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Patricia Johns

~ Bestselling author

Patricia Johns

Tag Archives: Jeb’s Wife

Dollhouse dining room

18 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

dollhouse accessories, dollhouse dining room, dollhouse furniture, Jeb's Wife, Kensington books

This Christmas, my family got me a tiny dining room set for my dollhouse setup, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled! A friend of mine sent me these adorable dollhouse dishes to add to it, and the result is wonderful!

So now I have a second dollhouse room started!

My son got me the lamp in the background. It can actually be plugged into a wired dollhouse. I’ll have to sort something out so I can turn the lamp on. The silverware is stainless steel, so there is some weight to it, which is incredibly helpful when trying to keep dishes and cutlery on a miniature table.

The hutch is so cute! I can keep the rest of the dinner ware inside.

I’m going to have to find some more little details for the room… maybe a rug! The nosing around for tiny ornaments is the fun part. One of these days I’m going to go to our craft store and see if they have anything new. 🙂

And these are the things that are entertaining me when I’m not writing! This is my current hobby that keeps me cheerful and gives me something to add a little variety to my day. I hope that my books can do the same for you! We all need a little relaxation and fun.

So I also wanted to remind you that JEB’S WIFE is on sale for $1.99 on Kindle this month! So if you haven’t gotten your copy yet, this is a great time to do it!

***

A girl only turns 42 once

22 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

A Precious Christmas Gift, amish romance, beauty and the beast, birthday, harlequin author, Jeb's Wife, Kensington author

This last week, I celebrated my birthday. I begged and pleaded with Mr. Johns to let me post pictures of us all masked up, but he’s very stubborn about these things. (No family photos posted, even if we’re in masks.) So you’re out of luck there, BUT, you should know that I argued for you very eloquently saying how nice it would be to show my dear readers what my guy looks like. Maybe it could even be proof to old acquaintances that after fifteen years, we are indeed still married! 😉 He didn’t fall for any of it, unfortunately. But I feel it’s important for you to know that I did try.

Having a birthday during Covid is a bit difficult. We normally get together with my parents for my birthday, and this year, we opted out of a meal, and just had cake–with my parents on one side of the room, and me, Mr. Johns and our son on the other. Then we all masked up again. So it was a very Covid-conscious event.

My father always makes me a gluten-free birthday cake, and this year he made a delicious cake!

No candle to blow, of course. And it tasted as good as it looked!

Then we watched the live action Beauty and the Beast, which has been a favorite all the way back to the Disney animated version. I mean, really, who doesn’t fall for the gruff and beefy beast? And yes, I recognize that I did marry my very own. 😉

It was a very nice birthday, and I’m thrilled to move forward in a brand new turn around the sun. There are books to write, and books to read, and books to buy! ❤

And speaking of writing books, don’t forget about my newest releases! A PRECIOUS CHRISTMAS GIFT will be on the shelves soon, and JEB’S WIFE is already there!

***

Fall at my place

12 Monday Oct 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

A Precious Christmas Gift, author's life, Canadian Fall, fall, Jeb's Wife, Patricia Johns

I love when the weather gets cooler. When I was little, I used to look forward to Fall because it meant we got to go back to school. I loved new running shoes and fresh pencil crayons, and back to school clothes.

And I still love it! There is just something about when the weather turns, and the trees change, and the sky gets gloomy that I absolutely adore.

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately, too. Now that it’s cooler I can cook things that take a lot of time in the oven, and all my favorite foods take a lot of time in the oven!

Honey garlic chicken wings–I can’t get enough of them!

Add to that, I’m making my own personal reading more of a priority lately. Maybe it’s the cooler weather, but I’m tuning out everything else on my evenings and weekends and catching up on old favourites as well as those classic novels I always meant to read, but never got to. This is an older picture, but do you know how hard it is to take a selfie and NOT drop your phone while doing this? I got a hand cramp taking this picture. So you get to see the book I was reading last month. This month, it’s The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grosssmith.

You’ll notice that I read books that are VERY different from the books that I write. I need the separation between work and weekend. It gives me new things to think about… like the fact that The Phantom of the Opera got way darker than I anticipated! I mean, it resurfaced at the end in the way you expect from Victorian literature, but still…

