RWISA – Pat Garcia

TURN THE LIGHT ON By Pat Garcia @pat_garcia @patgarcia.bsky.social @rrbc-org.bsky.social #women’sfiction #romancereader #writingjourney #amwriting #contemporaryromance #MFRWBookHooks

Hello Everyone,

TURN THE LIGHT ON WAS MY VERY FIRST PUBLISHED Short Story. I will never forget the feeling of relief that came with finally pushing it out into the world, and the joy is still there.

What impressed me the most about the book was the manuscript itself, the book cover, and the book trailer. All three elements present the strength of a southern black woman and touch on the reality of a daring and courageous woman that many people don’t see, thereby challenging the readers’ perspectives.

TURN THE LIGHT ON

Fear engulfed her. What if he was not only a counter-terrorist, but was also using her to launder money? Her hands shook as she considered the consequences of the mistakes she’d made and what could happen to her. She didn’t relish standing before a disbelieving judge trying to explain her stupidity.

Macey grunted, causing Della to uncross her legs and lean in closer to her boss’s desk. She had hoped Macey would simply speak her mind instead of grunting and bobbing her head back and forth, while examining her bank statements.

Never again will I forsake my principles because of a man with sad, lonely eyes.

Macey’ heavy sigh shattered Della’s thoughts. Della tensed, not knowing what to expect.

“Della, your story is preposterous. No…let me say it would be truly unbelievable if I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes. Macey pointed at the bank statements on her desk. “So, tell me what do you plan to do? Do you really think he’s the man that’s been depositing the money into your account? And how are you going to find him since you don’t even know him name, for heaven’s sake?”

TURN THE LIGHT ON is available on all Amazon outlets.

Have a lovely day and take care.

Shalom shalom

Pat Garcia

Caged Birds Don’t Sing By Pat Garcia,

@pat_garcia @patgarcia.bsky.social @rrbc-org.bsky.social #women’sfiction #romancereader #writingjourney #amwriting #Contemporaryromance #MFRWBookHooks

Hello, Everyone,

I am still working on my Flash Fiction Anthology. I am cleaning up and editing some of the stories intensively before I send them to my editor, just in case you see any repeats. The snippet below is one I am editing before sending it to my editor.

For your information, we switched to Standard Time here in Europe on Sunday, October 26, 2025, and this kid was happy.

Wishing all of you a lovely rest of the week.

Shalom Shalom

CAGED BIRDS DON’T SING BY PAT GARCIA, OCTOBER 28, 2025

The clock ticked away the minutes, and Kathie Mae’s heartbeat quickened with every passing beat.
Soon, Caesar would be home. Her musing would have to stop in an hour, and she would have to drag her wandering mind from her past and concentrate on where she was in the present.
She would have never thought that having everything money could buy meant her joy would be buried in the graveyard of depression.
Louisa, their maid, knocked softly on the living room door.
“Come in.”
“I don’t mean to disturb you, but I’ll be leaving soon. Is there anything else you want me to do?”
“No,” Kathie Mae said, giving her a hollow smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “What are you going to do this Sunday?”
“I’m going to do what I do here every Sunday,” Louisa said. “Clean my house.”
Kathie Mae grunted. She’d talked to Cesare about reducing Louisa’s days to three times a week. They didn’t need her. In fact, they didn’t need her two times a week, but he’d demanded she come every day except Sunday. He’d looked at her like she was a child and explained to her that when he returned home, he wanted to see an orderly, well-kept house without any clutter. That was when she’d begun to notice that well-kept meant everything, including her.

Please visit the other blog participants. You will find them engaging and our writing covers different aspects of Romance. Thank you.

https://patgarciaauthor.com/?p=9362

Boteè and The Strain Man By Pat Garcia @patgarcia.bsky.social @pat_garcia @rrbc-org.bsky.social #women’sfiction #romancereader #writingjourney @amwriting #romancebooks #contemporaryromance

EXCERPT

Boteè and The Strain Man

The Stars and Stripes Forever’s first impatient blast sounded. Boteè jumped off her sofa. She got her jacket and grabbed her tiny case. Then she departed her third-floor apartment. She left a note for her best girlfriend, Peggy,

On the road with my friend.

Don’t know how long, but I’ll be back whenever my friend brings me back to earth.

Boteè called him the Strain Man. His shiny metallic skin tone, high cheekbones, and pointed fingers had drawn her to him. He was different from the people on earth, and she liked that about him. She danced down the steps of her apartment building, not wanting to keep him waiting. He promised to take her beyond the clouds to see another part of the universe.

