Great Summer Reads Day 5

E. C. Jackson began her writing career with the full-length play Pajama Party. For three and a half years she published the Confidence in Life newsletter for Alpha Production Ministries, in addition to writing tracts and devotionals. 

Teaching a women’s Bible study at her church for eleven years naturally led to her current endeavor of writing inspirational romance novels and teen and young adult fiction. Her mission: spiritual maturity in the body of Christ through fiction.

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Love at first sight. It’s every girl’s dream. 

But Tara Simpkins is finding out it’s not as easy as it seems. Is this truly the man God sent to be her husband, or is she just desperate to escape her loneliness? The recent loss of both parents has left her reeling, and close friends don’t think she’s in any position to make major life decisions. 

She and her new-found love are convinced they can live happily ever after in the home of their dreams. His family thinks he’s moving way too fast and might disappoint the kind-hearted woman he’s fallen head over heels for. And then there’s Leah. Leah is supposed to be part of his past, but what if she decides she’s his future? 

Tara’s match made in Heaven may be over before it truly begins.

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Q&A With the Author:

1.     Tell us about things you enjoy — what you do for fun or personal satisfaction besides writing?

a.     I am an avid reader and enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles. Contrary to upcoming answers, I like a lot of alone time.

2.     When did you first realize you were an author?

a.     I’ve enjoyed penning stories since elementary school. The spark to write grew along with me, and unlike other ideas I’ve had, no obstacle I encountered quenched the desire.

3.     Have you done anything writing-related, but besides actually writing your books, that seemed to get a lot of positive response? Something that encouraged you?

a.     Years ago, I wrote and produced the play Pajama Party, which was adapted into the young adult book Pajama Party: The Story, a companion book to A Living Hope. Knowing that people enjoyed what I wrote kept hope alive. There is something heartening in other people appreciating what you do.

Also, The Certain Hope audiobook and hardcover version are due in March. Audiobooks on my other books will come in spring. It seems that each item I added to my repertoire encouraged me to branch out further. When I added hardcover versions to my book format is a prime example. 

4.     What is the thing you struggle with the most while writing? And how do you defeat it?

a.     I read a lot of regency romances and have to resist the urge to have my contemporary characters speak with formal dialogue. Each character draws me into their story and stymies writer’s block. I haven’t ever experienced it. May it never come.

5.     What is the “message” of your writing? 

a.     “The Write Way: A Real Slice of Life” is the slogan on my website and Facebook author page. If every person reading my book feels connected to the characters, my job is done.

Spiritual maturity is the message. In my opinion, spiritual maturity teaches us how to weather life’s storms and thrive with the victory. Realistic characters with everyday problems is the goal with each book.

6.     Are your characters/stories/scenes, etc. based on anything in real life?

a.     For me, observing human nature is a part of true living. So, fully developed characters have found a place inside each story. I love to write about everyday life. Those little decisions we overlook can have long-reaching consequences.

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Great Summer Reads Day 4

Through a crazy twist of fate, Caroline Clemmons was not born on a Texas ranch. To compensate for this illogical error, she writes about handsome cowboys, feisty ranch women, and scheming villains in a tiny office her family calls her pink cave. She and her Hero live in North Central Texas cowboy country where they ride herd on their three rescued indoor cats as well as providing nourishment outdoors for squirrels, birds, four feral cats, a fox, a raccoon, and two possums. 

The books she creates in her pink cave have made her an Amazon bestselling author and won several awards. She writes sweet to sensual romances about the West, both historical and contemporary as well as time travel and mystery. Her series include the Kincaids, McClintocks, Stone Mountain Texas, Bride Brigade, Texas Time Travel, Texas Caprock Tales, Pearson Grove, and Loving A Rancher as well as numerous single titles and contributions to multi-author sets. When she’s not writing, she loves spending time with her family, reading her friends’ books, lunching with friends, browsing antique malls, checking Facebook, and taking the occasional nap.

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A destitute widow; a reformed con man; the danger that links them…

Betsie Galloway Hirsch has escaped Memphis with her son. Her gambling husband tricked the wrong people and they’re demanding Betsie pay his debts—or else. She’s come to Kincaid Springs to stay with her mother and seek a safe place for her son. Being so far from her former home, she feels secure. That is, until danger confronts her.

After 34 years alone, Michael “Monk” Magonagle is falling in love with Betsie and is fond of her son. Monk is certain she is not free of the men her late husband cheated. Although he is not a violent man by nature, Monk is willing to fight for Betsie’s safety. He and the men of the Kincaid family prepare to meet the enemy.

