Author Guest Post with Babette De Jongh: Magnolia Bay Series

People and pets find their forever homes in this charming small-town romance

Welcome to one of the August 30th stops on the blog tour for the Magnolia Bay Series by Babette De Jongh with Silver Dagger Book Tours (schedule linked.) Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for more excerpt features, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Meet the animals that inspired characters in the Welcome to Magnolia Bay Series!

This is a picture of my dog Jed, the inspiration for the dog in Coming Home to Magnolia Bay.

All the cats love to snuggle with Jed.

My dog Jed is the inspiration for Jett, the dog character in Coming Home to Magnolia Bay. I found Jed and his two siblings after they’d been dumped on the side of a country road. I was driving into town when I saw these little ears popping up over the tall grass as the puppies bounded toward my car. I could imagine their little voices calling out, “Hey, wait for us!” I pulled over and got out of the car. At first, I thought, “How cute! They are covered in white spots! I wonder what kind of dogs they are?” They looked, from a distance, like African Spotted Dogs. But as they got closer, I realized that those white spots weren’t fur. They were the crusty, smelly scabs caused by Demodectic mites, also known as mange. I opened the back door of the car and said, “Get in.” The puppies didn’t hesitate. They boiled into the back seat of my car as fast as they could. I drove them straight to the vet, hoping they’d take the puppies, since the vet was (and still is) acting as the local animal shelter. But the vet shook his head. “The mange is too bad. It takes too long and costs too much to treat. They’ll have to be euthanized.” So, of course, I had them all vaccinated, bought the first round of mange treatment, and took them home with me. As soon as the mange cleared up, I found homes for the other two puppies (Jethro and Ellie May). Ellie looked like a chocolate lab, and Jethro was a handsome two-month-old puppy with a sleek black coat and a small white blaze on his chest. But Jed had developed a skin infection, so he was six months old by the time he was ready to adopt-out. By then, he had become just another solid-black, half-grown dog who nobody wanted. Believe me, I tried. I offered Jed to everyone I knew. I tried to give him away at least a hundred times. But nobody wanted a big black dog. So, Jed became my dog. He is, and always has been, a Best Good Boy. But nobody—not even me—recognized it. Because until I finally fell in love with him after a year of resistance, he was just another big black dog nobody wanted.

About the Books

Coming Home to Magnolia Bay
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Book Three
by Babette De Jongh

Published 1 May 2023
Sourcebooks Casablanca

Genre: Small Town Contemporary Romance
Page Count: 384
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

People and pets find their forever homes in this charming small-town romance from Babette de Jongh Small-town journalist and single mom Sara Prather can’t afford the certified seizure-alert dog her son Max needs. The best she can do is to take Max with her to the local animal shelter so he can play with Jett, a big friendly bully breed. Max soon falls in love with Jett, but it isn’t long before Justin Reed, an animal trainer for the film industry, comes to the shelter to find a dog for a film. Justin chooses Jett, but can’t promise him the forever home that he needs. Luckily, the shelter’s owner, who is an animal communicator, proposes a Justin can use Jett as an animal actor as long as he stays at Bayside Barn and also trains Jett as a service dog for Max. Thrown together while Justin trains Jett, Sara and Justin can’t resist the connection between them. But when Sara’s work divides them and threatens to put a stop to their budding romance, Jett will do whatever it takes to keep his new family from falling apart.

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Excerpt

“Close your eyes,” Reva said in an I’m-about-to-hypnotize-you tone. “Allow the seat to support your body. Relax into it.”

Justin sighed, releasing a little of the tension he’d been holding on to. Maybe if the telepathy thing didn’t work, she’d let him take a nap.

“Put your focus on your breath, on the sound of your breathing, on the feeling of the air moving into your body and filling your lungs.”

The sound of the car’s tires receded, and he found that it wasn’t so hard after all to focus on his breathing.

“Now, imagine that your body is an empty straw, and that your breath is moving through you, coming up from the soles of your feet when you inhale…then moving back down through your body from the top of your head when you exhale.”

She paused while he took a few slow breaths. “How’re you doing?”

“Mmm.” He might fall asleep if she didn’t hurry up with the animal telepathy bit.

“Imagine what it would look like if you were sitting in a quiet room with Jett. Imagine it like it’s a movie scene you’re remembering. You’re sitting in a soft, comfortable chair, and you see Jett walk up and sit in front of you. Imagine him giving you his attention as if he’s waiting for your next command.” She waited a few beats. “Can you imagine it?”

“Yes.” But he couldn’t believe that imagining scenes in his mind had anything to do with animal communication.

“Good. Hold on to that scene in your mind. In a minute, you’re going to ask Jett a question. He might answer with words, or you might imagine a visual image like a snapshot or a short movie clip. Or he might send emotions or even the memory of a taste or a smell. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” But even as he said the word, anxiety skittered through him. What if he couldn’t do it?

Even more disturbing, what if he could?

“Ask Jett to let you know where he is.”

