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Chautona Havig

Chautona Havig

Using story to connect YOU to the Master Storyteller

Can We Create an Amazing Garden in the Desert?

by Chautona Havig · 2 Comments

Enter the beautiful gardens of Merriweather and Fairhaven in Restoring Fairhaven by Carolyn Miller. Full of trouble, hope, and romance! via @chautonahavig

Truth be told, I don’t know. Some do. We have gorgeous gardens here in Ridgecrest (which is only an hour from Death Valley… just for reference). None of those gorgeous gardens have ever grown at our house, aside from that amazing crop of corn we had one year.  Usually, we are content to grow bermuda grass, tumbleweeds, goatheads, and sand.

However, last year my mother came to live with us. When we left her home in Missouri, it was the pride of the town, having won “Yard of the Month” and all kinds of praise from locals. Everyone knew about “that house with the sheep in the yard.”  Just beautiful, and she hadn’t touched the yard since July! Check it out.

I wish I could show the whole place.  It’s truly beautiful. Leaving all that green and color for desert tan and grayish green… sigh.

restoring fairhaven

Note: links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.

Can We Create an Amazing Garden in the Desert?

I don’t know. We’ll see. We started on that plan this year. One of the first things we did was plant a garden in a raised planting box for her.  Tomatoes and peppers.

The desert sun fried them right on the vine.

Then she went for beets and turnips.

The puppy somehow got up in the box and managed to eat everything.  No joke.  Neville was found up there, too, but he insists he was just trying to make the puppy get out.  I believe it since he hates vegetables, including fries.

About that time, I bought a bougainvillea. It flourished for a little while…

Isn’t it gorgeous?

About that time, Mom ordered peonies for my birthday.  She insists that you can’t kill those things.  Frankly, I think she underestimates my ability to remember to water and the desert’s ability to desiccate.  Still… We got them painted this October.  This is what that looks like right now (can you tell I’ve been busy and haven’t weeded?

restoring fairhaven

Confession.  Mom had that straw in a tote under the raised planting box.  Water had dripped in.  It was HEAVY.  So, I started to pour out the water when two things hit me.  First, that the water would be good for the plants and I shouldn’t do that.  Second, it would (and oh, my did it) stink.  UGH.

And now… when the weather is 25 degrees at night, we have one very unhappy bougainvillea.

restoring fairhaven

I’ve got a great crop of bermudagrass, as you can see, but the poor thing.  I got a black planting pot and I’m going to wrap it around that little stick of a bush and hope the sun heats up stuff in there for the poor little thing.

We live in the weirdest place.  It is too hot for zone 8 and too cold for zone 9.  Basically, it’s a great place if you want to xeriscape or have rock gardens.

But if we can make Mom feel more at home by forcing plants to behave and grow, we will.

What does all this have to do with anything?

Well, the final Independence Islands book for 2020 released yesterday!  Restoring Fairhaven is a delightful and heart-stirring novel about a young woman taking over her father’s gardening business and tackling the local overgrown estate–Fairhaven.

Restoring FairhavenAbout Restoring Fairhaven:

Love hurts, or so the songs say, so who wants it?

Taking on her ailing father’s gardening business on Merriweather Island, Samantha Green only wants to escape her ex and to make her father proud.

But Sam gets more than she bargained for when Greener Gardens accepts the job of restoring the gardens of a reclusive writer, Max Fairhaven, whose historical novels about romance and unrequited love litter bookstore shelves and movie marquees all over the world.

Max much prefers the fictional world to the real, and the gardening girl’s interruptions means he’s driven from his writing cave far too often for his liking.

How’s he supposed to craft stories with her distracting him all the time?

Things change when he learns something of Sam’s family challenges, and his admiration slowly kindles. With his secretary’s goading, he’s forced to confront the past, while facing the fact that he needs to change in order to avoid a lonely future.

Gentle pruning and a whole lot of banter forges a friendship between this not-so-Southern belle landscaper and the half-British author. But is their budding attraction enough to grow into a flourishing happily-ever-after?

Restoring Fairhaven is the final “Merriweather book,” but don’t forget to embark on a tour of the next island in this series featuring five islands, six authors, and a boatload of happily-ever-afters.

The Independence Island Series: beach reads aren’t just for summer anymore.