How can Betsie and Liam be protected from the approaching danger? Will she and Monk be able to forge a love that endures or will one of them be silenced forever? What toll will the enemy exact? 

  
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Q&A With the Author:

1.  What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Most of my waking time is spent writing. When I’m not writing, I read, spend time with my husband who I call Hero, lunch with friends, browse antique malls with my daughter, and may even take a nap.

2. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I need two things that help my muse: Cherry Dr Pepper and chocolate, usually M&Ms. Not healthy, but they truly do help me.

3. Do you have any suggestions to help budding authors become better writers? If so, what are they?
My most important suggestion is that you absolutely do NOT let anyone discourage you! Grow a thick skin so you can take criticism of your work without losing faith in yourself. Hone your craft. Find a good critique group of same genre authors who are skillful enough that their critique of your work is credible. Read and, if you particularly enjoy a book, go back and analyze why. Be disciplined and keep writing.

4. Where do you get information and ideas for your books?
In my office I have numerous research books I can use as reference. In addition, I use online sources while keeping in mind not to have blind faith in what I read online.

Ideas pop into my head all the time—I can’t stop them. I love that this happens. I used to worry that I would run out of ideas but now I see that I’d have to live to be at least two hundred to write all the story ideas I have now. If someone is having difficulty capturing and idea, look through non-fiction books available for an idea.

5. What do you think makes a good story?

A hero and heroine who make you care what happens to them and an ending that leaves you with a smile. 

6. Tell us about your favorite summer vacation? Or what do you like to do in the summer?

I’m not a summer person and get sick from the heat. I stay inside and write in the summer. My favorite summer vacation was a guided tour to Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England at the end of summer one year. If I could go to only one of those, I’d choose Ireland.

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Summer Countdown Blitz Day 3

My name is Robyn Echols. Zina Abbott is the pen I use for my historical novels. I’m a member of Women Writing the West and Western Writers of America. I currently live with my husband in California’s central valley near the “Gateway to Yosemite.”

I love to read, quilt, work with digital images on my photo editing program, and work on my own family history.

I am a blogger. In addition to my own blog, I blog for several group blogs including the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog, which I started and administer.

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Will Virginia’s chosen vocation fill the empty spaces in her heart?

It is 1858. With both parents dead, Virginia Atwell lives with her older brother, Jefferson, and his family in Booneville, Missouri. Under the pseudonym, V. A. Wellington, she secretly has been submitting articles to a well-respected investigative journal about controversial topics. To her dismay, she learns her family plans to buy new farmland in the wilds of central Kansas Territory, making it almost impossible for her to continue her clandestine article submissions. More importantly, Virginia is terrified of the prospect of living so close to hostile Indian tribes and dying by their hands because they resent white Americans moving onto their traditional buffalo hunting grounds.

Virginia persuades her brothers to give her a share of their parents’ inheritance so she may attend one of the few colleges in Ohio that accepts female students. There, she finds Avery Wilson, one of her professors and fellow boarder at Bettina Calloway’s boarding house, resentful of female students, conceited and annoying, especially after his criticism and resentment directed towards the author, V. A. Wellington, whose articles are published while his submissions are rejected.

Virginia’s publisher insists V. A. Wellington meet with him in person in St. Louis to discuss a new assignment. When her landlady insists she cannot travel alone, Avery, curious about Virginia’s secretive meeting and unable to resist his growing attraction to the irritating but brilliant student, offers to escort her.

Once the editor discovers his star contributor is a woman, he refuses to send her to write about conditions on the Kaw reservation and the proposed treaty the government intends to impose on the natives. Hoping to favorably impress the editor, Avery offers to pose as Virginia’s fiancé in order to accompany and protect her on her assignment. Her heart goes out to the Kaw, but what can fill the empty spaces of her heart?

Virginia’s Vocation is also part of the author’s Atwell Kin series

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Q&A With the Author:

1.  What do you like to do when you're not writing?

I enjoy reading (that is a given), quilting, and touring, especially in the mountains.

2. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I track my word counts completed each writing day, and I try to reach a goal of 2,000 to 3,000 words per day when I can fit in a whole day devoted to writing. When I really need to buckle down and finish a novel, I move my laptop to the loveseat in my bedroom and work in there.

