by Jason Joyner | Jun 16, 2007 | Blog, CFBA, fiction
This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
As I Have Loved You
by
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nikki Arana is an award-winning author of highly-acclaimed inspirational women’s fiction who weaves today’s social, political, and spiritual issues into her novels. She has received numerous awards, including the Excellence in Media 2007 Silver Angel Award for The Winds of Sonoma.
The book was based on the true love story of how Nikki met her future husband Antonio as he was cleaning the stalls of her parents’ Arabian horses. Nikki and Antonio have been married for over thirty years, have two grown sons, and live in Idaho.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Contemporary Struggles…
…A Single Mom and College-Ages Son.
Leigh Scott is a widowed, single mother who wants the best for her son Jeff. She would like him to graduate from college, land a secure job, and start a family. However, Jeff, who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) at a young age, has a God-given compassion for people. And his non-judgemental acceptance of all has unintended consequences.
Jeff starts dating Jessica, a girl with a questionable past and seemingly non-existent future. Soon, Jeff’s grades drop as quickly as his sober determination to achieve the goals he’s worked toward all his life, and Leigh finds herself caught ina relational tornado
To complicate matters further, Leigh is an author with a looming book deadline, a father battling cancer, and her former boyfriend and first love, a strong Christian Native American, coming back in her life.
Arana weaves a multi-layered, emotional family saga that brings the peril of judgement, the need for forgiveness and the gift of love to light
by Jason Joyner | Jun 13, 2007 | Blog, CFBA, fiction
OK, usually you won’t find any posts about country music here (shudder), but this book looks like it has an interesting premise. Here’s the CFBA take on Diva NashVegas:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rachel is the author of many books. Her current release, Diva NashVegas is the second in a series which began with
Lost in NashVegas. She is also a
Blogger and a CFBA member! She lives in Florida with her husband. Visit her great
profile and learn more.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Even if you are not a lover of country music, you can enjoy this fun look at the Nashville entertainment industry.
What do you do when the past you’ve been skirting shows up at your door with cameras rolling?
Aubrey James ruled the charts as the queen of country for over a decade. She’d rocketed to fame in the shadow of her parents’ death-both of them pioneers in Gospel music. But while her public life, high profile romances, and fights with Music Row execs made for juicy tabloid headlines, the real and private Aubrey has remained a media mystery.
When a former band member betrays Aubrey’s trust and sells an “exclusive” to a tabloid, the star knows she must go public with her story. But Aubrey’s private world is rocked when the Inside NashVegas interviewer is someone from her past-someone she’d hoped to forget.
All the moxie in the world won’t let this Diva run any longer.
“Hauck once again takes us into the country music world, this time through the experiences of mega-star Aubrey James. Aubrey’s life journey is filled with flaws, as well as a great deal of joy, and real life locales makes this highly original story authentic. The extra tidbits – from Aubrey’s liner notes to quotes from the “media” at the beginning of the chapters – add extra sparkle to the plot.”
– 4 Stars, Melissa Parcel, Romantic Times Book Club
by Jason Joyner | Jun 13, 2007 | Blog, CFBA, fiction
OK, usually you won’t find any posts about country music here (shudder), but this book looks like it has an interesting premise. Here’s the CFBA take on Diva NashVegas:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rachel is the author of many books. Her current release, Diva NashVegas is the second in a series which began with
Lost in NashVegas. She is also a
Blogger and a CFBA member! She lives in Florida with her husband. Visit her great
profile and learn more.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Even if you are not a lover of country music, you can enjoy this fun look at the Nashville entertainment industry.
What do you do when the past you’ve been skirting shows up at your door with cameras rolling?
Aubrey James ruled the charts as the queen of country for over a decade. She’d rocketed to fame in the shadow of her parents’ death-both of them pioneers in Gospel music. But while her public life, high profile romances, and fights with Music Row execs made for juicy tabloid headlines, the real and private Aubrey has remained a media mystery.
When a former band member betrays Aubrey’s trust and sells an “exclusive” to a tabloid, the star knows she must go public with her story. But Aubrey’s private world is rocked when the Inside NashVegas interviewer is someone from her past-someone she’d hoped to forget.
All the moxie in the world won’t let this Diva run any longer.
“Hauck once again takes us into the country music world, this time through the experiences of mega-star Aubrey James. Aubrey’s life journey is filled with flaws, as well as a great deal of joy, and real life locales makes this highly original story authentic. The extra tidbits – from Aubrey’s liner notes to quotes from the “media” at the beginning of the chapters – add extra sparkle to the plot.”
– 4 Stars, Melissa Parcel, Romantic Times Book Club
by Jason Joyner | Jun 11, 2007 | Blog, fiction, writing craft
So I got the writing bug about 2 1/2 years ago. I hadn’t done any creative writing for years, but I had started penning a few short stories a few months prior. Then I got the brilliant idea that I could write a novel! I started with a simple mental picture/sequence, and the story unfolded itself pretty quickly from there.
I enjoyed creative writing in school, but I am not the type to just jump into something. I started looking into books and searched the internet for writing sites. Soon I had found Faith in Fiction and that became my portal into a lot of other contacts about writing (for instance, with all the writers there starting blogs, I finally decided to check this world out).
Still, when I started I thought that I could have a serviceable book done in a year at the most. Heh, heh, heh. Silly n00b.
