Dreaming of Beaches & Book Stores

We’ve made an offer on a house in San Clemente, California and hope to close before the end of February.  It’s a great house, a historic home, very close to the beach and the San Clemente pier, and so it looks like we’re definitely heading to California in June once boys finish school.

It’s exciting to think that come Fall, Ty and I will be in one house, under one roof, more and more.  Even better, its a house we bought together so no more his and hers, but ours.  Ty will continue to operate his Oahu based surf school, but plans on opening a Southern California branch sometime in 2012 or 213.  He needs to find the right spot and it’ll happen when it’s meant to happen.

I have some serious tight deadlines in the next 6 months and will be writing really hard while preparing for our Bellevue realtor to show my house here.  I love this house in Yarrow Point with its stonework and big fireplaces and gorgeous library, but I am hoping that the right person will fall in love with it, too, and enjoy this house as much as I enjoyed building it.  It’s a reader’s dream house with bookshelves and cozy nooks everywhere!

Speaking of readers, I have a dream of one day opening a bookstore in San Clemente.  There is no new book store there and I’d love to have one that’s full of fun fiction and kids books, with both picture books, chapter books, and great YA literature.  I’d love for it to have a little coffee corner for lattes and iced mochas, and tables and chairs for writers, and comfy chairs and corners for readers.  We could host author events, children’s story hour, writing workshops and book clubs.  I see it as a community place to bring people together.  This is important to me but with my deadlines and writing schedule, I don’t know when I will make it happen, but one day–hopefully sooner than later.

Now I must get back to writing and making my next deadline.  I’m working on Kit’s book, the second in the Brennan Sisters trilogy and I’m enjoying it so much.  Love this story and hope you will, too!

I’ve got 3 great prizes with a London theme in honor of my UK publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon, as they treat me so well and make me feel needed and wanted and that’s a great feeling for a writer to have.  For a chance to win one of these three awesome prizes, tell me what you think of my idea for an independent bookstore,  which in my mind I’m calling”Beach Books & Board Shop”, and tell me what you would like the store to have, or what you think would help it succeed.   Does it need to be huge?  Does it need certain hours?  Does it need to include all fiction?  I want your thoughts, big and small as I have no experience in retail, and have heard that it’s impossible to make money with a brick and mortar bookstores, but I LOVE bookstores and think every city should have one!

Contest runs through Monday night and I will announce winners on Tuesday!

 

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