Melanie Dickerson Shares a Recipe

We are very pleased to welcome our friend Melanie Dickerson back to share a recipe with us.

In honor of my new release, The Merchant’s Daughter, and its setting of rural England, I’m going to share my famous scones recipe. Okay, it’s only famous at my church, but still. And you have to eat the scones with the Devonshire Cream and a little bit of strawberry jam, or whatever jam you prefer. Mmmm, yummy. (I know cranberries and pecans aren’t really English, but close your eyes and imagine you’re eating them in a castle in England beside a gorgeous hero with a British accent. That should help you forget.)

Cranberry-Orange Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1/4 teas. salt

1/3 cup cold butter or magarine

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 teas. grated orange peel

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. whipping cream, divided

Jam of your choice

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add apricots, pecans and orange peel. With a fork, rapidly stir in 1 cup whipping cream just until moistened. Turn onto a floured surface; knead 5-6 times. Divide in half; shape into a ball. Flatten each ball into a 6-in. circle; cut each circle into eight wedges. Place 1 in. apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush with remaining whipping cream. Bake at 375 degrees for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Devonshire Cream

6 oz. cream cheese, softened

¼ cup confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup whipping cream

In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually beat in enough cream to achieve a spreading consistency. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours.

Note: Amounts are approximate. Add sugar to your own taste. [I always add extra sugar! Enjoy!]



Melanie Dickerson

We are very excited to have our friend Melanie Dickerson join us under the tulip tree today.

Please join us in welcoming her as she talks about her upcoming book,  The Merchant's Daughter.

Melanie says:
Who doesn’t love a good Beauty and the Beast story?


I’ve always been fascinated with the traditional Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. I even wrote my own short-story version when I was still in high school. I found it last weekend when I was visiting my mother. She made me go through some old boxes of stuff that had been shoved under my bed for the past twen—okay, we won’t say exactly how many years. A lot. Anyway, there was my Beauty and the Beast story, along with a cover letter in an envelope, addressed to a magazine editor. Yep, I was already trying to get published way back then. Too bad I gave up writing right after that, for about fifteen years. Who knows how many books I’d have out right now if I hadn’t quit? Oh well.

As I was saying, Beauty and the Beast has always been a favorite story. I love its themes of inner beauty overcoming the shallowness of external beauty, of character being more important than wealth, and love overcoming evil. And those are some of the themes that surfaced in my version of the story. (I don’t add themes deliberately to my stories. They just seem to show up.)

When I was, ah-hem, quite young, my favorite TV show was Beauty and the Beast, with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. And Disney came out with a great version of the story.
I have also read a few novels that are wonderful versions of the story. A great YA version is Beauty by Robin McKinley. In fact, when I read it I didn’t think I would ever be able to write a Beauty and the Beast story because hers was so good. But mine is completely different in that it is strictly a Medieval romance, no magic, just straight historical romance. Beastly by Alex Flinn is a more recent, contemporary version, also now a movie.

So my book is in good company, I guess. I am always interested in how other authors tweak this classic story. I love taking a classic fairy tale, a few of its basic elements, and expanding on them and making my own romantic story out of them.

So, if you read The Merchant’s Daughter, I hope you like it. I would love for you to friend me on facebook,  or visit me on my website ( http://www.melaniedickerson.com/ )  and check out the trailers for both my books, The Healer’s Apprentice and The Merchant’s Daughter. The guy who does my covers did the trailers, and they are wonderful.

For those who are in the area, I’ll be speaking at the Monrovia branch of the Huntsville-Madison Country Library on November 29th at 6:30 p.m. I should also have some copies of my books to sell if you’d like to get autographed copies for gift giving.

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of Beauty and the Beast, if you’ve read any good Beauty and the Beast stories, and, if you are a writer, how you deal with themes in your books.

Upcoming Guests

I am sure  many of you are checking your calendars thinking, "Did I miss some days? I thought today was Monday, Pantster's day on the blog."  I am equally sure that everyone expected to find a witty, sassy blog that probably included a list of rules for behavior for situation that adults should already know but seem to have forgotten--or worse--choose to ignore.

Instead, you find a blog by me. Believe me, it can only go up for you from here.  In an effort to make sure you aren't too disappointed, I decided to share some exciting news with you.  Since the guest blog by The Guy went so well while we were at the RWA national conference, we have decided to have more guest blogs.  We have contacted many of our author friends, including some very excited first book authors, and we have over ten guest bloggers scheduled for the upcoming months.  Most of them are also going to share a recipe that relates to her book so that will make Recipe Fridays more fun too.

These guest spots will coincide with new book releases so that we can all get the inside scoop on the hottest books before they hit the shelves. (Well, unless your store is Books-A-Million, but that is Pantster's story to tell.)  In the next few months we are going to have visits from Kimberly Lang, Katharine Ashe, Debby Giusti, Rhonda Nelson, Debbie Kaufman, Melanie Dickerson. After Christmas, we'll hear from Kira Sinclair, Missy Tippens, and  Andrea Laurence.  Exciting times indeed!

We look forward to visiting with these authors and think you will enjoy getting to know them and chatting about their upcoming releases.

Is there an author you most anxiously await new releases from?  Has it changed over the years?