Not the point! 🙂

I’m loving the fall and I hope you are, too! Stay safe, everyone! 🙂

~~~~~~~
Don’t forget about my newest Amish releases! Jeb’s Wife is on the shelves at Walmart and Target now, and A Precious Christmas Gift is coming soon!

It’s on the shelves!

14 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

amish romance, Jeb's Wife, Kensington books, on the shelves

JEB’S WIFE is on the shelves now, and I’ve been hearing from a lot of readers saying that they’ve picked up their copy and just loved the book. That makes an author’s entire week! Or more. After all that hard work, having a story out there in the world and having readers enjoy it this much makes it all so worth it.

And there it is, is all its glory! Isn’t it pretty?

Here’s a fun fact for you–in my area in Alberta, Canada, Walmart stocks cowboy stories instead of Amish, so I’ve never seen my Kensington books on the shelves in person. Luckily, I have incredibly kind readers who will snap a photo of it for me so I can at least see a picture of my book out there in the wild… 😉

I do hope you’ll pick up a copy when you spot it… and if you were feeling incredibly kind, you could even send me a picture of it, and I’d be super grateful!

***

Reasons to get dressed

03 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

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get dressed, harlequin author, Jeb's Wife, Kensington author, work from home

With our delightful pandemic, a lot of people are new to working from home. I’ve been doing this for over a decade now, so I feel like I might have a bit of wisdom for those who are new to this.

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Get dressed! (In new clothes… every single day.)

I’m a work-from-home author who not only gets dressed every morning, but who does her hair, puts on face cream/makeup, buys new clothes, and even wears perfume. It might sound nuts, but I have a few reasons.

  1. I feel like a successful person facing the day when I’m dressed and smelling/looking nice.
  2. It gives my brain the kick that it needs to get into work mode. At the kitchen table in my bathrobe: that’s home time. I can stare blearily at the wall or chit chat with my family, or just enjoy my tea. When I’m dressed and “presentable”: time for work!
  3. It really helps keep the blues away. Sitting in my bathrobe, looking at pictures online of women looking great makes me feel dowdy. But when I feel like I look nice, I don’t get that “oh, look at her… She looks great… I feel fat…” kind of mood.
  4. I like turning Mr. Johns’s head. There, I said it! I really do! I like having him come home from work carrying a bag of tools, and have him see me looking pretty. And when I go get a kiss, I like to smell like my favorite perfume. If I can’t be the prettiest girl in the room in my own kitchen, then when else can I do it?

So there you are–several excellent reasons to get dressed in the morning! You know, in case you needed them. 😉

****

On the shelves now! 

Do you have your copy yet?

Pub Weekly review

The Pioneer Woman magazine!

27 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

amish romance, Down Home Reads, Jeb's Wife, Kensington books, new release, Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond

Are any of you Ree Drummond fans from the Food Network? As you may already know, I really like her!

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And I’m so excited to tell you that my book is one of Kensington Books Down Home Reads in the Pioneer Woman magazine. 🙂

It’s just so neat to see my book included!

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JEB’S WIFE is Jodi Thomas’s third pick!

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So there you have it–this is the sort of thing makes a book’s release just feel so real! I’m excited–and this book is on the shelves starting in the next few days… It’s already on the shelves in some Walmarts and Targets! So keep an eye out for it! I do hope you’ll pick up a copy!

***

Pub Weekly review

 

 

Peer pressure for women in their 40s

24 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Jeb's Wife, keeping up with the Joneses, peer pressure, women in their 40s

I really thought I was done with it in high school. In your teens, you have to find your balance, and you learn that following the crowd is normally a bad idea. I found that when I hit my university years, the pressure was gone. You can be whoever you want, and people at university are perfectly happy to accept you as is. It’s a great experience, and a wonderful place to really find yourself.

In my twenties, I was finding my footing in my career–figuring out what I wanted to do, and how to make a writing career work. I didn’t know any other writers who were doing it for a living, so I had to figure out a lot on my own.

In my thirties, I now had a child at home with me, and I was learning that I didn’t tend to fit in with the regular mom groups anyways. And I was okay with that. I was pursing my writing career, and I didn’t have anyone else who understood what I was trying to do. I pretty much accepted it, and I was the happy odd one out.

And then I hit my forties.

Why is the peer pressure back!? Because it really is! OMG, we all went from taking our own paths to arriving in approximately the same place (a home, kids, spouse, lifestyle) and the pressure to conform and do things like everyone else does is just crushing. Everything from the type of home you’ve chosen, to the type of clothes, to the newness of your vehicle, to the after school activities your kids go to… I don’t understand why that is, but here we are, all over again. The same pressures of adolescence on the shoulders of women in their forties who HAVE adolescents!

I thought I’d matured beyond this!

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Enter the pandemic. One of the struggles is that we can’t get together with friends like we used to, but we have learned the fine art of video conferencing. Most of us have, haven’t we? And now, one of my publishers has been hosting some Zoom meetings where can all get together and just chat.

And guess what I found out?

  1. People’s author photos ARE NOT what they look like on a regular Tuesday morning. (Mine included. 😉 )
  2. People’s homes aren’t actually as fancy as they look in those carefully cropped social media posts. Some of us are better at cropping than others, that’s all.
  3. We’re all a whole lot more alike than I’d realized.

And I love that! I love that we’re all just a group of women following our dreams. And our homes aren’t perfect. Our hair is all growing out the gray at various rates, we’re all aging. And you know what? We’re all living our passion– having fun, writing books, editing books in the case of our editors, finding things we enjoy, and loving our families. We’re all throwing ourselves into the thing we love to do–creating amazing books.