3. Do you have any suggestions to help budding authors become better writers? If so, what are they?

First, you need to find a writing set-up that works for you. You do not need an entire room for an office, unless you have the extra room and that is your thing. I sit on a couch or loveseat and prop a laptop on my knees to write. I keep my physical research books and notes organized by writing project in baskets I buy at JoAnn’s. When I am not using them, they are on a bookcase or credenza. When I am using them, they are on the couch next to me. I use T.V. trays for extra “desk” surface. Will that work for everyone? No. Find what works for you.

Second, give yourself permission to devote time to writing. Your writing is just as valuable, if not as profitable, as salaried work. It is okay with God to develop the talents He gave you, even if it means you sometimes need to occasionally say “no” to others (especially outside the family) who make demands on your time.

4. Where do you get information and ideas for your books?

Sometimes my story ideas are prompted by the theme of a book series for which I am writing. Sometimes my research exposes me to new information that gets my mind working. Sometimes I’ll visit a historical locality or read something and think, “Hey, I could turn that into an interesting story.” I get the nugget of an idea, chart/calendar things out, and then the characters in my story tell me how the plot is going to progress no matter what I originally had in mind.

5. What do you think makes a good story?

Besides a good plot, characters and setting, I want the story to include some decent ACTION. Every story needs real and believable CONFLICT. He loved me yesterday—oh no, today he doesn’t, so what can I say or do so tomorrow he loves me again? No, no. To me, that is not action or meaningful conflict. Even a romance reader like me who knows the story will have a “happily ever after” ending, wants to have the hero and heroine get into some kind of trouble—often at the hands of others—that leaves me asking, “How are they going to get out of that mess?”

6. Tell us about your favorite summer vacation? Or what do you like to do in the summer?

For several summers, hubby and I have toured the Western states with an RV. A couple of years we took some adult children and grandchildren. The grandkids quickly learned if they vacation with grandma, they visit historical sites, museums, and book stores. I also like to work in some book events or author conventions. 

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Summer Countdown Blitz Day 2

I am a children’s author, but up until a few years ago, I was a journalist and editor. Something rather unexpected sparked my new career as an author—a family trip to Egypt with my mother and two young nephews. We had a great time and I thought I’d write them a short story as a different kind of souvenir…. Well, one book and a planned book series later, I had changed careers. I have now published Book 3 (The Temple of the Crystal Timekeeper) in my MG adventure series Chronicles of the Stone, with many awards for the first book, The Secret of the Sacred Scarab, and a few for Book 2, The Search for the Stone of Excalibur, and one already for Book 3! I also teach online novel writing for aspiring authors and I find that very satisfying. Relaxation time finds me enjoying something creative or artistic, music, books, theatre or ballet. I love doing research for my book series. I love animals and have written two animal rescue stories. I have two adorable (naughty) little dogs called Chloe and Pumpkin, and a beautiful black cat called Bertie.

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 A 5000-year-old mystery comes to life when a scruffy peddler gives Adam and Justin Sinclair an old Egyptian scarab on their very first day in Egypt. Only when the evil Dr. Faisal Khalid shows a particular interest in the cousins and their scarab, do the boys realise they are in terrible danger. 

Justin and Adam embark upon the adventure of a lifetime, taking them down the Nile and across the harsh desert in their search for the legendary tomb of the Scarab King, an ancient Egyptian ruler. They are plunged into a whirlpool of hazardous and mysterious events when Dr. Khalid kidnaps them.  With just their wits, courage, and each other, the boys manage to survive … only to find that the end of one journey is the beginning of another! 

 This is a must-read for Middle Graders keen on action, adventure, and Arthurian stories! 

Cousins Adam and Justin Sinclair are hot on the trail of the second Stone of Power, one of seven ancient stones lost centuries ago. This stone might be embedded in the hilt of a newly discovered sword that archeologists believe belonged to King Arthur: Excalibur. 

However, their long-standing enemy, Dr. Khalid, is following them as they travel to Scotland to investigate an old castle. Little do they know there is another deadly force, the Eaters of Poison, who have their own mission to complete. Time is running out as the confluence of the planets draws closer. Can Justin and Adam find the second Stone of Power and survive? 

A plane crash! Lost in the Mexican jungle! Will Adam, Justin, and Kim survive long enough to find the Third Stone of Power?

With only a young boy, Tukum, as their guide, the kids make their way through the dense and dangerous jungle to find the lost city of stone gods, where the Stone of Power might be located. River rafting on a crocodile-infested river and evading predators are just part of this hazardous task.

