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How One What-If Turned Into 2 Series and Why This Year Is the Perfect Place to Start
Back in (ahem) 2017, I had this what-if idea for a short piece of holiday fiction:
What if you could reconnect with a figure from the past? One who has passed away? Have that one last meeting with them? Tell them everything you didn’t get to say when they were alive? Wouldn’t that actually be the best Christmas gift of all?
That what-if became Christmas at Ruby’s:
The book focused on a long-defunct supper club in the small fictional town of Sullivan, Missouri. In that club, the Christmas “spirits” were more than just the dusty liquors behind the bar. Ruby was still there, as were her old regulars.
When Angela returns to her hometown, middle-aged and feeling worse for the wear and less than satisfied in her own life, she drifts back to the old supper club where she spent Christmas Eves with her Aunt Elizabeth. On the other side of the cloudy plate glass window, there they all are: Ruby and her aunt and the regulars, all of them singing and gift-giving and carrying on. The past is alive in Ruby’s Place.
Angela decides to reopen that supper club, in order to give everyone in town the same opportunity to reconnect with their own memories.
That, I thought, was the end.
Except it wasn’t.
In 2018, I found myself itching to go back. Just one more time:
Two book (and two years) after that, I felt for sure I had wrapped the series:
But then I thought…
How, exactly, did Ruby come to open her supper club?
At which point, this happened:
…and I began a new spinoff series, Ruby’s Regulars. Each installment focuses on a new regular at Ruby’s Place:
In Rare Gems, the focus is on Angela’s Aunt Elizabeth (who is also Ruby’s best friend):
Tinsel Town focuses on Walter Drummond, the town banker (and keeper of Sullivan’s memory bank):
In A Troublesome Heart, we learn more about Hetty Bonwit and her husband, two “ingredients” in the magic that powers Sullivan:
This year, in Mistletoe on Main Street, I decided to focus on an entirely new kind of “regular” to Ruby’s Place. This installment centers on Russ Keegan, who only makes a brief appearance in A Troublesome Heart.
Turns out, though, he has a story all his own.
The best part? You absolutely do not have to have read any of the previous Ruby’s Place books to read this year’s Mistletoe on Main Street.
In fact, every single Ruby’s Place book can be read as a standalone. Which means you can read one or two, skip around, and, yes, start with this year’s installment.
This year’s Mistletoe on Main Street is actually a great place to start.
It’s short, sweet, and packs in all the holiday feels.
I’m in the midst of finalizing my files and it will be up and available soon.
Stay tuned…