The authors have gotten together to share our garden pictures for you to see what gardening is like where we are.  This all starts with the author of Restoring Fairhaven, Carolyn Miller, and goes through to our publisher, Sandy Barela at Celebrate Lit Publishing.  At each website, you’ll find a way to enter to win a prize there!

The Garden Tour

Carolyn Miller

Chautona Havig

Melissa Wardwell

Kari Trumbo

Rachel Skatvold

Tabitha Bouldin

Sandy Barela/Celebrate Lit Publishing

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Filed Under: Giveaways, New Release Tagged With: Independence Islands

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Comments

  1. Ava Kinsey says

    December 10, 2020 at 6:52 pm

    I tell people I have two red thumbs — red with the blood shed from all the plants I’ve killed. A friend of mine once told me I was the only person she knew who could kill a cactus. I grew an IKEA bamboo for almost two years before it died and that was an accomplishment. The truth is if it doesn’t verbally tell me it needs food or water or poke at me or get in my bubble some other kind of way, I’m not going to think about it.

    Reply
  2. Cathe Swanson says

    December 10, 2020 at 7:52 am

    That sounds really good!

    Sorry about your garden. Tell your mom to keep trying!

    Reply

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The Because Fiction Podcast

The Because Fiction Podcast
The Because Fiction Podcast

Taking the pulse of Christian fiction

Episode 145: A Chat with Debut Women's Fiction Author, Sara Brunsvold
byChautona Havig

Debut Author, Sara Brunsvold, is bursting on the Christian Women’s fiction scene with an amazing book, The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip. With characters who have captivated my heart from page one (and enough quirkiness to keep my attention to the last), Sara Brunsvold is sure to become a favorite author, and this book is already on my top five of the year before it’s even released!

Note links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.

This Novel Isn’t Even Available Yet, and It’s in My Top 5!

If you’d told me that I’d fall so in love with two chapters of a book that it would push that book into my top five of the year so far, well… I’d have laughed.

The joke’s on me because it happened with Sara Brunsvold’s The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip. This debut women’s fiction novel has a bit of a split-time element and is set in Kansas City. Trust me when I say that meeting Clara was one of the most fun introductions to a character I’ve ever had. I just love this woman, and I’m drumming my fingers to get to read more about her.  Not surprising considering it won the ACFW Genesis’s award a couple of years back. 😀

Sara says her passion is intergenerational stories, and you definitely get this with Aidyn and her “assignment,” Mrs. Kipp.  But you also get inter-cultural and ideological influences in this book as well.

And then there’s that next book she has coming out.  You know, the one about a gal cooking her way through her grandma’s German cookbook?  Yeah.  The one we have to wait until early 2024 for?  Yeah. That one.  Sigh.

When Sara told us about her favorite authors, a lot of things made sense.  Just sayin’. Find out which of Katherine Reay’s books are her favorites and how she fangirled over Reay’s response to an email (and why you should email your favorite author!).

The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip by Sara Brunsvold

Aidyn Kelley is talented, ambitious, and ready for a more serious assignment than the fluff pieces she’s been getting as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. In her eagerness, she pushes too hard, earning herself the menial task of writing an obituary for an unremarkable woman who’s just entered hospice care.

But there’s more to Clara Kip than meets the eye. The spirited septuagenarian may be dying, but she’s not quite ready to cash it in yet. Never one to shy away from an assignment herself, she can see that God brought the young reporter into her life for a reason. And if it’s a story Aidyn Kelley wants, that’s just what Mrs. Kip will give her–but she’s going to have to work for it.

Debut author Sara Brunsvold delights with this emotional multigenerational story that shows that the very best life is made up of thousands of little deaths to self. You’ll want to be just like Mrs. Kip when you grow up!

This book is 40% off with free shipping from Baker Book House. That’s less than the Kindle version if you like paper!

You can learn more about Sara at her WEBSITE (and sign up for that newsletter so you can get Mrs.Kip’s 8 Rules to Live By). Oh, and if she does those videos of her cooking through that book, you’ll want to know when/where to find them.

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Episode 145: A Chat with Debut Women's Fiction Author, Sara Brunsvold
Episode 145: A Chat with Debut Women's Fiction Author, Sara Brunsvold
May 20, 2022
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