Coming Home to Magnolia Bay - Release Tour and Giveaway

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

Coming Home to Magnolia Bay
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Book 3
by Babette De Jongh
Genre: Small Town Contemporary Romance 

People and pets find their forever homes in this charming small-town romance from Babette de Jongh featuring:

*A single mom doing her best
*Her young son who needs a helping hand
*An animal trainer who might be the answer to their troubles
*A bustling animal rescue where everyone gets a second chance
*The magic of humans who know how to communicate with animals

Sara Prescott’s eight-year-old son Max wants a dog. But their apartment doesn’t allow pets, and the divorced single mom can’t afford the certified seizure-alert dog Max needs. Instead, she and Max volunteer at the Furever Love Animal Shelter. Max forms a special bond with Jett, a big black bully breed and three-time loser who keeps getting dumped.

Animal Trainer Justin Reed comes back home to Magnolia Bay and visits the shelter to find a dog actor for a TV series set in nearby New Orleans. Justin chooses Jett, but the shelter’s director rejects his application because Jett needs a finally-forever home, not a job with an end date. The shelter’s resident animal communicator proposes a win-win. Justin can use Jett as an animal actor if he also trains Jett as a service dog for Max.

Sara and Justin have no business indulging their mutual attraction. Sara is focused on her son, and Justin will be leaving soon. But Max and Jett have other ideas…


