Showing results by author "Patricia Steele" in All Categories

Are you passionate about making a difference, but struggle to measure the impact of your work? Do you wrestle with demonstrating to others the outcomes of your organization’s efforts? In Data for Good, Patricia Steele proposes a method to harness the power of data to reshape your nonprofit, educational institution, or social impact business into a dynamic force for positive change.

Many people know that they have expertise and skills to offer other businesses. They dream of starting their own company, but one thing holds them back: fear. With this fear comes unanswered questions: How do I get started? Who do I need to contact? How much should I charge? How do I put together contracts? How can I stay productive and sane working on my own? And this big question: Can I make a living? In this compact guidebook, Patricia Steele addresses these questions and much more. Using her own experiences and those of others, she explains and demonstrates six basic steps to becoming a...

Widowhood is all encompassing. For my husband, the past few years had been sad ones; he had been very ill. For me, watching him suffer was difficult. After he died, my emotions were conflicted. Sad, happy, relieved, sad again and then accepting that my life would change and so would I. It had been three years since I’d first flown to Spain with my brother, Steven and written Touching Spanish Soil. And now, I decided it was time to go again; alone because Spain called and I listened. A three-month sabbatical lay ahead, the maximum time in Spain allowed without too much red tape. Three ...

Mind the Gap in Zip-It Socks is a humorous travel memoir. Two American women turned loose in England find themselves lost in the maze at Leed's Castle. They are awed inside Canterbury Cathedral, where an aged priest takes them into a private chapel. And Stonehenge? They are mesmerized with the magical mystery of its existence. The ladies quickly learn that the trains in England are a mystery of their own, but they persevere and walk the sands of Folkestone and eat fish and chips in the charming village of Rye.

When Isabel Silvan emigrated from Spain on the Orteric in 1911 with her family against her wishes, she faced the dangers and foreign culture of a new world. After falling in love with a fellow Spaniard during the voyage, she later endures multiple heartaches, leading her into an arranged marriage. She silently vows to chase the illusive mystery of duende, which she fears she left behind in Fuentesaúco, but her road is complicated. Seeking Duende in America is about the travails of this Spanish woman later in Vacaville during Prohibition when the Roaring 20’s speakeasies kept alcohol ...

Across the miles of Spain, through the flowers of Hawaii and into the state of California, a little girl followed her family and found a life unimagined and a man to share it with. Hawaii! It was 1911. They left everything they knew — sometimes even everyone they loved — to start a new life in a faraway land called Hawaii and later in America. Their immigration story is epic, filled with tragedy, triumph, adversity and love. Loss and promise. Studying Spanish history and the massive immigration resources helped paint a rich portrait of the people who came here and the the lives they ...

When a woman wants to celebrate her divorce, she invites her mother to France. She's ready to a ticket to flit through Paris, but her mother blithely mentions the Chunnel Train and drifting down the Grand Canal of Venice. What?! Hence, the roundabout trip begins.

A rash of burglaries in the small town of Lark Point, California has a domino effect on a group of local residents; eight lives bound together by honor, betrayal and love. Tangled like Music rushes through the small town like a whirlwind and creates changes that none could have anticipated. Love, mystery, deception, murder, and relationships intertwine to tell the story of redemption and the unraveling of life's tangles. It's a recipe for a song.

When Callie tries to help a teenage child wade through the emotional trauma caused by a demented uncle, she ends up in the path of the monster herself. Pumped full of romance and excitement, Callinda Beauvais returns to America to sell her Oregon house and cottage, so she can move to France. Ready to open a new chapter in her life, she soon learns that the illegitimate child her deceased husband kept from her for years…wasn’t the only secret he left behind. Within moments of returning to her old life, she is thrust into a mystery that reaches into the dark corners of several lives, ...

