Barbara Ellen Brink

Barbara's Thin Line Between Truth & Fiction

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Creme de menthe bars and a free book!

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Christmas is almost upon us.

I have so much I want to do, and so little time left to do it. My organization skills stink. I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. Baking with chocolate. Yes, I am the number one taste-tester around here. Actually, the only taste-tester. So, I get a lot of tastes. It’s a very satisfying job. I could do this all year.

Sadly, it has taken me an entire week shuffling boxes, finding the right ornaments in each, fluffing the fake tree, putting on the lights, and finally hanging and placing each star, ornament, angel, or bow with precision accuracy. You guessed it. I have a mother who is gifted at this stuff. Living up to her example is not only time-consuming but, if I’m honest, a bit mind-numbing. Decorating does not come naturally to me. Writing is my “gift” and I’d much rather be indulging my imagination making up stories than decorating the halls or fluffing throw pillows.

That being said… I have not finished the new book I am working on, and so the only gift I have to present you with this year is a free copy of Christmas in Port Scuttlebutt.

Grandbaby approved

Not to downplay the awesome entertainment value of this Double Barrel contribution. It is truly full of enough suspense, romance, and holiday spirit to satisfy. Add a mug of hot cocoa and a candy cane stirrer and you are on your way to mystery heaven.

Get your free kindle copy December 2-6 only! Don’t wait or procrastinate. Download today> CPS

Leave a comment and tell us one of your favorite Christmas traditions or Christmas cookies/bars. Recipes are welcome. Especially if they involve chocolate. Scroll down for the secret family recipe of my favorite holiday bars.

Thanks for stopping!

Barbara

Creme de Menthe Bars

1st layer> Melt 1/2 cup butter & 1/2 cup cocoa until blended. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 egg, 1 tsp. vanilla and 2 cups graham cracker crumbs. Mix well & pat into 9X13 pan.

2nd layer> Melt 1/2 cup butter. Add 1/3 cup green creme de menthe & 3 cups powdered sugar. Mix well until smooth. Spread over 1st layer. Chill for one hour.

Top layer> Melt 1/4 cup butter & 1 and 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips. Spread over top and put in refrigerator.

I usually cut them within an hour, so the top doesn’t set so hard that it cracks instead of cutting smoothly. Then keep them in the fridge because they do contain egg and butter. Wouldn’t want you to blame me for salmonella. They also freeze well.

Ps. Eat and enjoy! Merry Christmas!

The Secret Lives of Squirrels

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Image by eriko okuno from Pixabay

November is our country’s designated month of thankfulness. Yes, I know. Thankfulness is something we should practice every day. But Facebook friends have been bringing it to my attention lately with daily thanks for specific things. So far, I have not written my own daily posts of thankfulness, but then, this happened…

As we all know, real life is so much stranger and more surprising than any fiction I could write. Today’s post is proof of that.

This morning, as usual, Willow and I went for our walk. As an avid lover of squirrel chasing, Willow is on high alert for any sign of her long-tailed rodent friends. This year our neighborhood squirrel families have been multiplying faster than bedbugs in a one-star motel, so there are plenty to chase. To keep us both safe – her from running into the street and getting splatted by a car and me from being yanked into the street and being splatted by a car – I am ever vigilant of squirrel sightings so I can shorten the leash and avoid disaster.

At the corner of a street near a small, leaf-bare tree, Willow was too busy checking out the fire hydrant to notice a gray squirrel running past, holding something strange in its mouth. It hopped nimbly to the crook of the tree about four feet up and sat there watching us. As I stood perfectly still staring back, the little guy removed the item he had in his mouth and began to lick on it.

At first, I wasn’t sure what it was. The object was so foreign to the scenario. I’d seen squirrels carrying nuts or crabapples, but… it was a tiny white stick of some kind, like a… Dum Dum sucker? Completely undisturbed by our presence he held the stick with both hands and licked away at the round yellow treat like a naughty child sneaking left-over Halloween candy while his mother slept.

Lately, I have been leaving my phone home while we go on our walks, finding that I tend to enjoy the time more without responding to random texts or social media alerts. But today, I had the perfect shot of a squirrel eating a Dum Dum and no camera to prove my story.

Regardless, I laughed out loud at the scene and enjoyed this bit of humor God had put into my day. Sadly, my laughter apparently startled the squirrel. He stuck the handle of the sucker back in his mouth like a pirate with a knife and climbed to a higher branch.

I’ve never imagined putting two such polar opposites together in a post about gratitude, but…

“I am thankful for Halloween Dum Dums and God’s amazing intelligent/playful design in nature.”

Thanks for stopping! Do you have something you are thankful for today? Seen any strange and wonderful things in nature? Want to share? Leave a comment!

