{"id":407,"date":"2011-10-31T11:42:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T18:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2011\/10\/31\/smuggler-of-heart-sweet-little-read\/"},"modified":"2016-08-22T10:44:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T16:44:13","slug":"smuggler-of-heart-sweet-little-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/smuggler-of-heart-sweet-little-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Smuggler of the Heart, a sweet little "snowy" read ~ by Joann Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\tWow, I don't know about you, but we had snow this weekend! I said to one of my boys on the way to church yesterday, "It looks more like Christmas out here than Thanksgiving." \ud83d\ude42\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThis morning, as I was getting ready to stoke up our wood stove I thought how lovely it would be to curl up for a bit with a nice warm blanket, hot drink and a book. If you feel the same way, perhaps you'd enjoy this story~\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBlurb:<\/strong>
\n\tDisheartened and tired, Samantha Warren returns to Vermont during the winter break. Her passion for history rekindles after finding an old smuggler's chest hidden in her grandparents' attic. Will she be able to return to New Jersey without her heart being smuggled like the chest once was? Or is it already too late?\n<\/p>\n

\n\tExcerpt:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha gingerly reached for the newfound treasure. A rush of adrenaline coursed through her body, and her nerves jingled the instant her fingers caressed the soft, worn wood. Just as she knew her own name, she knew there was something special about the small chest.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“That you making a racket up there, Sammie?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha blew a puff of dust off the curved lid and sat down Indian-style on the painted but worn wide plank attic floor. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, Gram.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram chuckled. “Sure, and pigs can fly too.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram might be eighty-something, but she didn’t miss much. She knew Samantha’s passion for history and antiques and how long it had been since she had visited the attic of her grandparents’ beloved 1820s Victorian home. For that matter, how long since she’d been in Vermont, period.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha fiddled with the latch on the chest. Her finger brushed against a small metal protrusion on the side of the lock. In a sudden, swift motion, the latch sprung open and the lid lifted a quarter of an inch, almost as if the chest wanted to share its secrets and stories with her. She lifted it further and peered inside. The musty smell of aged wood and paper greeted her like a familiar friend she hadn’t seen for a long, long time.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tShe clutched the box to her chest and rushed downstairs. Breathless, she held out her find for her gram to see. “Do you know what this is?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I do.” Gram’s eyes sparkled. “And, I must say, it’s good to see there’s some life in you. I’ve been worried about you since you’ve come home.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram didn’t need to be concerned about her. She was a strong independent woman—at least she liked to think she was. Granted, she had felt a little bit blue as of late, but didn’t everyone experience those feelings every now and then in life?\n<\/p>\n

\n\tTime to focus on something else. She held the box a bit higher. “The chest?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram motioned for Samantha to join her on the couch. “That chest’s said to have held letters from one of the caves in the Notch.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“Smuggler’s?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“You remember the history?” Gram asked with obvious delight.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“Sure.” Samantha nodded. “When I drive through Smuggler’s Notch, I try to picture it as during the War of 1812.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“Yup,” her gram said. “That was when the good old U.S. Congress placed an embargo on the imports from England.”
\n\tSamantha looked out windows to the mountains. “I can imagine smugglers hiding in the thick forest and storing their supplies of food, clothing, cattle, and such from Canada in the caves and caverns along the Long Trail.” She turned back to her gram and matter-of-factly said, “And then of course, a hundred years later, when the U.S. Congress passed a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol, it happened again.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram nodded. “Smugglers avoided the revenue agents by storing the alcohol in the caves where they freely smuggled it through the Notch Pass, down to central and southern New England. Thus it’s aptly named…”
\n\tTogether, they chorused, “Smuggler’s Notch.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha smiled at her gram’s joy, which must have been mirrored in her own eyes.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHistory…her passion. But recently, without her even realizing it until this moment, the joy and excitement she usually felt had fallen flat. She still enjoyed her teaching position at a high school in New Jersey, but her enthusiasm over the last several years had waned. How had that impacted her students? She shook her head, trying to dispel that train of thought.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps coming back to Vermont for winter break was what she needed—at least she hoped so.
\n\t“Samantha, I know I don’t tell you this often enough, but I think you’re a gifted history teacher. I only wish you’d come back home where you belong.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThere were many subjects Samantha would be delighted to discuss, but her personal life, particularly where she did or didn’t belong, wasn’t one of them. Especially since she had been struggling with those very same thoughts moments ago. “Gram, let’s not go there. How about you tell me about this chest instead?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram rolled her eyes. “You’re more stubborn than that old manual lawn mower. I guess I should expect as much with all that red hair.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha lifted her chin. “It’s not red. It’s auburn.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWas it her imagination, or was Gram fighting a smile?\n<\/p>\n

\n\tGram coughed in her hand. “Where were we…oh, yes. This chest stayed in a cave where it held correspondence or information from one party to the next.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“How’d you get it?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I’m saving that part of the story.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha’s heart sank with disappointment. “Why?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“So I can be sure you’ll come back home, where you belong, from time to time.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSamantha rolled her eyes and bit back the retort, Now who’s being stubborn?\n<\/p>\n

\n\tReviews:<\/strong> (As posted on Amazon.com)\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDeila Latham said: "… What a beautiful, heartwarming, soul-stirring little story! JoAnn Carter says more in thirty-seven pages than many authors can produce in an epic novel. It's a thought-provoking picture of a life in transition, a love in the balance, and a God Who never stops caring. Smuggler of the Heart is good stuff. Period."\n<\/p>\n

\n\tK.M Daughters said, " I loved Sammie and Tim (and Grandma, too) at first meeting. Sweet prayerful souls are reunited in this lovely, well-written romance. Sammie's "conversations" with the Lord were beautiful and soul stirring. A must read for anyone who enjoys Christian fiction and satisfying romantic endings."\n<\/p>\n

\n\tKara Lynn Russell said, " This short story is a mini-vacation to snow Vermont. Perfect for a lunch time or break time read."_\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPurchase Link:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.pelicanbookgroup.com\/ec\/smuggler-of-the-heart also available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, I don't know about you, but we had snow this weekend! I said to one of my boys on the way to church yesterday, "It looks more like Christmas out here than Thanksgiving." \ud83d\ude42 This morning, as I was getting ready to stoke up our wood stove I thought how lovely it would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[512],"tags":[196],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-about-books","tag-white-roses-in-bloom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}