Sharon Ledwith: I came. I saw. I wrote.: Can't Stop the Music

Showing posts with label Can't Stop the Music. Show all posts

Sunday, 12 April 2026

Guest Post: Novel Settings by Paranormal Romance Author Duo C.D. Hersh...

One of the most asked questions to authors is, “Why did you set your book there?” For us it started with a car commercial. In the commercial, a grandmother is telling her granddaughter that she met grandpa under a tree. Then the two hug the tree and in a subsequent scene are joined by the child’s parents. As they leave the area, the car passes a sign marked Woodstock.

Honestly, we don’t even remember the make of the car that was being advertised, but we did remember the tree hugging scenario and the Woodstock sign. When Donald proposed the setting of Woodstock to me (Catherine) I was like, What???? It wasn’t a place I expected him to go. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. After all, who doesn’t like a walk down memory lane? I was into folk music in the Sixties. I sang and played Peter Paul and Mary songs on my guitar so many times I could have done it in my sleep, and I liked rock ‘n’ roll. And maxi coats and the cool threads. Since we’re both musicians, it was a short leap to making our hero and heroine musicians, too.

Because Rose, our heroine, is a music teacher, who plays several instruments, we decided to give her a love of all music, including classical. To broaden her horizons, we introduced classical music rebels into her music lexicon.

In one of the scenes, she is wandering around the festival grounds when she happens on another female hippie playing her flute and twirling to the melody. Rose decides to join in and plays a counter melody on her flute. Then the hippie begins playing “Bach’s Minuet in G”, to which Rose creates a counter melody.

We were so intrigued with the idea of two flutes playing Bach’s Minuet in G that we decided to compose the counter melody Rose played. If you click on the audio link, you can hear what we heard in our minds when we created this scene.

Now that you’ve heard the music in our heads, we hope you’ll enjoy an excerpt from our story.

The Soul Mate Tree . . . An ancient legend spanning eras, continents, and worlds. To some, it’s nothing more than a dream. To others, a pretty fairy tale handed down through the generations. For those in critical need of their own happy ending, a gift.

Our book, Can’t Stop the Music, is a blast back to the Sixties and Woodstock.

For college senior and hippie wannabe Rosemary—Rose for short—a teaching job is within her grasp, but she wants more. She wants love, the kind of love that has bound her parents for so many years. When she’s dumped by her current boyfriend because her morals can’t bring her to give in to free love, she finds herself at Woodstock in the middle of the biggest free-love, music festival of the Sixties. Alone, again. Until a magical tree grants her wish and she finds the man of her dreams—and loses him before she really knows who he is.

Dakota meets the girl of his dreams at Woodstock, but a jealous wannabe girlfriend drives them apart before he can discover Rose’s last name and where she comes from. After he sees a disappearing tree that promises him true love, a frantic search to find Rose comes up empty-handed.

Magic and music brings them together at Woodstock in 1969. Misunderstandings tear them apart. Will two flower children find one another again, or live with missed opportunities?

Short Excerpt:

As they made their way to the festival site, Rose and her friends grooved to the music coming from the stage.

When they reached the makeshift bridge over the road, someone yelled, “Hey beautiful! You with the red hair.”

She looked around to see if there was anyone else with red hair. Then she glanced up and spotted two guys, one blond and the other dark-haired, leaning over the side of the bridge.

“Yeah, you,” the blond called out as he caught her gaze.

Willow halted beside her. “He’s cute. How about him?”

Rose looked away, her gaze landing on the other guy.

He jabbed his companion in the ribs. “Quit trying to pick up every girl you see.” Then he leaned farther over the rail. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s high.”

“So, she’s not beautiful?” Willow yelled to the hippie.

She poked her friend. “Stop it, Willow, you’re making a scene.” In spite of her protest, her gaze remained on the dark-haired guy.

He rested his elbows on the rail and stared back at her. The intensity of his expression shot heat into her belly.

“I didn’t say that, just that she shouldn’t pay attention to him.” He flapped a hand at his blond buddy, then tapped his own chest with his thumb several times as if to say, ‘Choose me!’

Does he want me to pay attention to him? Her heart thumped in rhythm to his jabbing thumb.

“Take that one,” Willow whispered. “He’s the real cutie.”

Before she could respond, the crowd pushed them forward. When they reached the other side of the bridge, she looked back, searching for the dark-haired hippie, but the spot where he’d stood was empty.

Just my luck. I see someone who’s intriguing and he disappears.

With a sigh, she continued the trek to the festival grounds.

Putting words and stories on paper is second nature to co-authors C.D. Hersh. They've written separately since they were teenagers and discovered their unique, collaborative abilities in the mid-90s. As high school sweethearts and husband and wife, Catherine and Donald believe in true love and happily ever after, and that’s why they write romance.

In addition to writing Catherine and Donald love antiquing, traveling, singing, and going to the theatre. Catherine is also an avid gardener and has drawn Donald into her garden as a day laborer. They figure the couple who plays together and works together, stays together—and that's just what they aim to do.

