I’m so sorry I’ve been away so long. Hurricane Michael did extensive damage to our home, and I’m now the caretaker of my elderly mother. Lots going on right now in my life, but thankfully the writing schedule has resumed.
Verity’s Promise will be published this fall. It is the last in the original ChristKeepers series. I’ll post further updates as the summer rolls on.
Hope you enjoy a sneak peek at the new book cover. I like it a lot, hope you do too. LNF, Grace
Here is a link to the book trailer for my newest novel, Hollister’s Choice. It is the second in my Montana Miracles series. Hope you go by and check it out. Go here:
Today I’m so thankful. I write in my Thankful Journal almost every day. But today I took an especially long time detailing all my blessings. If you’re like me, you sometimes need to stop and really focus on the things and people in your life to appreciate them. Just taking those few seconds to think about my family, friends, and circumstances fills me with gratitude.
One of the things I was most thankful for today was the nice reception folks are giving my new novel, Hollister’s Choice. I’m so glad readers are finding it to be heartwarming as well as rooted in our shared faith.
Because its being so well-received, I thought I’d tell you a little behind the scenes information about the novel. Specifically about the cover artist and model. Ramona Lockwood is the cover artist on this book. She’s a wonderful graphic artist who always does a stellar job. Ramona is fast, professional, and most of all really a nice person. The model is Jimmy Thomas who’s also a joy to work with. Jimmy has been the cover model for several of my other books [The Last Broken Promise, Carried Away, and The Last Rose Pearl]. He’s won all kinds of awards for his work. He’s kind of a legend in the romance cover world. The image for this post is one of his headshots.
If you’d like to know more about these folks, I’ll post a link for their websites here:
Again, please let me express my gratitude to those of you who have become loyal readers of my novels. God has been so good to me. I pray you are feeling His love every day, just like I do. Thank You and Bless You.
I’m starting a new project today. It’s the last in my Medieval series, The ChristKeepers. And its Simon’s story. Who knew he was going to be the most damaged of the brothers? And who knew he was also going to be the most complex? At the moment I’m plotting the novel. I’ve set the backstory, and the characters with all their peculiar strengths and flaws. I’m kind of sad to close out this particular series. It’s been a real favorite of mine. But I want to flesh out my Savannah based contemporary series and there’s another Abbaddon’s Sword book in the pipeline too, so I need to have The ChristKeepers come to a close. *sigh* It’s really hard to walk away from Titus and his brothers/uncles.
I’m still sporadically working on my non-fiction book, Beyond Blessed. It’s a sort of personal testimony/ household tips kind of thing I’ve had a lot of fun with. It’ll most likely be finished some time in the new year and published in its turn after that time.
I promised an image of our new home, and this is a shot my dear husband took the other evening from the upper deck. That’s our neighbor’s pier. We don’t have one and probably won’t build one. We’re learning the quirks of our old beach house. It creaks in the wind and the wood floors aren’t perfectly level, but we love it. We prayed in every room for God’s blessing and His protection when we moved in a month ago. This place is truly a blessing and a dream come true for us. We never thought we’d get the chance to be on the gulf, but God had other plans. I can’t tell you just how thankful we are.
Back to shop talk- as I proceed on the new Medieval, I’ll try to keep you informed and put out the odd image when I can. Hope your life is great right now, and pray you’re as happy and contented as am I. LNF, Grace
I’m so happy to announce the next installment in my Contemporary Inspirational series Montana Miracles will be available for purchase tomorrow. Hollister’s Choice is set in Montana and London. It is one of my favorites storylines. And Hollister is one of favorite heroes!
How could you not love such an honorable, damaged guy who is trying to do the right thing despite all the odds? And Maggie, the sweet heroine, is dealing with so much tragedy in her own life.
If you like emotional romance with a whole lot of angst, this may be the read for you. As always, this novel has some adult themes but no coarse language or graphic love scenes. I’ve had some wonderful feedback during the editing and beta reading process. My favorite beta reader cried over the ending. She thinks its my best story yet. Maybe you’ll like it too. I sure hope you’ll give it a try.
