Once upon a time...
Welcome to
MEADOW LAKE
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Once upon a time...
There was a snowbank. A truck. A man she never should’ve met—then couldn’t forget.
Just five days before Christmas, Charlie’s world veers wildly off course—
in all the best (and worst) ways.
Some fairytales start in a ditch & some princes wear steel-toe boots
'Tis the Season for Not your typical Romance.
Cue Snow Storms, Sass, & Snowdrift Serendipity.
A Snow Ditch Love Story to Melt Your Holiday Heart.
It's a late-in-life love story that goes full four-wheel over the long haul—
Buckle up, at 500 pages, this is only Part One!
Cozy, chaotic, and absurdly real—a new genre mashup of fiction, romance, memoir meets mayhem with wit, grit, and one backroad mishap-maybe-miracle,
Ditchmas is what happens when a flannel-wrapped fairytale
slams into a helluva backcountry redneck romance.
Meet Charlie Harris.
"My Life in a nutshell: Memo. Text. Spiral. Repeat—In whatever order.
When all you really need is an ice patch from hell, a lost purse,
and maybe a guy who won’t stop calling you Princess."
Once upon a time...
Our storybook opens soon here on the farm!
This Holiday Season 2025
DECEMBER 13 SATURDAY
3 - 6 pm
I'm Debbie Hayes, but everybody calls me Deb.
Turns out, I write pretty much how I live—full-volume, full-hearted, and with snow or sh*t on my boots. Twenty years ago, I left Texas with part of my heart still tangled in tumbleweeds. The rest moved to Maine landing on a lakeside farm, where the view is lovely and quiet, the mufflers are loud, but the stories are just getting louder.
My debut novel, Ditchmas, began in a snowbank and hasn't let up. Pulled straight from real journals, real texts, and one very real ditch. What started as a holiday mishap turned into 500 pages of raw, romantic chaos… and that only covers six weeks. (Yes, there’s a Part Two, possibly Three, certainly a sequel)
When I'm not wrangling words, wild ponies, or a weedy farmhouse, I'm usually in plaid, toasting or roasting big trucks and jake brakes from my porch, running my design brand Folk Camp, or talking myself (my kids or girlfriends) through the mayhem of meandering our own path or just off the latest 'this can't be my life' cliff.
I think every woman deserves several chapters, several pairs of boots, write-your-own rules romance, and a life of long-shot luck with stubborn serendipity served up spicy and hot.
If there's a salt-rimmed marg nearby? So much the bettah.
