When my fellow Arcadia Valley Romance authors and I began brainstorming our mega-series about a year ago now, we agreed to each choose one main aspect of a foodie culture and center our own three-book series around that aspect. I chose a community garden, but when I began poking at story ideas, nothing seemed to gel for the longest time.
I’m no stranger to foodie romances, as I’m sure you know! But the concept of a community garden was either too big or too small — I wasn’t sure which — until a pair of semi-abandoned greenhouses stood beside the garden.
What if…
• A son took over the family business — a garden center — and moved the business to an expanded location?
• The old man, after the death of his wife, kept living in the aging house next to the old greenhouses until he could no longer manage on his own?
• The old man signed his property over to a local church as a living trust?
• The church hired a real estate consultant to revision the property, and the old man’s grandson didn’t approve of her recommendations?
Click. Click. Click.
Meet Grady Akers, heir apparent of the Akers Garden Center. After a failed relationship a couple of years back, he’s wary of every woman’s motives for getting his attention. Are they only there because his family is fairly well-to-do by Arcadia Valley standards?
Enter Joanna Kraus, who’s recently moved to Arcadia Valley to help her brother with his twin sons after his divorce. She’s reeling from a broken relationship of her own, so she’s wary as well.
Add the two of them to a church board with the agenda to find a use for the property recently entrusted to Grace Fellowship, stir in an elderly grandfather who won’t let Grady forget his previous mistake, and bake with a little romantic heat.
What comes out of the oven? Sow in Love, the novella that introduces the Garden Grown Romance series, part of Arcadia Valley Romance. You will find Sow in Love exclusively in Romance Grows in Arcadia Valley along with novellas introducing the series by the other five authors in this project!
One Arcadia Valley Romance releases each month for the next 18 months, until each three book series is complete. My follow-up to Sow in Love, Sprouts of Love, releases in May, followed by Rooted in Love in November and Harvest of Love in May, 2018. Each romance takes place in the realm of the greenhouse and garden project envisioned in the novella, but also integrates with the other five authors’ books for a complete, well-rounded community immersion we hope our readers will love as much as we do!
So if you haven’t picked up Romance Grows in Arcadia Valley yet — it just released on Tuesday! — what are you waiting for? A complete world awaits where a foodie culture and romance grow hand-in-hand.
The entire mega-series will be available on Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and iBooks.
Valerie Comer is a USA Today bestselling author and a two-time Word Award winner who writes where food meets faith and fiction. She injects experience laced with humor into her green clean romances. Her life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily-ever-afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
Hi Valerie, I am up to Sheltered Hearts- yours is next!! I am thoroughly enjoying the books so far and am having fun guessing as to who will get their own stories. What a fun series, keep them coming:)
We are picking lots of berries from our garden at the moment, along with purple, white and yellow carrots, tomatoes, kale, lettuce, and so on…I feel like I need to ‘meet’ the characters from your books:)
I finished the first book in the series (started with Shelthered Hearts inspired by the post earlier this week) and moving forward. I don’t read them in order so I’m trying to figure out what to read next. Sow in love is a good candidate right now.
Hi Valerie. Enjoying Arcadia Valley Romances. Living in a farming community in SW Michigan, I definitely relate to the foodie cultures, which I will be included in my review of this set. Many of us try to grow our own gardens. We have lots of beautiful Bed and Breakfast establishments. As a teenager, I worked in a bakery and Bit of Swiss bakes delicious artisan breads. Even though this winter is extremely mild and warm, January usually brings a blizzard or two. Your romance is next to be read. Near Holland, Michigan are many nurseries with rows and rows of greenhouses. So I am looking forward to your story. Inspiring concept for a series.
Summer’s Glory and Muffins and Moonbeams are preordered. Best wishes and happy writing. Delighted to interact with three new authors in this set.
I look forward to jumping into this series, Val. Reading this post makes me long for spring…sigh.
I love the sound and concept of this series. :) Just bought my copy. Can’t wait to start reading. According to my post a couple of days ago I’m going to read more. Thanks for giving me the material. I love how all of you collaborated on this group of books. I’m sure it was a huge undertaking, but a lot of fun as well. Congrats to all the authors! #amreadingforsure
What a gorgeous garden, Valerie! Yours? The book sounds excellent, as does the whole series! can’tr wait to watch it unfold. :)
Here we are under about 18″ of snow with temperatures that haven’t come above freezing in over a month, so your garden sounds idyllic to me right now, though I know it’s a lot of work!
And with three more books following each of the novellas, most of the characters whose stories you are hoping for will get their own! I’m glad you’ve enjoying the collection so far. :)
There’s no reason not to hop around the collection! I’m pretty sure you’ll love all six of them. I know I did.
I’m looking forward to the next book in the series! The green house concept was really interesting and different. I really enjoyed the first book . Thanks for writing!
I hope you enjoy Sow in Love! Your winter is opposite to ours – isn’t that so often the case? Here we have had more snow than the last three winters put together and temps that have stayed well below freezing since well before Christmas!
Thank you so much for the pre-orders of the first two full-length novels. I know Mary Jane and Elizabeth appreciate it!
One reason I love a northern winter is ZERO GUILT for not being outside working in the garden! Although… I’ll be mighty happy to see spring when it arrives, for all that. I’m definitely a four-season girl.
You’re very welcome for the reading material! :D It was a lot of work to collaborate and will continue to be for more than a year to come, but it was fun work with very few actual glitches. These are great women to work with!
It is a beautiful garden and, no, not mine. It is the garden of a local friend of mine who has definitely been an inspiration with what she accomplishes. Shh, don’t tell, but I’d much rather be inside writing about gardening than out in the hot sun, overheated, dirty, bugged by bugs, pulling weeds! Although I surely do appreciate the end result of both kinds of work.
Oh, thank you, Diana! Evelyn and Ben’s story in Sprouts of Love is written and will get to my beta readers in just a few days. It was fun to give Evelyn and her daughter, Maisie, a happily-ever-after!
These sound like fun stories! Thanks for sharing how they came about.
Welcome to Arcadia Valley! :D
The stories sound interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Merrillee :)
Loved the first collection,now anticipating the next book.
Mary Jane Hathaway’s book Summer’s Glory is up next, already on pre-order for Feb 14! I loved it.
I love a community feel of a book especially in a series!! I love the character depth, feeling like I’m part of a big happy family. Like I’m reading about real live people :-) This one sounds good Valerie!
Book friends….yes please!
I kept hoping for that!
And thank you! Yes, we’re all working hard (but it’s fun work!) to keep the community feel to Arcadia Valley. :)
Me, too! :)
Hi Valerie, I’m looking forward to reading this series and I love the fresh food theme :)
Yay! Hope you love it :)
I’m really excited forward to these stories. I’ve already organized their releases on my Amazon wish list – those that are available as pre-orders, anyway.
Yay! We plan to have one or two on pre-order all the way through, so the wait will (hopefully!) seem shortened.
I’m in the middle of Lee’s section right now, and had to stop in order to take care of laundry. Now I have to take the cat to the vet for her shots… Can’t wait to continue reading!
I’m glad to hear you’re hooked. :) Those cats, right? So demanding.