Peggy Chambers "Views from the Hammock" site

Smugglers of Sandhill Island is the final in the Sandhill Island series. If you haven’t read them, they are available at bookstores everywhere and online. I love the characters who live on this little island on the Gulf coast, and I’ve come to feel they are my friends.

Sandhill Island is a small tourist island off the coast of Corpus Christi, and the characters are varied. They live their lives fishing, operating a business, teaching school, growing a garden, or singing in a local restaurant.

The book, Smugglers of Sandhill Island, is about the relationship between siblings; one hard working, the other not. And liked most siblings, they will fight each other tooth and nail, and they would fight to the death for each other.

Dani Brown grew up poor and hard working. Her brother, Cody, only grew up poor. Always wanting the easy way out, Cody ran drugs and lived his life on handouts. When they were young, Dani and Cody were inseparable, now Dani only sees him if he’s desperate. The drugs he samples and sells have started to rot his brain.

This time, Cody owes some big money, and the only person he knows to help him is his sister. When the cartel realizes she owns a boat that could run even more drugs for them, she is torn between saving her brother and living her life. The final Sandhill Island story pits sister against brother in a life-or-death struggle.

Dani and Cody know that water can protect you or kill you, depending upon its current attitude. But they make their living off the water and don’t plan to die in its arms.

Smugglers of Sandhill Island is the final in the series. Check out the series or check out one of the books, they are stand-alone stories that can be read separately or together. I think you will like them and leave me a review. Authors love reviews.

What are you reading, writing, or creating this week?

Strawberry Sundae Delights is a novella that was written to be included in the One Scoop or Two beach read series with The Wild Rose Press. Though short, it presents new characters and a new story set on Sandhill Island.  

Sienna is a single schoolteacher still stinging from the breakup with her fiancé. She works summers in her aunt’s ice cream shop in the tiny tourist town of Sandhill Island. She finds herself infatuated with Jake, a college student from Corpus Christi, who is working on a shrimper for the summer.

            Bob, of Big Bob’s Burgers, wants to buy the aunt’s ice cream shop and put her ice cream in his chain of burger joints.  She refuses and soon suppliers refuse to sell to her.  The shop is running out of everything, especially the strawberries for their world-famous sundaes.  The final straw breaks when the shop is vandalized. But Jake knows where he can find more strawberries.

            This novella continues the stories on Sandhill Island with a new beach read and new characters. It is a story of family, love, and loyalty that Sienna thought she’d lost. 

            The story is short, with new characters, but you will reunite with some old characters you‘ve come to love and others you might not. There is conflict and love enough to go around and I included my mother’s strawberry jam recipe just for fun. It is available in electronic versions, only, and you can find a copy here: https://books2read.com/u/m2R8L1.

            Check out Strawberry Sundae Delights and have some ice cream to go along with it.

            What are you reading, writing, or creating this week?

Stones of Sandhill Island was released on September 11, 2018. It was the second in the Sandhill Island series. It is available in print, electronically, and in audio formats on Amazon or at https://books2read.com/u/bojOrp.

Victim mentality is an acquired personality trait in which a person tends to recognize themselves as a victim of the negative actions of others, and to behave as if this were the case.

Billie Stone felt she was a victim of life. A beautiful woman with the voice of an angel living on an idyllic island with the artistic mother she loved. But she felt alone after her husband and son were killed in an accident. Her music was the only thing that got her out of bed somedays – that and her aging mother. She wanted her life back.

Joe Franks felt like a victim of life when everything he’d ever worked for was taken from him and he was forced into pizza delivery to make ends meet. He never meant to hurt anyone on that dark Texas highway. Suddenly the minivan was in front of him and he couldn’t avoid it. He went to prison, lost his house, car, and job. Society was determined to keep him down.

Who was the victim and who was the victimizer?

Franks saw Billie as the lucky one. She had a job she loved, a beach house on an island to live in, and he wanted his life back. So, the man who killed her family approached her wanting her help – and when she wouldn’t give it, he tried to take it from her.

Billie Stone would get her life back if it killed her.

There’s a new jazz singer on Sandhill Island. Billie Stone, named for the late jazz great, Billie Holiday, has her own set of pipes. She grew up on Sandhill Island and has come back home to heal her psyche after a tragic accident took her family. Billie’s mother falls ill, and now, she has a new role as caregiver. Once again, her mental health takes a back seat.

Joe Franks, drunk and on the wrong side of the road late one night, crashes into the minivan that comes out of nowhere. But after a year in jail and penniless, he thinks he deserves another chance. No one will hire a jail bird, and he’s not cut out for pizza delivery.

Just when Billie seems to be on the cusp of healing – and finding a new love – Franks’ rage spirals out of control. Have Billie’s losses made her strong enough to overcome once more, or will this final disaster be her undoing?

Stones of Sandhill Island picks back up where Secrets of Sandhill Island left off. Some of the same characters make an appearance, but the main character – Sandhill Island – is once again in the forefront. The island is home to a handful of inhabitants who are wooed by her beauty and live their lives loving the calm and isolation it brings. The people are kind – except when exploited – and take care of each other and their island.

Pick up a copy of a beach read that will keep you coming back.

What are you reading, writing, or creating this week?