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Back As Seen on TV Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  43. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  44. Chapter Forty
  45. Chapter Forty-One
  46. Chapter Forty-Two
  47. Chapter Forty-Three
  48. Chapter Forty-Four
  49. Chapter Forty-Five
  50. Chapter Forty-Six
  51. Chapter Forty-Seven
  52. Chapter Forty-Eight
  53. Chapter Forty-Nine
  54. Chapter Fifty
  55. Acknowledgments
  56. Discover More
  57. About the Author

My intense concentration drowned out the clunky sound Mom’s boots made as she walked through the living room from her bedroom to the kitchen and back again while she got ready for work. I shooed away her attempts at conversation with apologetic gestures toward my laptop. By the time she bent down to kiss me goodbye on her way out, I had to pee so bad it hurt. But I had an idea for my next story—my big, career-making breakout story.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The Heart of TV in your own backyard.

Close your eyes and picture a quaint small town. I’ll bet your visual includes a main street lined with family-owned shops and a town square with a park running through it. The locals are happy, perhaps a little set in their ways and quirky, but loyal and devoted to the town, its people, and its traditions. Now imagine this hidden gem threatened by the arrival of a wealthy and powerful businessperson, an outsider bent on wiping out everything that makes it unique.

It sounds like the plot of a Hallmark movie, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. It’s also a real-life story playing out sixty miles north of New York City. The town is Pleasant Hollow. The intruder is city-based real estate tycoon Andrew Hanes.

From my uncomfortable wicker chair in the café during my break later that afternoon, for the umpteenth time, I read the next paragraph, in which I’d presented my idea to do a feature on the charming and picturesque town of Pleasant Hollow, its residents, and their reaction to Andrew Hanes and the construction of The Hollows.

Was Derek reading it right now? He’d only commission me to write it if he saw, like I had, the allure of the feature. I’d stressed the massive appeal to the pop-culture-obsessed readers of Tea. Who could resist the story of a real small town living out a TV plotline?

Then I’d done the unthinkable. I’d granted him a forty-eight-hour exclusive, threatening to cast a wider net if I didn’t hear from him by then. Whether the confidence had come from lack of sleep, overcaffeination, or actual belief in the strength of the story was anyone’s guess, but I was too anxious to chance the standard wait time of between one hour and three months to hear back. The article also had an element of urgency to it, given the increased interest in Hallmark movies during the channel’s Countdown to Christmas season. I’d mentioned this specifically to cut off another rejection by DerDick based on “bad timing” if we waited until after the New Year.