Award Winning Author and Founding Partner of Bellastoria Press LLP

 

Abibliophobia

The fear of running out of books to read.

 

To quote Thomas Jefferson, “I cannot live without books.” The written word can inspire, it can entertain, it can put a smile on your face and it can make you believe in a magical world. Reading is like a bag of popcorn. You can’t put the book down until you know what’s happening with your new pals.

As a writer I have the best of all worlds. I can have conversations with my make-believe friends while creating castles in the sky—and don’t forget about the happy ending. That's my life as a feel-good author. I infuse humor into my stories of romance, small town quirkiness, family relationships and otherworldly situations. I’ve published eleven novels and one novella with various Harlequin imprints—HQ American, Everlasting and Carina. My debut book, A Texas State of Mind was a double finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s RITA contest and a Romantic Times finalist for Best First Series Book. Summer After Summer (A Summer Place 2020) won the national Book Buyers’ Best Long Contemporary award and was also a NYC Big Book Award Finalist. Georgia On His Mind (Texas Double Date) was awarded a Holt Medallion in both the Best Southern and Short Contemporary Categories.

 

As my writing career progressed, I’ve been concentrating on Fiction/Magical Realism. The first book in the Irish Enchantment Series, Believe in the Magic is an Appalachian story with a spiritual twist. The heroine uses her psychic powers to nab the bad guys. Believe won the Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal in Magic and Wizardry and the Chanticleer Somerset Book Award for Women's Fiction. The second book in the series, When the Magnolia Blooms, is a “ghostly” love story with a mystical element. It was a finalist in the Book Excellence Awards and won the NYC Big Book award for Fiction. It’s also a sexier version of the classic The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Lucy’s Got a Lot of ‘Splaining to Do is a satire on the quirkiness of Las Vegas and is the most lighthearted story of the trio. It was recognized as a Chanticleer Somerset Finalist in Humor.

 

Due out in 2021—

Camp Touchdown

Under the Celestial Sky

 

 

The Story of Bellastoria Press LLP

Bellastoria Press partners—Ann DeFee, Linda Cardillo and Vana Nespor.

 

BELLASTORIA PRESS IS A SELECTIVE HYBRID PRESS, publishing books that fulfill our mission to discover and share well-written, beautiful stories, told from the heart. We offer authors a personalized, hands-on experience that guides them through the publishing process from manuscript evaluation and editing to production, marketing and distribution. Our goal is to provide writers with a pathway to reach readers with well-crafted, skillfully designed and carefully produced print, digital and audio books. In pursuit of that objective, we’ve built a professional team of editors, designers and formatters.

 

Linda Cardillo and I met in the early years of our writing careers when we were introduced by our Harlequin editor at a Romance Writers Conference. Recognizing that we were kindred spirits, we spent the next few years building our back lists and hammering out plots in hotel rooms at conferences.

A few years ago we began to notice a pattern among our writing friends. Previously multi-published authors were facing increasing difficulty in finding a home with traditional publishers. For us, there was little interest in the longer and more complex books we wanted to write, so we decided to create Bellastoria Press.

 

As with many small businesses, the voyage hasn’t been easy, but it has always presented an interesting challenge. Since we established Bellastoria Press in 2014 we have published 32 titles in fiction and memoir and 8 children’s picture books. We’ve also added a partner, Vana Nespor, a playwright and nonfiction author, whose vision and energy have helped us both to grow and to offer authors a personal experience on their publishing journey.

 

Please check us out at—

https://www.bellastoriapress.com