So maybe it’s time to relearn that adolescent lesson that we don’t have to be like everyone else. We don’t have to impress anyone, either, because the ones to throw out a snide comment will find something to criticize no matter what you do. We just have to live our lives with passion and heart, and be the best version of ourselves that we can be. That’s it!

And you know what? Brace yourself for the gray, because I’m growing mine out. I’m almost 42. If I can’t own some gray at this point, I don’t know when I can. 😉

****

Hitting the shelves now! 

Do you have your copy yet?

Pub Weekly review

 

The next horizon

17 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

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Tags

Amish fiction, Amish happiness, contentment, harlequin author, Jeb's Wife, Kensington author

If you look at where you are right now, there was a time in your life when you dreamed of this…

But once you arrive, it’s not quite enough anymore, is it? You want more. What was once just the horizon, now has a horizon beyond it, and there is something inside the human heart that just can’t resist a horizon.

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But what happens when, all of your dreams fulfilled, you just can’t feel content? That seems to be the modern plague–ever wanting more, and never having enough. Ad campaigns take advantage of that, showing us more sparkling things that we never knew we wanted. We get caught up in it, and we think, “If I could just achieve this next thing, this next step, this next accomplishment, then I’ll be satisfied.”

I think that the Amish capture our imaginations so well because they are a group of people who have found the secret to stepping outside of that rushing cycle of getting more and more and more, and they have found contentment. We go and buy items from their shops, watch them as they go about their daily lives, read stories about their culture and their way of seeing things, and we wonder how we can get just a thimbleful of their contentment. Because when I consider buying an Amish-made quilt, that really is what I’m seeking, isn’t it?

Lancaster_County_Amish_02

As I rush forward toward my ambitions, I can sense that the answer to my own contentedness is in the opposite direction–slowing down, and in looking upward, in listening to the wind and pondering things that are bigger than me. Contentment isn’t found over there, beyond those hills; it’s found right here, right now. It’s found in declaring what I have enough and being grateful for every breath I take.

As for me, have I given up on the horizon? No, I must admit that I haven’t. The horizon is exciting! It gives me ideas, it keeps me dreaming. But I’m trying to focus less on the distant horizon, because I never seem to reach it, and exciting as it is, it can get frustrating. Instead, I’m shifting my gaze upward to the clouds and the stars and the One who made them.

I think that is where that thimbleful of contentment lies.

****

Hitting the shelves in September! 

Pre-order now! 

Pub Weekly review

 

Summer solstice this far north

02 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

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Tags

amish romance, Jeb's Wife, northern alberta, summer solstice, writer's life

I live in northern Alberta, and this time of year is really interesting! First of all, our sunsets happen at 10 pm, and our sky never actually get all the way dark. We stay at twilight all night long.

11 pm

This is a picture of the western horizon at 11 pm, and that red smudge will stay there for a long while. I don’t actually know what happens between midnight and four or five when the sun starts to rise again, because I’m in bed then. 😉 But I don’t sleep very well this time of year.

I have an author friend who lives in Alaska who has an even longer day than we do. They have sunset at midnight and the sun comes back up at 3 or 4 am. Even farther north in Alaska, and it’s 2 hours between sunset and sunrise!

Living this far north is neat in that we get to experience such huge fluctuations in the length of the days. In winter solstice, it flips and we have incredibly late sunrises and very early sunsets. When I used to walk my son to school, we’d walk in darkness to school, and the sun would be just about setting when I walked him back home again.

So this is where I live! I do love it. It’s a beautiful part of the world to live in, and I thoroughly enjoy those prairie skies.

***

Coming to stores September 2020!

Pre-Order now!

thumbnail_Jeb's WifePatricia Johns’ sensitive storytelling brings depth and heart to this tender story of second chances, as an Amish woman embarks on marriage with the gruff farmer next door . . .

Once, Leah Riehl prayed for a husband. The man she loved chose another, wanting the children that Leah can’t provide. But she’s found a measure of peace, keeping house for her brother, Simon, and teaching in a nearby town. Now though, Simon’s debts to an Englisher gambling ring have left Leah with a desperate dilemma—and a surprising offer from her scarred, reclusive neighbor. Jebadiah King needs to marry in order to claim his family farm. A union, for appearances only, will help them both.

Jeb knows his scars make him a less than ideal husband, but he can be a useful one. It’s the least that Leah deserves. But despite the promises he made to himself, Jeb can’t help longing for his lovely, warmhearted new wife. His first marriage brought heartbreak, but Leah’s gentle smiles spark hope again. Are they willing to take the leap that love requires—and open themselves to all the challenges and joy a true marriage could bring?

 

Jeb’s Wife

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by Patricia Johns in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

amish romance, bestselling author, Jeb's Wife, Kensington books

JEB’S WIFEis the story of a marriage of convenience–a young woman desperate for the money she needs to rescue her brother, and her scarred, reclusive neighbour.

A legal marriage will help them both, but Leah won’t share his bed. He’s older than her, much stronger than her, and a little frightening… Besides, with his injuries, he can’t be wanting a full marriage, can he?

But Jeb can’t help but yearn for his kindhearted wife. He knows he frightens her… but maybe, if she saw the man he truly is, she might change her mind and become a wife not just in his home, but in his arms.

Jeb B

It’s now available for pre-order anywhere you buy your books! It will be hitting the physical shelves in bookstores, Walmarts and Targets September 2020!

I hope you’ll pre-order it now!

~~~

Kensington

Amazon

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