Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing
A Passion Redeemed

Revell (September 1, 2008)

by

Julie Lessman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Julie Lessman is a debut author who has already garnered writing acclaim, including ten Romance Writers of America awards. She is a commercial writer for Maritz Travel, a published poet and a Golden Heart Finalist. Julie has a heart to write “Mainstream Inspirational,” reaching the 21st-century woman with compelling love stories laced with God’s precepts. She resides in Missouri with her husband and their golden retriever, and has two grown children and a daughter-in-law. A Passion Most Pure was her first novel.

ABOUT THE BOOK

No man can resist her charms. Or so she thought. Charity O’Connor is a woman who gets what she wants. Her stunning beauty and flirtatious ways have always succeeded with men. Until Mitch Dennehy, that is.

Brilliant and dangerously handsome, Mitch is a no-nonsense newspaperman who wants nothing to do with her. Charity burned him once, destroying his engagement to the only woman he ever truly loved. He won’t play with matches again. But Charity has a plan to turn up the heat, hoping to ignite the heart of the man she loves. And she always gets what she wants–one way or another.

Or does she? Will her best-laid schemes win his love? Or will her seductive ways drive him away forever? Book 2 in the Daughters of Boston series, A Passion Redeemed will captivate your heart and stir your soul with a story of faith and redemption rising from the ashes of temptation, desire, and shame.

Praise for the first book in the series:

“Full of romance, humor, rivalry, and betrayal, A Passion Most Pure will captivate readers from the first page.” –Historical Novels Review “Superb! Incredible!

“I loved Julie Lessman’s A Passion Most Pure from the second I picked it up until the very last moment I stopped reading.” –Armchair Interviews

“I devoured this book and loved every single page. . . . This is a thick, juicy read, and one I would pick up again in a heartbeat.” –christianreviewofbooks.com

If you would like to read an excerpt from A Passion Redeemed, go HERE.

Everything is just as it appeared to me. All I did was copy/paste and change the names. You have no idea how hard it is to not clean it up and correct the typos. Thank you Friend for loving your wife so much that you provided me with excellent blogging material.

Friend: I LOVE YOUSO MUCH!!!!!!
Hubby: oh, really?
Friend: hey
wrong
person
but
you know
in a sort of Plutonic love
Hubby: i just about died laughing
Friend: it was bound to happen
I’ve almost done it a few times before
Hubby: now i know you’re the type to use multiple exclamation points.
i’ll be keeping an eye on you…
wait… plUtonic ? is that, from real far away?
Friend: Platonic
Hubby: your love is no longer a planet…
Friend: I’ts love that’s classified as love for a long time, then
later, using more powerful telescopes, they discover that is isn’t
really love, but rather lovoid
Hubby: got to go, thanks for the laugh

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing
Twice Loved

Avon Inspire (July 22, 2008)

by

Lori Copeland

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lori lives in the beautiful Ozarks with her husband Lance. Lance and Lori have three sons, two daughter-in-laws, and five wonderful grandchildren. They are very involved in their church, and active in supporting mission work in Mali, West Africa.

Lori began her writing career in 1982, writing for the secular book market. In 1995 after many years of writing, Lori sensed that God was calling her to use her gift of writing to honor Him. It was at that time that Lori began writing for the Christian book market. To date, she has more than 95 books published including Now And Always
and Bluebonnet Belle.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Texas, 1865 Willow Madison and her friends, Copper and Audrey taught school in neighboring Texas communities until the Yankees rode into the area and burned them out. In the midst of fear and chaos, survivors banded together to fight for what remained of their homes. Then word reached the people that the terrible war was over.

Now penniless but still hopeful, Willow vows she will take care of her friends, Copper and Audrey, and her ailing uncle, in Thunder Ridge, Texas, even if it means having to marry wealthy Silas Sterling, a man thirty years her senior. But standing in her way is handsome sawmill owner Tucker Gray, with his enticing eyes and infuriating headstrong manner—the man Willow cannot get out of her head . . . or her heart. Even though her friends beg her not to give up her dream of happiness, Willow is determined to do the right thing for those who are dearest to her. But which path does God want Willow to take: a life of duty and commitment . . . or a life of everlasting love?

If you would like to read the first chapter of Twice Loved, go HERE

Image by Hubby

We love to eat pineapple in the summer. Hubby took this picture one evening right before we cut into and ate it for dessert. It was yummy!