And thank you to everyone who has stayed with me over this past year. It’s been filled with both challenges and opportunities. We’ve moved, yet again. Since leaving our little townhouse by the bay- SeaGlass Cottage, we’ve relocated to a neighborhood and then back to the beach. Talk about taking a wild ride!
We loved SeaGlass but it was just too small as both my husband and I work from home. I was so sad to drive away from that home. I was sure God would never give us another chance to live in such a wonderful spot. I prayed for days that God would restore the days the locusts ate… it’s one of my favorite scriptures. And He did!!!
Our new home is right on the gulf on one side and has a great canal behind it for my husband’s kayaks. We couldn’t be more blessed. If you’ve ever felt like you were praying for something impossible and you’ve given up and stopped petitioning the Lord…I encourage you to give God more time to effect the changes for which you’re pleading. He can and will do a great work in your life. He sure has in mine!
I’ll try to post some images of our new place so you can get a context as to where I’m writing these days. I hope you’re as blessed as I am today, and I pray you see the goodness in every day, whether your days are challenges or opportunities.
Please watch for the Hollister’s Choice trailer. It should be up on my YouTube channel soon.
The newest installment of my best selling Inspirational Medieval series- The ChristKeepers is now available for pre-order. It will be released this Friday- July 23rd.
If you liked the previous novels in this series, you will love this one. It’s the story of Magnus, Earl of Windham [he’s Faith MacAllister’s blacksmith-turned aristocrat brother] and the virgin widow Hope of Windham.
There’s loads of passion, angst, adventure, and a truly uplifting Gospel message in this book. If you like your Christian fiction with some real chemistry between the hero and heroine, you’ll be happy with Hope’s Reward.
Go here to pre-order: Hope’s Reward
I can’t tell you how much fun the field trip for TLBP was for me! It was way too hot to be out tramping through the woods in late July. But my wonderful husband was my path-breaker and photographer. I spent a lot of time just soaking up the ambiance of the place. I like to add physical details into my stories. Like how the deep woods smelled. How the rough bark logs of the buildings felt. How the ground sloped. And having a historical society rebuild the actual fort accurately was amazing! I got to go into the little cabins and imagine living there two hundred years ago.
The novel will be released in the fall. Hope you enjoy it! Here’s a recipe from that time period that my great-grandma Clora used to make. She called them Tea Cakes. But nowadays, we’d call them a type of sugar cookie. Hope you try them out.
Granny’s Tea Cakes
Ingredients
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, add the eggs, one at a time; add vanilla. Whisk together the flour, nutmeg, baking soda and salt and add to the butter and sugar mixture 1/2 cup at a time, until each addition is fully incorporated. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently press into a ball. At this point you can chill the dough to make it more easy to work with. But Granny didn’t have that luxury, she just went to the next step.
Sprinkle top lightly with additional flour. Roll dough to somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick, rotating and turning dough and using additional flour as needed until dough is no longer sticky. Cut out rounds using a floured, 2-inch cutter. Transfer the cookie rounds to greased cookie sheets, spaced 1-1/2 inches apart; cookies will spread some as they bake. Gently gather scraps together and re-roll for additional cookies.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of cutting them out, you can just roll a tablespoon of dough into a little ball. That works too.
Bake one tray at a time at 350 degrees F on the middle rack of the oven, for about 10 to 12 minutes, or just until cookie begins to look dry on the surface, and very lightly tinged with color on the edges. Remove from oven, sprinkle immediately and generously with granulated sugar and let rest on sheet for about 3 minutes; then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
Sometimes Granny would add cinnamon or a tsp of grated citrus peel to the dough. This recipe is very easily changed to suit your family’s tastes. These little tea cakes are nothing fancy, but were a tea time staple during the regency era. LNF, Grace
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