The Inheritance by JoAnn Ross: An Excerpt and Guest Post

I am delighted to have JoAnn Ross as a guest today. I have followed her on Twitter for a while now and as she shared more about this book, my curiosity was piqued. I worked up the nerve to invite her to the blog and was delighted when she agreed. She is sharing an excerpt from the book and a short guest post about her inspiration, Such an emotional snippet of her life! So grab a drink, push the cats out of your way, and enjoy! Come back on Monday for my review. 

Find JoAnn online:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | BookBub | Pinterest | Instagram

About JoAnn:

When New York Times bestselling author JoAnn Ross was seven-years-old, she had no doubt whatsoever that she’d grow up to play center field for the New York Yankees. Writing would be her backup occupation, something she planned to do after retiring from baseball. Those were, in her mind, her only options. While waiting for the Yankees management to call, she wrote her first novella — a tragic romance about two star-crossed mallard ducks — for a second grade writing assignment.

The paper earned a gold star. And JoAnn kept writing.

She’s now written over one hundred novels and has been published in twenty-six countries. Two of her titles have been excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine and her books have also been published by the Doubleday, Rhapsody, Literary Guild, and Mystery Guild book clubs. A member of the Romance Writers of America’s Honor Roll of best-selling authors, she’s won several awards, including RT Reviews’ Career Achievement Awards in both category romance and contemporary single title. In addition, she received RWA’s national service award and was named RWA Pro-Mentor of the Year.

Although the Yankees have yet to call her to New York to platoon center field, JoAnn figures making one out of two life goals isn’t bad.

Currently writing her Honeymoon Harbor series (set on Washington State’s Olympic peninsula) for HQN, JoAnn lives with her high school sweetheart, whom she married twice, in her beloved Pacific Northwest.

I never knew my father, who deserted my mother when I was a toddler. A few years ago, I had an impulse to Google my father’s name and found his obituary mentioning a daughter from his second marriage. Having that, I contacted her on Facebook and because I’d always known about her, I’d assumed she knew about me. Oops, apparently, she didn’t. When she asked her mother why she hadn’t been told her father had a previous family, the response was “It never came up.”

That stirred an idea about three half-sisters, each who had an entirely different relationship with their father. Tess, the oldest, who had no memory of him, knew about the middle sister, who didn’t know about the other two. The youngest sister knew about all three, and when she learns they inherited a famous winery, she’s initially concerned that the other two will dislike her because she was the closest to their father.

 
Over the course of the book they’ll discover that the winery wasn’t the legacy their father left them instead, their true legacy is the bond of family and discovering that they come from a line of strong, brave, adventurous individuals. And that blood ties alone are not what bonds a family, but heart. While you can’t choose the family you’re born into, you can create a family from those you choose. Those who also love and choose you. Then, together, you can decide what path in life you’ll take from there.

  Aberdeen, Oregon 

Conflict photographer Jackson Swann had traveled to dark and deadly places in the world most people would never see. Nor want to. Along with dodging bullets and mortars, he’d survived a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, gotten shot mere inches from his heart in Niger and been stung by a deathstalker scorpion while embedded with the French Foreign Legion in Mali. Some of those who’d worked with him over the decades had called him reckless. Rash. Dangerous. 

Over late-night beers or whatever else passed as liquor in whatever country they’d all swarmed to, other photographers and foreign journalists would argue about whether that bastard Jackson Swann had a death wish or merely considered himself invincible. He did, after all, rush into high-octane situations no sane person would ever consider, and even when the shit hit the fan, somehow, he’d come out alive and be on the move again. Chasing the next war or crisis like a drug addict chased a high. 

The truth was that Jack had never believed himself to be immortal. Still, as he looked out over the peaceful view of rolling hills, the cherry trees wearing their spring profusion of pink blossoms, and acres of vineyards, he found it ironic that after having evaded the Grim Reaper so many times over so many decades, it was an aggressive and rapidly spreading lung cancer that was going to kill him.

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With a dramatic wartime love story woven through, JoAnn Ross’s brilliant new novel is a gorgeous generational saga about the rivalry, history and loyalty that bond sisters together.

When conflict photographer Jackson Swann dies, he leaves behind a conflict of his own making when his three daughters, each born to a different mother, discover that they’re now responsible for the family’s Oregon vineyard—and for a family they didn’t ask for.

After a successful career as a child TV star, Tess is, for the first time, suffering from a serious identity crisis, and grieving for the absent father she’s resented all her life.

Charlotte, brought up to be a proper Southern wife, gave up her own career to support her husband’s political ambitions. On the worst day of her life, she discovers her beloved father has died, she has two sisters she never knew about and her husband has fallen in love with another woman.

Natalie, daughter of Jack’s longtime mistress, has always known about her half sisters, and has dreaded the day when Tess and Charlotte find out she’s the daughter their father kept.

As the sisters reluctantly gather at the vineyard, they’re soon enchanted by the Swann family matriarch and namesake of Maison de Madeleine wines, whose stories of bravery in WWII France and love for a wounded American soldier will reveal the family legacy they’ve each inherited and change the course of all their lives.

Publisher: HQN Books
Release Date: September 7th, 2021
Formats: Audio, ebook, print
Buying Links: Amazon* | Barnes & Noble | Google Books| iBooks* | JoAnn Ross | Kobo
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