Thanks,

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Novels, the Double Barrel Mysteries, the Second Chances series, and more. She lives in Minnesota because she can’t afford Hawaii.

Come and get it! Potluck Fiction

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The proof is in the smiles! Early beta readers are hooked on Potluck Fiction!

photo by samson katt at Pexels

Available now at all online bookstores!

My newest book is a collection of wholly entertaining short stories. You could call it comfort food for the soul. I like to call it feel-good fiction because it won’t leave you wondering, what the heck did I just read…? You know the sensation when you bite into a handful of peanuts and one of them is rotten, and you can’t get that taste out of your mouth? Don’t worry. There’s none of that.

Much like a church potluck, you will find a variety of story flavors: suspense, historical, romance, literary, young adult, and inspirational. For dessert lovers, I’ve added plenty of sweet, humorous selections to tickle your funny bone. You can read one a day like a special treat, or binge read them all in one sitting.

Potluck Fiction is somewhere between French cuisine and redneck roadkill stew. It may not win The National Book Award, but it will definitely satisfy those pangs of reading hunger while you wait in a paper gown for the doctor to show up, or ride the bus to work, or sit by the pool, or ignore your kids, or while you should be making dinner.

Download your copy now and don’t be left sitting in that cold waiting room without a savory story to fill your wasted minutes.

Thanks for stopping by! Don’t forget to leave a comment and say hello. Have you read Potluck Fiction yet? If so, what was your favorite story?

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Novels, the Double Barrel Mysteries, the Second Chances series, and more. She lives in Minnesota because she can’t afford Hawaii.

We the people, unite!

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photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels

*There may very well be biased opinions below. Read at your own risk. Also, if humor, sarcasm, or patriotism offend you, you may want to skip this one.

Here we are halfway through 2021 and the world has not yet come to an end. Many people have prognosticated doom and gloom over the past couple of years and although there have been hard times, the world is still spinning on its axis.

Some people suspect the year 2020 was either a government conspiracy or an insane mind game played on us all by the Illuminate. But just to be on the safe side, I was vaccinated, on the off-chance the Chinese pinpointed my family DNA for destruction. After all, Suttons are very competitive, and in a world of underachievers and mommy’s basement dwellers, a little motivation may be all we need to beat back socialism and win the gold!

This past week we celebrated Independence Day and thankfully there were no “alien” attacks from space. But space is the least likely threat to America’s existence. The most dangerous attack being perpetrated on “we the people” is intended to subvert our entire way of life. Sadly, these are attacks from within and much harder to stop. You can’t just nuke’em. After all, they are fellow citizens. Although, President Biden recently insinuated that weapons of mass destruction would be a fair response to opposing viewpoints.

It seems that every single day another inch of freedom is taken from us. Little things, sometimes so small that most people seem not to notice. Especially if you still haven’t come out of your house since the “stay home, stay safe” mandate. The ability to disagree without fear of retribution on your personal life and business. The freedom to point out the flaws in their arguments when the gurus of the now popular “Social Justice” religion or “End of the World because it’s Hot this Summer” religion accuse America of being the catalyst for everything bad on the planet. The freedom to support the police because you want them to be available when bad things happen. The freedom to watch the news of your choice, support the politician of your choice, read online articles of your choice, and share your views without being monitored, coerced, threatened, banned, called a terrorist, and/or cancelled.

When I was in grade school, we learned about the evils of communism in countries like China and Russia. The ripping away of rights, burning down of churches, banning books and information, arrest, imprisonment, and murder of their own people for any and all disobedience to the regime. Now they teach children that the worst problems in the world were all birthed in America. We apparently invented slavery, racism, hatred, and global warming. Who knew? In the thousands of years before America was around, the world was at peace.

You can see what’s happening more clearly if you stop assuming either political party is always right or that they have your best interest at heart. Open your eyes.

Is it okay to ban books that disagree with whoever is in charge of the nuthouse rhetoric at the moment? It’s happening. Is it okay to destroy a woman’s lifelong business to get back at her for standing up at a school board meeting and disagreeing with the agenda to indoctrinate children instead of educate them? It’s happening. Is it okay to bash, bully, and ultimately silence people on social media for having an opinion that is not your own? It’s happening. Is it okay for a man to lose his job because someone accused him of being a racist, without proof to back it up? It’s happening. Is it okay for violent men to be placed in women’s prison’s, boys competing against girls in school sports, and children being experimented on because “feelings” override facts and science? It’s happening. Does any of this sound strikingly similar to a history lesson on Nazi Germany’s reign of terror?