Over the weekend I managed to finish chapter six. All told, I have about 12-15,000 words and 26-28 pages down on my WIP (work in progress for the uninitiated). My goal is around 80-90,000 words. I guess I’m about around 1/6th there.
In 2 1/2 years I have spent reading and studying the craft of writing. I’ve done a lot of reading in that time. I may not be an expert, but I think I have a better understanding of what it takes to write a good book. Also, I have gained an appreciation of the timeframe it can take to become published.
Thankfully I’m not alone in starting this endeavor thinking it isn’t all that big a deal. I hear many others say that they didn’t realize how long it can take to get published. I started checking out Randy Ingermanson’s blog at Advanced Fiction Writing, and he has shared the time frame it took him to get published.
10 years.
He then shares about a friend who took 26 years to get published. I don’t know about you, but I admire that persistence. Brandilyn Collins has shared about her 7 year (approx) journey to publishing fiction as well, and there are many other stories like that. I had come to the conclusion quite a while ago that this wouldn’t be a quick, wham-bam process. Especially since I deal with working full-time, busy kids, keeping up with my loving wife, and ministry at my local church. Oh, and blogging!
Anymore any progress is a good thing. Maybe if I share it here, I’ll have accountability and encouragement. I know Matt’s updates at Burning Hearts Revolution has inspired me to get BOC (butt in chair). I can’t seem to let this bug go, so I pray for grace to keep at this project. Keeps me off the streets I suppose (except the time I test-drove a mo-ped just to understand a tiny plot point of a character…)
Randy has more advice for the aspiring writer – he gives you permission to be bad. Guess you’ll have to read that one for yourself to get it!
by Jason Joyner | Jun 11, 2007 | Blog, fiction, writing craft
So I got the writing bug about 2 1/2 years ago. I hadn’t done any creative writing for years, but I had started penning a few short stories a few months prior. Then I got the brilliant idea that I could write a novel! I started with a simple mental picture/sequence, and the story unfolded itself pretty quickly from there.
I enjoyed creative writing in school, but I am not the type to just jump into something. I started looking into books and searched the internet for writing sites. Soon I had found Faith in Fiction and that became my portal into a lot of other contacts about writing (for instance, with all the writers there starting blogs, I finally decided to check this world out).
Still, when I started I thought that I could have a serviceable book done in a year at the most. Heh, heh, heh. Silly n00b.
Over the weekend I managed to finish chapter six. All told, I have about 12-15,000 words and 26-28 pages down on my WIP (work in progress for the uninitiated). My goal is around 80-90,000 words. I guess I’m about around 1/6th there.
In 2 1/2 years I have spent reading and studying the craft of writing. I’ve done a lot of reading in that time. I may not be an expert, but I think I have a better understanding of what it takes to write a good book. Also, I have gained an appreciation of the timeframe it can take to become published.
Thankfully I’m not alone in starting this endeavor thinking it isn’t all that big a deal. I hear many others say that they didn’t realize how long it can take to get published. I started checking out Randy Ingermanson’s blog at Advanced Fiction Writing, and he has shared the time frame it took him to get published.
10 years.
He then shares about a friend who took 26 years to get published. I don’t know about you, but I admire that persistence. Brandilyn Collins has shared about her 7 year (approx) journey to publishing fiction as well, and there are many other stories like that. I had come to the conclusion quite a while ago that this wouldn’t be a quick, wham-bam process. Especially since I deal with working full-time, busy kids, keeping up with my loving wife, and ministry at my local church. Oh, and blogging!
Anymore any progress is a good thing. Maybe if I share it here, I’ll have accountability and encouragement. I know Matt’s updates at Burning Hearts Revolution has inspired me to get BOC (butt in chair). I can’t seem to let this bug go, so I pray for grace to keep at this project. Keeps me off the streets I suppose (except the time I test-drove a mo-ped just to understand a tiny plot point of a character…)
Randy has more advice for the aspiring writer – he gives you permission to be bad. Guess you’ll have to read that one for yourself to get it!
by Jason Joyner | Jun 6, 2007 | Blog, books, CFBA, fiction
This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing These Boots Weren’t Made for Walking (WATERBROOK Press June 19, 2007) by Melody Carlson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Melody Carlson has published over 100 books for adults, children, and teens, including On This Day, Finding Alice, the Notes from a Spinning Planet series, and Homeward, which won the Rita Award from Romance Writers of America. She and her husband, the parents of two grown sons, make their home near the Cascade Mountains in Central Oregon. Melody is a full-time writer as well as an avid gardener, biker, skier, and hiker.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Willing to make the necessary sacrifices–even skipping the occasional latte–to ensure career success, 31-year-old Cassidy Cantrell “invests” in a chic pair of boots, certain they’ll make a spectacular impression and help seal the deal on a long-anticipated promotion from her Seattle employer.
But reality tromps all over her expectations. Cassie’s job is abruptly eliminated–and her love life obliterated, when her longtime boyfriend dumps her for a “friend.” Her self-esteem in tatters, Cassie limps home to the resort town she once so eagerly fled–only to find her recently divorced mother transformed into a gorgeous fifty-something babe with a thriving social life. Cassie wrestles with envy and apathy as she considers the dismal shape of her own physique and romantic prospects. What will it take for her to jump back into life and regain her stride?
This sassy and hilarious novel leads readers on a romp through the wilds of relationships, romance, career, and spirituality, revealing that, while God’s plans may look drastically different than our own, it’ll always be a perfect fit.