Excited at the opportunity to see him again, Boteè stepped outside. She closed her eyes and hit the Deep C with her contralto voice. It was two octaves down from Middle C of the primary scale. She sang Amen note by note while holding her breath. As she slid up the scale, she accented the rise in a syncopated rhythm until she reached Middle C. She stopped, took a deep breath, and waited for his response.

At their secret spot, Strain Man was surrounded by trees hiding the white, invisible lights of his futuristic jet. He raised the trumpet to his lips and blew the first notes of The Stars and Stripes Forever. He felt the tug of his notes lifting her off the ground to bring her to him. He smiled.

Have a lovely day.

Shalom shalom

Pat Garcia

https://patgarciaauthor.com/?p=8474

TRULY, I AM THANKFUL By Pat Garcia @patgarcia.bsky.social #Women’sFiction #Romancereader @The IWSG #writingjourney @amwriting @rrbc-org.bsky.social @4rwisawriters.bsky.social #Bloghop @pat_garcia

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AS I LOOK BACK

I woke up this morning and looked at the frost covering my window to the sky. Yes, it was and still is cold, but I slept in a warm bed. Sleeping in a warm bed is one of the simple things in life that stirs up gratitude in my heart. It helps me realize that I live, breathe, and get everything I need from somebody much bigger than I, as Paul states in Acts, Chapter 17, verse 24, New International Version (NIV).

Over 2024, I sometimes forgot Him. Due to various problems that confronted me, I saw these problems as impossible to solve. My vision had to be corrected so that I could see Him working in my life for my good. He showed me what I didn’t see.

My faith is what keeps me walking out my journey. I trust in God who has given me purpose, even when I sometimes don’t understand what He’s doing. He’s always working all things out for my good.

As I look back over this year, I thank all of you who have read my short stories, especially my latest, THE POWER OF TOUCH. Thank you for your reviews and, most of all, for being readers who appreciate multicultural stories that present the different perspectives of living among the varied cultures we have in the world.

Truly, I am thankful.

Have a safe crossover into 2025, be safe, and rejoice because life is worth living.

Shalom shalom,

Pat Garcia

MFRW BOOK HOOKS, TURN THE LIGHT ON By Pat Garcia #MFRWhooks #BlogHop #FreePromo @patgarcia@bsky.social @rrbc-org.bsky.social @4rwisawriters.bsky.social #amwriting

Blurb

Would you ever accept a dinner invitation to meet a stranger who never spoke one word to you during your time together? Would you accept that you could not even sit at the same table with them? How about, you don’t even know their name and you continue this “game” for months? Meet Della Cartwright. A superstar at what she does professionally, but when the tall, mysterious, Italian stranger, Alessio Terracina, enters her world, she begins to question her judgment and everything about her. In this short story which takes place over the course of one day, this otherwise savvy businesswoman is led into making decisions that could jeopardize her professional life and maybe even cost her her freedom. But the greatest danger…just might be to her fragile heart.

Excerpt

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For you are with me. Psalm 23:4 (NKJV)

Della Cartwright sat in Macey Bergstein’s office in Frankfurt, Germany. She balled her hands into fists, flexing them, waiting for Macey, her boss, to express her opinion about the unexplained money transfers in Della’s private bank account. A plane flew over their building, and Della’s eyes followed its path as she gazed out of the window behind Macey. How she could have gotten involved with a man in a counter-terrorist group was puzzling. Downright despicable. Until now, she had made a name for herself as the Foreign Exchange Settlements department’s queen. Everyone in the department acknowledged her magical abilities. Her intuitiveness and her strong sense of discernment had caught errors and even settled deals, which would have cost dealers their jobs if she had not noticed the mistakes. Yet, she had managed to let a man whose name she didn’t even know wrap her in his web.

Shalom shalom,

Pat Garcia

http://mfrwbookhooks.blogspot.com

THE 9TH ANNUAL WRITERS’ CONFERENCE AND BOOK EXPO OF THE RRBC IS OPEN! AND I HAVE A BOOTH THERE! @pat_garcia @RRBC_ORG @TheIWSG @RRBC_RWISA @AmWriting @Tweets4RWISA #IndiePub #FridayReads #Women’sFiction

Hello Everyone,

The RRBC’s Annual Writers’ Conference & Book Expo starts today, and I invite you to visit my booth and the booths of the other authors. The event is free and open to anyone who would like to attend.

Each author’s booth has prizes, so please leave a comment as you visit. You might be a winner of one, two, or maybe even three Amazon gift cards or 4WILLS gift cards.

Step into our reading lounge, where you can listen to authors reading short excerpts from their books. If you’re looking to add to your reading collection, we have a wide range of books for sale, including eBooks, paperbacks, and hardbound editions.