Justin’s anxiety intensified. The visual image of Jett and him sitting together in a room had fled his mind, leaving nothing but darkness. Strange swirls of color and light bloomed behind his closed eyelids. “I don’t see anything. Just color and light and swirls of energy.”

“You’re trying to see with your eyes. That’s not the way telepathic images come through. It’ll feel more like dreaming or like remembering something that happened a long time ago. Like remembering a place you’ve been or the way someone’s voice sounded.”

He quit focusing on the swirling energy behind his eyelids and tried to recapture the visual of him and Jett sitting together. A flash of something—like a word he was trying to remember but couldn’t—caught his attention but faded before he could catch it. He made a sound of frustration.

“That’s okay,” Reva said in a calm, quiet voice. “Just start over.”

Once again, he brought that image to mind, of Jett sitting in front of him, waiting for instruction on what to do next. The snapshot morphed into a movie clip… Justin imagined Jett coming closer and propping his chin on Justin’s knee. Justin manipulated the scenario by reaching out and stroking Jett’s head. He imagined himself leaning forward and asking the question again. “Where are you?”

Water. The word popped into Justin’s mind, immediate and clear. Then he remembered going to the river with his parents when he was very small. He remembered being afraid to step into the muddy waves. Afraid that he’d be swept away.

His father had been so angry, so dismissive of Justin’s fears. He’d picked Justin up by the arms and thrown him backward into the cold water. It had hit him like a smack on the backside, then shot up his nose and down his throat when he went under. Anxiety swamped him, and he sat up, shaking his head to dispel the vivid memory. “This isn’t working.”

Magnolia Bay Memories
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Book Two
by Babette De Jongh

Published 30 November 2021
Sourcebooks Casablanca

Genre: Small Town Contemporary Romance
Page Count: 384
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Animal communicator Babette de Jongh brings you a bright and hopeful romance filled with:People and animals who get a second chanceA community that makes everyone feel at homeFriends-to-lovers romance that proves everyone deserves a forever homeHeather Gabriel is a widowed mother struggling to be there for her children. She takes a job at Magnolia Bay’s Animal Shelter and meets Adrian, the shelter’s new business consultant. But she’s not interesting in being anything more than colleagues—this definitely isn’t the right time for a summer affair.

The shelter’s animal communication expert Reva Curtis knows there’s more to Heather and Adrian’s mutual attraction than they let on, and she’s determined to bring them together. With the help of Heather’s three children and all the animals at Bayside Barn, the two soon realize they can have a future together…if they can let go of the past.

Small town romance will never look the same once you’ve traveled to Magnolia Bay!

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Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Book One
by Babette De Jongh

Published 30 November 2021
Sourcebooks Casablanca

Genre: Small Town Contemporary Romance
Page Count: 384
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

An extraordinary new series from an extraordinary author…

Abby Curtis has made such a mess of her life that Rock Bottom is an ambitious climb. With nowhere else to go, she lands on her Aunt Reva’s doorstep at Buckaroo Barn, home to a motley assortment of rescue animals. Reva, a telepathic animal communicator, gives Abby time to reinvent herself by leaving Abby in charge of the farm while she’s away. Abby immerses herself in caring for the animals and running educational programs to teach kids to appreciate and relate to them. Just when Abby is finally starting to feel like herself again, a sexy new neighbor moves in next door, determined to find some peace and quiet, and challenging Abby in ways she never expected. Can she convince her stubborn new neighbor to give the noisy petting zoo next door…and her…a chance?

You’ll fall in love right along with Abby as animals and humans alike find unexpected ways to connect, nurture each other, and thrive.

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More from Babette De Johngh

Hear Them Speak
A Twelve-Week Course in Telepathic Animal Communication
by Babette De Jongh

Published 23 June 2019
Dogs & Books

Genre: Nonfiction, Pets, Animal Communication
Page Count: 374
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Would you like to know what your animal companion is really thinking? If you’re holding this book, the ability is literally within your grasp. Hear Them Speak is an engaging and easy-to-follow twelve week course that guides you through the process of discovering your own superpowers of telepathic animal communication. With real-life examples to increase understanding and tasks to help you practice your emerging skills, animal communicator Babette de Jongh walks you through every step of the journey to claim your innate ability to hear them speak.

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About the Author

Babette de Jongh is a telepathic animal communicator, energy healer, Reiki Master, and award-winning romance writer who has taught ballet, yoga, elementary school, and animal communication. Whether it involves a happy-ending romance, a way of self-nurturing, or help in understanding our companions, the cohesive thread that ties all these things together is a desire to save the world, one happy ending at a time.

Babette’s first romance novel, Angel Falls, won two Readers’ Choice awards. In Hear Them Speak, Babette helps humans better understand their animal companions. In Welcome to Magnolia Bay, a romance series from Sourcebooks Casablanca, a telepathic animal communicator conspires with the human characters’ animal companions to help everyone—humans and animals—find forever love.

All this is only the beginning for a late bloomer who is just getting started. To find out more about Babette, everything she does, and everything she’s up to these days, please visit her website at www.BabettedeJongh.com.

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