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​Jett’s leash was looped around a lamppost, preventing him from doing anything other than sitting, standing, lying down, and waiting.
Waiting, he knew, was the skill Justin wanted him to learn now. Jett already knew that he would have to be silent, patient, and watchful to go everywhere with Max and take care of him.
Reva had shown Jett mind pictures of what it would be like to sit beside Max all day at school, and Jett knew he could do that. He had already mastered the skill and was more than ready to learn the next thing, whatever that might be.
The only way he could communicate that to Justin was to demonstrate the ability.
Unfortunately, Jett really, really had to pee.
He’d been taught to only pee on grass or dirt, and neither of those surfaces existed as far as he could see. Concrete and cobblestone were the only two surfaces his feet had touched since Justin had clipped the leash to Jett’s collar and given a command Jett had never heard before: Voraus.
Jett didn’t know the sound, but he knew what Justin wanted, so he hopped out of the truck. Afterward, Justin took Jett on a short walk and gave a command Jett understood: Go Potty.
Justin gave the command several times, but he never took Jett to a patch of grass or dirt. The conflicting messages confused Jett. He didn’t want to make a mistake, so he decided it would be best to wait for Justin to take him to an appropriate surface for relieving himself.
But instead, Justin had taken him to meet many people—and some other creatures he had never seen before. Then Justin tied him to this lamppost to learn something he already knew how to do: Wait.
Was it part of Jett’s training to wait quietly while desperately needing to pee? Reva had shown Jett that he would have to sit quietly beside Max in school, but she hadn’t mentioned whether Max would take him to an appropriate potty surface beforehand.
Jett would have to ask Reva about that the next time she popped into his head.
After an eternity, Justin came back and unhooked Jett’s leash from the lamppost. “Good wait.” Justin gave Jett a quick head scratch. “You wanna go potty now?”
He most certainly did want to go potty. In fact, he needed to potty in the worst way. Not only to pee now but also to poop. Jett whined and gave a low tail wag.
“Okay, let’s go.” Justin followed that up with a different sound, “Foos.”
Whatever that meant.
But the slight tug on the leash meant that they were about to start walking, and Jett knew from his previous training that Justin expected Jett to walk beside him, leaving some slack in the leash and looking up often for cues of when to stop or change direction.
Justin walked a long way before he stopped at an anemic patch of short-clipped grass.
Jett squatted to release his full bladder. Normally, he would hike, but this situation had nothing to do with marking territory and everything to do with relieving himself. While he peed, he looked up at a cluster of tall, tree-like plants that bordered the grassy patch. The strange-looking plants had thick segmented trunks that clacked together in the warm breeze.
“Dude,” Justin said. “I’m sorry. I did ask if you needed to go before.”
Jett heard Justin making word-sounds, and he knew he should be paying attention in case any of them were commands, but as soon as he’d emptied his bladder, his next most pressing concern took over his mind, and he sniffed along the ground for a good place to poop.
It seemed clear from the many different scents that a multitude of different dogs had relieved themselves here in recent days. Some came back daily; others had only been here once or twice. Jett chose a spot that hadn’t been used multiple times by the same dog. He didn’t want to start any trouble.
Justin gathered Jett’s poops into a plastic bag and disposed of the bag in a nearby trash bin. The receptacle’s metal exterior smelled of many different urine markings made by canines, felines, and humans.
This, Jett decided, was a very strange place indeed.
They walked another long way past many interesting smells and sounds, and eventually wound up at a loud place where Justin met up with the people Jett had met earlier in the day. He recalled some of the names: Maria, the nice lady with the soft touch and hard voice, and Hank, the man whose big personality was encased in a thick protective energy field.
A big black dog was lying on the ground next to Hank.
“Otis,” Justin said, “meet Jett.” The dog stood and greeted Jett politely, his eyes soft, his tail wagging low and friendly. “Jett, this is Otis. You’ll be working together.”
“God, Mutt.” The small woman pounded Justin’s arm. “You’re such a hoot.”
The two dogs exchanged polite sniffs at both ends of their bodies, and then Otis allowed Jett to lick his muzzle in a show of subservience.
Though Jett was the slightly bigger dog, he paid homage to the older dog whose turf he had invaded. Jett knew that Otis had been here longer because Otis and the place carried many of the same scents while Jett still carried the scent of the animal shelter, even though he’d been given a bath.
Delicious scents were carried on the wind, swirling around the large, umbrella-covered tables where the people had gathered. Otis and Jett were told to lie down under the table and wait.
Otis was also good at waiting.
Without words, Otis showed Jett some of the things they would be doing over the coming days. He showed how the animals in this strange community performed commands while some of the people stood around and watched and other humans ran around in a state of quiet chaos.
None of it made much sense.
Otis agreed with Jett’s sentiment because there were no visible changes to the environment as a result of their actions. But the people were all very happy when the animals followed the commands given by Justin and Paula, who worked together to tell the animals what to do and when to do it.
Otis showed Jett that the work would be fun and interesting and that they would be rewarded in many ways. One of the rewards, according to Otis, was shrimp.
Jett didn’t know shrimp. He put his head on his paws and sent a sideways glance to Otis.
“Shrimp.” Otis sent the word-sound into Jett’s mind again. “It will be our turn soon.”
The people above them consumed food that smelled so good, Jett’s mouth filled with saliva and spilled over. He had never tasted anything but dry kibble in his life—unless he counted the one time he’d raided the trash can and been punished severely by his human, and then later by his intestines.
If the food being passed around on the table above them tasted as good as it smelled, he would do just about anything, even gladly suffer the pain afterward, to earn a morsel or two.
Jett and Otis continued to lie quietly until Justin pushed his chair back from the table and commanded both dogs to sit. He used a slightly different-sounding pronunciation: “Sitz.”
Justin held a pinkish curl of meat between his fingers. “Otis, this one’s for you.” He held the thing in front of Otis’s mouth. “Take it.” Then he gave a new command that sounded like “nimbi.”
When Otis took the morsel and bit down on it, the scent of the treat burst all around them.
Jett sat as still as he could, even though anticipation quivered through him. Justin reached for something on the table. Jett watched, hoping…hoping…hoping… Then Justin held the curled pink treat in front of Jett’s nose. “Jett, this one’s yours.”
It was his turn.
Jett wanted to leap and snap up the shiny shrimp. His front feet wanted to lift off the ground, but he kept them pinned in place. He couldn’t stop from shifting his weight first to one foot, then the other. One, then the other. One, then the other.
Then Justin said the magic words: “Take it.” And “Nimbi.”
Carefully, gently, Jett received the curled pink offering into his mouth, making sure that only his lips—not his teeth—touched Justin’s fingers.
And oooh, that taste, that succulent taste. That taste made sure that Jett would remember the two new commands take it and nimbi.
Justin held out another shrimp to Otis. This time, he only said “Nimbi.”
Jett watched and waited, his whole body quivering with the knowledge that he would soon be given another of those glistening pink morsels.
Jett knew that his current mission in life was to learn the things he had to know so he could take care of Max. He had expected it to be difficult. He had expected it to take a long time. He had expected it to take all of his focus, all of his discipline, all of his motivation to succeed.
He hadn’t expected to enjoy himself. He hadn’t expected to be immersed in such a rich world of sights, sounds, and smells. He hadn’t expected his first lesson to be about shrimp and take it and nimbi.
Justin dipped his fingers in a bowl that smelled like lemons, then wiped his hands on a big square of cloth. He stroked Jett’s head with lemon-scented hands and praised him for being such a good dog. “You think you might like being here with me after all, Jett?”
Jett put his head on Justin’s knee and gazed up at his new best friend, the Nimbi of Shrimp.
He didn’t just like being with Justin. He loved it.

Magnolia Bay Memories
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Book 2 

Babette de Jongh brings you a bright and hopeful romance filled with:

*People and animals who get a second chance
*A community that makes everyone feel at home
*Friends-to-lovers romance that proves everyone deserves a forever home

Struggling widow Heather Gabriel takes a job at Magnolia Bay's Animal Shelter to provide for her family. She isn't ready to be anything more than colleagues with Adrian Crawford, the shelter's new business consultant. But the shelter's animal communication expert Reva Curtis knows there's more attraction between Heather and Adrian 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, Heather and Adrian 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!

