Florence Witkop, Author
Florence has been an elementary teacher, an IT person, has owned (with her husband and 5 kids) a family-friendly resort in northern Minnesota, and at present is helping make and sell fudge and fudge-filled treats, a family business she joined after her husband passed that started with the family recipe for Christmas fudge.
Most of all, though, Florence is a writer.
Her writing journey began some years ago when she was driving through near-blizzard conditions the thirty plus miles to the school where she taught first grade while wondering if there was a better way to make a living. As she drove, she remembered that she’d always intended to become a writer when she retired. After living an interesting life. Later. Well, with the wind blowing the snow thick across the windshield and sending her SUV sidewise, she wondered why she was waiting for retirement. Why not now? So when the school year ended, she said goodbye to teaching, became a full-time, professional writer and has never looked back.
Since that fateful decision, she’s been a ghost writer, written confession stories, done editing, written advertising copy, written some non-fiction articles, written literary and science-fiction short stories, written both novellas and novels, and won the only literary contest she ever entered, becoming Minnesota’s Region 2 Literary Person of the Year.
When the bricks and mortar publishing industry went bankrupt and her paychecks went up in smoke, like many other writers she made the transition to electronic media, eventually ending up in the absolute best place of all, Winged Publications, where she writes for both Forget Me Not Romances and Take Me Away Books. In this clean and Christian-oriented market, she can write the romances she likes to read, the kind that mothers and daughters can read together without either of them blushing!
Her imagination is wide-ranging and takes readers from small towns to the depths of space and into the realm of fantasy, with stories that invoke and celebrate the wonder — and the fun — and the surprises of life and romance.
You can find her on the deck overlooking the forest she loves so much, or online at:
Nature is out to kill her. So is the mafia.
Susanna rents a cottage in a tiny town beside a trout stream where she can lick her wounds after quitting a dead-end job. Royce, a small-town businessman who schedules work around when the fish are biting, helps the pretty newcomer learn how small towns operate.
Then strangers in black cars with tinted windows show up looking for Susanna. She doesn’t know why they are interested in her but Royce doesn’t like the vibes they give off and vows to protect her.
He soon finds himself up against men in black hoodies with murder on their minds as thunderstorms, tornadoes, and a flash flood threaten Susanna’s flimsy cottage. With her inside.
Royce is just a small-town businessman who’s big on fly fishing, small towns, and Susanna. But he vows to keep her safe as both the mafia and the weather do their utmost to end her life. AMAZON
The voice in her head must be obeyed.
Go north, it says. Just get in the car and drive.
So she puts her affairs in order, packs her belongings, and leaves everything behind. She doesn’t know her destination or who is calling but that doesn’t matter. She cannot deny the compulsion.
She soon learns a man she recently met is also following the voice but neither of them know why they are being summoned. Who is summoning them. Where they must go. Or why.
But every journey has an end and every compulsion exists for a reason. What will happen when they finally reach their destination? AMAZON
He has one job. Keep her safe.
After leaving the military, Jace isn’t looking for another job that can get him killed. Problem is, he helped a man in trouble and as a result found himself in the middle of a pharmaceutical war.
He should walk away.
Once he meets the man’s daughter, however, his heart tells him to stay and when she becomes a pawn in that war he’s hired to protect her. The job should be just what he wants – a way to get close to her — except he knows how the protection business works. No fraternization with the client.
But for this particular job, fraternization is not only allowed, it’s strongly encouraged.
He doesn’t know how to react to the unusual clause.
Should he remain cool and distant in spite of that caveat because he’s a nice guy and she’s emotionally vulnerable? Or should he let his heart dictate his actions? AMAZON
Go to small town.
Sell inherited house.
Use proceeds to continue with life plan.
Except the house, a Victorian mansion in the Christmas-themed town of Gideons Park is falling apart and unsellable, so when the tenant in the apartment above the garage who happens to restore old houses offers to fix everything that’s wrong, it’s too good a deal to pass up.
Leah gets a job at the Christmas Store to fund the restoration and soon finds herself questioning her well-thought-out plan for her future while struggling not to fall in love with the hunky man turning her inheritance into a Victorian beauty. Which presents a conundrum.
Continue with life plan?
Or switch to love and Christmas? AMAZON
He saved her life. Now someone wants them both dead.
Zoe survives a rogue wind – a multi-colored, horrific, vortex – only because a total stranger, a guy named Tate with a honed ability to act in a crisis, saves both their lives.
But the wind was more than just a wind. It was a chemical reaction that changed them. They now can read each other’s minds, plus Zoe is newly aware of Tate at a level so deep and personal she doesn’t know where she ends and he begins. And it’s the same with Tate. They are intertwined.
