September 2025 - Joy E. Held

28 September 2025

Welcome to Books By My Friends!

Today we are featuring:

JANE BUEHLER
JOY E. HELD
JAN THORNTON JONES
BARBARA JEAN MILLER

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JANE BUEHLER

BOOK The Fire Apprentice: A Fairy Tale with Benefits

AUTHOR Jane Buehler

GENRE Cozy romantasy

BLURB He’s the blacksmith. But she’s the one playing with fire.

After a fairy seduced her, fathered her child, and tried to take that child, Jane swore she’d never trust one again. Surely she can find a suitable human man to be a companion for herself and a father for little Elle, right? So when her housemate mentions a new apprentice blacksmith, Jane leaves Elle playing in the yard and heads to the smithy.

Rowan is rugged and handsome but clearly not interested. Disappointed, Jane has just left the smithy when a sudden shadow swoops over the village. Jane races home to see a dragon snatching Elle. Jane is distraught. Then Rowan mysteriously appears and offers to rescue the child. He insists the dragon won’t hurt Elle—apparently fairy children apprentice with dragons to learn fire magic. How does Rowan know so much about fairies? Turns out, he is one.

Jane will do anything to rescue Elle, even if it involves the F word—a fairy. But climbing into the mountains with Rowan is risky. His reticence keeps Jane guessing, but she can’t keep her mind off him: he’s even more handsome out in the moonlit woods, with that deep voice and those capable hands. When Jane and Rowan run into trouble, Jane must take charge. Because it turns out, Rowan needs rescuing too.

The Fire Apprentice is a grumpy/sunshine romance—or maybe more of a brooding/effusive romance—that’s perfect for fans of Throne in the Dark or Jenna Wolfhart’s Falling for Fables cozy romantasy series. Each book in the Sylvania series can be read on its own but might contain spoilers for previous books. The Fire Apprentice contains love scenes and a heroine with pelvic floor pain.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Emily Jane Buehler published two nonfiction books—one on the science and craft of baking bread, the other a memoir of a bicycle trip from New Jersey to Oregon—before venturing into fiction. She currently writes cozy fantasy romances where everyday people (and fairies) have adventures and fall in love. They are lighthearted stories with action and adventure, love and magic, where protagonists learn to believe in themselves and find their courage. And yes, they are kissing books!

Emily Jane believes that by portraying positive relationships with good communication, romance novels can help readers envision such relationships for themselves, serve as a model of proper consent for young people, and portray diverse types of relationships and people. They can be a fun escape while still having depth and contributing to a better society.

Emily Jane lives in North Carolina. Her favorite things include letters sent through the mail, her fair-trade wool leg warmers, and chocolate cake with frosting. She is passionate about living waste free and usually has one or more cats.

AUTHOR’S WEBSITE https://janebuehler.com/

JOY E. HELD

BOOK The Mermaid Riot

AUTHOR Joy E. Held

GENRE Young Adult Historical Romantasy

BLURB When Serena Robinson and Tobi Doyle witness the neighborhood apothecary lifting a limp body from his fishing boat, they don’t realize they will be swept up into a life-or-death race to save a mermaid from the doctor’s greedy plans.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joy E. Held is an award-winning author, editor, book coach, educator, and yoga instructor living with her husband in West Virginia.

AUTHOR WEBSITE https://www.joyeheld.com

JOY E. HELD

BOOK Writer Wellness Workbook

AUTHOR Joy E. Held

GENRE Self-help, creativity, writing

BLURB Writer Wellness Workbook is a companion book to Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity designed to offer hands-on practice in the five key concepts of journaling, fitness, relaxation, nutrition, and creative play.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joy E. Held is an award-winning author, editor, book coach, educator, and yoga instructor living with her husband in West Virginia.

AUTHOR WEBSITE https://www.joyeheld.com

JAN THORNTON JONES

BOOK Autumn Is Calling

AUTHOR Jan Thornton Jones

GENRE Early childhood fiction

BLURB It is a crisp fall day in Appalachia and Katie is learning about the season of fall as she and her mother walked to the local autumn festival. She sees squirrels and other animals putting away food for the cold winter months and compares it to the canning of fruits and vegetables that she and her mother did the day before. at the autumn festival, she experiences Appalachian music while admiring the beautiful fall mums and pumpkins. Katie sees and learns about many other traditional Appalachian customs, like making apple butter, quilting, folk, toys, and pumpkin patches. The colorful illustrations make this a book for the entire family as they go with Katie on an autumn adventure!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR I am a former early childhood teacher who is now the author of six books for children.

AUTHOR WEBSITE https://www.Janjonesbooks.com

BARBARA JEAN MILLER

BOOK Last Ditch

AUTHOR Barbara Jean Miller

GENRE Regency romance

BLURB Ellie Waltham and her mother have been driven from their home by her grasping cousin. As they run out of resources, her young niece and nephew appear, needing care. But their uncle Gareth Delaney magically moves all of them to safety and returns to Belgium to search for the children’s wounded father and their mother.

