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Midwest Writer’s Fellowship winner, Karen Lenfestey, writes “Happy Endings with a Twist.” Her first novel, A Sister's Promise, sold over 35,000 copies and was the #1 drama on Amazon for weeks.

I need your help coming up with a title for my new novella! I usually have very strong feelings about what my books should be called (for example: What Happiness Looks Like and On the Verge), but this one has me stumped. It's set during a spring rain so I thought maybe "A Rainy Day Romance" would be good. Let me know what you think. Here's what it's about: 

Bethany Morris is tired of hearing she “has a pretty face if only. . . .” Well, she has tried to lose weight. She has the DVDs to prove it: “No Pain, no Gain Pilates,” “Buns of Steel” and “Yoga for Dummies.” Exercise isn’t her thing. Once she hit thirty, proudly self-sufficient yet still single, she made herself let go of all of those hopes of settling down. After all, guys were visual creatures. If you didn’t look like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, they didn’t want to date you, let alone talk about forever. And she'd never in her life looked good in a bikini.

That's why Bethany is surprised when her Friday night tradition of watching DVDs and eating a pint of Chubby Hubby ice cream is interrupted. Her svelte friend claims that her date only wanted to talk about Bethany! Was it possible that the handsome, yet geeky, computer engineer at work would rather be with Bethany--a woman with curves in all the right (and wrong) places? Tired of sitting home alone every weekend, Bethany decides to take a chance and ask Drew out. When a mysterious woman's phone call interrupts their date, Bethany wonders if Drew is already spoken for. Is she making a fool of herself or does she have a future with Drew?    

Now for the fun part! Vote for your favorite title or suggest one of your own!

Driving home on an unusually warm February day, I heard from the backseat an announcement that caused my shoulders to tense. My daughter said she needed to make Valentines for everyone in her first grade class. “How many kids are there?” I asked. “Twenty-three,” she answered. “Minus one for me.” I had horrible flashbacks to white paper doilies, Elmer’s glue and scissors. My daughter really knocked the wind out of me with her next statement. She wanted to make a special Valentine for a certain boy.

            Already? My first crush wasn’t until second grade (which now seems awfully young to me). "Luke" had very blond hair and even bluer eyes. At recess he gave me a plastic ring topped with a tiny plastic bird. He called it an “engagement ring” and it made me feel special. That was the extent of our romance, but years later I was hurt to discover that I wasn’t the only girl in the second grade to whom Luke had given an engagement ring. I’m not sure what I saw in Luke--I think I liked him mostly because he liked me.

            What I know now is that I’m not ready for my daughter to be thinking about boys. She needs to go to college first, get a career, prove that she doesn’t need a man. . . . But I can easily picture her as a bubbly teenager wearing a pink prom dress and matching corsage. She isn’t shy, like I was, and I worry she will have plenty of dates. I worry because I know often a boy’s good looks outrank his personality when we are young. I worry because I am a mom.

            Returning to the present-day, I asked my daughter why she liked this boy. I braced myself--confident she would say that he was “cute.” She surprised me, though. She didn’t mention his looks or gifts of toy rings. She only had one thing to say: “He’s nice.”

            I hope you’re as wise at sixteen as you are at six!

After you’ve supervised the making of Valentines, treat yourself to a novel by Karen Lenfestey. A Sister’s Promise and What Happiness Looks Like are available as e-books or paperbacks at amazon.