As they struggle to deal with this incredibly intimate relationship, they join forces to learn how and why it happened. They soon find themselves running for their lives on the wrong end of a conspiracy more vast and deadly than they could possibly have imagined. If they are caught, they will be experimented on, after which their bodies will be dumped in unmarked graves.
They have one thing going for them. Tate is former military and tough as nails.
But are his skills enough? Can he keep them alive long enough to actually have the future he didn’t know he wanted until the vortex brought Zoe into his life? AMAZON
She knew the risk. She went anyway.
Hidden in a crevice of Emma’s newly inherited ranch lies a portal to other worlds.
Brimming with curiosity and accompanied by her tough, good-looking, ex-military neighbor, Emma enters the unknown worlds her late uncle had so meticulously tried to hide.
Problem is, exploring is one thing. Returning alive is another thing entirely that requires unraveling the mystery of the portal that binds these worlds together. But how can you do that when you’re fighting for your life?
The knowledge and wealth of a thousand worlds is the reward for braving the dangers of those other worlds but they hold more hideous monsters than she can count and violence is the norm.
Did she make a mistake when she stepped through the portal? And in such dire circumstances, can she trust a man she barely knows? AMAZON
In a blizzard and freezing to death, Elena crawls into a flying saucer that shouldn’t exist but does. She convinces the pilot to let her stay and ends up at a super-secret, remotely hidden facility where she learns about the Atlas Project and the unknown men and women who are the guardians of the solar system.
She joins this elite squad and soon goes on patrol with the very man who didn’t want her in his craft. The man she’s foolishly in love with.
Is she a fool to risk her life fulfilling a dream that didn’t exist until that fateful day? In the vast reaches of space where danger is everywhere, and something always goes wrong will she find the adventure and love she seeks? Or will she lose everything? AMAZON
The ability to read minds can get you tied to a bonfire with the match lit.
When quiet, introverted Anna is convinced by her mind-reading community to become a colonist settling a distant planet because her people believe in helping mankind, she reluctantly agrees. After all, she’s been taught all she needs to know to stay safe and be helpful. Except nothing taught her what to do when the minds she’s reading aren’t human.
She figures the years-long trip to the distant planet will give her time to make friends and fall in love. But half-way through the journey a rogue meteor punches through the starship and lands at her feet. And that’s just the beginning of her problems, from vague whispers in the night to colonists dying randomly with no discernible cause. But she can’t tell anyone what she knows because she doesn’t want to end up on that bonfire.
Can a nice girl who just happens to read minds save an entire colony from unknown alien threats? Or will she get them all killed? AMAZON
Beyond reality lies a different world where survival hangs by a thread.
Be brave and enter that illusive, unknowable place.
Travel with me through the worlds of androids hiding from their owners — cave-dwelling albinos afraid of the world — security robots with itchy trigger fingers — aliens in disguise and on the run — asteroid miners alone and injured — and ghostly women who may or may not be real.
You’ll be glad you took the trip.
Six stories, six unique and totally different trips to the other side of reality:
DELIVERING DEATH
THE GUY IN THE CABIN NEXT TO MINE
THE NEW KIDS ON THE PLANET
THE WORLD OUTSIDE
IN NEED OF REPAIRS
A LITTLE LAKE MUSIC
Warning: suggestive themes AMAZON
Welcome to an anthology of clean, contemporary women’s stories.
They all take place in fly-over country. You know where I mean. That place in the middle of the USA that people from the coasts fly over when going from one coast to the other. The part of our country they don’t notice because they are napping or reading or talking with their seatmates.
Do they even know we exist?
We do and we love our prairies and cities and small towns and wilderness. Our lakes and rivers and farms and a pace of life that varies from slow-as-a-Missouri-mule to frantic.
The women in these stories – the women of the Midwest — are true-to-life and proud and the situations they find themselves in are the kind that can and do happen any and every day here in fly-over country.
Ask anyone from the Midwest. They’ll tell you. AMAZON
Ani sees ghosts. She talks to them. Then she puts them to work.
Problem is, they want something in return.
Ani had better do as they say or her aunt’s stolen jewelry will never be recovered. But how can she give them what they want when she can’t even recover a missing dog? And since when did finding a wife for an orphan’s uncle become a case for a private investigator even if she is licensed and everything? And what mysteriously changes her ‘Ani Leland Investigations’ sign to ‘After Life Investigations?’
Yep, it’s the ghosts and be careful what you ask for because you just might get it. AMAZON
Why would the ghost of a colonial witch contact her modern-day heirs?
Dare they find out?
Lora is the historian helping her friend untangle the twisted strands of magic and mystery that are making her sick but Lora’s search is mostly intellectual. Jason’s is simple curiosity. Julie’s is a matter of life or death. None expect what happens. Only one can follow the directions and create magic and there are no guarantees. Is it worth the risk? Will they survive?