Hey, I’m no expert on how communism seeps into society. I just know what history used to say before they rewrote it. It starts with the splintering of a nation; wedges of hate and accusation dividing people by religion, skin color, rich and poor, or anything else, until there is no nation left to fight for. When you’re so focused on SELF, you don’t care what happens to your neighbors and fellow citizens when their rights are taken away.

When did politics become so overwhelming, all-consuming, ridiculously important, and divisive that we can’t simply live our lives the way we have always done, worshipping our God, working our jobs, caring for our children, and loving our neighbors without some overpaid, self-absorbed, narcissists shouting across a cable news desk that we’re not doing it right? Newscasters, politicians, and social media billionaires are not experts on how we the people should live our lives, what we should believe, or what we should think.

This is America. We are a country of diverse peoples, beliefs, and opinions, but we are ONE NATION. Let’s stop listening to the manipulating megalomaniacs on both sides and start acting like fellow Americans again!

Thanks for stopping by!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Novels,
the Double Barrel Mysteries, the Second Chances series, and more. She lives in Minnesota because she can’t afford Hawaii.

Down with Spring cleaning! Up with Spring reading!

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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

You obviously know that spring is here. At least in some places. It’s printed in black and white on the calendar, for heaven’s sake! But in Minnesota, random snowflakes fall one minute and the sun peaks out the next. We get a bright sunny 80 degree day, and the next day gray clouds hang heavy overhead and temperatures dip back down to the edge of frostbite. So, you may be like me… having a hard time accepting facts over feelings.

Birds chirp and prepare their nests. Trees bud and begin to bloom. The grass grows longer and greener. But I can’t see past the clouds, the doomsayers on the news, and the goosebumps on my arms because I dressed for spring to walk the dog, and instead, got the backend of winter.

To celebrate spring, even if it is acting a bit shy and hard-to-get, I wanted to get you thinking about your spring reading list by telling you a little about my Double Barrel Mysteries series! {hint. hint} The first five books are available at all online bookstores and will bring you up-to-date on the goings-on in Port Scuttlebutt while you wait for the next addition to Blake and Shelby’s adventures.

ROADKILL (book one), despite its title, is full of mystery, romance, humor, and nail-biting suspense. Blake and Shelby Gunner are a young married couple thinking about buying a Bed & Breakfast in Blake’s hometown of Port Scuttlebutt when they get caught up in a cold case, the unsolved hit-and-run of a beloved local business woman.

With six previous years as a homicide detective in Minneapolis, Blake is fully qualified for the task. Shelby’s natural inquisitive mind and her dinner theatre acting chops make her more than perfect for the part of acting like an investigator. And so, together they are the hottest private investigation team in the Upper Peninsula!

Each book is a separate mystery/murder to be solved, but you will want to read them in order as the characters grow and learn and meet new people (persons of interest) in the quirky little port on Lake Superior.

If you’ve already read any of my Double Barrel books (or any other books in my list), please take a moment to leave a simple review at the online store where it was purchased. I would truly appreciate it. It helps my books to be seen more readily by other readers. The internet is a vast ocean and the little fish tend to get lost in the dark depths without a little help from their friends:)

Find all my books by clicking the bookstore link on this page. It will take you to your preferred store.

Thanks for stopping and have a beautiful spring!

Barbara

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Novels,
the Double Barrel Mysteries, the Second Chances series, and more. She lives in Minnesota because she can’t afford Hawaii.

Friends, enemies, and second chances

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Image by Jess Bailey from Pixabay

It’s almost Valentine’s and everyone needs a good book to read with their chocolate hearts. So, I’ve put the last book in the Second Chances series on sale for the sweet price of 99¢ thru V Day.

Purchase Trial by Fire here

Trial by Fire has something for every Inspirational suspense lover. Hunky FBI men, a handsome, protective boyfriend, a couple of girlfriends who tend to get themselves in trouble, exciting suspense and danger, and an evil enemy who seeks revenge at any cost. All you have to do is supply the chocolate to nibble on while reading.

If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, Running Home and Alias Raven Black, I suggest starting there first.

Purchase Running Home here
Purchase Alias Raven Black here

If you’ve read any of my books, I would truly appreciate it if you would leave a short review at the store where it was purchased. That would be awesomely helpful. Indie authors need word-of-mouth sharing more than most and that is the best way to spread the news to encourage others to try my books.

Willow recommends and gives 4 paws up for the Second Chances series!

I hope you have a lovely Valentine’s Day with or without chocolate, but always with books!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think, what you’re reading right now, or just to say hello! Thanks for stopping!

Barbara is the author of The Fredrickson Winery Novels, the Double Barrel Mysteries, the Second Chances series, and more. She lives in Minnesota because she can’t afford Hawaii.