Save the Date, by Ellen Fannon, is a humorous, contemporary novel, and won 3rd place in the 2022 Christian Indie Awards:
What if you were given the chance to rekindle the flame with your first love? What happened to all those girls who were mean to you in school? Should Hannah Jensen take the chance of attending her high school reunion to find out?
Hannah hasn’t been back to her hometown in twenty-five years. Now a widow raising a teenaged daughter, she has the opportunity to go home for her twenty-fifth high school reunion. The invitation to the reunion stirs up a lot of old memories at the same time she is dealing with loneliness, the challenges of single-parenting a teenager, people who want to “set her up” with eligible men, her own insecurities, and her eccentric family.
The story interweaves the present with scenes from Hannah’s past and her fantasy of “happily ever after” with her high school boyfriend in a humorous and entertaining manner. Her feelings from being “shunned” by the cool kids resurface as she reflects back on her time as a teenager. There are several roadblocks on Hannah’s journey from a teenager through her present. The growing pains and amusing situations in which she finds herself are ones to which we all can relate. As she walks the path of self-discovery, she also discovers the most important life lesson of all–her relationship to God.
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Book Review:
Laugh-out-loud funny! What a joy to slip into Fannon’s rich world of witty writing. Isn’t that a delightful gift from this author who I’ve had the pleasure to read and critique? We all can use a good laugh, smirk, and possible snort (no self-revelation here). A savvy writer, Fannon captures the switchback of emotions in the life of a widow raising an adolescent. Each grips self-discovery in this moving, twisty ride of past and future hopes and well-meaning friends.
~ Chris Manion, on Goodreads
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Award winning author, Ellen Fannon, is a newly retired veterinarian, former missionary, and church pianist/organist. She and her retired Air Force pilot-turned-pastor husband have fostered more than forty children, and have two adopted sons. She has published five novels: Other People’s Children, a humorous account of her experience as a foster mother, Save the Date (3rd place winner of the 2022 Christian Indie Award), a humorous story of a woman considering returning home for her class reunion, Don’t Bite the Doctor, the humorous story of a young woman veterinarian in the early ‘80’s, and Honor Thy Father, Episodes One and Two, a drama of a family torn apart by unfortunate circumstances and how God can turn tragedy into triumph. Ellen’s stories have appeared in One Christian Voice, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Divine Moments, and Guideposts; and her devotions have appeared in Open Windows, Guideposts-All God’s Creatures, and The Secret Place.
Ellen would love for you to sign up to follow her weekly blog, Good for a Laugh, at www.ellenfannonauthor.com