"Charming…a satisfying blend of romance and animal cameos."--DEBBIE BURNS, bestselling author of the Rescue Me series

"Babette de Jongh's books are crafted with heart and humor, roaring heat and cuddly love."--JOANN SKY, author of the Biggest Little Love Story series

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Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Book 1

Welcome to Magnolia Bay where:

*The animals interfere in their owners' love lives
*Everyone (humans and animals alike) has an opinion about everything
*The neighbor is as infuriating as he is gorgeous
*And a sprinkle of hope is just the right thing to have you believing in love again

Abby Curtis lands on her Aunt Reva's doorstep at Bayside Barn with nowhere to go but up. Learning animal communication from her aunt while taking care of the motley assortment of rescue animals on the farm is an important part of Abby's healing process. She is eager to begin a new life on her own, but she isn't prepared for the magnetism between her and her handsome, stubborn and distracting new neighbor.

Quinn Lockhart snapped up the foreclosed estate next door determined to renovate and flip the beautiful bayou property. It's all part of a plan to make a financial comeback and reconnect with his estranged son. Definitely not part of the plan is the noisy petting zoo next door dragging down his property value. But getting rid of it becomes more difficult when he falls for the lovely and passionate Abby and bonds with an abandoned wolf dog who's mournfully waiting for his family to return. For humans and animals alike, it will take all the courage they can muster to learn to love again. But that's a journey worth taking—with a little help from their furry friends.

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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**Celebrate National Black Dog Day on Oct 1 with Hear Them Speak!**

Hear Them Speak
A Twelve-Week Course in Telepathic Animal Communication
by Babette de Jongh
Genre: Nonfiction, Pets, Animal Communication

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

Book One: Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay:

These are pictures of my dog Georgia, who stars in Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay
​(and all the other books in the series, too).

Georgia runs the show wherever she goes. Mary Poppins in a fur coat, Georgia insists on having her way, but always (usually) in the sweetest way possible. She hypnotizes humans into doing exactly what she wants, and we all end up doing her bidding, all the while thinking that tossing the ball for an hour was our idea in the first place. Not only did she take over Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay, she insisted on having a starring role in all the other books in the series, too.
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This is a picture of my cat Blue, the inspiration for the cat character Griffie in Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay.

Blue is the inspiration for Griffin aka Griffie. Actually, that’s not 100% true, because Blue is the reincarnation of the first Griffie, but that’s a long story for another day. Blue came to us as a feral kitten with short pure-white fur and huge blue eyes. I had told God that I didn’t want any more long-haired cats, because the first Griffie was so hard to keep groomed. So of course, he came back in disguise. But with good food, a huge vet bill, and lots of love, Blue grew into the 20-pound furball you see here. But while Griffie had to be sedated to brush his long fur, Blue will lie on his back and allow me to brush him for as long as it takes, purring all the while.
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Book Two: Magnolia Bay Memories:

This is a picture of my cat Glenn, the inspiration for the cat character Winky in Magnolia Bay Memories.

Glenn is named after the character in The Walking Dead because he’s sweet but tough. We found Glenn three days into a road trip to meet friends for a vacation in the Florida Keys. A neuter-release feral cat with a clipped ear and a long-healed broken jaw that was visible even from a distance, he was begging for food on a restaurant patio in Key Largo. He wouldn’t let me pick him up, but he did let me pet him, and I could feel his skin peppered with scabs from cat-fight wounds. I ordered something just for him, and while he ate, I asked him telepathically if he wanted to come and live with us, where he would never be hungry again. “I’ll think about it,” he answered. He wasn’t sure he could trust us. We were only in the beginning of a two-week trip, so I told him that if he decided to come home with us, we’d swing past the restaurant on our way back to pick him up. During our vacation, I checked in with him telepathically every day, showing him images of what life would be like with us. He almost said no because of our dogs, but I assured him that our dogs were friendly and wouldn’t harm him. On our way back home, we had to overshoot the restaurant by an hour to take our friends to the Miami airport, and we had made plans to meet friends for dinner, a few hours north in Tallahassee. My husband was willing to add two hours to our trip to please me, but with his scientific/physicist background, he needed assurance that we weren’t wasting our time. “Are you sure he’ll be there if we double back to get him?” I asked Glenn for assurance, and he promised that if we came back for him, he’d be waiting. And he was, curled up in a chair at the table where we’d sat two weeks before. He allowed me to pick him up and carry him to the car, and after a three-day drive home, he settled in and became part of the family (even though after several years, the dogs are still scared to get too close to him).

Book Three: Coming Home to Magnolia Bay:

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.
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