Once all are safe in England, Ellie’s scheming relative tries to steal their land. Though she thinks she lacks courage, Ellie takes action to protect her family. Abducted in an effort to force her to wed the villain, she knows she will be killed so he can claim what she has inherited. While sure Gareth is riding to save her, Ellie must still rescue herself…and him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Barbara Jean Miller is an author, educator, and nature observer.

AUTHOR’S WEBSITE https://www.barbarajeanmiller.substack.com

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JOY E. HELD is an author, educator, editor, book coach, entrepreneur, and literary citizen responsible for this site and its contents. She is the author of

Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020)

Writer Wellness Workbook: A Guided Workbook and Journal to Accompany Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2023)

The Mermaid Riot (Fire and Ice YA, 2024) Young Adult Historical Fantasy

She writes spicy historical fiction under a pen name.

She is the winner of multiple writing and book awards:

West Virginia Writers, Inc. Annual Writing Contest, Honorable Mention, Novel, 1998.

New York Book Festival, Honorable Mention, Writer Wellness, 2020.

Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Finalist, Writer Wellness, 2021.

Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, Member of the Year, 2020.

Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, First Book Award, 2020.

She is an adjunct faculty member in the Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Creative Writing.

She is a proud graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction.

She is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Joy is the founder and CEO of My WRITEDAY Subscription Box for writers and readers.

22 September 2025

“The Importance of Backstory to Writing”

Guest Post from Author PETE TAYLOR

Some trail names are given to hikers by their fellow hikers. Trail names generally reflect a personal aspect of a hiker such as hair color, appearance, profession, and a myriad of other aspects of a person.

We always laugh about a guy we met with a trail name of “Ass Trumpet.” At one of the first town-stops along the trail he overdid the salad and fruit bar one night and for the rest of his time on the trail he was called “Ass Trumpet” after keeping his fellow hikers up all night with his ‘explosions.’

A trail name sticks with you. It sometimes pops up years after the end of a hike. For example, I was in a small outfitters shop in Luray, Virginia looking for a specific piece of hiking gear for my son’s Christmas present. A guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Hardcharger”?

I turned and sure enough it was “Red Dawn,” a young man I had hiked with back in Tennessee many years before. To this day I doubt if either of us remembers their real name, but we recognized each other and chatted for a while catching up on our hiking experiences. In another incident, in a shelter in Connecticut, I ran into a young woman who told us her trail name. I had seen that name in a trail log in one of the shelters in Virginia. She was a member of a group of young women who referred to themselves as the “Pack Divas.” I asked her what had happened to her group, and we had a wonderful time talking around the campfire.

Hiking serves as the backstory, the backbone so to speak, using the hike as an extension to support the central theme of my books Province Senior Intelligence Advisor and The Tuscarora Trail, part of my four-book series set during the Vietnam War. This backstory also serves as a metaphor for facing the challenges of life, overcoming obstacles, and learning to move on from adversity.

Besides the retelling of my Vietnam experiences, I added nuance to the events by relying on my own trail journals that I’ve kept for all of my hikes. Each night I’d sit and jot down notes about the day. When I got home, I’d get out maps and expand on the works by recording the daily mileages, proper geographical names, names of people and places we had encountered, and include photos that I had taken. I’d type them up into a web file and store them away.

Hardcharger & Johnny B on the Appalachian Trail

“Johnny B” and I have been hiking together for thirty years, and we’ve lived a number of adventures. My journals from those hikes make for great ‘backstory’ for my books.

The ‘backstory’ gave me a great opportunity to have a ‘vehicle’ to tell the various war stories as if I am talking to an audience rather than just relating the stories in machinegun fashion. In the final book of the series, The Tuscarora Trail, I was able to use the hiking backstory to finish the series as well as to weave a degree of closure into the stories. My intent was to have a ‘backstory’ that people could relate to.

So how does a writer convey those feelings; fear, loneliness, frustration, quick-learning, and still tell the story? Part of the ‘success’ is the backstory. Be it the Appalachian or Tuscarora Trails, or an innocent romance, backstory is important to my writing. It provides an additional vehicle to tell other parts of the events and to develop or maintain interest in the major theme of my books. The story-in-the-story is helpful because the ‘hero’ can show additional character dimensions that wouldn’t necessarily be observable in the standard telling of the tale; love in wartime, coming-of-age, adventurous hikes, feelings of grief and loss, and a myriad of other emotions that can be explored by the reader and the author alike all through backstory.

Have a good one,

~Pete

AUTHOR BIO PETE TAYLOR

Peter Taylor is an American author and Military Historian who served three combat tours in Vietnam 1969-1971 and 1972-1973. His works include a Civil War History of Harrison County, West Virginia, a novel that developed from that book The Most Hated Man in Clarksburg, and The Advisor Series, four novels about the military Advisory efforts in Vietnam.

*Thanks for your wisdom and your service, Pete. ~JEH

DISCLAIMER

This article may contain affiliate links which may result in the author receiving a commission when readers purchase items through the links.

You are receiving this message because you previously signed up for notifications or participated in a program/course with Joy. You may unsubscribe at any time.

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