How Does Your Garden Grow? #cityliving #giveaway

I hope you are enjoying this month’s May showers. I have loved reading about all the authors and how they are coping with this pandemic and gotten some good recipes and tips. It isn’t over yet! we still have a week of fun left and Today’s guest is Gemma Snow.

Gemma:

I live in a city. Outside my window, a freight train rattles by, squealing on the ancient wooden bridge. There are always voices, dogs barking, fire engines whirring, the hustle and bustle of town, a little quieter now, in these strange, uncertain times, but never silent. I love the city.

But I need nature. I need the dirt under my nails, the feel of a fresh sweat from time outside, sun in my hair, wind on my face. And so I make my own. On the tiny little balcony that overlooks that loud freight train, I plant and I grow and give home to the little sprouts that give me hope. There is not much space, certainly not enough for all that I am attempting to grow, but I am doing my best and in gardening, that is the only option.

In my garden, there is a single avocado tree, a year old, grown from a pit in my kitchen. There are sunflowers that are growing too fast for the pot, mixed in with decorative gourds. They will harvest in different seasons. I am growing cucumber, tomatoes, and peppers, and I have sprinkled Montana wildflower seeds into every single pot, so the garden is lush with green pollinators that will bloom soon and last long into the colder months.  I transplanted the zinnias and they grow in little clover patterns, perfect and symmetrical. The citrus plants did not survive the winter, but the crab apple tree did, the only tree sapling that didn’t mind apartment air, and it stretches toward the sun every morning, as if it knows it was built for bigger things than my balcony. The basil plant, too, is loose in the spring air, and I pick a single leaf every time we go for a walk and bury it in the ground outside my apartment. Basil grows bigger when it is picked, and that is a lesson I am trying to keep in mind.

Last week my mother, who is an expert hotorculturalist, sent me rainbow carrot seeds which have been sold out everywhere I looked, string beans, and cherry tomatoes. I am growing potatoes from the eyelets of last month’s dinner and they are sprouting. Nature does not give gold stars, but if it did, this would be what it feels like.

I call my mother when things go wrong and they often do. She tells me that nature just is that way and the best I can do is the best I can do. Last year, we ate peppers from the balcony garden. This year, we could make a whole stew, matched with the fresh bread I made for the very first time. Perhaps I will pick wildflowers and present them to my sweetheart, store them in one of the jars we wash out so we never need to buy glasses again. Perhaps one of the cold fronts that have been whipping through the south will come too late in the season. Perhaps we will have another night of 70 mile per hour winds. Nature survives the strangest moments, but cannot manage central air conditioning.

• 

• 

• 

I am growing a thousand plants, in yogurt containers and old coffee jugs. I propagate in eggshells and cardboard cartons, I make my own compost as best I can, stringing together dreams and paperclips and bubblegum for a victory gardens, for hope in difficult times, for greenery, for the simple joy of connecting back into the earth when everything and everyone feels a million miles away. I am planting to promise myself there is a future, to embrace the truth that I cannot control everything, even when I do my very best, to give myself something to look forward to, to feel as though I am doing my part, keeping my house, watching out for my family. I am growing something for tomorrow.

---

If you’re looking to get started with a garden, you don’t need to spend a lot of money. Many seeds can be taken directly from the kitchen and you can use recyclable materials for container gardening with just a few hopes drilled or cut into the bottom.

Next time to whip up dinner, consider saving:

• Pepper seeds
• Tomato seeds
• Potato eyes
• Citrus seeds
• Avocado pits
• Cucumber seeds
• Squash seeds

Wild flowers also propagate easily (it’s sort of their thing) so carefully remove a few by the root on your next walk and plant them immediately when you get home. There’s nothing more hopeful than a spring garden.

---

The Montana wildflower seeds are part of a giveaway for my Triple Diamond  series, set in the beautiful open lands of Montana, which I visited for the first time this past summer!

Title – The Lovin’ Is Easy

Series if applicable – The Triple Diamond Series

Author – Gemma Snow

Publisher – Totally Bound

Genre/heat – Erotic Romance (MFM Menage)

Pages – 193

Blurb –

At the Triple Diamond, good things come in threes…

Madison Hollis never expected to find anything at the Triple Diamond Ranch in Montana, a surprise inheritance left to her by an uncle she’d never met. With her career as an event-planning manager for the Silicon Valley tech titans, a job that has pushed her straining engagement to the breaking point, she doesn’t have time for soul-searching.

But, out in the Montana summer sun before putting the ranch up for sale, Madison finds herself distracted by Triple Diamond’s sexy and oh-so-tempting ranch managers. Christian Harlow and Ryder Dean are best friends and total opposites, rebel country boy and pretty boy cowboy, and both are hot as hell.

Intent on loosening her reins, Madison gives herself permission to dive into an affair, surrendering to her desire for both of them. As she gets to know both Ryder and Christian and grows all too familiar with the feeling of them on her skin, Madison wonders if it will be as easy as she’d hoped to go home and leave them behind. But when an ugly secret comes to light, it might just send her running—if something, or someones, can’t convince her to stay…

Buy links – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084DG5FFP/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Excerpt/heat rating

“A what?”

