Dear Readers, 

Welcome to 2026 (this is my first post of the year)! My first guest of the year is an author friend I made through my previous publisher (now out of business). We messaged and then met Carolina Christian Conference in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It's been several years and supporting one another is lovely! So, please join me in welcoming, Colleen Hall.

Introduce yourself—name, where you’re from, and something people notice when they meet you.

Hi! I’m Colleen Hall, and I grew up in New England. In college, I met and married a South Carolina guy, so now I live in the South. I think one of the first things people notice about me is my red hair. I’ve been referred to as “that redhead.” I’ve also been called just “Red.”

Tell us about your book—title and back cover blurb? The title of my latest book is Beloved Enemy. The idea for this book came from some family history. One of my Maine ancestors fought in the Civil War. While he was in the South, he struck up a friendship with a Southern lady. After the war, they maintained a correspondence. My creative brain took that germ of an idea and turned it into a full-fledged romance. A story centered around the forbidden love of two people on different sides of a war has so much possibility for conflict and heartbreak. I just had to write this story!

 

Back-Cover Blurb: “What happens when love and duty collide? When two people in love are on different sides of a war? In an era when honor matters more than life, and duty counts more than love, Booth Slade and Serena Boyd meet and fall in love. He’s a wealthy New England industrialist. She’s a genteel daughter of the South, the young widow of an autocratic banker. When Serena’s reputation is accidentally compromised, Booth proposes a plan to restore her respectability. They embark on a sham engagement, and what begins as feigned affection develops into genuine love. Yet Serena’s deceased husband’s last will and testament casts a dark cloud over their future. When the Civil War declares them to be enemies, the politics, danger, and hardship of the times engulf them. Tangled loyalties test their love. Subterfuge draws them into the secret service’s web. Will Serena make the difficult choice that will betray her beloved homeland to save the man she loves? Beloved Enemy is a standalone Civil War romance. If you love fake relationships, second chances, feisty heroines, and wartime romance, you’ll enjoy this historical love story with a dash of intrigue thrown in.”

Share an excerpt? March, 1865 Richmond, VA Cory laid the hairbrush on the marble-topped vanity after she’d arranged Serena’s hair into its daytime chignon. When someone pounded on the apartment door, their gazes met in the mirror. A visitor at this early hour could only mean trouble. Serena surged from the vanity bench and wheeled toward the chamber door, her pulse jagged. Cory thrust out a hand. “I’ll see who’s callin’.” She shuffled toward the hallway. With her hands fisted against her chin, Serena waited in the center of the room. Something had to be amiss. When Cory returned clutching a folded scrap of paper, a frown pulled her brows together. “Miz Van Lew’s servant brung this note.” Serena snatched the missive and fumbled open the paper. The words scrawled across the page in a feminine hand leaped at her. Your husband entered Richmond two days ago. I regret to inform you that last night as he attempted to leave, he was arrested by General Winder’s police and incarcerated at Libby Prison. His trial has been set for this afternoon, but rumor says he’s to hang at dawn. EVL. Booth? In Richmond? The words on the page blurred, and the room swam in a dizzied fog. A buzzing like a swarm of bees filled her ears. Her vision darkened. Her legs wobbled. Cory wrapped an arm around her and supported her to the chaise lounge. “Put your head betwixt your knees, Miz Serena.” She pushed Serena’s head down. With her head on her knees, Serena closed her eyes and took deep breaths. When the world steadied, she sat up and peered at her maid. “Miss Van Lew says Booth has been captured and jailed in Libby Prison.” She gulped before she could continue. “He’s to hang at dawn.” Her husband had been sentenced to a felon’s death by hanging and not given the dignity of execution by firing squad as befitted an officer. She clamped her lips against the scream that threatened to erupt. A single tear trembled on her lashes and slid down her cheek. Serena swiped away the moisture and straightened her spine. She refused to weep. “I’ve got to do something. I can’t sit here and let Booth die.”

Ask a quirky question or two? I always like to engage the readers. :) Have you had an unusual pet or animal? Please let me know! (My most unusual pet was a ferret named Teaspoon.)

Share your social media and buy links! Newsletter: https://forms.wix.com/r/7181092663729324913 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColleenHallRomance Website: https://www.colleenhallromance.com/ Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Enemy-Colleen-Hall/dp/1965649211?crid=2DETVB41MXFRD&dib

Author Colleen Hall's Frontier Hearts Series Will Charm You!

 Warrior's Heart Book Giveaway!

Welcome weekly readers and visitors from all around! I've a new author for you. One that has never before graced The Diamond Mine. And when I researched her, I was so fascinated with her new book, I bought it! LOL. I love western stories with Native Americans, and that is just what Colleen Hall's book is about. So get your fringed buckskin on and braid your hair, because we're riding headlong across the grassy prairie to learn more about this week's author and her new book, Warrior's Heart.

PT: Introduce yourself and tell us how you began writing.

CH: Thank you, Peggy, for having me. I’ve loved writing ever since I was a child. My mother tells me that I wrote my first story in third grade. In middle school I wrote novels in installments, and my friends read the latest installment on the bus on our way home from school. I continued to write as a hobby until after I married and had children. However, I didn’t get published until about seven years ago when I got serious about being a writer.

PT: What genre do you write in and do you have another genre you’d secretly like to write in?

CH: I write inspirational historical fiction. Sometimes I dabble with the idea of writing a contemporary romance, but I love history, so for now, at least, that’s what I write about.