Second Editions Coming Soon:

Ghosts and Gardenias

The Promised One The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 1
Blood Brothers The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 2
Son of the Moonless Night The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 3
The Mercenary and the Shifters The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 4

Social Media Info:

Sunday, 20 March 2022

Kissing Fun: The Language of Love by Author C.D. Hersh...

Photo from the U.S Navy files via Wikimedia

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re hooked on the Bachelor television show. Yes, we know 99 percent of the “in love” couples at the end of each season don’t make it past the screening of the series. Yes, we know it’s a lot of drama and cat fights. Yes, we know it’s probably all hokey. Nevertheless, deep down we are romantics who hope that some lucky couple will find true love.

The Bachelor season with Sean had a couple of romantic dates planned for his ladies. On week two there was a group date photo shoot with Harlequin, one of the most well-known publishers of romance novels. On week three Sean took Lesley Murphy to set a new Guinness World record for the longest onscreen kiss. The old record was 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Sean and Lesley set a new record with a live audience cheering them on.

Watching that long on-screen kiss made us curious. If two people who barely know each other can lock lips for over 3 minutes and 16 seconds, how long can a couple who are in love kiss? So, we did some research from a purely writer’s point of view. We set the timer and read a love scene from a romance book for 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

If you were reading a 3 minute 16 second love scene (referencing kissing only here) it would take approximately two pages of lip-locking description to break the world record, assuming you are not a speed reader. That’s an estimated 600 words in Times New Roman font. When we searched the computer’s thesaurus for alternate words for kiss and kissing—because you would surely not want to use the same verb each time you mentioned kiss—we came up empty-handed. Roget’s Thesaurus netted us a measly six synonyms: smack, buss, osculate (caress), brush, graze, and shave (touch). What shave has to do with kissing, aside from whisker burn, we have no idea. Roget forgot an obvious synonym, in our humble opinion—smooch.

On the hunt now, because we couldn’t believe how few alternate words we’d found for kiss, we went to the Romance Writer’s Phrase Book, by Jean Kent and Candace Shelton, where we found one hundred and five kissing related phrases. However, only 61 were suitable for use in 3 minutes and 16 seconds of lip-locking, record-breaking kissing description. To win the record both parties’ lips must be touching the whole time, and some of the phrases in the book involved kissing other body parts.

Next, we did an internet search for synonyms for kiss and kissing. Here’s a few more that we came up with: snog (British slang for kiss), neck, canoodle, peck, suck face, make out, spoon, get to first base, French, plant one on, Yankee dime/nickel (a favorite of Catherine’s parents), bill and coo, cupcake, spark, make whoopee, and mwah (onomatopoeia for the kissing sound).

The next step in the research is to write a 600-word kissing scene. Better yet, we think we’ll set the timer and create our own Guinness World Record for kissing. That’s bound to be more fun than struggling to write 600 kissing related words on the computer. ☺ Have you kissed someone you love today? Here’s an excerpt from our book Can’t Stop the Music for you to read while you remember if you’ve kissed anyone today.

Tipping her chin up, he whispered, “Anything for you.” Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, savoring the sweet taste he’d only dreamt of. She leaned against him, their bodies molding together perfectly. In the strains of Woodstock music coming from the living room, he swore he heard the lyrics I’ll gift you forever, to have and to hold.

As their kisses grew more passionate, she mumbled against his lips, “We should drink our tea before it gets cold.”

“I hate chamomile tea,” he confessed.

She drew away and stared at him. “You lied?”

“Fibbed a little. But only to get my foot in the door.”

She punched him lightly on the chest. “Don’t do that again.”

“You have my word.” He grabbed her fist and kissed her knuckles one by one, lavishing his tongue over the flesh. A tiny moan escaped from her. He gazed at her in expectation. Her eyes dropped shut, her head dipping backward as an expression of rapture floated over her face.

The doorbell rang, startling them apart.

If this piques your interest, then the links for our books are on our Amazon Author Page

C.D. Hersh–Two hearts creating everlasting love stories.

Putting words and stories on paper is second nature to co-authors C.D. Hersh. They’ve written separately since they were teenagers and discovered their unique, collaborative abilities in the mid-90s. As high school sweethearts and husband and wife, Catherine and Donald believe in true love and happily ever after.

They have a short Christmas story, Kissing Santa, in a Christmas anthology titled Sizzle in the Snow: Soul Mate Christmas Collection, with seven other authors. Plus, their paranormal series titled The Turning Stone Chronicles.

They are looking forward to many years of co-authoring and book sales, and a lifetime of happily-ever-after endings on the page and in real life.

Sunday, 14 November 2021

Love, Food, Writing, and Happy Endings by Author C.D. Hersh...

Our book Can’t Stop the Music opens in Woodstock and is filled with musical references of the era and food.

Today we’re talking about love, food, and magic. Love was plentiful at Woodstock. Magic mushrooms were probably plentiful, also, but food not so much. The producers didn’t expect the overwhelming crowd that should up and the vendors ran out of food in a very short time.

But you don’t have to worry about that, because we’ve got a special treat for you today.