Against the din of the ancient window air conditioner chugging into the room, Madison’s voice had a tinny, almost petulant sound. But of all the things she had expected from the impromptu meeting with some family estate lawyer she’d never heard of, this wasn’t it.

“A ranch, Ms. Hollis,” Mr. Sidney replied, the tone of his voice indicating that he’d picked up on her confusion and ensuing frustration with the afternoon’s events and that, frankly, he didn’t care. “The Triple Diamond Ranch in Wolf Creek, Montana, to be exact.”

Madison rubbed her hands over her face and tried to make sense of everything. Mr. Sidney had contacted her a week prior about a will left to her by some uncle on her mother’s side, an uncle she’d never heard of, from a mother who’d been gone some eighteen years now. She took a deep breath, trying a different tack.

“Are you certain this is my uncle”—she glanced at the stack of legal documents two inches thick on the desk before her—“Mason?”

Mr. Sidney peered down at her over the wire rim of his thin glasses—a remarkable feat, given that she had at least two inches on the man, who sat short and boney in the chair across the desk.

“Mr. Mason Westerly King first arranged this inheritance with Sidney and Sidney nearly two decades ago,” he replied. “We’ve had ample time to determine and confirm your identity, Ms. Hollis.”

Madison resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but only just. Mr. Sidney’s attitude came on the tail of what had already been the week from hell. She sighed, her heavy breath spilling out of her mouth like a deflating hot air balloon. It’s only Wednesday.

“Mr. Sidney, I’m afraid I still don’t quite understand. What am I supposed to do with a ranch”—she gestured with her hand—“I don’t know, eight, ten hours away from here?”

He gave a slow blink. “My advice, Ms. Hollis, is to go inspect the ranch yourself. You have all the information on the mineral rights and past financial records. Once you get the lay of the land, you can determine whether you wish to sell or keep the property. But otherwise, after I get your signature on these forms, I’m afraid there’s not much else I can help you with.”

Madison did scowl that time, but with her head bent over the stack of papers while signing the requisite lines, he couldn’t see it. She was perfectly pleased to be done with Mr. Sidney for good, but he was wrong about one major thing. She wasn’t going to decide whether or not to keep the ranch—she had decided the very first time he had mentioned the word inheritance. No, the second she got out to Montana, she would sell the damn thing and be done with it. Maybe then everything would go back to normal. Ha. Yeah, right.

Bio

Gemma Snow loves high heat, high adventures and high expectations for her heroes! Her stories are set in the past and present, from the glittering streets of Paris to cowboy-rich Triple Diamond Ranch in Wolf Creek, Montana.

In her free time, she loves to travel, and spent several months living in a 14th-century castle in the Netherlands. When not exploring the world, she likes dreaming up stories, eating spicy food, driving fast cars, and talking to strangers. She recently moved to Nashville with a cute redheaded cat and a cute redheaded boy.

Stalker Links

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GemmaSnowRomance/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/182671112452573/?source_id=1447833352176243

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GemmaSnowDesire

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/gemmasnowdesire/?etslf=3145&eq=gem

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gemmasnowauthor/

or at GemmaSnow.com

Backlist

Seduction en Pointe is in #KindleUnlimited!

When successful TV star of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Nicco Castillo, finds his boyfriend in bed with another man, he goes full-on Hollywood trainwreck that lands him in ER. Next thing he knows, the producers are shipping him off to Paris to shape up and learn to dance for the next season’s story arc.

But his incredibly tempting Parisian ballet instructor, Isabelle La Croix, makes that all too difficult, especially when he learns about her decadent desires–desires Nicco is all too pleased to indulge in. Against the ballet barre, the balcony railing, and wherever and for however long Isabelle is willing to have him.

Read Today! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T18QYZ9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Coming soon

Leather and Gold is Coming Out Soon!

Emmeline Westington Wright, widowed duchess of South Framley, sent Captain Alexandre Pierron Simonnet to the Americas eighteen months ago, presumably in search of her errant brother, the Marquis of Fulton. But when Captain Simonnet returns to South Framley and the duchess’s Roseburn estate, she must admit to herself that the errand was nothing more than a way to keep the devilishly handsome and tempting captain far enough away where she will not succumb to her desires. They are the kind of desires she has only ever indulged with her late husband, William, hidden away in a darkened room, below the prim and proper halls of Roseburn.

Her lust for Captain Simonnet has not diminished in the past months, instead growing stronger and more potent until she invites him to meet her in the rose garden at midnight. There, she shows the captain all of her secrets, that hidden room, her own desire to cede control, to be taken care of–by him. As she had hoped, Alexandre is familiar with her lifestyle and sets down the rules, before laying her over his lap and giving her all that she most desperately craves–or almost all.

Because despite herself and her raging need, Emmeline knows that her want goes deeper than a salacious affair. She has known Captain Simonnet, William’s best friend, some ten years now, craved him for three. Tonight, in the light of their pleasures and vulnerabilities and moments of profound trust, she might just admit to herself that she wants more than a single night or a week or a month–she might just want a life together.

Join my mailing list for updates!

Mailing List

Now for the Prizes! Gemma is giving not one but two copies of The loving is Easy. We also have two grand prize winners and lots of individual so lots of chances for goodies!

a Rafflecopter giveaway