Of course, their old adversary Dr. Khalid is close behind as the kids press on. But he is not the worst of their problems. This time Adam will clash with a terrible enemy who adopts the persona of an evil Aztec god, Tezcatlipoca, and is keen to revive the ancient tradition of human sacrifice.  Will they emerge alive from the jungle? Will Dr. Khalid find the third Stone of Power before they do?

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~ Book 3 Universal Link ~

   

Top Ten List:

1.     Travel – I have been fortunate enough to visit many countries but there are still more on my list.

2.     Animals – I love animals and wish I had tons of money to donate to many of the causes I read about. One day, I will!

3.     Movies – I LOVE movies. Detective, thrillers, animal feel goods, historical series, adventure, action, marvel character movies, I love it!

4.     Books – I LOVE books, of course, and still have many of my old childhood favourites inherited from my parents and grandparents.

5.     Music – listening to music, mainly classical and movie themes, is very relaxing.

6.     Theatre and ballet – would you believe it I started out studying drama at university, went to drama school in London and mime school in Paris, came back home and ended up in writing and publishing.

7.     Writing – not just writing middle grade adventures though. I have an alter ego named Arabella Sheraton who writes Regency romances and has actually written more books than I have. Arabella is the proud author of eight books so far. Do I have a problem wearing two hats? Not at all. I love jumping into a historical fiction romance and having fun.

8.     Antiques and collectibles – I have inherited so many beautiful antiques (furniture and collectibles) but that hasn’t stopped me browsing flea markets and antique shops to enjoy the beautiful items of yesteryear and sometimes buy.

9.     Friends/family – getting together with good friends is something that can’t be beaten. I love having friends/family over and making a great dinner for us to enjoy.

10.Giving talks on child literacy – I didn’t start off as an expert on child literacy, but after I fostered and later adopted my daughter Mabel (a disadvantaged young African girl) I had to learn pretty quickly because she came to me just about illiterate at age eleven. From my experiences in teaching Mabel to read, I then was asked to address many institutions and groups on the topic. I enjoy helping parents and teachers to get kids to love reading.

To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 

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Summer Countdown Blitz day 1

An avid gardener, artist, musician and writer, Emily-Jane Hills Orford has fond memories and lots of stories that evolved from a childhood growing up in a haunted Victorian mansion. Told she had a ‘vivid imagination’, the author used this talent to create stories in her head to pass tedious hours while sick, waiting in a doctor’s office, listening to a teacher drone on about something she already knew, or enduring the long, stuffy family car rides. The author lived her stories in her head, allowing her imagination to lead her into a different world, one of her own making. 

As the author grew up, these stories, imaginings and fantasies took to the written form and, over the years, she developed a reputation for telling a good story. Emily-Jane can now boast that she is an award-winning author of several books, including Mrs. Murray’s Ghost (Telltale Publishing 2018), Queen Mary’s Daughter (Clean Reads 2018), Gerlinda (CFA 2016) which received an Honorable Mention in the 2016 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards, To Be a Duke (CFA 2014) which was named Finalist and Silver Medalist in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards and several other books. A retired teacher of music and creative writing, she writes about the extra-ordinary in life and the fantasies of dreams combined with memories. 

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There is a hidden treasure in the grand old mansion on Piccadilly Street, in a place called London, but not the real London of English fame. There’s also a lot of mystery and a murder that’s been unsolved for decades. But it’s the treasure that captures Mary’s interest.

Mary lives in this house along with her family, her Brownie friends and a ghost. When the ghost reveals her secret about the hidden treasure, there’s no stopping Mary, her Brownie friends, or her enemies to searching for this treasure. 

Why the intrigue? Apparently there’s a little bit of magic connected with this treasure. And so the adventure begins. 

Who will find the treasure first?

  
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Snippet:

“Ah! So this is where it’s hidden.” It was the unmistakeable voice of Miss Penelope. The girls shuddered as Mrs. Murray faded into the fireplace and disappeared. Brunny and Briddie turned around slowly to face their opponent. Mary hesitated before taking a cautious, timid look over her shoulder. Rosie moved closer to her friend and looked as well. There she was, in all her evil splendor, Elizabeth and Stocky standing on either side of her.

“And you thought I wouldn’t be watching.” She cackled loudly. Not the cackle that Mrs. Murray did when she tried to laugh, but a distinctly evil cackle that sent shivers up and down Mary’s spine.

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