If you like ghost stories, American history, New England’s incomparable countryside, and friends and family going back many generations, then you’ll love The Legacy. AMAZON
Who stole spring?
When bumbling Guardian Angel Maude is sent to Earth for an April assignment, she expects green grass and flowers instead of the sea of mud that’s Minnesota in spring but
with the help of a mangy, multi-colored dog she’ll do her best to get two people together who have absolutely nothing in common.
But how can she complete her assignment when she’s cold, shivering, covered in mud and telling everyone she’s an artist when she can’t paint a decent picture? Can she possibly
succeed? Or will she mess things up beyond repair?
If you like small towns, guardian angels, clean romances, and happily-ever-after, then you’ll love this story of an angel trudging through mud, mistakes, and mis-steps to
spread happiness and love in her own unique way. AMAZON
Can the wilderness heal?
Can the peace of the deep, cathedral-like forest help a disturbed child?
Rae Brown returns to her forest home after losing her job, unaware that a traumatized child has come along as a stowaway. When Rae discovers Sheila, she is distraught. She has enough problems.
But Rae knows the power of the elemental forest and accepts the challenge of helping this hurting child. What she doesn’t count on is having the precocious girl play matchmaker, wanting to turn Rae and the man across the road into her real life parents.
And what about that hunky neighbor, anyway?
If you like small-town romances, the amazing intricacy of relationships, the peace of primitive forests, and happily-ever-after then you’ll love The Healer. AMAZON
Two days.
Longer and they’ll run out of food – and starve.
If they leave, the blizzard may take them quicker.
What to do? How to survive?
Two people are stranded in the wilderness in a blizzard. They must make a decision while there’s still time. Jase’s bad leg complicates everything but Laurie’s secret knowledge may save them. If it’s for real.
Once they decide on a course of action and carry it out, what will happen?
If they survive, what about the future?
Read this story and fall in love the north woods in winter with all its beauty and danger, to pray for two people dealing with the awesome but uncaring forest and, if they survive, to cheer for what happens next. AMAZON
How long can a toddler lost in the wilderness survive once the temperature drops below freezing? How can a normally sedentary woman convince searchers that she—and she alone—can find the child before it’s too late?
Anna Reilly grew up in the wilderness and knows it like the back of her hand. Just because she’s not a macho tomboy doesn’t mean she can’t make her way in the forest but she’s away when three-year-old Bobby Deal goes missing and search parties are formed. When she returns, she’s relegated to pouring coffee and handing out donuts. But she knows how to find the missing child if she can only get past the guards keeping throngs away from the forest lest they, too, become lost and make things worse. If only, somehow, she can get into the forest and start looking. She is determined to do her best to save Bobby’s life and her chance comes when she sees Max Colton, her childhood friend who’s stood up for her since they were kids. He’s emerging from the forest to take a break from searching. With his help, she slips into the forest she knows so well and finds Bobby. But finding him is just the beginning. What happens next turns her life upside down.
Another story by veteran story-teller, Florence Witkop, peopled with her signature nice, normal people in situations they didn’t look for who are way too busy to fall in love — but do so anyway. AMAZON
More than anything, Abby Carr wants to own the house in the forest where she spent many happy, childhood summers and she can have it if she follows the rules her grandmother laid out for owning it.
Having quit her job and moved to the north woods of Minnesota to live there and eventually own the house in the forest, she moves in — and realizes her grandmother wasn’t specific about the requirements. Exactly what does ‘living the old way’ mean? And how can she ‘make a living and become a permanent resident’ when she can’t find a job? But she’ll do her best. Until, on her very first day, she gets between a mother bear and its cubs and barely escapes with her life. Things go downhill from there and only the help of her hunky neighbor promises to get her through the year alive and undamaged.
Bruce Merriweather grew up in the wilderness and pretty much knows everything there is to know about living there and is willing to tutor Abby if she’ll pay for the lessons with her to-die-for muffins, which he dearly loves.
Muffins? Really!
With no other options, she reluctantly agrees, ignoring his effect on her libido because both of them are too busy surviving in the forest to have time for romance. But romance has a way of sneaking into any and all hearts and Christmas in the forest is the perfect time and place for love. AMAZON
What if you went for a walk and brought home a man from another era? Impossible, you say! Sometimes the impossible happens.