This week was hard. I had no motivation to make my goal nor did I care if I made it or not. I had a lot of emotional eating and feeling blah. I just didn’t care.

Anyway, here’s my weight and I did make my goal but barely.

Also, hubby thought it would be cute to stand in the air-conditioned house and take pictures of me mowing the lawn. Wasn’t that nice of him. So in honor of his hard work, here’s one of his pictures.

Oh and be sure to check out the other participants progress in the Ragamuffin Top Challenge.

Every once in awhile when I get bored I like to Stumble!. When I find something I like not only do I mark that I like it I also add it to my delicous bookmarks.

I use StumbleUpon to find new information and delicious to bookmark the info because who knows when I will be on another computer and want to access that information. You know the times when you are at a friend’s house and want to show them this great article you came across but can’t remember where it was. Well, with delicious I can sign into my account from my friend’s computer and easily find the article. This has become a very useful tool for me to use since I have lost all my bookmarks before and there was no way for me to remember everything that was saved.

The following is some of the things I have saved recently…

• Handmade cloth napkin tutorial–Cloth is cheap and I can easily sew these napkins even though I don’t really know how to sew or use a sewing machine.

• Getting Started in Your GFCF Kitchen–I have a son on the autism spectrum and GFCF (gluten-free, casein-free) is something my husband and I have talked about trying.

• Preparing to Bake in Your GFCF Kitchen–A follow-up to the previous article.

• Loft Living for Children–My boys share a small room and I’m always looking for ideas on how to maximize the space. I have also liked the idea of loft beds ever since my second son was born almost eight years ago. Since I’m still looking at ideas I obviously haven’t done anything yet. Someday.

• The Feminist Ezine - 1001 Feminist Links and Other Interesting Topics– I am interested in women’s issues and these links provided me with a lot of reading material. The list is fascinating.

The cool thing…I found the links on my own! Usually hubby is the one sending me the links. Yea for me! Oh. By the way, today is my one year blog anniversary. For the one of me you who actually reads this blog I say thank you. I also say Happy Birthday to me! Now I need to find some chocolate and life will be great.

I hadn’t really given much thought to saving the environment or recycling or anything else. Whenever I heard about those topics my first response was that I had enough to worry about and didn’t want to be bothered. Besides I would die eventually and it wouldn’t be my problem anymore. Never mind the fact that I have three children who would be left to take care of my mess.

I will be the first to admit that I am a selfish person. I also don’t want to be bothered with anything that I find to be frivolous (which could be anything at any given time depending on my mood.) Case in point, my kids would recycle at school and beg me to recycle at home. I refused because I didn’t want to mess with it. I would have to drive down the road every once in awhile to drop off the stuff and it would be a huge inconvenience. I knew it was the right thing to do but why bother? (I’m a great mother. Really, denying my kids the chance to recycle. I’m winning the mother of year award for sure.)

Some time last February my husband was offered a job in another town. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up so he moved, found us a house, and I stayed with the kids until school let out for the summer. In the mean time it was my job to go through our crap to decide what to move and what to get rid of. Our new home would be much smaller than the one we were living in at the time therefore we had to get rid of crap.

I didn’t think I had a lot of clutter, paper clutter, yes, but not a lot of unnecessary crap. I was wrong. Oh was I wrong. I got rid of so much stuff it isn’t funny. The sad thing is that I’m not even completely unpacked and know I can get rid of so much more crap. It amazes me how we could accumulate so much useless stuff in such a short amount of time.

I’m not exactly sure at what point it was that I decided we were going to start living better. We were going to stop being so wasteful. I know one thing was reading about people who take their own shopping bags when they shop. Wal-mart sells reusable bags and I’ve thought about getting a few. I’m also making my own bags.

Some things I have been learning about going green is to take things slow. Change one thing at a time. For instance, instead of using paper towels use cloth towels. I think their called kitchen towels but I’m not sure. I had pretty much been doing that anyway. I do laundry every day so to wash a couple more towels wasn’t that big of a deal and saved us money by not buying paper towels. I also use cloth napkins instead of paper napkins.

I read somewhere that the dryer is the second biggest energy user in the house so I’ve been hanging our clothes outside to dry more often. I also have a drying rack but when I went looking for it I found it setting on the top of some shelves in the garage with tons of boxes in front of the shelves. I left the rack where it was and hung the clothes on hangers throughout my house.

