New Year's Promise
Six chapters - $7.95

April Hill does it again, this time with the hilarious adventure of a pleasant trusting husband and his - ahem - rather spendthrift wife. Christmas brings out the worst in many of us - and it also brings out - again and again - our credit cards, checkbooks, and ATM cards. Problem is... when the holiday is over - the bills aren't.

Meg and David have had a serious talk every year after Christmas - every year, when the Christmas budget has been "busted" by astronomical factors. This year - something else is going to get "busted," to wit, Meg's butt. "You bounced thirteen checks, six of them twice, " states David. Things have to change.

And this resolution is only reinforced when Meg and David - with their four darling children - attend the worst New Year's Day Party in all of history - featuring the mother-in-law from hell, cousins from the great beyond, and lecherous uncles.

And so begins Meg's New Year Promise leading into Meg's Year of Change. Will it be successful? You'll have to read the rest to find out...

April Hill: In Full Bloom
8 Stories - $12.95

April Hill has been writing for Bethany's Woodshed for over a year, and in that time she's become well known for her wonderfully humerous contemporary stories. We're happy to offer here eight brand new exclusive stories by April. The free sample story, "Sculpture Garden," (click Chapter One above) is not part of the collection, so when you buy you will get EIGHT total brand new stories.

“An Officer and a Gentleman” - In which four Southern belles try their hand at treachery, only to find out in the MOST painful and ungallant manner that chivalry IS truly “gone with the wind,” and that THIS particular Yankee Captain “frankly doesn’t give a damn” that they claim to be ladies.

“Puppy Love” In which a wife bent on finding romance for her lovelorn St. Bernard finds herself stuck with a houseful of unwanted puppies, ONE very irate spouse, and WAY too many wooden spoons and leather belts in the same house.

“Desperate Housewives” In which no one is actually murdered, but in which two young women bent on industrial espionage BOTH get “bent over” to pay a painful price for their misguided caper.

“Hook, Line, and Spanker” Claire and Donna learn that some men just AREN’T especially good sports about having their fishing vacation sabotaged.

“A Work in Progress” MANY artists use brush on canvas, but this young artist’s husband gets EXCELLENT results with a stout hairbrush, applied to the lazy artist’s bare bottom.

“Pumpkin Hill; The Saga” Opening a “bed and breakfast” promises big bucks, but when the deal goes bad, it results in maxed-out credit cards, two irate husbands, and two entrepreneurs who “end up” taking a real “beating” in the real estate market.

“The Paper Trail” In pursuit of a college degree, this procrastinating co-ed finds that her college professor husband has his OWN system for seeing that her homework gets done.

“Something Borrowed, Something Blue” The jittery bride is impossible, the groom has already borrowed up to the hilt, and the damned “stick” turning blue has REALLY complicated things. When his overwrought beloved balks once AGAIN at the altar, the exasperated groom borrows a hefty wooden ruler to encourage “Bridezilla” to FINALLY say “I do.”

Doing It Sam's Way
7 Chapters - $7.95

This book, written by a lifelong friend of mine, MIGHT have been called “The Diary of a Spanked Housewife”. Joanna Miller ( a pseudonym) has kept a charming five-year diary of her “adventures”, as she and her husband “Sam”, meander down the new and often confusing path of Domestic Discipline, trying to deal with a familiar series of problems and questions. Sometimes touching, and often hilarious, Jo’s Diary follows the daily trials and growing insight of a loving, devoted couple who are sometimes overwhelmed by three badly behaved kids, speeding tickets, a bald, asthmatic hamster, “vacations from hell”, annoying in-laws, and exploding turkeys.

“Being spanked,” Jo observes, “can be a remarkably funny experience, looked at in the proper light, and from an adequate distance. A lot like thirty eight unmedicated hours in hard labor.”

A once successful working woman, now a frustrated soccer-mom “working” her way inexorably DOWN the ladder of success, Jo agrees, with Sam’s “help”, to try to rein in her tempestuous temper, her exhaustive vocabulary of Anglo-Saxon expletives, and her worst habit….smoking. “On good days, “ Jo describes her smoking “I was like a burning junkyard full of smoldering truck tires.”

When Sam comes up with the idea of Domestic Discipline, Jo agrees ( although Jo says “agreed” is probably too generous a word. She likes “hoodwinked” better. ) Once begun, Jo finds that “Doing It Sam’s Way “ IS rewarding, (in the “end”), but a little more complicated, and a LOT harder on her on her own rear end than she had been led to believe.