When Carey finds an unconscious man among the wildflowers on her farm, he awakens knowing only his name and what her farm was like a hundred years ago. He’s clearly suffering from amnesia and ‘something else’ that the doctor doesn’t understand, but when the doctor tells Carey he’ll recover his memory faster in familiar surroundings—and the farm is familiar– she offers him a place in her home to avoid sending him to an institution, not dreaming how important he’ll become as time passes, both to her business– and to her heart. But, as his memory returns, they realize the ‘something else’ that the doctor didn’t understand is that he’s from the past. He traveled in time. And may do so again, separating the new lovers forever. AMAZON
Welcome to Johns Falls, Minnesota, where everyone knows everything about everybody, often before they know it themselves. So it’s not surprising that two people who are falling in love are the last to know, even though everyone’s talking about their romance and asking them personally for the lurid, juicy details. (Of which there aren’t any because this is a clean, fun romance.) But for the lovers to deny there’s a romance even after being told straight out that they are in love? That’s beyond belief. Meet Becky, dedicated small-town career girl following her pre-determined course to be the best bookkeeper in the area and now, with the blessings of her boss and all-around nice guy Tobias Whittaker, she’ll also be a genuine business consultant with a framed diploma on the wall as soon as she finishes an online course that she’ll fail without help from someone who understands the nuances of the people side of small town businesses. Enter Jackson, hunky, former football jock and newish, charismatic owner of the lumberyard in town whose charm can convince the must obstinate customer to buy something, whether that customer knew he wanted it or not, and whose boyish smile can subdue even the most stubborn heart but who can’t keep his books straight no matter how hard he tries. Add one small, black cat with a mind of its own into the mix that’s not about to watch his two favorite people live without each other one second longer than necessary. Then, along with the entire town of Johns Falls, Minnesota, sit back and enjoy the action. AMAZON
Recently jilted, Chloe Brown is back home in Johns Falls, Minnesota, working for her aunt selling furniture and other garden paraphernalia until she can recover emotionally, after which she’ll leave.
When she discovers a family of Mallard ducks in one of the huge vases in the outdoor portion of the store, her aunt agrees to let them stay because protecting the ducks is taking her niece out of her severe depression.
Soon Chloe meets Ryan, short-term, interim manager of the Johns Falls newspaper. The two agree to support each other during this temporary, small-town stage of their lives, after which they will happily leave Johns Falls and each other. They find themselves sharing confidences, but Chloe has sworn to protect the duck family and keep them safe, so she keeps their existence a secret lest Ryan write about them in the paper, because a story could bring unwanted publicity, too many visitors, and possibly danger.
But secrets have a way of being uncovered, especially by experienced reporters.
And love isn’t temporary. AMAZON
Charlie, forester, guides her boss and the owner of Macallister Outdoors to a tiny lake in the middle of a wilderness tract he recently purchased so he can see with his own eyes the spirit that legend says lives there and uncover the truth about it.
Suddenly, a rogue storm destroys the dam that created the lake, the surrounding forest, and much of their equipment. They are stranded.
Then they see the spirit and hear it sing. It’s real, it’s beautiful, and it will die when the lake drains dry. They resolve to patch the dam and save the lake and the spirit. As they work, they learn about the spirit of legend and about each other, while deliberately ignoring the growing attraction between them, because a romance between boss and employee is always a bad thing.
But some spirits can do more than just sing and look lovely.
And romance has a way of developing even when it’s not wanted. AMAZON
Jane, who dislikes wolves because they kill her livestock, takes Buck Portman, wolf researcher and wildlife professor at a nearby college she attends, to an island to seek out the huge wolves of legend … the dire wolves of prehistoric times … that local fishermen say they’ve seen there. She’s skeptical until a huge wolf runs through their camp and mentally connects with Jane and invites her to visit so they can sort out this strange mental phenomenon that neither of them expected.
Jane follows the wolf and Buck follows her into another world, another dimension, one populated by larger-than-life dangerous animals, including the wolves of legend. Her mental connection to the alpha wolf is all that keeps them alive in this dangerous world and when they return, at the request of the alpha female, they take with them an injured wolf pup to be healed.
The pup heals nicely… but as it grows, will it remain a pet or will it become a dangerous predator in a world where it doesn’t belong?
As the attraction between Jane and the professor grows, so do the problems inherent in having a huge, prehistoric wolf in today’s world. AMAZON
Elle Olmstead isn’t your normal, every-day botanist. She’s different. As a descendant of Ceres, goddess of the harvest and fertility, she, like others of her family, has a magic touch with plants. Real, honest-to-goodness magic. Which is why she unwillingly stows away on the Destiny, a space ship filled with ten thousand colonists heading for a distant planet. Because she knows that her abilities are essential to keep the plants alive that keep the colonists alive and that will be the basis for their survival when they reach their destination.
She’s caught and thrown in prison, where her powers are useless. Soon the plants begin to shrivel and die. Starvation is imminent, not to mention that the plants provide essential oxygen. But no one believes her when she tells them who she is and what she can do, especially not Cullen Vail, the one person she has come to like, maybe even love. Because Cullen is head of Security, an inscrutable, military type who has no time for stowaways and doesn’t believe in foolish legends.
She lied before, why should he believe her now? But somehow she must persuade him of the truth or ten thousand people will die. AMAZON