I haven’t done a lot of changes but I am working towards it. I at least have an awareness and desire that I didn’t have before. I also have several blogs that I read to get ideas and tips from:
5 Minutes for Going Green
Crunchy Domestic Goddess
Natural Family Living

These blogs are filled with tons of practical information. I have been pouring over these three blogs just gleaning from them. I am in love. I also feel better knowing that from this moment on together my family is going to make a difference one step at a time. This isn’t a one time thing, this is a lifestyle change.

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

House Of Wolves

Thomas Nelson (August 12, 2008)

by

Matt Bronleewe
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Matt Bronleewe is a recognized producer, songwriter and author. The former member of the band Jars of Clay, has earned numerous awards producing and co-writing albums that have sold a combined total of over 20 million copies. His songs have recently been recorded by Disney pop sensations Aly & AJ, American Idol finalist Kimberley Locke, and more. Bronleewe has worked with Grammy Award-winning artists such as Michael W. Smith, International pop singer Natalie Imbruglia and Heroes star Hayden Panettiere.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Bronleewe was raised on a farm in Kansas, where he lived until he left for college in 1992. At Greenville College in Illinois, Bronleewe formed the band Jars of Clay with his dorm roommate and two neighbors, and the group soon found success. Though Bronleewe opted to leave Jars of Clay early on to pursue an academic career, he soon found himself in Nashville, co-writing, producing, and playing music professionally.

To add to his list of accomplishments, Bronleewe has expanded his love of story telling beyond music into authorship. He is currently penning a 5 book series for Thomas Nelson Fiction. His first book Illuminated began the adventurous series about rare manuscripts and the mysteries within.

Bronleewe currently resides in Brentwood, Tenn., with his wife and three children. He continues to write and produce music, and he also volunteers through his church to help disadvantaged youth in the community. Bronleewe enjoys reading, taste-testing good food and watching sports, as well as indulging his interests in art, architecture, design and science.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A mysterious book with a dangerous secret.

An evil brotherhood out to conquer the world.

One man stands between them . . . with his family in the balance.

In the twelfth century, Henry the Lion collected the rarest relics in Christendom. And to protect his most precious acquisitions, he encoded the whereabouts in a gorgeous illuminated manuscript called The Gospels of Henry the Lion.

The manuscript has been showing up and disappearing ever since. No one knows where the relic has been hidden . . . or its ultimate power.

Only one man holds the key to the mystery.

He’s carrying it in his briefcase at his son’s school for show-and-tell, and he thinks it’s a fake. But he’s about to find out just how real it is.

Because the wolves are rapidly closing in. And if August Adams can’t decode the secret in time, the world’s balance of power will forever be altered.

If you would like to read an excerpt of House Of Wolves, it will be HERE

I’ll go first. The republican in me says I should vote for McCain but I really like Obama. I don’t know why I just have since the beginning. Therefore, I am still undecided.

If you’re undecided like me check out Politics for Moms. From their website:

This site does not endorse candidates, parties or ideology. It is simply a resource for moms to educate themselves on the political process and on the candidates and issues so they can make an informed voting decision.

Hope you are having a happy Monday.

**Update**
I’ve been thinking about this all day. I didn’t really give an answer to my question earlier. Not a very good one anyway. Here’s the real deal (at the risk of differing opinions from friends and family).

I like Obama. I don’t know why I just do. I have nothing to back up why I like him. I just have this feeling (gosh I hated saying that). I’ve liked him from the beginning even though just about everyone around me like McCain.

Now, I am a republican (a somewhat liberal-republican) so everything in me is screaming “Vote republican!”, only I don’t want to. Most of the McCain supporters I know have differing political views than me (read they are ultra-conservative and I’m liberal-conservative).

I like Obama but he’s a democrat. I’d be a democrat except I don’t believe in everything their party stands for. Wait. I call myself a republican, yet, I don’t agree with everything the party stands for.

I’m afraid that McCain will be another George W. Bush in office. That scares me. I don’t like what Bush is doing with the war in Iraq and think McCain will do the same. On the other hand, I think Obama will be more liberal in office than I am comfortable with and am not sure how he will handle the mess Bush created in Iraq.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m still undecided. I am not going to let the opinions of others influence my vote. I am trying to do my part to make an educated vote in the upcoming elections. I was just curious to see what everyone else thought.

Obama’s website
McCain’s website