The San Antonio Romance Authors, fondly known as SARA, took me in when I was a fledgling writer and held my hand through the various revisions of my two novels. Now, we’ve banded together to create Love Fiesta Style, an anthology of seventeen short stories set around San Antonio’s Fiesta, a city-wide celebration that runs for ten days starting April 21.
Way back in 1891, San Antonio held its first Battle of Flowers parade to commemorate the Battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto and the tradition has continued with the exception of a few years off during the World Wars. Over the past 128 years, Fiesta has grown into a far more than a ten-day celebration—events start weeks before and continue even after the official Fiesta activities wind down. Now more than one hundred events feature food, music, military and patriotic displays, sports, the pageantry of the courts and kings, exhibits, and parades, each sponsored by a non-profit organization.
In 1946, Fiesta medals were added to create even more fun. Texas Public Radio states that Fiesta medals date back to 1946. The Texas Cavaliers used to carry little half-dollar-sized coins—the king’s coins—to hospitalized children. In 1961, the now-defunct Joske’s department story, gave the Cavaliers cardboard coin-holders with a hole at the top where ribbons could be threaded. This allowed the coins to be hung around people’s necks. The coins didn’t really come into their own as memorabilia until a lieutenant-colonel stationed at Fort Sam came up with a military-appearing—but Fiesta-themed—medal to hand out during events. These were an instant hit. SARA joined this tradition in 2018 with our first Fiesta medal. Our newest, the 2019 medal, Fiesta Mi Amor, is below, featuring a couple dancing beneath the Texas sun. The center spins to show them dancing beneath a silver moon.
The SARA 2019 Medal
These stories cover the gamut of romance writing. If you’d like to dip your toe into a new genre or trope, Love Fiesta Style offers a bit of everything. In Sophia Isacc’s “Mi Castillo Es tu Castillo” a young woman finds true love as she accepts her destiny in her family’s restaurant. If you like paranormal, “Vampire Masquerade Renunion” by Storm Navaro depicts a long-separated vampire couple find each other. Erin Jungdahl brings us “Medals and Mermaids”, an LGBTQ retelling of The Little Mermaid. My own story, “Fiesta Stardust” features a middle-aged couple getting a second chance at love.
The settings range as broadly as the stories themselves, covering the breadth of Fiesta events: Valero’s Texas Open’s 19th Hole, the Champagne and Diamonds brunch, the Fiesta Arts Fair and the Southwest School of Art, the Fiesta Pooch Parade, the coronation of the Queen and her court, the King William Fair, and Night in Old San Antonio (NIOSA).
The stories, by virtue of being 17 different views of love, are a bit uneven at times, but be brave and dip your toes into the waters of SARA’s new anthology.
********************
Love Fiesta Style is available through Amazon in paperback, ebook, and Kindle Unlimited.