Two Fathers. Three sisters. A cloisonné jewel box with secrets. When Ashton learns the troubling secrets his mother has kept from him since birth, he loses one father and gains another. When he tries to grant her dying wish, he must trust a stranger who has secrets of her own. Dodging thugs from San Francisco, he focuses on finding answers and soon finds his mother's secret involves more than he could ever have imagined. Rina Silvan fights demons of her own. Ready to open a new chapter in her life, she faces her own challenges and vows to slug through them on her own. But sometimes going ...

Olivia Phillips and Callinda Beauvais never imagined their determination to change Larkspur Insurance Company’s drug card would fuel treachery from within or they’d be fighting for their lives and patching broken bones. Attorney Bram Carle and co-worker Nate Leander work beside them amid a constant barrage of stumbling blocks as they pursue their goal. Havoc reigns when a competing insurer makes a bid for the Canadian drug supplier’s contract and a Senator plays hard ball. Filled with complex characters and relationships, SHOOT THE MOON is filled with highly charged emotion, ...

Chrissy’s song has not diminished over the years And the yellow daffodils still bloom. She was a beautiful child created from desperation, Christina Marie lit up lives and caused others to change their way of thinking. This is the story that shaped a family and taught a woman to fight back, stand up and believe in herself. And a child who was old beyond her years, aching to remain the big sister whom her siblings adored, but knowing her time on earth was numbered.

This is the story of a broken-hearted woman who had been widowed twice in five years and did not know how to unbreak it. I did not know my heart could shatter so many times or into so many pieces. I felt its fragility and despite feeling strong again and again, now I was tired. I couldn’t stop crying. I had no strength left. I had a quiet, cautious hope that maybe someday, I could find my smile again, but for now? Escapism. Spain was where I might heal, close to the sea. I wanted to see the sun dip into the Mediterranean at sunset and feel its embrace. I wanted to see color again. And I ...

When Callie tries to bring Pablo Picasso’s dream to fruition, she ends up in the crosshairs of the Alonzo brothers and their unsavory connections. Callinda Beauvais can almost see Picasso’s dream at her fingertips. First, she struggled to speak halting Spanish. Then she needed to find a buyer for the aged Spanish brandy, Sueño España. Wrapped in Picasso’s dream, she finds a haven in a small village in Spain, Algodonales. Puzzle pieces slide through the Spanish village to bring indigent students the magic of playing flamenco guitar. But there are people who are willing to kill to ...

Scarred by personal tragedy, Callinda Beauvais returns to Provence to help solve a mystery for her French family; embezzled vineyard funds, a missing nephew and a Spanish señorita riding on a cork across brandy bottles supposedly belonging to Pablo Ruiz Picasso. Brimming with tension, Callie enlists the aid of Jules Armand and finds a shocking secret among the ashes of her dead husband’s past. And she finds a gift she’s always yearned for. If you like a bit of romance woven into your mysteries, with a touch of Picasso, you’ll want to read this one. A heartwarming story of a woman’s...

Salud to Spain and my ancestors, both left behind in Spain and in America who make me feel blessed. Stepping back in time was an exciting journey for me where I followed my ancestor’s pilgrimage route through Spain. I gathered Spanish threads of my genealogy and shared the bliss. A labor of discovery and passion, TOUCHING SPANISH SOIL reveals where my DNA awakened, where Spaniards embraced tradition and culture became real. And where the Tortilla Española is perfect. I found two sides of my family tree and it’s an ongoing process. But the romance, charm, amazement and sparkle of ...

After Detective Isabel “Isa” Saffron’s gunshot injury, she crashes and burns when she is told that she shot and killed a teenager. In an alley. She barely remembered adrenalin, pain and anger. Now, many weeks later, her memories are lost. Her assignment was to melt into the community, infiltrate a gang of teenagers; her job was to find its source. Recurring dreams tease her festering desire to remember events while undercover. And whose red stilettos are in her closet? She only remembers one person from that lost period in time. And she has disappeared. To push through the other side ...