All of yours truly books (That’s Me) are being featured in my booth, Pat Garcia, and are available as eBooks. My newest release, THE POWER OF TOUCH, which is also now available as an eBook, will be available in Paperback over Amazon on August 30^th.

If you love to read a good romance book, that is Multicultural, Interracial, and Realistic, please check out:

TURN THE LIGHT ON – Meet Della Cartwright. A superstar at what she does professionally, but when the tall, mysterious, Italian stranger, Alessio Terracina, enters her world, she begins to question her judgment and everything about her.
LET HIS BANNER OVER ME BE LOVE – It didn’t take Chance Mancini long to accept that she had allowed herself to fall in love with Gavino Mancini, a man much younger than she. To make matters worse, after their marriage, he’d led her into a lifestyle that she did not know of, but she had come to love. He was her, Sir.
CONTEMPLATIONS OF A WOMAN TURNING SIXTY-FIVE – Moving toward her Sixty-fifth birthday, Tessie Blount contemplates the next stage of her life. Not married and with no purpose, she questions the validity of living further until love is offered to her most unexpectedly. But will she accept it?
JANIE B. – This is a contemporary multicultural romance about a woman who encounters a sexually starved necrophiliac as she walks up a mountainside. As she yearns for death, a stranger bursts into the cabin and saves her, and becomes the love of her life.
LATE BLOOMER– This delightful short story is a comical yet earnest tale of a woman who thought her life dream would never come true.
THE POWER OF TOUCH – At a train station, he is waiting for a train to come to end it all and is so involved in what he is about to carry out that he doesn’t see the woman running toward him who is about to change the trajectory of his destiny, forever.

We are all waiting for you, and especially me, my friends. The RRBC’s Writers’ Conference and Book Expo is open 24/7 so grab your favorite drink and click the link below.

Come on in Rock with us!

9th Annual Writers’ Conference & Book Expo!

Shalom shalom,

Pat Garcia

TRULY, I AM THANKFUL @pat_garcia @RRBC_ORG #amwriting #reading #thankfulness

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1Thessalonians 5:17, English Standard Version

I am in a dilemma at the moment. Things are happening around me that I don’t understand. It could be that I am just coming off of a 30-Day Blogging Challenge with the Rave Reviews Book Club, and I have become sensitive, or I am tired.

It is at times when I have gone beyond my energy supply and I am running on reserved strength that gratitude is not an easy path for me to walk. It means taking my anger, frustration, disappointment, annoyance, or whatever I might be feeling and taking a stroll down memory lane to look at some of the good things I have experienced, like the successful completion of the RRBC 30-Day Blogging Challenge. Or it might be just peering at my garden and noticing that Daniel and Joshua, my cherry trees, have blossomed since yesterday.

I cannot stop the things that bring upheaval into my life. Most of the time, such incidents catch me on my blindside. But I can choose how I react to them. The choice is always mine. I have learned that this is how I reinforce my vision. As one of my favorite mentors, Viktor Frankel, said in Man In Search Of Meaning, at the beginning of his book, “detachment is granted to the outsider, but he is too far removed to make any statements of real value. (Frankel was writing about his time in the concentration camp.) Only the man inside knows. His judgments may not be objective; his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. But an attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias.”

Therefore, the strength within me gives me the willpower to detach myself from my emotions and see anything coming at me differently. Thus, as I beheld Daniel and Joshua, my sentiments slowly turned to a deep sense of thankfulness, and my heart was amazed again at God’s faithfulness to me. Truly, I am thankful.

Shalom shalom,

Pat Garcia

Welcome to #RRBC’s 2nd Annual “A DAY IN MY LIFE” 30-Day Blogging Challenge! @RRBC_Org @RRBC_RWISA @Tweets4RWISA @pat_garcia

DAY 29, MARCH 29, 2024, THANK GOD, IT’S GOOD FRIDAY!

Good Morning, Everyone,

I contemplated how it must have been for Jesus when he knew his time was up. I don’t believe he said, “Father, get me out of here as soon as you can. According to the Gospel written by Matthew, in the garden of Gethsemane, he pleaded with God as he asked Him if there was any other way to do what he had to do besides going on the cross.

He knew the disciples weren’t ready for him to leave the earth. They were still looking for him to gather an army to defeat the Romans. However, when I look at Jesus’s prophetic words to them, I see they had no clue that that night would be the night that destroyed their dreams of overcoming the Roman Empire and would throw them into a state of perplexity.

Jesus knew this would happen, and like the loving Lord that He is, He asked God for more time, which was denied. I look at Jesus’s prophetic words, “One of you will betray me,” or as he told Peter, “Before rooster crows, you will have disowned me three times.” Peter’s vehement declaration was that he was willing to die for him.

