by Lena Nelson Dooley In January 1984, several publishers came out with inspirational romances–Silhouette, Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, Harvest House, Baker Books, Bethany House. At the time, I was an auxiliary rural mail carrier in Colleyville, Texas. While I was driving the mail route, I created a story in my head, like a motion picture. The first week of May 1984, I went to spend part of an afternoon with a good friend who thought romance novels were a waste of time. While we were talking that day, she asked me if I knew a particular woman who attended church with…
Category: New Releases
This is our archive pageFascinating Friday Feature – A Fascinating Writing Journey
by Diana Leagh Matthews My writing journey has definitely been just that … a journey. I never intended to become an author. One night in 2003, I argued with a family member and thought about just leaving everything behind. As I calmed down, a book idea popped into my head. I got up around 3:00 a.m. and typed up a four-page summary. The next day, I began writing and wondered if I could actually write a book. I heard a voice whisper in my soul, “You don’t know if you don’t try.” I didn’t tell anyone about writing a book…
Fascinating Friday Feature – The Funniest Review
by Linore Rose Burkard The Funniest Review: Thoughts on Reading and Readers All writers know that book reviews can be wonderful, maddening, or anything in between. One day, early in my writing career, I received an unexpectedly comical “review” for my first book, Before the Season Ends. A young lady came to me at church gushing about how she loved it and had lent it to a friend before school began earlier that week. She went on to relate how her friend had started it in homeroom, instantly loved it, and proceeded to read all day—all 310 pages—so that she’d…
Fascinating Friday – Catch the Vision
by Cheryl Schuermann Like many young writers, I once dreamed of writing novels set in exotic places with castles and golden-haired princesses with tiny waists. But more than a half century later, I found myself standing at the edge of a farm pond in the muck helping my grandchildren catch tadpoles. And thinking…wow, I see the makings of a devotion here. When this “I’ll never live in the country” city girl married a boy from rural Oklahoma more than fifty years ago, I didn’t realize how I would come to love the country experience. Soon after Stan and I married…
Fascinating Fridays: Christian Fiction – A Tool for Evangelism
by Patricia Bradley Then the LORD told me: “I will give you my message in the form of a vision. Write it clearly enough to be read at a glance” (Habakkuk 2:2 CEV). The Christian fiction genre accounts for nearly 51% of all faith-based book sales, and I believe it is an awesome tool for evangelizing. Not everyone agrees with me, but think about it. Jesus taught by story—parables—short fictional stories with heavenly meanings, but they were stories nonetheless. Stories that listeners were caught up in because Jesus used characters, items, and events from their everyday lives. His listeners could…
Fascinating Friday Feature – Long Unsolved Family Mysteries
by PS Wells Awarded Mystery Suspense of the Year, Unnatural Cause explores two long-unsolved family mysteries rooted in World War II. My profoundly smart coauthor, Max Garwood, is a patent attorney and inventor. Max pitches brilliant plots to me and I craft a novel from his ten bullet points. Unnatural Cause, the recent book in the Marc Wayne Action-Adventure Series, is equal parts Max’s fiction and my truth. My grandmother was one of ten children who grew up in a small, patriotic burg in the Midwest. When the US entered World War II, her oldest sister’s son, who had been…
Fascinating Friday Feature – The Pony Express Tale
by Donna Schlachter Most people know something about the Pony Express, but few realize it only operated fromApril 1860 through to November 1861. The first ride left St. Joseph, Missouri heading west, andfrom Sacramento, California heading east, on April 3rd, 1860. The idea for a Pony Express was conceived in the minds of its owners because of the possibilityof winning the contract for the overland US mail. Another company, Butterworth, was running asouthern route that took up to three weeks to deliver to the west coast, and Majors and Waddellthought they could beat that time by taking the shorter northern…
Transforming Personal Stories into Powerful Insights
Susan Neal Stories have always been a profound tool for connecting, teaching, and inspiring. Jesus himself used parables—simple stories used to illustrate moral or spiritual lessons. I, Susan Neal, have woven personal and relatable stories throughout my latest book, 12 Ways to Age Gracefully: How to Look and Feel Younger, to help illuminate complex health concepts and encourage a proactive approach to aging. One of the most personal chapters in the book, Keep Your Brain Young, delves into the critical issue of brain health through the lens of my family’s experiences. My mother suffered a stroke at eighty-five, which led…
Fascinating Friday Feature – Glory in the Ordinary
by Cheryl Schuermann I never entertained the thought of writing a devotional book. That is, until I met the church doors. We discovered them in a lonely metal shed on The Farm, the recreational land my in-laws purchased many years prior. Amid flying dust and a thick curtain of cobwebs, my husband and I cleaned the doors with rags just enough to reveal the arched glass panels and heavy brass handles and hinges. Though the doors were not ornate, we found them to be extraordinary. Before he passed, my father-in-law mentioned how he rescued several doors from the old church…
Fascinating Friday Feature – Standing in My Settings
Research is one of my favorite parts of writing, and I took to traveling, if at all possible, to the locations of my novels in the past few years. Actually standing in the place where my story happens has made my writing richer and deeper, as I can weave in the sights, smells, and sounds of a place along with the emotions it stirs up. For my most recent release, What I Promise You, I traveled to Barcelona and Southwest France, and along the way, I picked up quite a few interesting tidbits. First of all was the geography. When…