As writers, we know that love and food go together like romance and a happily-ever-after ending. Maybe that’s why in most of our novels the hero and heroine share a meal of some sort. There’s just something magical about a special dinner with the one you love. Don’t you remember that special dinner, or dinners, with your honey? On the first dinner Catherine made for Donald she accidently fed him a toothpick—which he unwittingly ate. Trust us, we remember that!

Like most humans, we like to eat, and food works its way into our stories. In our book, Can’t Stop the Music (The Soul Mate Tree Book 2) the hero cooks an Italian meal for the heroine that is positively orgasmic. Can’t Stop the Music is a nostalgic romance set in Woodstock 1969 and contains a paranormal element. The paranormal involves a magic Soul Mate Tree that grants soul mates to deserving persons.

The Soul Mate tree is
An ancient legend spanning eras, continents, and worlds.
To some, it’s nothing more than a dream.
To others, a pretty fairy tale handed down through the generations.
For those in critical need of their own happy ending, a gift.

And our heroine and hero are in definitely in need of a happy ending.

Speaking of happy, who doesn’t love a delicious pasta dish? We do, but pasta is something we don’t eat a lot of anymore because of the high carb content. Recently, we’ve begun experimenting with ways to make high-carb pasta meals friendlier, because we do miss our pasta. In the process, we’ve discovered things like lentil and soybean pastas that are great substitutes for wheat pasta. They have a high fiber to carb ratio, which not only puts more fiber in the diet, but slows the release of sugars into the blood stream, both which are great boons to people with insulin resistance issues. The soybean pasta is fantastic and has become our go-to pasta for spaghetti.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found a soybean lasagna. So, Catherine got creative and made a meatless version of lasagna that uses a smaller amount of lasagna on the bottom of the dish and substitutes sliced zucchini for the pasta in the other layers. Putting a single layer of pasta on the bottom provides the traditional taste of lasagna and helps the servings come out of the dish better, without the added high-glycemic carbohydrates. We made this lasagna recipe meatless, but you could use a meat sauce if you prefer. Bon appétit!

Mushroom Zucchini Lasagna

Serves four

2 sheets oven-ready lasagna pasta

½ jar (1 1/3 cups) spaghetti or marina sauce (any flavor you prefer)

2-3 oz. fresh baby spinach (2-3 handfuls)

1 8 oz. box sliced mushrooms

2 small zucchinis, sliced into scant 1/8 inch thick ribbons

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

12 tbsp. low-fat ricotta cheese

Trim ends of zucchinis until they fit inside a square 1-1/2 quart baking dish. Then slice zucchinis into scant 1/8 inch thick ribbons. Place on a plate and salt liberally both sides. Let stand about an hour to draw out the excess moisture. Rinse off salt and pat slices dry with a paper towel. Set aside.

Rinse mushrooms and place in a skillet or large saucepan. Using 2 sharp-bladed spatulas, coarsely chop mushrooms in the pan. (Alternately, you could use a knife and cutting board, but Catherine found this method to be quicker.) Sauté mushrooms in a couple tablespoons of water until the mushrooms darken and excess water from the fungi has appeared in the pan. Drain and set aside.

Fit the 2 sheets of pasta in the bottom of a square, 1-1/2 quart baking dish, breaking edges off as necessary so the pasta lays flat in the bottom. Remove pasta and broken pieces from the dish.

Pour 1/3 cup pasta sauce in the bottom of the dish and lay the pasta sheets and broken pieces on top.

On top of this base, layer 1/3 cup pasta sauce, 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, 1/3 cup mushrooms, a handful of spinach, torn into small pieces, and four tablespoons of ricotta cheese (dotted over the top of the spinach), and enough zucchini slices to cover the ingredients. Spread the ingredients so they are evenly layered. Repeat layers to the depth the dish allows, ending with a layer of zucchini, sauce, ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese.

Bake 45 minutes.

Let stand and couple of minutes before cutting. Catherine found using a chef’s knife to cut the layers works best to cut through the zucchini without destroying the layers. Serve with a fresh salad and warm, Italian garlic bread.

Note: We went light on the cheeses, which gave each square of lasagna about 1 serving each of the cheeses. If you like a heavier cheese taste, add more cheese on each layer.

Serve the lasagna with a fresh green salad and some yummy Italian bread and you have a complete meal.

Dessert Anyone?

Donald's mother created this easy recipe that soon became a family favorite. While we can neither confirm or deny if this particular sweet kept the folks together, they were married for 62 years. Dad was never hungry after he ate nor complained about mom’s cooking.

Calico Fudge

⅔ cup milk

1½ cups granulated sugar

¾ cup brown sugar

Pinch of salt

2 tbsp. butter

4 tbsp. peanut butter

12 marshmallows, cut into pieces

Cook milk, sugars, and salt to soft ball stage. Remove from heat.

Add butter and peanut butter. Beat until creamy.

Lay marshmallows one inch apart in a greased pan. Pour fudge over the marshmallows.

Cut into squares when cold.

After the dishes are done and you’re ready to relax, download Can’t Stop the Music (The Soul Mate Tree Book 2) and take a trip back to Woodstock 1969 with our heroine Rose and her Italian stallion Dakota!

C.D. Hersh–Two hearts creating everlasting love stories.