoys sharing her love for the new frontier, particularly the Texas Panhandle, the Civil War, quilting, and antiques; and still believes in the Code of the Old West.
 

Visit her at phylissmiranda.com

  

A town Called Harmony

I pressed “Play” on a tiny remote. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Memories from Cats quieted the excess chatter in my mind, and while ironing, I relaxed. Soon his exquisite love songs drew me to another place—the environs of a Texas town called Harmony.

Harmony is the setting for New York Times’ best-selling author, Jodi Thomas’ novel “Just Down the Road,” her latest in the series, Harmony.

But readers know from the first paragraph, when they meet Dr. Addison Spencer, to brace for discord. It’s Saturday night, and Dr. Spencer has ER duty. “Get six rooms ready,” she tells her assistant when she learns the injured from a bar fight are on their way to the hospital.

After patching up Tinch Turner, the doctor, who lives near his ranch, drives him home. It’s not an act of graciousness on her part, but sense of responsibility. Her patient refuses to spend the night in the hospital. An odd couple, certainly, but Just Down the Road is a romantic novel, after all. The question is, how will author, Jodi Thomas manage to unite a brawling cowboy and female physician without the novel falling into implausible fantasy?

If something is brewing between Addison and Tinch, theirs is not the only possible romance in town. Brandon Biggs and Noah McAllen are both friends with old Jeremiah Truman’s niece, Reagan. Singles socialize at the local watering hole, the Buffalo Bar and Grill, and even the town’s undertaker, once resigned to his unmarried status, now dreams of wedding bells.

By page 66 love blooms all around Harmony. And tension builds.

Just Down the Road blends romance, suspense, and a cast of characters so real, we feel we've known them from somewhere.

Typical of life, certain of Harmony’s residents are a bit quirky. At a funeral “Miss Dewly, who played the ancient organ, came in and took her place. So did her two friends. They always tagged along if Miss Dewly had a morning funeral so all three could go to lunch afterward.”

But the peculiar is balanced with wisdom. In reference to his wife’s job, the Sheriff’s husband, Hank, said, “’When you love somebody like I love Alexandra, you have to let them do what they love. She’s good at her job. I've got to trust that. I guess if you love someone, you've got to love them all. People don’t come in parts you can divide out and pick what you like.’”  

After we read and live vicariously in Harmony, we're apt to forget it’s not our town. In fact, however we might like to, we cannot actually go there. 

It seemed to me, though, Ms. Thomas took writers’ license with the weather in her Texas town located not far from Amarillo. It rained more than once in the story. Oh well, we who are thankful for one-tenth of an inch don’t find it difficult to suspend disbelief...and wish.

© 2012, Bernice W. Simpson