PT: Describe your writing space.

CH: My writing space is a nook at the back of the house. My husband went shopping with me at several antique stores to help me find the perfect old desk where I could work. After all, if I’m going to write historical novels, my desk should be appropriate for helping to create the proper historical ambiance.

PT: Give us a book/author that is in your top five books.

One of my favorite books is The Outsider by Penelope Williamson. Ms. Williamson has a gift for weaving historical information into her stories to create a vivid “world” that takes the reader back in time. Her characters are multi-faceted and believable. Their strengths and foibles give them so much depth that they seem to leap off the page.

PT: Hobbies?

CH: I love browsing antique stores and hiking with my husband, and I love reading. I also love messing with my horse and riding when I have the opportunity.

PT: Pets?

CH: Over the years our family has had a menagerie of pets, from dogs and cats, a rabbit, lizards, and horses. I love horses and have owned horses for most of my life. Now, we’re down to one horse and three cats.

PT: Favorite foods while writing?

CH: Hmm. . . I try not to snack, ever, but I do love chocolate and will occasionally indulge when I feel like celebrating or if I’m in a tough spot with a plot. Chocolate helps the creative process!

PT: Do you work with silence or music or other?

CH: Silence, definitely! Music distracts me and takes me out of the story.

PT: Do you have a current favorite Bible verse and why has it become a favorite for you right now?

CH: It’s hard to choose one favorite verse, because I have several. I love Psalms because the Psalms deal with so many life issues that we experience. Psalm 139:17, 18 are special to me. These verses remind the believer that the Lord is always with us, and they humble me to realize that God actually thinks about me.

Psalm 139: 17-18 (NIV)
How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.

PT: Tell us about your new release, Warrior’s Heart?

CH: Thank you for buying Warrior’s Heart! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Warrior’s Heart is the book that I didn’t plan to write. Book #3 in my Frontier Hearts Saga was supposed to feature another character, but as I tried to develop a story around this person, nothing happened. I couldn’t get any ideas for this plot. And while I was struggling to develop the story, Wild Wind (a character readers meet in Wounded Heart, Book #2) was in my head demanding that I tell his story. He wouldn’t let me go. 

Finally, I scrapped the initial story idea and gave in to Wild Wind. Once I let him have his way, a story line began to develop. I created a love interest for him named Rose. However, Rose wouldn’t come to life. I couldn’t get her off the paper, and Wild Wind refused to love her. Wild Wind had already met and fallen in love with a woman in Book #2, and he now refused to love anyone else. This created a problem, since between Books 2 and 3, the woman Wild Wind loved had married another man. Wild Wind is such a strong character that he wouldn’t budge, and I couldn’t make him love another woman. 

So, I had to make his love interest a widow and free her to love Wild Wind in Book #3, which meant that I had to rework parts of the plot. Once I gave in to Wild Wind on this final point, the story came together and flew off the page. I guess I could say that Wild Wind really wrote Warrior’s Heart! I find the love match intriguing. 

PT: How did you come up with the idea and the setting for this book and the series?

CH: The first book in my series is set in the South right after the Civil War. In this book, Her Traitor’s Heart, the hero mentions wanting to go West to help with the army’s Indian Wars. It seemed natural to move the story West for the following books, especially since I’ve always been fascinated with the West. I try to put each of my books into a particular time in our nation’s history and explore what social, political, and economic factors influence and shape the characters. Warrior’s Heart takes place during the height of the army’s Indian Wars when white settlers fear and hate the Tribes, and it’s in that context in which I set Wild Wind’s struggles to bridge two cultures and to love a white woman. I thought those dynamics would help to increase the tension in the story.

PT: Tell us 5 things about Colleen Hall that have nothing to do with writing:

CH:

1. I'm a redhead. (Probably everything that you've heard about redheads is true!)

2. I’m left-handed.

3. I’m not mechanical—for me, trying to figure out anything mechanical is like trying to speak Greek. 
4. I’m a New Englander by birth, but I married a Southerner, so I’ve lived in the South longer than I lived in New England.
5. I don’t like coffee.

PT: What’s on the chalkboard for future books? A new series?

CH: My Frontier Hearts Saga will have five books. The last two books feature Wild Wind’s sons—Cole and Rafe Wild Wind. Book #4, Wild Heart, is set during the time of the Colorado uranium mining boom during the Titanic era. Book #5, Valiant Heart, takes place right after World War I, in which Rafe Wild Wind’s war experiences as a “flyboy” fighter ace profoundly affects his life after the war. I just completed Book #5, so I’m not sure where I’ll go from here. I have several ideas, though.

PT: Now, I would ask more questions, but I'm in the middle of Warrior's Heart! But thanks so much for being with us, Colleen! Readers, you can keep up with Colleen here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColleenHallRomance

Website: https://www.colleenhallromance.com/    Sign up for Colleen's newsletter!

and buy her stuff here:

https://www.amazon.com/Colleen-Hall/e/B07BZVNZSD/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1

and find out more about her here:

Bio:
I'm a displaced New Englander who came South to attend college, where I met and married a Southerner. I never returned to the North to live. I now reside in the Upstate of South Carolina with my husband and family, one horse, and two very spoiled cats.

and enter to win by leaving your name on our contact form or leaving a comment with an email to win a copy of Warrior's Heart!

Now, everybody shhhh! I'm reading. (wink)