Thea Harrison

From Thea: I’m thrilled to have guest author Shannon Stacey visiting on my blog this week. Shannon is another one of those writers I have connected with through the magic of Twitter, and she is absolutely wonderful. Take it away, Shannon!

Mud Season

Spring has definitely sprung here in the northern hemisphere, even in New England. Dairy Queen has reopened for the season, there are only a few stubborn patches and piles of snow left, and green things I’ll inevitably have to weed are poking up out of the ground. Yay, right?

Not so much here at the Stacey household. Spring is the most excruciating season of all for us. There’s a common thread in my Kowalski family series (besides, obviously, the Kowalski family) and that’s the OHRVs (Off-Highway Recreational Vehicles). There are four-wheelers in Exclusively Yours, Yours To Keep, All He Ever Needed and All He Ever Desired, and snowmobiles in Undeniably Yours and All He Ever Dreamed. And there will be four-wheelers in the upcoming seventh book in the series. That’s because my own family spends as much time as possible on our ATVs from May until November and then my husband is out snowmobiling from November until the beginning of March.

But March, April and half of May are long longest two and half months in my house. It’s called the dreaded “Mud Season”. I know that sounds like an ATVer’s dream. An entire season of MUD! But what it means is that, with the spring rains and the snow melt-off, the ground is so soft, we’d tear it up. Most of our trails are on private property and, out of respect for our generous landowners, there is no riding. At all. Waiting for the trails to open is worse than waiting for Santa to come ever was. (Except that year I knew I was getting a Princess Kneesaa Ewok doll.)

But spring is also going outside without a coat and Easter candy on clearance and M&M Blizzards from Dairy Queen! Tell me what your favorite thing is about spring and I’ll give a digital copy of any one of my titles (winner’s choice) and a $25 gift card to the online bookstore of choice to a random commenter!

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shannon Stacey lives with her husband and two sons in New England, where her two favorite activities are writing stories of happily ever after and riding her four-wheeler. She can also be found blogging (almost) daily on her website, shannonstacey.com, and is often spotted running amok on Twitter and Facebook. Her latest release, All He Ever Dreamed is available now at your favorite ebookstore.