AF62605D-A42B-4BF0-8E03-58EFE12D737EWelcome to my stop on the The Wishing Tree in Irish Falls blog tour sponsored by Suzy Approved Book Tours! Thank you to Suzy for the invitation! Today I have an extended synopsis to share with you!

About the Book:

There’s a wishing tree in the small, northern New York state town of Irish Falls. The bits of paper and charms tied to its gnarled branches hold the hopes and dreams of almost everyone in town—except for ANNIE QUINN, who gave up on wishes long ago.

At eighteen, Annie dreamt of making her mark as a singer, songwriter, and recording artist. But when she got pregnant her freshman year at college and her boyfriend abandoned her and then passed off some of her songs as his own, she gave up her scholarship and came home to Irish Falls to work in Quinn’s, her family’s bakery. Now thirty-five, and a single mom to a teenage daughter, HANNAH, Annie has convinced herself she likes her life ordinary and predictable. Despite the niggling sensation an important part of her is missing, she’s learned the hard way that all that glitters is not gold.

When the uncle he barely remembers dies and leaves him a radio station in a picture-perfect Adirondack town, Los Angeles-based songwriter SETH TAGGART’s first thought is sell it and get out of town fast. At thirty-seven, and with a divorce long behind him, he should have his life figured out. Instead, he’s burnt out and needs to hit refresh on life and work. A long-term professional collaboration ended badly, the creative mojo that fueled a string of hits is missing in action, and he’s estranged from the adult son he gave up a promising singing career to raise when his ex-wife walked out. He can’t patch his family together or get his career back on track if he’s stuck in Irish Falls. His uncle, though, had other plans. To collect his inheritance, Seth has to stay and run the station for six months.

Annie loves Irish Falls, and, as the executor of Seth’s uncle’s will, she’s initially relieved that, even if it’s only temporary, Seth agrees to fulfil his uncle’s last wish and manage the radio station that’s part of the fabric of her hometown. Yet, there’s also something about Seth she doesn’t trust and, since he’s a tangible reminder of both the man who betrayed her and the dreams she gave up on, she begins to question who she really is and what she wants in life.However, when Seth finds out the man he thought was his uncle was the father he never knew, Annie recognizes Seth isn’t the guy she first assumed. Like her, he’s been hurt and, while giving him a key to his past, Irish Falls is also an escape from his own regrets and unfulfilled dreams.

The picturesque town where time seems to have stood still is the last place Seth expects to find a legacy of the father he’s spent his life wondering about. And although it’s a welcoming community with a vibrant tourist industry and plenty of quirky charm, it’s also not the place where he expects to rediscover his creative inspiration or find a woman with the voice of an angel and a stellar song-writing talent. When he convinces Annie to sing at a charity fundraising evening at the local roadhouse, he’s sure all he has to do is show her the kind of glittering future he could help her have. He doesn’t count on Annie’s resistance to pursuing a musical career professionally and, even though he’s both commitment-phobic and determined not to mix business and pleasure, the sizzling chemistry between him and the way-too-appealing redhead is increasingly hard to resist.

However, Seth, and the unexpected feelings she has for him, aren’t the only forces of change in Annie’s life. Hannah has inherited Annie’s talent and, instead of going to college—the future Annie wants for her—is determined to launch a music career after high school. Despite her misgivings, and to keep the peace with her headstrong daughter, Annie agrees to Seth’s proposal to record a song, with Hannah singing backup vocals. In the excitement of not only seeing her daughter happy but also singing in a studio again, Annie acts on her attraction to Sethand they make love. What she at first wanted to pretend was merely friendship or a casual flirtation soon becomes much more.

Although Seth thinks he loves Annie and, with her support, reconciles with his son and begins to build a new relationship with him as an adult, no longer the child for whom he sacrificed his own dreams, Seth is still afraid to trust in love or make a long-term commitment to any woman. Wanting to help Annie and get her music in front of an expert whose opinion he values, he shares the song she and Hannah recorded with one of his industry contacts.

But when Annie discovers Seth shared her song with a music publisher without telling her first, she believes history is repeating itself. Except, this time, not only has she been deceivedby the wrong man, but Hannah’s dreams are also at stake. She confronts Seth about what he did and walks away from him with both her songs and new confidence in herself and her talent.

With no Annie to challenge him, love him, and help him be a better man, Seth understands that what he did was wrong and to truly change his life he must first change himself.He writes a song for Annie and plays it on the radio to apologize and tell her he loves her and wants the best for her in music but, more importantly, in life. Once Annie realizes Seth is sincere—and was also betrayed by his former collaborator, much as her ex-boyfriend betrayed her—she opens her guarded heart to embrace the possibility of a new and happier future with him. When Seth takes her to the wishing tree and asks Annie to marry him, she accepts, and the wishes she once gave up on begin to come true—for lasting love with a man she respects and who respects her and working with that man to build a life, family, and career in music from Irish Falls, the place where they both belong.

About the Author:

Growing up under the big sky of western Canada and spending summers in a little Ontario town, books were my passport to other worlds. Pioneering Laura Ingalls, Jo March and her sisters, the English girls in Noel Streatfeild’s books and L.M. Montgomery’s independent, nature-loving heroines all became friends.

I started writing poems and stories in elementary school and, as a teenager, reached the semi-finals in a local short story contest. Even after all these years, I still remember the thrill of the judge encouraging me to keep writing.

I earned undergraduate and graduate degrees, setting fiction writing aside to teach at universities, write and publish academic research and work in marketing communications and international business development.

Along the way, I read romances, escaping into a world where a happy ending was guaranteed. One day, though, I realized that by losing my creative writing, I’d also lost part of what makes me who I am.

Now I write the kind of stories I like to read–heartwarming romances about finding home, family and community–where ordinary women overcome sometimes extraordinary challenges to earn their happy ever after.

I’m an RWA® Golden Heart® finalist 2015 in Contemporary Romance, and that manuscript sold to Hachette Book Group USA, Grand Central Publishing, Forever. It releases on January 31, 2017 as THE COTTAGE AT FIREFLY LAKE.

I’m a member of RWA® and the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA). And despite a few detours along the way, I’m doing what I’ve wanted to do since childhood.

After many years in England with my husband, a tech guy who’s still a small-town boy at heart, and our tween daughter, an English rose, who teaches me to cherish the blessings in the everyday, I’ve come home to my roots and live in a small town in Ontario’s Rideau Valley.

Have you read The Wishing Tree in Irish Falls, or is it on your TBR? Happy Reading! ~ Jennifer THR