I am astonished at how many times I unknowingly or knowingly disowned Jesus, the power of what He did on the cross, and the power of His resurrection. And by the way, all the disciples agreed, like Peter, that they would die for Jesus too, except one, ––Judas, who had gone off to complete his task to betray him. None of them were aware of what would happen.

And so was it with my own life in the beginning. If you had asked me some years ago, I would have said that a walk of faith is like a sprint. After you have won three or four of them, you could retire and live off of what you have accomplished.

But the faith walk is different. It is a complicated process: walk, run, stumble, run, stumble, walk, filled with your purpose.

You start out walking. The day is sunny and bright, only to come upon dark clouds that douse you in the rain. There is no shelter to hide in, so you keep walking and notice ahead the sun is shining again, and you start running only to realize the more that you run toward the end, the farther away it is, and because you’re running, you don’t take a look at the path, and you stumble and fall. You lay there wondering what to do. You’re perplexed.

However, like the disciples, we have a loving Lord who looks after us. He picks us up. And like with Peter and the gang, He showed up right on time at the sea of Galilee. He fed them, reinstated Peter, and showed them what to do next.

This is why I love Good Friday. Jesus paid my debt entirely, and now I walk out my purpose daily, knowing that I am cleansed, healed, justified, redeemed, and sanctified by the lamb’s blood, which was Jesus going to the cross. He was the sacrificial lamb, and on the third day, He rose.

He would have been limited in time and space if He had not gone to the cross. Now, He’s everywhere.

Thank God! It’s Good Friday.

Nina Simone’s daughter singing one of my favorite songs.

Have a lovely holy day.

Shalom shalom,

Pat Garcia

Welcome to #RRBC’s 2nd Annual “A DAY IN MY LIFE” 30-Day Blogging Challenge! @RRBC_Org @RRBC_RWISA @Tweets4RWISA @pat_garcia

DAY 28, MARCH 28, 2024, FRIENDSHIP, FOOD, & KITCHEN

Good Morning, Everyone,

I have said a lot during the Blogging Challenge, and as I thought about the situations and things I’ve shared, some of you reading my blog entries might think I am perfect or have it all together. Well, I am far from perfect, and I definitely don’t have it altogether. If I didn’t have people who are like family watching out for me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. People, like my sister and her husband, talk to me often on Zoom. They live in Louisville, Tennessee. The first question they ask is not how I am but whether I have eaten in the past two days. They scrutinize me on their screen as if they can tell whether I’ve eaten. I call this friendship and sisterhood/brotherhood combined.

Me, eating Thanksgiving Dinner in 2023. Elke Schaffrath sitting opposite me at Thanksgiving with friends we both know. Elke is in my sisterhood/brotherhood family.

Another couple watches over me, but they live closer to me than my sister in Tennessee. They come from Romania and live about twelve or fourteen kilometers from where I live in Germany. They don’t call me on Zoom; they show up.

I am one of those writers who forget about eating when I sink into my story. Thus, writing until I have finished the first draft and skipped two or three meals is expected. This couple feels that. My doorbell rings, and there they are with a delicious three-course home-cooked meal. Again, I call this sisterhood/brotherhood wrapped into friendship.

Here’s a good look at my kitchen. It is small, but just right for me.

I would be lost without these people and four or five other people I know who have adopted me into their hearts. They care, love, and have studied me enough to know my habits. I don’t have to pretend to them. My life has become an open book, and I trust them.

We all need three or four friendships like these. You don’t need to have everybody you relate to become your friends on this level. But you do need the kind where you don’t have to watch what you say because if you don’t, they won’t understand. You need friendships that feel like they are your family. I am blessed to say that the people who are close to me and in my inner circle come out of different countries, from South Africa, Canada, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the USA, and they know me.

Today, I have a three-course meal for dinner. You guessed it. My dear Romanian family brought it over yesterday. The dessert is Tiramisu, my favorite Italian dessert.

Idiko’s Tiramisu is simply delicious.

So, I have learned that perfectionism doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t bring closeness. It is the willingness to show your vulnerabilities, to laugh at your mistakes, to be able to say I’m sorry even if you’re hurt, to walk away from an argument instead of walking into one, to stand firm and loyal to the people you commit to even though you don’t understand what the other is doing. These are the elements that build bridges instead of walls.

In closing, I added a few pictures of my kitchen to this post. As you can see, it is small but my tiny jewel. When my friends come over, we always have a meal together. While they cook, I write.

Have a charming, Holy Thursday.

Shalom shalom

Pat Garcia

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